I am not sure how it all happened. I know I was in the room when eight out of the ten of our grandbabies were born. I was there to sing Happy BIRTH day in a hushed whisper to each one of them for the first time. I took their first photographs with their mommies and daddies. Mommies crying tears of joy, daddy’s cutting cords…. I took the first pictures when the siblings met the new baby. I was there. I was.
And yet……how can it all be. It seems inconceivable to me that I am 51 years old and have three WONDERFUL grown children of my own AND now have TEN grandbabies under the age of nine. What a sacred blessing it was for me to be invited into those moments. Memoires more precious than the spoken word can express.
I am grateful God allowed me to be here to see it all. It wasn’t this side of 9 years ago that I battled cancer and wasn’t sure I would survive to see our first Grandbaby born, and to be honest …days when I was so sick, and tired and wouldn’t have cared if I did. What a gift. I didn’t just make it to see Benjamin born, but nine more after him, and I am grateful to say I am a survivor.
It can be crazy and loud at Omie and Papas house. (Omie is German for Grandma). There is actually almost three sets of twins between our two daughters. Each of our daughters has been pregnant and delivered three babies, and each pregnancy has been within five months of the other sister’s delivery. We have a set of 2-year-olds, a set of 4-year-olds, two babies at the moment, and then there are three older grandchildren, aged 7, 8, and 9, as well as a little sister who is 2, all from our son. Life is full, and happy and loud and chaotic.
At least one or two days a week, you can drive by our farm and you will see all those yellow and red plastic cars left discarded in the yard, children riding tractors, bikes, tricycles. Or you may see them climbing up to the two-story playhouse that I built for the first of our grandbabies about five years ago. In a group effort, everyone helped me build this playhouse for the grandkids out of a woodshed that was made for our outdoor central boiler, after we relocated the Boiler unit.
We have a central boiler, Papa built a shed to hold wood, I built another one, and put a playhouse on top of it with the help of my son-in-law and son.
Last weekend, our playhouse received an upgrade. With the gift of two previously used slides, one normal and one of those enclosed, ugly slides, I decided to add 8 feet to the second deck and install another yellow slide. So we have slides going to the east and the west. A large green enclosed slide on the back side (not visible from the road…yeah) going south. The grandchildren come, and they are beyond excited. You cannot slow them down and I seriously wish I had a little copper penny for every time one of those children climb the stairs and race down a slide…..they do it hundreds of times in a day. Its crazy. The energy they have.
I am very grateful for this piece of ground that I can be the steward of while I walk on this earth. I appreciate the wonderful place our children and their children get to play and explore. That I will be able to teach them/ show them (as I did our children) what a tractor with wheels is like, what mold board plowing is, and what its like to raise animals by hand and to use a New Idea corn picker to pick ears of corn to store in a corn crib like folks did back in the 1940’s – 80’s. A hard way of life back in the day….but the best way , and we got it honest. It wasn’t handed to us…we struggle to make the payment every month like so many people today….But I am so grateful for the opportunity to wake up here every day and watch all these beautiful babies grow, play, laugh, and yes, even when they cry or scream. Its Bliss.
UPDATE…..PLAYHOUSE NUMBER TWO.
Suddenly, one day, I decided that this old playhouse was in rough shape, too many metal edges, too cobbled up and we devised a plan, and with everyone’s help, one long weekend a new playhouse was build. One of our Son in laws runs a pole building company and that was instrumental in making this all come together faster and closer to perfection than I could have ever dreamed.
The playhouse was constructed, with many windows on every side, and when the railings went up, I insisted on doubling them so no child would fall over them and get hurt. I love this playhouse, its beautiful and completely over the top. I cannot imagine how wonderful it would have been as a child if my three brothers and I would have had something like this to play in. We played in haymows, and trees, and tried tirelessly to create tree forts that just never stayed in place.
Shortly after the house was complete. The Grandsons (four of them) decided that they wanted their own home “fort.” They didn’t like all the doll stuff and dishes. One afternoon, the seven grandchildren who live in the neighborhood and spend most of their days at Omie’s daycare, we all closed in the bottom half of the building that was for lawn mowers and such and built a wall, a fort for the boys. The seven granddaughters were tickled to have the upper level to themselves. Of course, you know it goes without saying that no one stayed in their own territory. That’s just the stuff that makes life fun.
The children have loved it and enjoyed this playhouse for over a decade now. It used to be full of trunks of clothes, high heel shoes, dolls, doll beds, a small table and chairs, then it had a vintage cookstove, and shelves of dishes, pots and pans. Those kids made more mud pies, and water and grass soup than I care to recall cleaning up at the end of a weekend, but they loved it. As they grew older, we slowly moved thingsout; they outgrew playing dolls and dress up, and now there is a large brass bed and a table for playing cards or games on. There are still six windows covered in wire mesh, and it a great place to nap in the early springtime or late fall.
The bottom of the playhouse now holds about fifteen used bikes, and when the kids are all here, the circular driveway at this farm looks and sounds like a NASCAR speedway.
LIFE IS BEAUTIUFL. LIFE IS GOOD, WE ARE BLESSED, AND GRATEFUL
This is our family pet Brutus. Well actually, I think all the animals on our farm are pets in one sense or another. Brutus is an Australian Shepherd. (river rock-clay) is what they call his coloring/markings. I feel very fortunate to write that all of our outside farm dogs have been great, docile, family-oriented dogs. We have lost a few over the years as do all people. And they become so much a part of our lives. No, they aren’t our children, but I believe their should be a new word to describe their place in our lives/hearts because they are more than a family dog too.
This is Brutus. He is so much joy for me. Mainly since our children are all grown and most days its just him and I here. There is a special iron chair that sits on the back deck, and most mornings and evenings, you can find him there without fail. He sort of took over the big chair with arms that sat in the corner, tight to the glass door, out of the weather, I suspect. So, it was only natural to buy him a large dog pillow and ensure he is comfortable. Right.
Some mornings Brute can be found laying on the front deck, where he can watch the road and take in some sunshine. He is a keen watch dog.
If you drive onto our farm, and you know us at all. You only need to look for Brutus and you will know where we are. If he is sitting in the yard between the house and barn. Its a safe bet I am out in one of the barns. If He is on one of the porches. I am in the house. If he is no where to be seen, he’s with me in the back acreage. He will investigate the woods, the swamps, and will run in front of my tractor tires a dozen times, but always seems to stay out of harms way. Thank God.
He will …if I give him the nod, or pat my leg he will climb the step on my Oliver 1750 and he will push himself against the front of the seat and sit there till I cannot hardly work the pedals with ease. When I stop and say lets go, he will sit. I climb off the tractor and try to coax him to no avail. He wants to ride. In the fall, He wants to ride in the combine. I will not allow him to do this unless the door is shut and if I need to get out I shut the machines down completely so he or I never fall into moving parts.
He is my buddy, my friend, my protector. When the grandbabies are here, he is between them and the house, and if they start to wonder out of their designated play area, he is ahead of them. How does he know where they are going….smart smart dog.
Alaina and Brutus
My cousin stopped by here once, a man I hadn’t seen in almost 20 years, when I went to the porch to see who it was he informed me that he had been by the day before….but in HIS WORDS “You dog put me back in my truck”. Brutus never came near him but the look must have sent a powerful enough warning. I laughed and said “That’s his job”.
I have taken care of eight people as they were leaving this world. I was their entire hospice team. I would be gone for two or three weeks at a time, but my family said, Brutus can hear your truck coming and he starts to whine and cry and shake. When I arrived, he met me at the door of the truck and continues to whine and cry and shake while I pet him and then, he is under my feet for days.
I fell off the top of a ladder (roofline level) onto a wooden boardwalk. I was unconscious. An ambulance was called, and paramedics worked on me. Our oldest daughter said that during that entire time, Brutus wouldn’t leave my side. When their Dad drove in the drive, Brutus got up and ran to him and then raced back to me. He was a devoted pal.
