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Our Trip Across America-Part 5

8 Nov

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

                               

 

 

Now we headed West on I-20 for our next stop in Dallas, Texas to show the kids where I was born and grew up as well as where I was taken to my first church service (the nursery) at the age of two weeks old.

 

 

 

 

 

We made our way through the big “D” to Gilley’s Palladium with it’s famous mechanical bull “El Toro” of movie fame.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was on over for a quick visit to the historic Fort Worth Stockyards where we got a good idea of what a huge operation that had been.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also got to meet some modern cowboys and some of the bulls they had tamed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continued West on I-20 thru Abilene, Midland and Odessa, then at Pecos we headed North on US-285 to Carlsbad, New Mexico.  It was on this stretch of US-285 that we had our first camper tire blowout.  I thought “oh-no, what a place to have to change a tire!”   Did I mention it was the middle of the day, in the middle of July, in the middle of the desert?  Well, anyway, I had checked all three camper tires before leaving Florida and they looked good with lots of tread.  But, it never dawned on me that they could have been the original tires that came with the camper when it was new.  And that was how many years ago?  I had no idea.  I guess the weather had gotten to them, even though they didn’t have many miles on them.  Well, I don’t know what the actual temperature was, but it was hot.  Funny thing though, as I worked away changing that tire, I never seemed to break a sweat.  There was a light breeze and I guess with less that 10% humidity it all evaporated before I even noticed I was sweating.  What a surprise!  I would have been dripping wet if this had been at home in Florida.

 

 

We took the tour of Carlsbad Caverns and were awestruck by the beauty and wonders of those huge caverns that extended deep underground.  In fact, we were told that Carlsbad Caverns are the deepest caverns in the U.S. at 1594 feet.  They even had mallets hooked up electrically to an organ and played beautiful music by devices striking the stalactites and stalagmites with the mallets.  What a wonderful audio/visual sensation that was.  We stayed around until dusk that evening to watch the nightly flight of the bats from the caverns on their way to look for food.  There were so many that they blotted out the sky at one point as they emerged from the caverns.

 

–To Be Continued–

 

A Slice of America at the Polls

7 Nov

Our Wednesday installment of A Trip Across America will be posted on Thursday this week. Today DiVoran is sharing her beautiful thoughts on our American election-Onisha

 

 

 

I have a sticker on my shirt that says, “I voted.” A lot of people voted in this election. Today, as I stood in line at the polls, I looked around for something to think about. We vote in the recreation building of a comfortable trailer park here in Florida. The furniture was stacked in a corner by the fireplace and the many volunteers were in their places. Everyone was courteous and cordial, voters and helpers alike.

 

Two of our neighbors were there, one is newly retired military who got a wonderful job, he says his military training got it for him and he’s thrilled.

 

The other is a music teacher who teaches at a Christian school. She and her good husband have five boys and have lived in a small house on the next block since before the first one was born. For the past few years the line of white cars has grown to three in front of the house. Those are the boys’ cars. I wonder when there will be five. I’m absolutely certain they work and save for them. It’s the American way and I approve.

 

A couple who were no spring chickens themselves, brought an elderly mother to vote. She had a walker and had to wait so long they turned it so she could sit down, but still, there was no back rest and she had a bad turn. They were there a long time and it must have been grueling. But they stuck it out.

 

I passed a very young father holding a crying baby on his arm while he patiently tried to mark his ballot. Behind me in one of the lines was a lady dressed in lime green scrubs. When asked if she were a health care worker she said yes and gave me the names of the two assisted living places where she works. I said it takes a very special person to do that kind of work. She said, “I think of them all as my grandmas and grandpas.” What compassion!

 

As I exited by the back door that led to a pond, I heard the raucous cry of sand-hill cranes. They are huge birds with red feathers on their heads. The man who was standing by to keep people from falling down a step said the cranes had been there all day, but this morning there were three. Now there were only two and one of them was calling over and over for the third one to come back. I really listened then and I heard what the man heard. “Where are you, please come back, we’re worried about you.” The volunteer had obviously become concerned about the missing crane, as well. What a wonderful group of fine caring people were at the polls. Americans all.

 

At this writing, I don’t know who our president will be for the next four years. I only pray that the spirit of love and compassion that fills our country from sea to shining sea will prevail and that all will be well. I wear my sticker proudly. I voted.

 

 

 

 

I Voted!

I Voted! (Photo credit: • ian)

 

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Doing My Own Thing

5 Nov

My Take

DiVoran Lites

I hardly ever get bored even though I don’t have a job and our nest is empty. Now, as never before I’m thankful for the lessons my parents taught me even as a very young child.

