My Beloved–Part 1

2 Jan

A Slice of Life

     Bill Lites

Bill

By the time I got to my senior year in high school, my interest in education was almost nonexistent.  My parents had planned a formal education for me and kept pushing me to prepare for college.  I only wanted to graduate from high school so I could get a job and get out of the house.  As a result, I was not a very good student, so I only took the required classes, and filled the rest of the day with meaningless electives.  One of those electives was typing.

 

typewriter typing class

As it turned out, that class ended up being a really good choice for two reasons.  One, I was the only boy in the class, which was great, because I loved being surrounded by girls.  And two, I didn’t know it at the time, but God had planned for me to meet DiVoran in that class.

 

young beloved

I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the class requirements, because I was more interested in impressing the girls by being the class cut-up.  At first, DiVoran and I knew no more about each other than that she used the typewriter I did in the next class.  Oftentimes I would be slow collecting my typing stuff, she would be early for her class, and we would talk briefly.

My best friend at the time was Bud.  He also had classes with DiVoran, and had asked her out a couple of times.  DiVoran happened to be friends with a girl named Rita, who I had also noticed.  When I found out from Bud that DiVoran knew Rita, I saw my chance for a clandestine inquiry.  Being a little shy about the whole thing, one day after class, I asked DiVoran if I could carry her books to her locker, as I had a question to ask her.

lockers

Months later, she told me she had expected me to ask her out, but was surprised, when it was Rita I wanted to know about.  “Yes, she probably would,” DiVoran said, “but you better ask her yourself.”   I did, and after my first date with Rita, she and I, and Bud and DiVoran started double dating.

double dates

Somehow, it evolved that DiVoran and I called each other to talk about our relationships with Bud and Rita.

 

 

—To Be Continued—

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Morning Song

31 Dec

 

According to Mary Harwell Sayler in her new book Poetry Dictionary for Children and for Fun, an aubade is: “a morning song. Sometimes it’s a love poem. Sometimes it’s a sad song, but ready or not, an aubade greets the dawn.”

Here’s an aubade for today, actually yesterday, because yesterday it was warm, today it’s cold.

Morning Song

Feed cats

Fill water bowls

Make coffee

Let cats out

Let cats in

“Good morning, husband.”

House chilly

Step out the door and into sunshine.

Tropical breeze

Take a walk

Vines in a yard hanging from a line

Purple flowers

A sycamore clatters brown leaves

“Trees of the field shall clap their hands.”*

Fallen leaves skitter, call, “come hither.”

Not yet!

Six-foot sunflowers, yellow duckies round their feet.

Turn back, work to do.

Thank God.

*Isaiah 55:12

Aubade

 

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NEW YEARS IN WIESBADEN, GERMANY

30 Dec

SUNDAY MEMORIES

 Judy Wills

Judy

 

                                            

When Karen, our oldest daughter, was still quite young, we were stationed, through the US Air Force, in Wiesbaden, West Germany.  We had joined an English-speaking Baptist church there.  One year, the church decided to hold a New Year’s Eve evenand they needed a “Father Time” (old year) and a New Year’s baby.

 Our little Karen was just about the right age and size to be the New Year, and they asked us if she could do that.  We agreed.  And, so she wouldn’t be traumatize, they asked Fred to be the old year.  He was to wear a “toga” along with a white beard and white wig. We were concerned that Karen would still be frightened by this strange looking man with a tall stick.  So we had Fred dress up in his costume, and present himself to her before the program.  She looked up at him and said, “Hi Daddy!”  So much for a disguise!The program was a lot of fun, and the church group enjoyed themselves.

While we had never seen a drunk German, we were still a little apprehensive on our drive home late that night.  Yes, there was a lot of fireworks, and a lot of reveling all around, but nothing too drastic.  Along the way, as Fred drove very carefully, we spotted an older gentleman on the sidewalk.  Fred slowed down,  just in case this gentleman decided he needed to walk in the street.  The man stopped, looked at us, and tipped his hat at us!  Then he was on his way.  We waved at him and thought how remarkable it was.

We’ve remembered that courtesy all these years.  Such fond memories.

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The One Whose Plans Are Always Perfect

27 Dec

I had big plans for this years Christmas. My granddaughter and I love baking together and were going to bake lots of cookies to share with the neighbors. I planned to attend   many Christmas programs given by the local churches. Sadly no cookies were baked and I only attended two Christmas events.