At our last vet check, it was discovered that he had contracted heartworms, and it was too far advanced to put him through the “chemo nightmare” that is akin to that kind of treatment for a canine. We chose to love him and make the most of the days he had left. The vet guessed about ten months.
One cold winter morning, I couldn’t find Brutus. He was always at the door waiting to come in. I put on my coat, and I called to him, and suddenly I saw him crawling on the ground trying to get to the back deck. He was on the south side of our farmhouse, exactly where I wouldn’t have expected him to be. He was in bad shape. I picked him up and dragged him up the deck and into the kitchen, where I placed him on an oversized brown comforter. His legs were cold all the way up to his body. My heart ached. I lay down on the comforter and cried, petting him and whispering to him. He never warmed up By now, his legs were stiff, and he was breathing hard. His eyes were almost completely glazed over.
I made a decision that was a hard one to make. I loved this boy, loved him. He wasn’t my dog. He was my happiness, my sanity in a world gone evil. He taught me so many things, and he was the best therapist and friend for me. If I were sick, I would go outside and lie down on the ground in the sun and let the sun bake the sickness out of me. He could sense that, and he would lie down beside me tight, with his head resting in my armpit and remain there as long as I did. He was always wherever I was. Our grown children would come to the farm and say, “We know to look for Brutus to know where ma is at.”
I called the vet, explained the situation, and said that I didn’t want him to suffer. He had always been there for me, and in his time of hurt and pain and departing, I wanted to be there for him, to do the hard thing I never wanted to do.
Using the comfort to lift him, so as not to inflict any more pain on him, we loaded him in the back seat of my Ford Super Duty. Carl drove, and I sat with my faithful companion. His head was buried in my lap. When we arrived at the vets, they came out and gave him two shots. It was a long hard trip to the vets that day, and I can tell you it was an even longer tougher trip on the way home. My beautiful Brutus was gone. He was still laying on my lap, and his fur soaked up my tears. Once we were back at the farm, I dug his grave, beside the childrens playhouse, where I knew the dirt would never be disturbed and I hope that he feels the joy and love of those kids running around, and I hope one day when I cross over, he is waiting at the gate, whining and shaking for me.
Apparently, it did mean something, because within six months of the book being published, I was getting all sort of emails and text asking me when and if there was going to be a sequel. I had not planned on writing one, but I thought the idea had some merit to it. I pondered on it for a while and then one afternoon in May of 2023 I sat down at my desk and decided to let the characters go where they might would have.
Back in 2021, I wrote and published a book entitled, WHISPERS OF WINTER. I thought that it was a decent book. I wrote it so I knew the characters, and I knew where the plot was going to go, still I cried at the end of my own book. I wondered if that meant something.
I have to say here, that the book almost wrote itself. Unbeknownst to me, the characters in had in fact become very real in my mind. I would be outside working on my farm, plowing fields, tending to the sheep or cattle, cutting hay and suddenly I could see Jolie Mossman -Johnson there doing the same thing. I could hear her voice; I could feel what she would be feeling. Then, I couldn’t get back to my computer fast enough to get it all recorded on the pages.
It reminds me of a friend of mine that once explained to me the freedom and peacefulness of jumping on a Harley and allowing the road to just take you where it will, and all you have to do is lean back, feel the wind on your face, and be prepared to take in all the beauty that comes your way. Now I know, my book isn’t a Harley, but it feels much like that to me. The new characters and situations just kept popping into my mind and they would spring up from the pages exactly as i had imagined them. One night, a few weeks back, I literally saw the new man in the sequel Morgan Wheeler in my dreams. It was the coolest, thing to see. Its amazing what the mind can do when you are so focused.
On February 9, I hit the send button and sent the second book off to the publishers. I did not realize that I had sent it on this day until later that evening. I found it a personal gift that it all settled down to that day. The anniversary date of one of the hardest, emotionally shattering days of my life. A day that caused me to destroy and burn fifty years of my journals and writing. Had I been alone that day, I am sure, I would have taken myself out in a different way. I guess at the time, burning my entire life up, my whole heart, all my memories inside a large central boiler outdoor wood burner was as close as I could get to being gone. I do not condone suicide, in any way, and I pray and ache for those that have chosen that road. I am not the judge of anyone for anything they do, but i will say this, I DO UNDERSTAND all the emotional baggage and pain that comes with the terrible decision. When a person has fallen so low, that they take a permanent solution to a temporary situation. My heart aches for those people, and I will always go running towards anyone that is that low and needs to talk. My point being, I believe that it was deliberate that GOD had arranged for the sequel to be completed and sent in on the same day, February 9, one year later. I took it as a small gift just for me.
The first book. WHISPERS OF WINTER, (I refer to as W.O.W.) contained 416 pages. The sequel WHISPERS OF AUTUMN ( W.O.A.) has 450 pages. Now, all that is left is to sit back and wait for the finished product to arrive at my door, and then to hit the world wide web. This week the art department sent me a “proof” of the cover, that I am supposed to accept or refuse. I refused their first attempt.
When I submitted Whispers of Winter, I was so excited to see my project come to life, that I didn’t make any changes to their suggestions. This time, on the sequel …….Whispers of Autumn I had a few suggestions I sent back to the art department for repair. It’s crazy cool how Morgan came to me in a dream, I saw him so clearly and perfectly and it made it simple to explain to the art dept how he should look on the cover of this book. THIS COVER THAT I AM SHARING WITH YOU, IS THE FIRST PROOF AND WILL NOT BE THE FINAL COVER but i wanted to show the two of books together.
Now, the groundwork has been laid, here is the reason for this blog post. I have been BLESSED with 12 beautiful grandchildren. After I had sent in the book, some of my grand girls were playing in my office, at my desk and suddenly questions were popping up about the large manuscript sitting on the desk. I didn’t have to try and explain, as my grandson Logan began to explain that it was my second book, he then pointed to the cover of the first book that is hanging on my wall from a book signing and explained. “
Yes, here is Omie’s first book. (Omie is German for grandma) and then he explained that Whispers of Autumn would be the second one and I would probably do another canvas of that book when its finished. I was impressed that he knows all this, as I haven’t really ever told them all about it. His sister, Emmalynn who is named after me, partially, also explained where these books are stored and that I promised her, that there is a book for each of my grandchildren stored in my bedroom closet for when they are older. Then, she asked me if I was going to write anymore books. I said no, I am done, that’s the last one.
Once the question and answering session was over, I went back to the kitchen and thought nothing more about any of it. On Monday, close to the end of the day, I sat down at my desk for a few minutes and found these notes had been written by those granddaughters that day and man did those pieces of paper tug at my heart strings.
The girls had left little notes stuck to my calendar that said … ” I love you Omie” and Emmalynn had decided to go ahead and encourage me to write a few books. She had told me on Sunday, “Omie, You wrote WHISPERS OF WINTER, and now WIHSPERS OF AUTUMN, you need to write Whispers of Spring and Whispers of Summer too.
You gotta LOVE that kind of LOVE.
Sidenote: To be honest, I cannot say how many times, I hear Jolie and Morgan having a conversation together at their table. I can walk in a barn, or be working in a garden, making dinner, folding laundry and in my mind, I hear them talking amongst themselves. I am not sure if that makes me a decent writer, or a hair bit on the crazy side. Either way, it’s delicious !!
UPDATE: As I am updating this blog, Book #3 WHISPERS OF SUMMER is currently at the publishers, and we look forward to a release date of November.
Things here at the farm have gotten rather busy. Crowded…. but a sweet comfortable crowded might be a better use of the word.