The lessons go together:

1. Work at whatever needs to be done.

2. If you say you’re bored, Mother will be certain to give you a job to do.

3. Its better if you find your own thing to do and don’t wait for Mother to assign you one. You’ll probably enjoy it more.

I walk, exercise, help clean our house, do laundry, cook, garden, and look after my husband and two cats. They all look after me, too. I read, paint, and write. I teach Sunday School, sing on the church praise team, read, blog and email. I have a visit with a friend or relative almost everyday-every day if you count my husband.

I took painting lessons for about fifteen years, but now I’m doing my own thing. It’s easier with watercolors than with oils because it’s not such a big project to get all set up, but oils are so beautiful and buttery and make such gorgeous paintings that I don’t blame people for loving them. Our art league has open studios where you can go and just paint and everybody else is painting too (all kinds, from oils, to pastels, acrylics, watercolors, mixed media) and you can exchange information and encouragement. You can talk about your grandchildren, or muse together over what this world is coming to.

I’ve discovered that I like some crafts too. I have a wooden birdhouse I bought at a Hobby/Art store and I’ve been assembling things to decorate it with. I can leave projects set up in my garage which my husband and I have turned into an all around workroom for both of us. It is, of course, the messiest room in the house, but people seem to like it all the same.

There’s no profit in being bored or lonely.

Some things that can bore me are:

1. Daytime T. V.

2. Compulsive shopping

3. Listening to chronic complainers.

Some things that can make me feel alone are:

1. Going over the past and all the things I coulda, shoulda, woulda done.

2. Holding a grudge.

3. Worrying about the future.

Life is short; eat dessert first. (Ernestine Ulmer, writer, b. 1925). O. K. so I’m watching my weight, but there are other things like dessert and I hope and pray I’ll keep enjoying them for a long time to come.

Ecclesiastes 3

 

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The Ring

4 Nov

SUNDAY MEMORIES

 Judy Wills

 I have always loved jewelry.  I guess I come by that honestly – after all, I am female!My Mother’s only sibling, my Aunt Jessie, was what we used to call an “old maid.”  She never married, and her mother, my grandmother, lived with her.  And because Jessie didn’t have children of her own, she rather doted upon my brother and myself.  Most of the time that was a good thing….sometimes it got me into trouble with my parents.

But Jessie had a love of “things” – and jewelry was one of those things.  She and Granny lived in San Antonio, Texas for many years, and I know that she would frequent some of the pawn shops there and buy beautiful rings at bargain prices.  I think that’s where she acquired most of her jewelry, as she didn’t inherit it.

When I was one-year-old, she gave me a ring with a small diamond in it.  I really don’t understand that logic – a diamond ring to a one-year-old?  I’m sure that my Mother never let me wear it!  Perhaps it was just a “posterity” thing.

Jessie made friends with an Army nurse while in San Antonio.  In the 1950’s this friend was stationed in Korea, during the Korean war.  While there, she purchased a pearl ring that she gave to me.  I actually did wear that one.  And somehow, that ring was damaged.  The pearl was intact, but the ring was a mess.  So Jessie took both the pearl and the diamond rings.  She showed me a design that she had in mind, to combine the diamond and pearl into one ring.  It was a rather intriguing design.

And before long, she had the ring in hand, and it was on my finger.  I’ve had the ring since the early 1960’s, and it is a favorite of mine.  I enjoy wearing it a lot, knowing she had it made, just for me.

After Jessie and Granny moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she became enamored with turquoise jewelry.  And she loved all things turquoise – in any design.  And she loved BIG turquoise jewelry.  Big and heavy.

She always wore a lot of turquoise jewelry, but she never lost her love of the “finer” jewelry.  She had favorites that she wore a lot.

I am pleased to say that my Aunt Jessie and I both shared a love of jewelry, and she gave hers to me in her will.  And so, every time I wear jewelry that is from her, I think of her…remember her.

She, herself, was a jewel in my life.

 

 

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How’s Your Connection?

2 Nov

Onisha Ellis

On the Porch

 

My name is Onisha and I am an addict, specifically a twitter addict. My addiction began innocently as an alternative to throwing something at the television. It quickly escalated into an insatiable need to “know” things. Twitter is a global community of people who share in 140 characters what they are seeing, thinking and feeling and by joining twitter I found I could get information straight from the source.  I know most people will think this need is a bit extreme and it is, but I have trust issues with our media outlets.

After my daughter, Rebekah Lyn began writing novels, I moved deeper into social media and twitter as a way to help with her career.  This is when I became thoroughly addicted. Tweeting in the independent author community is an amazing experience. I have connected with women and men who I now consider to be friends. We meet together each day on twitter to help each other promote their work and in the process we laugh and encourage one another.

