2019 July FROM MY PERSPECTIVE

                                                   2019 July FROM MY PERSPECTIVE

The day had been very long and arduous when I stopped by Aint Daisy’s for some chat and cool sweet tea.  I noticed she’d been busy baking bread, some cookies, a couple of meat loaves, and a few pies.  “Aint Daisy, where in the world do you get your energy to bake all those foods in your kitchen?  I have trouble just getting out of bed.  In fact, I don’t seem to have time to make it, either.”  She started to hum.  Well, I knew what that meant…..a bit of wisdom was going to be said.  “Well, I start off my mornings with a ‘Thank you’ to the Lord for the days before and the one that’s here.  I take care of the bathroom needs and then make my bed.  I believe makin’ one’s bed first thing in the morning when you get out of it is important.  It sets the discipline for the day.  Oh, there are times I don’t want to make it, but I do.  It’s a task that can lead to other tasks which you just might enjoy and another enjoy the fruits of your efforts, too,” she said while cutting me a piece of the delicious pie and scooping up a huge dollop of home made whipped cream.   “So, ya see, chile, that slice of cherry pie you’re eatin’ resulted in makin’ my bed this morning.  I’m not sayin’ that if I’d not made my bed, I’d not have made the pie, but it surely was a delicious start.  So, make your bed every mornin’; you never know what else you will do.”  I haven’t missed many days.

“Who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?” Obi Wan Kenobe

I started doing intensive exercises.  All was fine the rest of the day.  I had energy, felt good about my accomplishment, and, unusually, was looking forward to the next day’s session.  I awakened early and rolled over to sit up straight and leave my bed.  “PAIN!”, from a giant megaphone, was announced all over my body.  Slithering out of bed helped, but then I tried to stand up.  GODS of Friday, giving birth to 3 children wasn’t as painful…..even my fat hurt.  It was at that point I decided that at 74 years of inactive age, I did NOT need a svelte body.  Yes, I was and still am out of shape, but hey, round is a shape.

We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how it shapes us.  The things which scare us can make us stronger and more empathetic for others.

When Guy and I got married in 1987, he was quite the talk of the school where he worked.  Since he was 47, a bachelor all his life, and I was a fiery, black-haired vixen of 42, the wonders flew.  Guy, the mellow, gentle, giant of a man that he was, always had a smile on his face.  Some of the bolder males of the faculty mentioned they’d never seen him so happy and smiling.  I took it as a compliment, but then some statements with sexual overtones where mentioned.  So, I decided to hush them up right there.  One fella mentioned the bed, alluding to the activity he assumed was occurring.  I told him, “The smiles at school only mask the frowns at home, as well as, the worry of the wallet.”  They looked puzzled.  I told them, “Guy gets all irritated because I buy sheets about every week.”  Well, you can imagine their looks and piqued interest.  One brave soul, who didn’t realize I’d just set him up for the kill, asked, “Why is it that you have to buy sheets about every week, Trudy?”  I quipped, “Oh, you know how spurs tear up things, especially sheets.”  I left singing “I HAVE SPURS THAT JINGLE, JANGLE, JINGLE, AS I GO RIDING MERRILY ALONG.”

“Did you know it is easier to love someone than to like them; and, did you know that there is nowhere in the Bible which tells you to like another; it does tell you to love them, though?” stated the wise Aint Daisy.   “I remember a friend of mine who had some children.  There was one who caused her to go to her knees more than once.  They didn’t, and still do I think, practice the good things their mama taught them.  They caused that mother a lot of grief by the choices they made and the rebellion they showed.  I asked her one day how she could still love that child.  She told me she loved them, that came naturally to her, but likin’ ‘em was another story.  In fact, it was down right very difficult.  You see, chile, a mother’s love knows no boundaries, but likin’ you has its limits.” 

“Nothing in life will call upon us to be more courageous than facing the fact that it ends.  But, on the other side of heartbreak is wisdom.”  On the other side of adding and winning love to our life is the subtracting and losing what we physically loved.  To lose what we loved is the dues we pay for caring and loving.  But, have we really lost what we loved?  Aren’t the memories and moments we had with them the rewards----the wins?

I was talking to one of my children about how much I love them.  I quoted a  French saying:  "Je t’aime plus qu'hier moins que demain" and told them, "It means--- I love you more than yesterday, less than tomorrow--- and this will always be how I feel about you.  Sometimes I think, 'How could I love this person more than I do right now?' And then, tomorrow comes and I know."

My Daddy was a chemist for DuPont then moved on to chemical sales for a large corporation.  He retired after working a lot for both corporations.  He seemed happy, but was a little bored.  He told Mother, “I think I’m going to start practicing my chemical knowledge again.”  Mother was glad because she believed, “A good mind is not a good thing to waste.”  After a week of experimenting with fermented hops, potatoes, grapes, and grains, he announced the experimenting worked and he would continue it.  Mother couldn’t see where he’d done any experimenting, the basement had no scientific supplies in it and neither did the garage.  She asked, “How can you say you’ve done experiments with hops, grains, grapes, and potatoes when I haven’t seen you do a thing with them?”  Daddy smiled and said, “I have found that when hops, grains, grapes, and potatoes are fermented, turning them into beer, whiskey, wine, and vodka and I consume the liquids, I produce urine.”  Mother told him something in German; I didn’t know what it was.

Have you ever smelled the air after a rain when it’s been dry for a while?  I have, and it is such a pleasant odor.  There’s a name for that odor.  It’s PETRICHOR……The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell

My mother had a stack of yardsticks on top of the bulletin board in the kitchen.  Those were her “weapons of mass destruction” on my butt.   One time she swung a bit too hard and the yardstick broke.  I laughed when it did.  She said it had a crack in it.  I told her, “Yes, mine.”

I was looking at a 1955 World Book encyclopedia.  I told Guy, my husband, I was reading about Australia.  He told me to look in the central part of the country to find Ayres Rock, a monolithic mass of rock which takes a day to walk around.  I looked with the magnifying glass and couldn’t find it.  He told me he was surprised it wasn’t there.  I told him, “Well, maybe it wasn’t established when this was printed in 1955.”  You heard him, didn’t you?  “It’s been there for thousands of years, Miss Smarty Pants.”  He took the book and looked with the magnifying glass.  “Hmm, you’re right; it’s not there.”  Imagine my smile, y’all.

Remember that grammar adage: “I before E except after C”?  Well, here’s some help on that:  “I before E unless you leisurely deceive either overweight heirs to forfeit their sovereign conceits in the heir’s neighborhood.”

“There are some people who could hear you speak a thousand words and still not understand you.  And, there are others who will understand you without you even speaking a word.”  I’ve encountered both and understand.

I got a new phone recently.  Holy cow, Batgirl!!!  The company, which made my phone, made it so complicated for this English, grammar and composition teacher to know how to use, I’ve said words Mother never taught me.  I’m beginning to think I need to return to school to get a degree in “How to operate a cell phone which does everything but start the coffee pot”.  My old phone was so simple:  “RING”----I flipped it open and answered the call; I made a call; but it took awhile to text a message, which I didn’t care because I got “Yes” and “No” typed pretty quickly.  Sometimes “new and improved” is not so terrific.

It looks like this month’s newsletter/column is over.  I’ve thought about this:  “There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. -Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (1923-2019)                 Smiles and blessings-----------Trudy