It all began in March. Our youngest Daughter, a professional gal with a wonderful hubby and four children, decided they would like to build their own home . In 8 years of marriage they have purchased two homes, renovated them and then another baby came into the picture and they really wanted some more space and since Hubby is a builder it sounds like a perfect solution. We had a patch of woods that we hadn’t done anything with in 25 years so we offered it for them to build on.
They put their home on the market and it literally sold in two days. They packed all their belongings, bought a semi box “cargo trailer,” had it delivered here to our farm from Chicago, and they slowly moved everything from their home to that cargo trailer . In a neat and orderly fashion of course, as our youngest daughter and her hubby a slightly OCD, as are their children.
They have been swamped since they moved in here with us between working their jobs, raising their kids , and planning and drawing and calculating house plans. They have estimated the cost and projected when the home will be complete. This is of course NOT mentioning all the work that goes into the mortgage end of a new build. Permits, fees, etc. Its so ridiculous. Why a person cannot build their own home anymore without someone governing their every move is beyond my understanding. We have own our farm, and the ground and yet the govt still can dictate what we do with it, when and for what purpose. Not to mention the township rules and regulations that are most the time motioned and carried without the knowledge of half the township tax payers. You cannot obtain a township book of rules nor can you get a clear concise answer as to who sits on the board.
Then in May, our oldest Daughter, her wonderful hubby, and their three children were here for a typical Sunday visit at the farm. When we discovered that the neighbor down the road was selling his 80-acre farm, including the house, barn, and other assets. She inquired as to what he was asking, and, of course, in this day and age, you can barely afford to live, let alone afford 80 acres at almost $400,000. However, the farmer was enticed by the idea of selling his homestead and 25 acres to the kids, and perhaps, down the road, more land would become available. This farm is exactly 4/10 of a mile due north of the farm where she was raised — our farm —so everyone was beyond excited.
Plans began immediately for minor repairs to their current home and it was also placed on the market. Within 10 days , their home sold, and now their family was beginning the process of packing their home and moving within 30 days.
The farmer was adamant that they have their financing in order and ready to make the purchase by mid-June. And they were. Apparently however when you live somewhere for over 41 years moving out when you and your spouse are in your early 70’s isn’t as simple as the previous owner thought it would be.
There were a few more glitches in the set up and suddenly it was time for our Oldest Daughter and her Hubby and kids to be OUT of their home. They had nowhere to move their things or themselves as they had been planning all this time to go straight from their beautiful, 3 bedroom, 2 bath , fairly new home into a very neglected farmhouse, and live in it as they remodeled. Something a million farm families have done through the years.
They understood the cleanup process and renovations could be extensive, but they were willing and ready to jump in with both feet. As life happens, things have slowed to a crawl, the previous owner has drug his feet regarding his end of appointments, appraisals, etc . and decisions had to be made rather quickly. So…..
I cleaned everything out of our
two-car attached garage, and Daughter and Hubby have moved all their worldly possessions into it. It is a tight fit to say the least but we made it happen. Everything they own is in there, and they tried to arrange things so they could keep their freezer plugged in and their dressers lining the outside edge of the garage so they can get to their clothes as they need them. After all its ONLY FOR 2 WEEKS.
It’s been a wonderfully loud, chaotic experience. Seven of our 12 Grandchildren are here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, as it is summer and school hasn’t begun yet. They all play together, in the 2-story playhouse we built, they all fight together, and they all beg to have sleep overs with each other though they live on the same piece of property for now. You got to love how a child’s mind works.
Everyone has worked together, and worked tirelessly to make the renovations happen quickly so they can move into their dream home. Unfortunately, their dream home has been hiding quite a few things behind its walls, under its floors etc, so this once neglected home, had now been basically torn down to the studs and built back up INCLUDING replacing some of the studs themselves. We have broken and removed several layers of a kitchen floor which included 4 inches of concrete poured over 3 layers of wood flooring. The main box plates of the home have been cut out and replaced in some sections. Windows have been replaced, entire walls have been torn off the exterior of the house, re built and replaced. It has been a huge undertaking but the kids have continued to plugged away at it, morning, and night, after work, on weekends, in the rain and heat and now the winter snows. It has been just over 7.5 months, and it looks as though their move in date has arrived.
In time, everyone will laugh about all this major renovation. They will “REMEMBER WHEN” they did this or that to their home. Our oldest Daughter, will fill photo albums just as I did 24 years ago with tons of before and after pictures, and one day her own children will see those pictures, and barely recall the moments. Our own three children were 10, 7, and 6, when we bought our farm, and though they had to endure all the renovation process here their entire lives, it’s surprising how much of it they don’t recall. They were young kids, turned loose on farm, and spent their days exploring, creating, and entertaining themselves. And that is how it’s supposed to be.
Its Life. History does repeat itself in the most comical ways, and the circle of life continues to spin.
For almost 8 months we lived with dressers in every room, extra dogs, a cat, and three young kids about our feet. We all endured mountains of laundry and dishes, and endured everything from screams of delight to screams of frustration. All in all, we know this is probably the last time either of our girls will “Be home” at the same time . Our oldest daughter will be living 4/10 of a mile north of us and our youngest daughter will be living south of us just across the corn field . All that is left to do, if eventually talk our Son, his Wife and 5 children into moving into our little township.
This is OUR family township. Just due north about 3 miles My Fathers parents bought a small farm in 1946 when my Dad was ten years old.
Dad has lived on that same farm for 70 years now. It is the same farm that He also raised myself and my three brothers.
Interesting side note is that all 4 of us kids live on this same stretch of road, in the same township. It Wasn’t planned that way, two of us bought farms on this road and two bought property from our Dad to build on. Its how God planned it to be.
Now 2 of our 3 children are doing the same. Yes, we must surely make room for our Only son and his family one day, when they want to be in the “hood” also. We are BLESSED.
Our Dad has been playing guitar since He was 14. He comes from musically inclined people. His Dad’s father played the Violin, and his Mom’s Dad, Granddad Fred, played guitar. My Dad lost his own father when he was ten years old. Such a terrible loss for a child. As He grew up, He was an honor student all through school, won Boys State and was among the top ten seniors for His graduating class of 1955.
He held multiple jobs after school and on weekends and helped his mom with the two smaller children as the 4 older siblings were already married or had moved out and started their own loves. He bought the first television the family ever had, the first car, brought the “outhouse” inside. Added to an old shed that his Dad had built to make his moms kitchen larger. His parents had seven children, half were married and having babies so his Mom needed the space. Before graduation from High School He had bought his first 40 acre field just a stone’s throw up the road.
Merle is one of my Dads older brothers. In fact He was 15 years than my Dad. One day Merle was in search of some extra cash. Their Mom (Doris) told my Uncle she would give him $5.00 for his old Silver tone guitar if he would show Jim one chord on it before he left that day. The deal was done, the dye was cast . From then on My dad would go visit with his Granddad Riley (Doris’ Dad… ) and Grandpa Fred would teach my Dad how to listen for the changes in a song and taught him many other chords. Time marched on.
Dad played that old Silvertone guitar for quite a few years. Then one day He bought himself a New Gibson Acoustic /Electric Guitar for $300.00 made in Kalamazoo Mich. He played it a few years, and around the age of 24 or 25 He was talking with a man who was a well-known guitar picker in the area by the name of Lloyd Moore. Lloyd showed my Dad his Gretsch guitar and what a beautiful sound it made, played easy etc. Dad fell in love and had to have one of his own. He went to Kalamazoo again only this time He traded his fairly new Gibson in on this used Black and White Duo-Jet Gretsch. They gave him 100.00 for his NEW Gibson and Dad financed another 200.00 on this USED Gretsch. He was elated.
By 17 years old Dad was playing in country bands and most the time He played one or two nights a weekend and got paid for doing it. That became the norm for Dad, and all the years we grew up He and mom were usually off to play music every Friday and or Saturday night. Sometimes on a Sunday evening but those dates were rare. Today Dad is 80 years young as of this writing, and He still plays and sings beautifully. He is a very gifted man.