I have been musing over this connection phenomenon and think I may have figured it out. Each year, starting in November, my husband becomes very thoughtful and attentive. In the beginning, I meanly thought he was just angling for a nice Christmas gift, but after a few years I began to notice a pattern.  You see, my husband loves to give Christmas gifts and he starts thinking about what he will choose for me in November. The more he thinks about which gifts would please attentive, the more thoughtful and me he becomes. We feel a closer connection.  I, of course, love this time of year.

On twitter it is so easy to be attentive and supportive. With two clicks you can retweet someone or create a brand new tweet and help them promote their book.  In 140 characters you can ask someone how their day is going and share yours.

Come check out my books on Amazon. There’s romance, horror, inspirational                and children’s books. @ReginaPuckethttp://ow.ly/eW9TY 

It seems connection comes from moving our attention away from our thoughts and onto thinking of someone else. I wish it was as easy in my everyday world as it is in the virtual realm.

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Our Trip Across America Part 4

31 Oct

A Slice of Life

 Bill Lites

We took I-49 North toward Shreveport to my dad’s family home site near the small town of Many, LA.  We had a wonderful visit there with several of my uncles and aunts, remembering the good times my sister and I had during the many summer visits there when we were young

there was always the “ole swimming hole” where we spent a lot of time swimming, fished and chasing the crayfish.  On the way out of town we stopped at the old country store where my cousins and I used to spend our nickels and dimes on candy and lots of firecrackers.  One of my uncles ran the store back then but, by this time, the old lever handle gas pumps were gone and the store was closed.

From there, we continued north to Shreveport, to visit another of my uncles and his wife.  He was a typewriter repair mechanic and had a wonderful shop full of all kinds of tools and equipment that he used in his typewriter repair business.  It smelled of cleaning fluid and printer’s ink.

This is when he related the “watermelon nest” story to us.  Seems as how he had this watermelon vine that had somehow attached itself to and grown up a tree in his backyard.  Now I had never heard of a watermelon plant growing up a tree but my uncle wasn’t a man to fib.  So, when a melon started growing high up in the tree, my uncle climbed up there and built a platform for the melon to rest on.

Well, would you believe it, when that melon matured to full size he climbed back up there, brought it down and he and his wife enjoyed it together.  I asked him if that was the same tree, I fell out of and broke my wrist when my family was visiting him on one of our summer trips to Louisiana, and he said it probably was.  My aunt had a fine dress shop out in the country away from everything. She often went on buying trips to the big cities, brought the latest styles in ladies dresses back to her shop, and sold most everything to the local ladies near and far.

To be continued……

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What is Success?

29 Oct

My Take

 DiVoran Lites

Here’s the deal. If all goes as expected, my first novel will soon be published on several e-book sites. I can hardly believe it myself after all this time, but just the idea of it sets me to wondering whether people will like Sacred Spring or not. I sure enjoyed writing it.

People sure liked, To Kill a Mocking Bird. It won just about every award for writing there was and sold at least 30 million books. But with the greatest success possible, it was the beginning and the end of Harper Lee’s writing career.

I don’t want to be famous. I don’t want to get rich. I just want to keep on writing. I’ve got a bouquet of novels, some written and needing polishing, some still in my head. I am the consummate later bloomer and I’m beginning to think that is the best thing I could possibly be.

Other writers try to figure out why Harper Lee never wrote any more novels. They give reasons such as:

1. The publicity was so invasive she couldn’t bear to go through it all again.

2. Money wasn’t a big deal to her, either.

She had a sister and some good friends, and she loved to fish, but she loved to write best of all. She had a childhood friend, who was also a writer, who betrayed her and turned his back on her. He was jealous. How much effect does venom have on the life of a writer? I know from personal experience that some kinds of criticism can constipate a writer’s mind.

Many writers have overcome all those problems and gone on to write seventy or a hundred good books. But I feel that I could identify with Harper Lee, in the area of blocking myself and never going any further.

So, what is success to me?

Pulitzer. No thank you. I’m not in that league. Money, God is already supplying all my needs. So what does my writing dream come to?

I want to sit down at my computer and be myself. I want to commune with story people. I want to be interested in everything and everybody. Life is my lab. I want to arrange and rearrange sentences, describe things, play with words. I want family and friends who love me for myself and who are easy to be with. That’s all. Maybe I’m a success already, because that’s exactly the way I’m living right now and I love it.

The world is full of books, it is also full of food, the demand for both is endless. That’s success as far as I’m concerned.

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Grandpa

28 Oct

 

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

 

                             

I don’t remember much about my Mother’s father – just glimpses, since he died when I was only five-years-old.  But I’ve heard many stories about him.