Sitting on my couch surrounded by Christmas decorations some complete, some in progress I realized once again that plans don’t always work out.

Christmas Day arrived and  the frustration melted away. All the failed plans were swept aside as we celebrated the birth of our Saviour, the one whose plans are always perfect.

I love this song performed by Michael W Smith. Lyrics found here 

My Jesus, My Saviour,

Lord there is no one like you,

All of my days, I want to praise

The wonders of Your mighty love.

My comfort, my shelter,

Tower of refuge and strength

Let every breath, all that I am

Never cease to worship You.

Chorus:

Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing,

Power and majesty, praise to the King!

Mountains bow down and the seas will roar,

At the sound of your name!

I sing for joy at the work of your hands,

Forever I’ll love you, forever I’ll stand

Nothing compares to the promise I have in You.

Repeat verse

My Jesus, my Saviour,

Lord, there is none like You

All of my days, I want to praise,

The wonders of your mighty love

My comfort, my shelter,

Tower of refuge and strength

Let every breath, all that I am

Never cease to worship You

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Our Trip Across America-Part 12

26 Dec

   A Slice of Life                       

 Bill Lites

Bill

 

We headed East out of Westcliffe on SR-96 and then South on SR-165 so we could stop and take a tour of one the most interesting local attractions in the area.  It’s called Bishop Castle.  Located on the edge of the San Isabel National Forest, it is a truly amazing structure.  What started out to be a one-room stone cottage in 1969, over the years, has turned into a life’s project, for Jim Bishop, who has built the entire “Castle” by hand.  As it stands now, the “Castle” has three full stories of interior rooms, complete with a Grand Ballroom, soaring towers and bridges with vistas of a hundred miles, and a Fire-Breathing Dragon, all making the Bishop Castle a most unforgettable experience!

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We picked up I-25 North out of the mountains, stopping in Pueblo to visit DiVoran’s grade school friend Joan and her family.  She and DiVoran had a wonderful time remembering “The Good Old Days” they spent growing up together in Westcliffe.  It wasn’t long after leaving Pueblo, heading East on US-50 that we had our 2nd flat tire on the camper.   I guess all those sharp rocks we encountered going up and down Hermit Lake Road weakened that old tire.  We were able to find a replacement tire in Lamar, CO and were soon back on the road toward Dodge City, Kansas.

 

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Of course, we had to stop for a spell in what was the famous frontier town to have a Sarsaparilla at the Long Branch Saloon, and take a stroll out to see Boot Hill, where some of the West’s most famous outlaws were laid to rest.

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From there, it was on East through parts of Kansas and Missouri, where we encountered some of the vast mid-American heartland, with its huge farms of miles and miles of lush wheat and corn crops.

 

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At some point we crossed that grand old  Mississippi River, with all its commerce and history.  Boy that sure is a lot of water!  It was about this time in the trip that we had our 3rd camper tire flat.  What a pain!  I said to myself, Come on now, there are only three tires on this camper, and now we have had all three go flat.  I hope this will be the last of them!

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If the picture above looks familiar, it’s because I was becoming an expert at changing those camper tires.  After replacing that 3rd tire, we now had three brand new tires on the camper, and we never had another tire problem with that camper as long as we had it.

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We continued our travels Southeast, making stops in Tennessee and George, and we were awed by the sights of some of the most beautiful parts of the Appalachian Mountains we passed through.

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As we got closer to home, we stopped in Atlanta, Georgia and Tallahassee, Florida.  Part of the joy of this trip was to experience the different parts of the country, its history, and the way people have lived down through the years.  The southern plantations were of special interest and beauty, as they were surrounded  by so much history and grandeur.

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What a great adventure we had visiting our good friends and relatives and seeing all those wonderful sights across our beautiful country.  But now we were heading for the barn, and there was no way to stop us.  After the six weeks on the road, we were all ready to get home, see our Florida friends and sleep in our own beds again.  Boy did that feel good!

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By the way, remember the freeze-dried brine shrimp we bought in Salt Lake City, Utah?  Well, sure enough, when we got home, we put them in water, and they came back to life.  That was Amazing!   Who knows, maybe this is where the Science Fiction folks got some of their ideas.

Well, that just about wraps up “Our Trip Across America.”  I hope you have enjoyed it as much as we did.