It would be difficult to come up with a total price for all that Black and White Gretsch has paid for over the years. It help support His family of six, helped stretch his weekly pay checks so he could plant crops, trade tractors, buy groceries, school clothes, livestock, feed etc. It was his PERMANENT second job that he LOVED. He always said “playing a guitar was like having an old friend just waiting in the corner for you, and it could lighten up the darkest days.
HE IS THE LEADER OF THE BAND
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I am sure I heard his beautiful “Marty Robbins” voice the whole 9 months my mom carried me. As a toddler and up through the years until I moved out of my childhood home at 18, we four children could hear my Dad playing his guitar late into the night. It was no doubt the only time He had to spend with his “Beloved” guitar as He was a working man from 5 to 5 every day, and came home to farm the fields way past dark thirty every evening. Also, in His “Spare time” He dabbled in taxidermy, a craft He picked up around the age of 15, and today has more ribbons and awards than He can display on his walls. It too, is a hobby that has served him well, and us Proud.
Our Dad wears many hats and unlike some, He has worn most of them with much success. I don’t mean to make Him sound perfect. As I know, no one is…however, I will confess that you will walk a LONG HARD MILE in the desert sun to find a man of such good character, honest and steadfast. His flaws, if any, are few and far between. He is just one of the last really great men, unselfish men. An Icon.
HE IS OUR FATHER, OUR DAD, OUR FRIEND, OUR LEADER
As young teens, us four kids would sit around the table in the old farmhouse and chat with Dad about school, work, etc and sooner or later He would ask “Hey have you kids heard that new song by George Strait or Alan Jackson, I need to learn it by Saturday night, people keep asking for it. And just like that our Kitchen table became a rehearsal stage. We would sit and tell him the words as He strummed and picked to get the tune down just right. He would glance in our direction every few moments for an approving nod that He had the tune right. This was a normal in our home.
As we sang with Dad, we each would listened to him so intently that we would mimic His exact way of singing. His exact way of putting a “marty robbins ending” to most country songs he sang, and we would try to elevate our voices at the same exact part in a song that he did. We would even toss our heads back or off to the side the same way He did when he sang. And ever so slowly it began to happen. We “kids” starting picking up Dads guitar and playing it during his absence. He didn’t exactly endorse the idea, but He didn’t rule it off limits either. Poor Man, He would reach for His Gretsch at the end of a long day, or a rainy day to play it and it was ALWAYS out of tune from one of us hammering on it.
(Side note:)******************************
The farm house He was raised in since May of 1946 , and was still living in, and all of us kids were raised in caught fire on January 12, 1985. It was a Saturday just about noon, and Dad was at National Guard Drill. I called the Armory to get a message to Him over the phone about the fire, that everyone was ok but ALL WAS GONE. To this day I cannot imagine what it must have been like for him to top the hill, almost home and look down and where His childhood home stood for years , the large farmhouse was completely gone, all that remained was the chimney from a new fireplace he hired a man to built in 1976. Center brick was a Bi- centennial 1776-1976
He took it all in stride. I remember watching Him walk around the smoking pile of ashes in his army clothes . He looked over at his brother in law and said “Damn Dale, I think I’m going to have to pitch a tent”. He never cried about it, never yelled or cussed about it. It was done, it was finished, no one was hurt, so we all moved forward . BEHIND OUR LEADER.
I learned a lot about life from my Dad, that is a given, in fact all four of us kids did. Yet, this day , along with many other moments has remained etched in mind. We walked together up the road, to that same piece of property He bought in High School where now I lived with my little family in a old single wide trailer. He and
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Mom, and three brothers would set up camp with us for the next 6 months. We had a small daughter and had just found out we were expecting another baby the day before the fire. It was tight living for sure, but it was enjoyable and made many a good memory. Dad continued to be more touched by the generosity of others, all the food, and clothes, and offers of money then the loss of his boyhood home. That kind of thoughtfulness filled his eyes with water that threatened to escape down his face. Still, He soldiered on in true JOHN WAYNE fashion.
There were a FEW THINGS, my younger brothers were able to salvage before the fire consumed the entire home. They pulled a mounted Caribou and a mounted moose head from the walls of our living room, and grabbed 5 guitars and rushed out the front door sitting them far away from the fire in a snow bank as they could. Dads Gretsch was one of the prized saves that day. OUR LEADER STILL HAD HIS GUITAR
Did I mention Dad was scheduled to play music that same cold January Night. He came home that afternoon in his army fatigues and it was literally all he had left . The fire had taken everything. Between noon and 6 p.m. there was an entire “tip out” in our 1972 New Moon Single wide trailer that was packed with clothes and food for my parents and three brothers
In true Redneck style, there was such an overflow of everything, Dads resourcefulness was still in tact, and we used the roof of our trailer for an additional refrigerator for months. Dad assured us all that frozen milk would thaw quickly once it sat in the cereal bowl. LOL
Dad went to play that night in black pants that were too short, a white button shirt that was too big and cowboy boots that were too large for his size 8 foot and left him slipping and sliding on the snow and ice, but He left with his Gretsch in hand and played just as planned. He never whispered a word to anyone. I remember telling myself that evening as Dad drove out of my drive way, If He never shed a tear over losing his childhood home, I would not cry over losing that same home from my own childhood. It was more his home than ours. He lost a lot of precious possessions in that fire. Some things that belonged to his Dad, things from his school days, a silver watch with diamonds where the numbers would normally be from a company that appreciated his dedication and dependability. Those things don’t come back and yet still He continued to say “It was just a home and things , that family could not be replaced. We were fortunate”.
Dad came home that night, and told us how Ann, the band leader had secretly passed the word about the fire and it being a total loss. After midnight while he was packing up his Gretsch, the amps etc Ann handed him an envelope full of cash . He was blown away and kept telling her that He didn’t need it, He was insured and we would all be fine, to please give it back to the people. Of course She could not do that, and then the people who followed Dad and the band wherever they played began walking up to him and shaking his hand, offering campers, R V’s more cash etc. “Whatever you need Jim, let us know” they all kept saying. He was shocked and so incredibly touched by these kinds of moments. The following morning, we all sat at MY kitchen table, drank coffee together as we usually did, and listened as Dad retold the events of that evening. He and I sat for 3 evening and hand wrote over 200 thank you cards.
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I used to joke as a young teenager that Country Music ran through my veins before the blood did. As I married and had three children of my own they would often laugh at me when their friends were here as they said I could come with a song about anything. Our youngest girl would have friends over to spend the night and they would test me by saying ” how about a song about this or that” and some old song would come rolling out of my head and mouth like butter.
I refer to myself as a WORDSMITH of sorts. I have been journaling for nearly 42 years. I come from a long of writers, one being my great, great, Grandfather who kept a journal and wrote in it every single day during his years served in the great Civil War. It amazes me still today to read his writings. We pick up a pen and paper and take it so much for granted but over 154 years ago, paper was scarce and a pencil was a prized
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possession. Great, Great, Grandpa Jim Riley would pull his journal from its cold, wet, dirty, leather pouch and write the days happenings, tuck it back away safely and eat his few bits of rationed food or pick up his gun and fight or walk , whatever the orders were. I am still in awe of the man, his writings and his life.
Words have always captured my heart, songs are just poetry just set to music. I loved the stories and pictures a song could create in my mind. A song can describe so many feelings, and memories, and dreams. The words of a song can change lives, bring people together, heal a wound, and help you not feel so alone. Songs NEVER really die. The words and melodies live on long after we are gone.