I know that he was a little over 10 years older than his wife, my Granny.  They married in 1909, and their first child, my Aunt Jessie, arrived in July 1910, with my Mother making her appearance in 1913.

Jessie told me once that, if they (the girls) ran around the house with just their undies on, Grandpa would swat their bottom as they passed, with the words, “better get some clothes on, sister!”

 

They lived in many places within Kansas and Texas, and he had several occupations that I know of.  I know that he was a carpenter at one point in time.  He built many footstools, stools, corner tables and children’s chairs out of empty spools of thread in his spare time, for the family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See, Granny, Jessie and Mother all worked at the Rochester Handkerchief Factory in San Antonio, Texas for many years.  That company used many, many spools of thread in the business, all wound on wooden spools.  I guess he just couldn’t stand for anything to go to waste, and so those three ladies brought home the empties.  While the children’s chairs have been given away, we in the family still have the footstools, end tables, and the corner table.  They may not be very valuable in monetary terms, but they each hold great sentimental value to us all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One other job he held was that of mortician (funeral director/embalmer).  I only know one story about that time, and it was told to us by Mother.  Seems that a very young girl had burned to death.  When her body was brought to him to prepare for the funeral and burial, the family was extremely distraught.  He worked all night long, peeling that burned flesh from her body, until only pink skin was left.  They said she looked like her normal self!  The family was unbelievably grateful to my Grandpa for taking the time to make her beautiful for them.

He was an interesting man.  I wish I had known him longer.

 

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A Letter To My Donor

25 Oct

 On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

October 15, 2012, I was blessed to receive a new cornea. Unlike most transplant recipients who wait on “the call”. I knew three weeks in advance and with this knowledge came the realization that a family was going to suffer the heartbreaking lose of a loved one. My heart was devastated for them. I shared my grief with my wise friend DiVoran and we prayed for my donor and their family. During the three-week wait I continued to pray for peace and the comfort of God’s love for the family.

Even though donors and recipients are anonymous, there is a process to write a letter to your donor family. I am sharing my letter with you to honor the courage and selflessness of all donor families.

 

Dear family,

On October 15, 2012 I received a new cornea with great joy thanks to your incredible kindness. Please know I do not accept your gift without realizing you suffered heartbreaking loss. I knew three weeks in advance my transplant date and I began to pray God’s comfort and peace for you and will continue to do so. This was my third transplant. My first was in 2005 and for no specific reason it failed. I know this may sound strange but your loved one’s gift just feels strong and is healing very quickly. Thank you with my whole heart. Without you and my other donor I would not see and I thank God for you.

 

This link  has FAQ  regarding cornea transplants.

http://goo.gl/xFMho

http://www.spacecoastlivinghealth.com/?p=2161

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Our Trip Across America-Part 3

24 Oct

Last week Bill and his family were getting all packed up to begin their trip across America. This week they begin their journey. Bill’s wife, DiVoran will be sharing  memories of her first trip to  the South.-ONISHA

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

We headed North on I-95 to Jacksonville and then I-10 West through Tallahassee, Pensacola, Mobile and Biloxi to New Orleans.  We didn’t stop there on this trip, but told our kids all about our visit there when they were just 3 years and 18 months old.  How we cruised Bourbon Street and how we enjoyed the party atmosphere during our quick stop there.

DiVoran

Bill and I remember different things, so he asked me to put some things I recall into his stories.  He’s speaking of my first trip down south.  Being from the Southwest, where we had mountains and deserts, it was like a wonderland, especially all the trees, rivers, and lakes.  I’d never seen Spanish moss or Pathos vines with leaves bigger than a man’s head covering the trunks of many of the big trees.

Of course, this was the mid 60’s, in the south, which was a time of race riots, sit-ins, and bathrooms and drinking fountains that said, “Whites Only.” Even though it didn’t affect me personally, it was a bit unsettling.

We had been living in LA at the time of the Watts riots, but I was unaware of the way the everyday African-American was treated in public and in the homes of their employers.

One other thing that was so different, I hardly knew what to think, was when we asked about going down to the French Quarter to hear some music that night.  Our hostess, in the very large house where we were staying, told us if we’d put our eighteen month old and three-year old to bed before we went she’d see that they were taken care of. Then she asked kindly if it would scare them if they woke up and saw a black face leaning over them to tend them.

Of course, that would be one of her maids, who had probably tended her children when they were small. “Oh, no, I’m sure not”, I said.  I believed then, and I know now, that our kids are “color blind.”   However, it didn’t come to a trial so all was well, and we absolutely loved the Dixieland band we were privileged to hear that night.

To be continued……..

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