 

—-The End —-

 

 

 

 

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E is for Enough

24 Dec

My Take

DiVoran Lites

DiVoran Lites

Bill and I are incompatible. The first time I realized it was the morning after the wedding when I got in trouble for squeezing the toothpaste tube from the middle. How was I supposed to know you rolled it up tidily? Right then I decided I was not a roll-up kind of gal. We have used separate toothpaste tubes ever since. We even use different kinds of toothpaste now.

Then there is gasoline. He buys it all because he knows where its cheapest. I ask to buy when the gauge is on E, but he says, oh, you’ve got enough to get you where you’re going and back, and I always do—except there was that one time down in Texas when we were driving a new old car and E meant what it said-empty. I’m grateful we didn’t have to walk as far as we might have had to.

Carrots, now, carrots are something else altogether. In my humble opinion, you can never have too many carrots. I keep canned ones on hand but come on now, they just aren’t the same. “Carrots,” I write on the list. When we go over it he says, “We’ve got enough carrots.” Maybe for you, but not for me.

Time: Bill likes what you call close tolerance. That means you measure something like a door that opens onto the enclosed back porch, then you measure for a fan and put it up and turn it on and when you open the back door and the fan is whirling you can’t see a gap between them. So close tolerance goes for time as well. He doesn’t like to waste it by getting someplace too early, but unfortunately we’ve always been just late enough to embarrass me. Since he’s been retired, however, we’ve been working on it. We calculate what time we have to be there and then count back to when we may need to leave. It works most of the time. If it’s really crucial I don’t answer directly when he says what time do we have to be there. I say we need to leave at 8:30 or whatever I deem respectable. I sometimes say we have to leave at 8:32 and it works. I read about that somewhere. I don’t know why it works. Depending on how desperate I am we can get there just a little bit early. That’s nice for weddings and funerals, so you don’t have to disturb prayers and stuff. But the last funeral we went to was a little disorganized, we got there a good ten minutes early and I was proud. But the funeral didn’t actually start for an hour and a half after we got there. We had some nice quiet chats with some nice people, but there’s no telling how far it set my training program back.

We are compatible in the big things. Our kids tried the old switcheroo a few times: if dad says no, ask Mom, but Mom almost always had dad’s heart on the matter and agreed with him, so they soon gave up on that one. We also agree that lots of small and large things are funny and we laugh together. If we had memorized the Apostle’s Creed we’d be able to say it together with complete commitment. Jesus is Lord.

So although we are incompatible we still are pretty unified. What does that Bible verse say? “Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together…” As you know we aren’t brothers, but still it’s pretty fine to harmonize as husband and wife. Psalm 133:1

By Divoran

By Divoran

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OUR FIRST REAL CHRISTMAS TREE

23 Dec

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

Judy

                                                  

 Growing up, Christmas was really special to our family.  We usually stayed at home in Albuquerque, and my brother and I woke up to “Santa” and all the presents our parents, Grandmother, and Aunt Jessie had gotten for us.  We always had a tree, loaded with those huge lights in multi-colors.  Such neat memories.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to me that my new husband and I didn’t have room in our tiny apartment for a tree!  Of course, we were both working – and he was in school all day – and so there was hardly any reason to have a tree.  I did learn how to make a “tree” out of a magazine and spray-paint it with silver or green paint.  Add some tiny ornaments, and there it was.

 

And there were some Christmases that we went to visit our respective families, and we didn’t need to have a tree.  That “tradition” followed us through the early years with our daughters.  After we moved to Florida (Panama City/Tyndall AFB), we usually made the trip down to Titusville to spend the holiday itself with my brother and his family.  After a few days there, we would drive across the peninsula to Clearwater and spend a few more days with Fred’s parents in their retirement condo.

 

One year had been especially difficult and tiring for us.  I remember Fred making the statement that for five cents, he would stay home that year.  I handed him a nickel.  We stayed home that year.  We decided that, since we were staying home, we needed a tree for ourselves – and this time we would get a live tree!!  The girls were so very excited about that prospect.  We went tree hunting and brought home a lovely big tree.  It made our house smell wonderfully fresh and piney.  We put Christmas music on the stereo, and began decorating our first real Christmas tree!  We made cookies.  We bought or made presents for each other.  It was a lovely time together.

 

Christmas tree

At this time, Karen was 10 years old, and Janet was six.  One day, while I was sitting at the piano working on a piece of music, near the rocking chair, which was next to the tree, Karen was sitting in the rocking chair reading….her favorite past time.  All of a sudden she let out a scream and jumped out of the chair, flinging her book across the room!!  WHAT????