Fast forward to today. I am a 55-year-old mother of three grown Kids who grew up listening to me play an acoustic Ovation guitar. The older we get it seems like the more hectic our lives become and though I have toyed with the idea several times of buying myself an electric guitar I have never done so. Figuring that it would play harder, or I just didn’t feel that something that extravagant was necessary for me. The acoustic was “ good enough”, and I learned early on that keeping my expectations lower in life tends to ward off a lot of disappointment.
We have 12 grandchildren all under the age of 12 and its like a BIG HAPPY CIRCUS whenever we are all together. The little children will see my guitars, ask me to play for them and then of course they want to play too. I let them pound or pluck the strings for a little while. They love to sing songs with me all the time…….but over the past decade I have allowed some unfavorable, non-encouraging words to put a halt to my playing or singing in front of anyone. Except the grand babies or I generally play when there is no one else around.
This last September while I was running the combine picking soy beans I was listening to music with my headphones and it suddenly occurred to me that I am not getting any younger. I had run out of excuses and decided I am done with living my only life around what others think or say. We only get ONE LIFE. So, I was going to seriously look into buying myself an electric guitar. I have only been wanting for 36 years.
I jumped on Ebay. I realized that Les Paul and Guild, Gibson are all great brands of guitars but my mind was set on having my own Gretsch. A ceremonial passing of the torch so to speak. Like My Dad, the LEADER OF MY HEART.
Guitars like his are Vintage, and not affordable for a “FarmHER” like me of little means. I opted for a Gretsch that wasn’t vintage, but still affordable. I hunted for the better part of two months. Completed a ton of research as to the make and models, and how Gretsch even came to be. Thank God for Google. I can just educate myself all day from the convenience of my kitchen table while I drink untold cups of coffee.
Finally I found one. It was up for Auction, and it could possibly be affordable for this farmgal. I did NOT bid. I waited and watched as the days closed in, the hours, and in the last fleeting seconds I posted a one time bid as high as I was financially able to go, I hit the “Confirm bid” button with 25 seconds left on the count down and I watched the amount on that Gretsch rise and rise and the seconds counting down 5,4,3,2, and BAM……THE SOUND OF THE WINNING BID AND A LITTLE SIGN THAT SAID “YOU HAVE WON” FLASHED ACROSSED THE TOP OF MY PHONE. I SCREAMED WITH DELIGHT AND EXCITMENT. Our oldest daughter and grandbabies were here at the time and they cheered right along with me though I know those little hearts didn’t know why I was celebrating.
DAUGHTER OF…….. THE LEADER OF THE BAND … finally has her own GRETSCH.
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My three brothers and I had the greatest privilege growing up. We were able to watch the day by day growth of another kind of legend. Fashioned by years of hard work, honesty, integrity, good humor most of the time, unfailing patience , understanding and love. The quiet LIVING LEGEND of our Father James Arthur Haas . He is one of the few GOOD GUYS left in this world gone crazy.
This is Dad Playing his Newer Gretsch in 2017. The vintage Duo Jet has been safely retired.
This is me, playing with Dads Vintage Duo Jet Gretsch 2017
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My 125th Anniversary Edition arrived Just before Christmas 2017. My young Grandson who is only 4 took the pictures of me opening it and playing it for the first time…Good Job Drew!!
This picture below is of My Dad, playing My Gretsch….. what a beautiful, priceless picture this is for me. I will treasure it always. He kept saying “its a nice guitar, great sound, I really like it”.
On January 13, 2018 someone crossed the center line on icy roads and totaled our white Ford F250 Super Duty, Diesel King Ranch Truck. There were injuries, lots of healing time, but no fatalities.
On February 7th, we bought another Ford F250 Super Duty Diesel truck, when we arrived home and I was looking out our kitchen window at the truck , and I thought the new/used truck looked like the same color as my Gretsch. Of course, I had to find out. I carried the guitar stand and my Gretsch outside and took this picture. It’s pretty cool that all three of my favorite things are in this snapshot. A Ford, A Power Stroke 6.7 Diesel engine, and MY FIRST GRETSCH.
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There is a song called the LEADER OF THE BAND. By Dan Fogelberg.
My brothers and I cannot hear it that we do not think of our Dad. My Brother Bryan and I used to try to sing it together, but neither of us can make it through the whole song. It hits too closely to our hearts. These are the words of that song:
An only child alone and wild, a cabinet makers son, his hands were meant for different work an his heart was known to none. He left his home and and went his lone and solitary way, but he gave to me a gift I know I never can repay.
A quiet man of music, denied a simpler fate, He tried to be a solider once, and his music had to wait, He earned his love through discipline, a thundering velvet hand. His gentle means of sculpting souls took me years to understand.
CHORUS:
The Leader of the band is tired, and his eyes are growing older, but his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul, My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man, I’m just the living legacy to the Leader of the Band.
My Brothers lives were different, for they heard another call. One went to Chicago and the other to St. Paul. And I’m in Colorado, when I’m not in some hotel, Living out this life I choose and come to know so well.
I thank you for your music, and your stories of the road, I thankyou for the freedom when it came my time to go. I thank you for your kindess and the times when you got tough, And PAPA I don’t think I said I love you near enough.
The Leader of the Band is tired and His eyes are growing old, but his blood runs through my instrument and his songs are in my soul, My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man…..I JUST the living legacy to the leader of the band.
WE ARE THE LIVING LEGACY TO THE LEADER OF THE BAND
**How fortunate we have been, to live and grow, and watch, and mimic a Beautiful Leader, A Beautiful Father and Friend. OUR DAD.
Back in 1975, my Dad worked for a small plastic injection company. The owner , Mel, was a real penny pincher from way back. Our Dad said, He would pay his electric just before it was to be disconnected so he could keep his money as long as possible. And, He was known to break pencils in half rather than give anyone a whole one. He was an odd, RICH man.
Mel, had a mini-motorhome. He wanted to trade it in on a newer larger unit but He said the Dealer ships were hesitant to trade it as the miles were too low on it. Our Dad had been planning a family vacation, and wanted to take us all out west to see the Badlands, Mt Rushmore, Rapid City, etc. So, after a lot of coaxing from Mel , Dad finally agreed to take the mini motorhome on our trip out west.
Early one summer morning, with the mini motor home loaded up with our clothes, light groceries and a few essentials, four kids and two parents we embarked upon the journey. My Dad was 39 that year, Mom was 33… Older Brother Stan was 14, I was 13, brother Bryan was 10 and the baby of our tribe Jimmy was 5.
Let me begin, first by explaining that when it comes to men, you wont find a better man, more intelligent , with super common sense, honest, steel blue and blade straight than my Dad.
He does however have the faintest little sin. He can cuss like a blacksmith when he’s frustrated or angry. They are only words to him…..its what he does when he is fed up with the set up. When he’s fighting time or animals. He never calls people these names, I have NEVER known him to belittle anyone, and He doesn’t beat on people or animals….In fact the older I get the funnier the moments seem sometimes when I look back on them now.
I will confess, as a child that it would scare me, I would get all nerved up and pray for bedtime because that was the time everything was ok. In my child like mind, I thought if Dad was THAT upset surely the sky was going to crack open and fall down, or something equally serious was about to happen. With years comes wisdom and knowledge, and with years I have learned that not only was this Dads way of dealing with things, but all four of us kids would come to “deal” with things that same way as adults ourselves.
We are somewhat proud of it actually, like it was right of passage or something . And if this is our biggest sin, well then bully for us in a world gone mad.
Dad gave us children the quick run down of the motorhome and how we needed to be very careful with it as it wasn’t ours, and what a privilege it was to be able to travel is something so wonderful. The gas mileage of course really was atrocious. And gas was pretty expensive that summer. We heard him talking, we saw his lips moving , we even nodded in agreement, but we were kids, country kids going to the big city.
So the trip began, and we weren’t 6 miles down the road, the boys got to scuffling around and busted the gold plexi-glass that separated the kitchen sink from the couch. DAD WAS SLIGHTLY IRRITATED BUT KEPT DRIVING.
We traveled during the days, parked in KOA camps at night, used bathhouses, and explored everything and anything whenever Dad would stop.
A trip out west from Lower Michigan is a bit of a haul. With four kids on board, we colored, read comics, fought, and ask a million times “Are we there yet”. Our oldest brother Stan, was the ring leader of our circus. He loved to have fun in quiet ways, and so one morning early, while we were all stretched out in the sleeper over the drivers cabin He came up with a brilliant plan.
He ripped the back cover off of one of our coloring books, with red crayon he wrote “HONK IF YOU ARE FROM MICHIGAN. My part in HIS brilliant plan was to put it in the back window so people could see it. I jumped down , went to very back of the motor home to the bathroom, lifted the blind, placed the “poster” in the bathroom window using a band Aid for tape and put the blind back down.
Us kids would count as the cars would pass and honk…there weren’t that many trust me. What’s funny about this story is…. if you could have seen it through the eyes of the man driving the motor home.
As per most kids, as time passed we forgot about our funny little prank. Now and then We heard Dad saying things to Mom like:
“What the hell is wrong with people, why are they honking. Do you think we are dragging something? Maybe we have a low tire, or He would even comment and say things like
” Look kids that cars from Michigan too”. This went on the entire day. Every now and then Dad would pull the vehicle over, get out and walk around the motor home checking tires, looking underneath it. We were kids. We had already forgotten what we had put in the window. We thought there was really something wrong with the motorhome and we would have to go home and not be able finish the trip.
We were just as concerned and worried as Dad was. Every few hours He would pull off again and check out the vehicle again to no avail. Late into the afternoon, we stopped for gas and to get a few things that Mom could cook at the KOA camp once we checked in a few hours up the road. Dad was pumping gas. Us four kids were above the driver cabin talking and reading books, rolling around and fighting over silly , small things.
All the sudden the back door of the motor home opened up instead of his drivers door. Cussing as he climbed the metal steps Dad went to the bathroom, pulled up the blind, and ripped the sign out of the bathroom window. He told us kids that every time he heard someone honking he thought something was wrong with the vehicle and ask us why we didn’t tell him about the sign. We just stared at him. We were kids…….. we forgot it ten minutes after we did it.
DAD WAS SLIGHTLY IRRITATED BUT KEPT DRIVING.
Through the years, Dad would tell this story to others, or just be remising about it at the supper table and we all would laugh.
As we travel along, there were always signs that said, “Wall Drugs 1300 miles, visit Wall Drug South Dakota. We kept asking Dad what is this place called Wall Drugs and he would just say “you will see when we get there”. And we did.
It was here, that I got my absolute first pair of Levis’ . I had never heard of them prior to this. I was 13. Dad told us kids he was buying us all a pair of jeans, and that we should take a few pairs into a changing room and try them on . To this day, I can still feel the way they felt, new and dark, crisp, with shiny silver rivets and the infamous red tag . They fit me like they were made for me. I loved those jeans, and I wore them for years and years. When I married I still had them.
Also that day, my Dad was buying one of my brothers a pocket knife and told me I should pick out a turquoise ring. Talk about a spoiling. Us four kids were LOVING Wall Drugs in South Dakota.
I chose a ring that looked similar to a class ring. I wore that ring and never took it off. At my wedding I wore it, during the birth of our three children I wore it, and I still have it today and though I don’t wear it much , it is one of my most prized possessions. It is from the “Fred Harvey Era Collection” and has thunderbirds imprinted on both sides and a perfectly square turquoise stone on top. It cost the same as my age then…I remember. 13.00 . Today I found it on ebay and it is a collectors piece and values for around 96.00.
We had lots of fun on that trip. On January 12, 1985 our old farmhouse caught fire and burned completely to the ground. Along with other memorabilia were the photos from this trip. Sadly lost forever, but In my mind I still the pictures we took.
We stopped at the BADLANDS. Where my Dad told us kids to stay up on the trail but he wondered way down in between all the curves and twists that the boulders made. Always looking for some ancient treasure. There was Dad way down at the bottom, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee up in the air as if to say “cheers” . I snapped that photo. Later, we read signs all along the route that specifically stated NOT to cross the rail and to stray on the path due to rattler snakes were everywhere.
We traveled to Mount Rushmore. Dad talked about the history of it all off and on all the way out west. We were all so excited to be able to see it in person. On the morning we arrived so did about 400 bikers. Dad wasn’t comfortable with the amount of people there, they had taken up the whole parking lot and were not friendly or willing to move or make room for others. So, we viewed MT Rushmore from the motorhome windows and we moved on down the road.
We stopped at CRAZY HORSE in the Black HIlls, of Custer Country , South Dakota. It is a Memorial on a mountain still under private construction . It is suppose to depict “Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota Warrior, riding a horse pointing into the distance. A man named Korczak Ziolkowski began the work in 1948. When it is complete, it will be the largest mountain carving in South Dakota and the world. It is an awesome sight to behold, emerging from the granite and iron is the likeness of a legendary leader, Crazy Horse is said to be pointing towards a dream of commitment, a fervent legacy and proud future.
This stop was a blast for us four farm kids from Michigan. We were able to get out and walk, explore and see movies on how the man was using dynamite to blast the monstrous rock formations.
We traveled through and around mountains that Mom claimed you could go around with the front of the motorhome and see your tail end coming around as you made the turn. She did not like the mountains at all, and at one point she laid down in the isle of the motorhome so she couldn’t see where Dad was driving.
One tunnel we went through was sooo tight, that even with a MINI motorhome Dad was afraid we wouldn’t clear and He sure didn’t want to scratch up Mels’s vehicle. So Stan got out and climbed up the ladder on the back of the unit, and rode that way through the tunnel. I stuck my head out the bathroom window and repeated to Dad whatever Stan said……..hold it, slow, slow, to the left, back to the right…. total redneck thing to do, but the memories here are SOLID GOLD.
One of our last nights out west, at a KOA camp, a storm came rolling in fast and hard. Lightning, lots of thunder and wind……our motorhome bounced and rocked back and forth. We had all gone to the cement bath houses for showers. Mom and I were last. While Mom was showering, I was waiting with a towel wrapped around me and all the sudden the doors blew open and the shower curtains went up in the air and mother yelled for me to shut the doors….when I tried to get BOTH the bath house doors closed, the wind was so fierce it stole my towel and flung me naked out the door and on to the cement apron. No one else was outside at the moment, in fact , normal smart people were tucked away safely in their motor homes.
Not us country folks, we never would let a little storm stop us……. oh my goodness today it hilarious to write about, at 13 I assure you I did not find it funny at all. I was mortified over and over every time my mother HAD to repeat the story to someone.
As a family, we took a several short trips through the years. One year up near Grayling Mich when Dad was in the National Guard and at Summer camp , we rented a cabin near by and fished for sun fish all day and saw a log church built deep in the woods with a glass cross in the peak of the building….some fun times.
Nothing ever stands out in my mind as much as our Trip Out West as a family. My first pair of store bought Jeans…(Levi’s) and a small sterling silver/turquoise ring from my Dad….a man that I still deeply respect, and love and cherish. I am the person I am today because I tried so fervently to emulate his ways. His wisdom, His kindness towards others, His self reliance , His honesty and the integrity he uses when dealing with people.
Standing Behind our Ring Leader, our older Brother Stan
Its just a yard or two of LOVE wrapped around them
But it teaches so many things.
I have never seen an apron
With “12” strings hanging from the back;
And I’m sure none of us could move forward
If we were all tied up in a “pack”
So I will Trust the Good Lord for their Keeping
That HE will Bless their lives all the time;
And I will hold them within my “Imaginary Strings”
Always tied to this heart….and…this Apron of Mine.