Apparently the wonderful tree we had purchased was home to a LOT of inch worms – and some of them had made their way onto the chair, and onto the book she was reading!  I then realized there was an inch worm on the piano, as well!!

WELL!!  That tree didn’t last much longer in OUR house, that’s for sure!!  It was out the door in no time!

I think Karen didn’t sit in that chair for a month after Christmas!!

At least it was a Christmas to remember.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Early Christmas Celebration

20 Dec

Sometimes God answers our needs and wants before we even think to ask. I really needed someone to fill in for me today on the blog and before I could ask, this appeared in my inbox. Thanks so much, DiVoran. Onisha

My Take

 DiVoran Lites

DiVoran Lites

 

I gotta admit I was a little nervous about having everything perfect for our family Christmas. Daughter helped plan, came up with protocol for gifts, organized the dinner, and wrote the back and forth emails. Husband vacuumed, mopped, got tables and chairs ready on the porch, and repeated “everything is going to be all right,” on multiple occasions.

It’s Time (at last)

Sister and Husband arrive with food, gifts, and good will. Daughter and Husband come in the door (son-in-law made delicious ribs and we accessorized around them). We hear a car and migrate to the front window to watch Son, Wife, and college age Grandchildren emerge with plenty of pretty gift bags and comestibles.

Perfect weather for porch. Holly-jolly time at table. Conversation pops and sizzles. Delicious chocolate chip cookies for pre-dessert, made by Granddaughter.

Move chairs into living room, a place for everyone. Grandson plays Santa, handing out gifts. Suggestion: pay no more than three dollars per gift and buy one for everyone. Only a suggestion, re-gifting, re-cycling, and trading perfectly acceptable. Someone trades mint kisses for dark chocolate, kisses and from there, for special dark–trading up.

Elders tell ancestor stories. Rapt attention for a while. Soon family members close eyes in order to picture the stories better. Everyone gets comfortable, Grandson stretches half way across living room floor, granddaughter curls on couch with head in mom’s lap, Son-in-Law leans head back in easy chair. Son makes strong coffee to go with dessert, demonstrates bell playing technique, hands out tiny bells upon which to play tunes. A person wearing Christmas earrings asks to be a conscientious observer. Okay. Sister conducts Jingle-bells, one note at a time. Watch for video on YouTube.

Two more parties to attend. Grandson receiving texts from spies telling about new roomie moving in to dorm. Mom says, “We can run  by and check it out on the way home.”

Goodbye hugs all around. Chase son-in-law to Jeep for one. Truly, truly, a great time was had by all. Thank you Lord, from the bottoms of our hearts.

Psalm 71:18 The whole Psalm is frabjous!

 

early Christmas

 

 

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Our Trip Across America Part 11

19 Dec

A Slice of Life

  Bill Lites

Bill

 

From there, we made a side trip to Westcliffe, Colorado, located in the Wet Mountain Valley, just east of the San De Cristo Mountains.  Westcliffe boomed in the 1880s with Silver mining driving the economy.  The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad ran through Westcliffe, at the time, making it the only rail link in the valley.  After the mining interests ran out, the Westcliffe portion of the railroad was finally closed in 1937, and the town began to settle into the quiet valley community it now is.

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DiVoran’s parents moved to Westcliffe after her father came home from WWII.  Then in 1946, DiVoran’s parents opened Min’s Café in downtown Westcliffe and she and her brother David spent many hours working in the family owned restaurant on Main Street.

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Later, her parents bought the old 1880’s Westcliffe train station, and converted it into their home, where DiVoran had an unobstructed view of the San De Cristo Mountains from her upstairs bedroom window.

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DiVoran remembers Westcliffe as a most wonderful place where she lived, rode horses in the open fields, and went to grades 2 thru 4 in a one-room schoolhouse, and where she made some lifelong friends. By the way, she still corresponds with one of those friends, and that very schoolhouse is still standing, and has been converted into a very interesting museum.

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One of our most memorable experiences during that visit was our trip from Westcliffe up the County 160/Hermit Road into the mountains to spend the night at Hermit lake.  As DiVoran remembered, the road had been maintained by the county, for the popular summer lake activities.  However, we found the road in poor condition as we headed up the mountain toward the lake.  The first part of the road wasn’t too bad as we came out of the valley, so we thought we could make the trip without any problems.  The picture below shows you how deceiving that road was.