Written by Sherry Haas-Shelby
Not too long ago, my Oldest Grand Daughters Leah and Savannah wanted to make some aprons for their Fair entries. They just went upstairs and picked out some of the material I had on hand and they were ready to begin sewing them together. They have both sewn some before with their mom, so this was a pretty simple task.
I invited them to use some of my great Aunts handkerchiefs on the front of their aprons for decoration and for a remembrance of her as they had all known her also. Though she was their Great Great Aunt Carole.
Within no time at all the girls aprons were finished and they loved them. At the fair they both received “A” and proper points for them .
They chose their own color combinations and even though they both know how to sew, and were awake for their project..it delighted me to see their surprise of how pretty their aprons were when they had finished. Both the girls were so impressed with what they had made from old pieces of cloth.
Now we fast forward to last week. I have some younger Grand Daughters and they were in awe of their older cousins and their aprons and now they wanted one of their own also.
Again, we make the trip up to the material dresser and they picked out the material they wanted to use and this time they chose their hanky before they were certain of the material. Either way they wanted to follow Leah and Savannah and what they had done.
(Note here: Leah and Savannah are what we called the Older grand girls, they also have two little sisters Carly 4, and Norah almost 1. Older Brother Ben is 11….. We refer to these little ones as the younger grandgirls. Our Middle group of Grand girls consists of Allyson 7, Alaina, 5 and Emmalynn 5. ) Our Grand Sons are the same way. We have the Older boys Benjamin and Matthew, and then we have what we call the Younger boys….Logan, Andrew, and Jacob.
So Allyson sewed an apron, and then Alaina sewed her aprons and last was Emmalynn. The same pattern repeated itself. Each girl did the work, though this was their first time sewing and I thought they did a really good job as sewing and listening to me. Go forward, slow down, follow the line, now push the reverse button but keep your foot going. It was a good time, and we laughed much.
Alaina is much like me. When I was about 12 my grand mother tried to teach me how to sew. She was a magnificent seamstress and I mean anything from suits, to prom dress, evening gowns, costumes for Walt Disney …she was amazing. There fore teaching a little far tomboy like me must have been taxing for her. I remember her saying over and over again..
“SLOW DOWN , SLOW DOWN, God help you when you start to drive a car, that all I can say”. Today I laugh at that memory and how working with our girls triggered it back to my mind . I am still a fast mover today. I Don’t do many things at a slow pace and I see that in Alaina as I told her a few times that day ” Slow Down Girly…..you’re not driving a car”.
What a treat to share in this apron making circus. We laughed and learned from each other . And I am so grateful that they wanted an apron, grateful that I was here to teach it to them and grateful to GOD for the beauty, and love, and laughter, that each of OUR Grand daughters and grand sons bring into our lives..
IF you have ever watched the classic movie YOURS, MINE & OURS, with Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. Then you will understand that in the middle of the movie when the two parents get married and have 18 children between them and they go to the commissary to buy their weekly groceries the cashier always announces over the intercom.. “THE BEARDSLEYS ARE HERE”. Its a hilarious old movie.
Well, sometime ago shortly after New Years…… Papa and Omie (me) decided that we would like to buy all the grandchildren new bikes for their birthdays. Then we figured out that it sure wouldn’t be much of a birthday present to the grand children born in the late fall and winter. They would wait all year for their bikes and the others would be riding them if they were fortunate enough in the birthing order process to be hatched in the spring.
Then we conjured up that we would buy them all bikes for Easter. Mind you grandbaby number 12 in due in 2 months. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to do the math here and possible incur a small stroke. So we decided to buy a few a time. It was a good plan. It just didn’t materialize as we had hoped it would.
So last night, with only a week until Easter I figured I better go get at least half the bikes before the pickings are too slim. After all, Rockefeller is not my last name and our money doesn’t grow on trees. So off to the local Walmart I hurried. Picked up a few groceries and then to the bike section. What I CARE to know about bikes is that they have 2 wheels and brakes, oh and a chain is good. Seriously, you could never impress me with the brand of bike you own. It is just not important to me. Never has been, I was raised on a farm, and Dad would find our bikes at the local scrap yard, Red and Rusty were in and we were ecstatic to have something to navigate through the farm sand, and barn hill. Not allowed to ride on the gravel road, our paths were quite limited to say the least. Hills and grass, Hills and grass.
We picked through the bikes and found 7 that would work for the oldest seven grandchildren. This was not a small process at all, simply because Walmart doesn’t have the prices on the bikes themselves. So we constantly had to take a bike off the rack and walk it over to the scanner….price checking.
Next, came the BALANCING ACT. We loaded 2 of the 18″ bikes on to the top of our cart taking great pains NOT to crush any of the groceries. Then we had a couple Walmart employees each walking a few through the isles and up to the check out area.
What was hilarious to me and perhaps the funniest part of this endeavor was walking the parade of bikes toward the front of the store. People were stepping back and watching us, talking and pointing, kids were watching us with their eyes all lite up like little Christmas trees. Several older people would smile and nod and whisper, or say “There’s going to be some really happy kids somewhere”. I would explain that it was for the grandchildren’s Easter and they would just beam. One Gentlemen said to me at the check out “Do you have 7 children. I explained that they were for the grand’s and that I had almost 12, but was buying 10 and needed 3 more. He nudged me with his arm and said “You are a special Grandma and you are going to make a memory for them , they will carry for always’. “I sure hope so”, was my response.
It was a delight for our old hearts to watch the thrill that folks got just from seeing that many new bikes head out of a store all at once. We really are still a large country but have small town values. For the most part, people are happy to see other people happy. For me, it was sweet to see that folks really care about the small things in life, what really matters at the end of your day, week, year, life.
We will probably NEVER AGAIN, buy that many bikes at one time. I think we did do it once for our Own 3 children back in 1988. We did it for the children to BLESS THEM, not to for us to impress the world. We did it to show them how much Omie and Papa love them and we hope it creates a memory in their hearts and minds that will last for many years to come.
We all only live once, it matters not if we are talking about bikes, or jobs, or dreams. What is important is that we seek out that which makes us happy, and we remember that “TO MUCH THAT IS GIVEN…MUCH IS EXPECTED.
22 years ago, Burt sold me this farm. I still pay on it today and will be mortgaged till I die, but He didn’t just sell me a dream, He GAVE US A LIFE. A new beautiful family bonding life. Because He chose PEOPLE OVER PROFIT our children had a wonderful life here on this farm they would have otherwise only visited on occasion. Because Burt wanted the family farm to continue living , He sold it to someone that would strive to keep it alive and going and He didn’t sell out to the highest Mega farmer Bidder.
I am forever grateful, and more and more each day, for the gift of His love and unselfishness. I hope that I am paying forward in all the ways that I can, the kindness that Burt so willingly relinquished.
UPDATE 3/31/2016
Easter Sunday, we lined all the grandchildren up in front of the garage after lunch. ( the man in the blue shirt has all the power here, Papa.) When He hit that button and the garage door opened the screams were PRICELESS…..but on the videos our girls took, you could hear lots and lots of ” thank you’s” and that was precious to us.
Then, the chaos began. Kids were riding into one another, there were adjustments to make to seats, and training wheels, and brakes to learn to use. The little ones in their attempts to ride would ALWAYS be in the way of the older kids who wanted to RIDE FAST. It was in the famous words of Carey Grant “Good Stuff.
Back about 34 years ago I married into a family that was southern born and southern bred as the old saying goes. From the deep south. Where there is no “Sweet corn bread” made from a Jiffy mix, but rather the old-fashioned kind of cornbread that you make from scratch with real yellow cornmeal, buttermilk, flour, etc, and you pour it all into a hot cast-iron skillet. And when you eat it you crunch the cornmeal.