 

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It wasn’t long before we realized we should be driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle like the other people we saw up there, not a Ford LTD station wagon pulling a tent camper.  In some places the road was so steep and bolder strewn that I thought, for sure, we were going to tear the oil pan out of the bottom of the car.  But, once we started up the mountain, there was no place for us to turn around, so we had to just keep going till we got to the lake.  The picture below of Hermit road is no exaggeration, I couldn’t believe we actually made it!

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It took us two nerve-wracking hours to travel the approximate five miles to the lake.  By the time we got there, it was starting to get dark and we were all hungry, so we leveled and set up the camper, ate dinner and spent a cold night in the lake parking area at near 11,400 feet elevation.  The next morning, we waited for it to warm up enough for to have a leisurely breakfast, then we walked up the trail, and took in the beauty of the lake.

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When we got ready to begin the trip back down the mountain to Westcliffe, the car wouldn’t start.  It seems we had developed tiny cracks in the sparkplug wires.  Now, with the air at this high altitude being so thin, the spark was jumping from the sparkplug wires to the block, and not to the plugs.  I removed the wire from each plug, cleaned and dried it, wrapped electrical tape around it, and reinstalled it.  That coupled with the rising temperature, seemed to do the trick.  With the car running, we now embarked on our two-hour adventure back down the mountain to Westcliffe.  WOW– What a trip!  I sure don’t want to ever have to make a trip like that again.

 

 

                                          —-To Be Continued—-

 

 

 

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Old Books, Cheap

17 Dec

My Take

 DiVoran LItes

At the SPCA thrift store yesterday I found four books to buy.Fortunately, I wasn’t looking for new and popular, but for old and loved.

Lately Bill has been helping me proofread the second novel in the Florida Springs Trilogy, Living Spring. He reads over it, chapter by chapter at my computer explaining his suggestions, and I lie on the couch with the back of my hand to my forehead thinking and discussing. That process reminded me of a writer who so thoroughly knew her material that she also lay on a couch to write, except she dictated to a cotillion of secretaries, and ended up writing a book a day or a book a week . I can’t recall exactly which one. Also, I could not remember her name, but lo and behold, from the depths of the SPCA bookshelf it sprung out at me and drew my hand to its lovely golden spine which said, Barbara Cartland’s, Three Best Loved, 1975. I bought it for thirty-two cents.

Too Soon Old and Too Late Smart: Thirty True things You Need to Know Now, 2004, by Gordon Livingstone, M. D, was also a hardcover and cost thirty-two cents. Living in a small German-based community as a child, I heard that saying a lot and agreed with it more and more as time went on.

I looked at all the old paperback Thesauri, a dime each, but the one I liked was Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus, 1992 with Tweety-Bird and Sylvester on the cover. I already have a huge one, that weighs 4.5 lb and I love it, but when I want a quick fix, I usually won’t haul it out of the bookshelf and find a place to look at it. The Tweety-Bird issue is an inch thick, and so beautifully arranged that I looked up words just for the fun of it.

No Promises in the Wind. by Irene Hunt, was one thin dime as well. It’s a children’s book about The Great Depression. The author is a relative of mine. She won the Newbury Award for Children’s Literature with, Across Five Aprils, about the Civil War. Irene Hunt is Aunt May Hunt’s daughter. Aunt May Hunt is Grandmother Marie Bowers’ aunt. Grandmother Marie Bowers is my grandmother. The miracle in all this is that I actually got to know my grandmother’s aunt May and, when our daughter was a baby, she met Aunt May who was her great, great, great aunt. Aunt May taught me how to sew a featherstitch for a quilt and also she told me that ladies didn’t have to shave their legs in the olden days because the homespun petticoats were so rough they rubbed the hair right off. I have a feeling they wouldn’t have shaved them anyway, don’t you? The sad thing is that when I moved to Florida, Grandmother Marie urged me to drive over to the west coast and meet her cousin, Irene Hunt, but I was too awed, too busy, too something. Now, of course, I wish I had. By the way, Irene Hunt’s, No Promises in the Wind received excellent recommendations from The Chicago Daily news and from The New York times. Oh please, let me have received a soupcon (pinch) of her talent in my genes.

Habakkuk 2:2

 

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