Biscuits are the same way. They are made from scratch and flipped into a hot iron skillet. It has been this way for 5 generations and back. His Great Great Grandmother, Great Grandmother, granny, mom, and now me. I confess that it took me about four years to learn how to make them, and there are days when I still feel that I don’t get the texture or height just right, despite having made them regularly for twenty-something years.
I remember one day when Granny ( in law) Marie decided to give me a cast-iron skillet. It was like passing the baton at the Olympics. It was a right of passage, like finally being accepted into the family, heritage in motion.She gave me a skillet and told me to be sure that I did not cook meat in my biscuit skillet. That you need one skillet for meats and one for breads to keep the correct conditioning factors.
Well, things went along for about four years or so, and Saturday afternoon, Granny was 79, called me up and said rather sternly, “Did I give you Pops #7 Skillet”?
I told her no. She talked a little further about not being able to find it and was SURE that she had given it to me quite a while back. Here comes the funny part.
When she and her pop back in the 40’s were migrant fruit harvesters, they moved from one state to another as the crops ripened, and would stay in little white cabins, sometimes a barn, they had to share with other families, with only blankets between them. This one particular cabin was so small, she said, “You had to go outside to change your mind”. The oven in that cabin was so small that her skillet would not fit in the oven, so Pop had taken the skillet outside and broke the handle off about halfway down, leaving barely enough of a stub to hold on to it, but it fit in the tiny oven….biscuits every morning on schedule. All was right with the world.
Now she couldn’t find her #7 broken-handled skillet, and she was sure she had given it to me. In the meantime, I had started collecting skillets at sales and using them a lot more. Skillets that are a #7 and made by Griswald or Wagner are SCARCE as hens teeth. I assure you , and just as valuable. I started to worry …”did she really give me that skillet….did I misplace it…did I get rid of it in a fit of cleaning one day?
I wouldn’t put it past me. When I commence to cleaning, things start to fly. A couple days later she called again and ask about the skillet again and said she would be coming over that Sunday morning for breakfast, and she was sure now after contemplating on it awhile that she had given it to me. Her words were “I know I did. “ Now I was in an outright panic.
When my husband got home at the end of his long 14 hour day, I handed him MY ONLY , PRIZED, #7 Wagner skillet and told him “GO BREAK THE HANDLE OFF THIS”.
He looked at me with disbelief and asked the obvious question. I explained the whole ordeal to him and apologized all over the place and told him if HIS Granny had in fact given me the historical skillet from when her and pop first “set up housekeeping” as she put it I have lost it, misplaced it, and surely will be excommunicated from the family if I don’t cough one up. I also told him that she was coming for biscuits the next morning and to please not tell her.
So he ceremoniously stepped off the back deck and, using a hammer and a cement brick, he broke the handle off my #7 skillet. Granny came for breakfast that sunday….I made biscuits in the #7 skillet much to her delight and she was thrilled. And I believe I heard a “I told you So” scrambled in with the eggs.
NOW CUT to about 6 months later. Hubby and I and the children were all over at her place cutting her grass one summer afternoon and she was in her tiny mobile home kitchen cleaning. When we came inside and were all siting around the table eating a sandwich Granny said “Hey look what I found underneath the sink”. She showed me her broken-handled #7 skillet. Well I guess you know my mouth dropped!!!!
“I guess you never had it after all hon”. She said to me and she was laughing.
I laughed right along with her and said “Marie,…..I had your Grandson break the handle off MY #7 skillet because you were so sure you gave it to me and I was afraid that I had lost it”. It was a good laugh and I was able to share this same story at her funeral in August of 2007., and being that her entire family was from the south….it resonated with them all and they loved the story.
And Yes…I now have the FIRST REAL BROKEN # 7 skillet that belonged to Annie Marie (Granny)…..along with the #7 skillet that my husband broke the handle off of. Hers has a CC molded into the bottom of the skillet, and mine does not. I suspect that when I am no longer in need of the skillets, each of our girls will receive a PRIZED BROKEN HANDLED SKILLET. Or perhaps our son, as he is a biscuit maker. I write these stories so that if I am not here to explain….my words will.
ADDITIONAL UPDATE August 2025. My brother delivered to me this month a beautiful #7 Griswald skillet with the deeper, wider sides that was picked up at a flea market for me in Kentucky. I couldn’t wait to make a biscuit in a number seven skillet WITH a handle still intact. Love GOD moments like these.
As superstitions go, I have never been a believer in them. Now and again I will participate in some silly ritual like making a cross on my windshield if a black cat crossed the road in front of me, I wont walk under a ladder UNLESS its the only way around it, and I have been known to stop a rocking chair if it was rocking just because I guess.
On Friday the 13th of April, yes Friday the 13th, I spent the better part of the day with My Mom and My Dear Friend. We hadn’t done anything together in a good year so the three of us took off from my farm and just made a few stops at little junk stores. I remember that several times throughout the day I made mention that I was NOT a believer in the stigma that goes along with Friday the 13. I serve a bigger God, He is in control of my world. We came home around 3:30 p.m.
At 9:30 I went to bed as the stomach flu has visited all our kids and grand kids and I was not feeling very well. I had only ate a few pieces of chicken strips the whole day and I just wasn’t sure if it was the grease from them in an empty tummy or the flu. Either way I wasn’t comfortable.
At 12:43 .m. I got out of bed and stumbled down the stairs for the inevitable. It was going to happen. And it did. Afterwards I was laying on the bathroom floor, so sick, my mind was not functioning at full capacity. After 20 minutes or so I was able to stand up without being dizzy and make my way to the living room. I laid back in my recliner and my head turned to the south windows. It was brighter than normal. I remember thinking “wow the moon is shining bright on this part of the yard”. I layed there a few more minutes . I heard a pop, but thought it was the damper on the outside wood burning unit. Then I heard another louder pop. I rolled my head towards the dining room and I noticed that lights were flickering on the windows that face the east.
I jumped out of my recliner and raced to the kitchen. There are 3 large windows that face the west, and a bay that is over the sink and faces the west. I looked up at the light over the sink, it wasn’t flickering. .I looked again fearing it had a short in the wiring. Still nothing. Suddenly, The whole kitchen was flickering and it seemed so bright for just one light over the sink on. I looked out the 3 windows by the table and I screamed… over and over I screamed. Our entire barn was a blaze in flames. I have never witnessed such a fire in person. (Photo taken by our daughters,)
(Thirty five years ago, when my childhood home burned I was living up the road in my own place and when I walked down the house was completely gone and all that remained was a lot of smoke and ashes).
While our youngest daughter and her hubby and children are building a new home across our 20 acre field in a wooded 5 acre lot they are living in a beautiful bungalow that we built several years ago for my elderly Aunt who is given the sad diagnosis of cancer. It room enough for a family for temporary headquarters but can be a bit tight after living in a real home with a lot more footage. This bungalow, which consists of a living room, kitchen, large bath and laundry room, bedrooms, offers quiet living way off the road with a spectacular view of the woods. It is the west 3/4 of the structure. On the east side is a 30 x 30 garage/shop that we make small farm repairs in.
Our Daughter and Son in law park their vehicles between the barn that burned and the garage/bungalow structure. When I looked outside and saw the old open front barn on fire …I was so scared for our kids and grandkids. I ran out our glass door without shoes or socks or coat. The wind was blowing so fiercely from the north and was pushing the flames across the driveway and into the cattle pen. The cattle were stampeding and jumped the fences . I ingested so much smoke while I ran as fast as I could. When I reached the bungalow, I beat on their bedroom window hard over and over again and kept calling their names and yelling fire…get out. Get out. Then I ran around to the west side where their living room door was and beat on it. They opened the door. Already they had discovered the flames because their outdoor German Shepherd was barking in a more alarming way than usual and Our daughter had gotten up knowing something was a miss. Our Son in law had already ran out the door, and stared their suburban and drove it to the west side of the building. I grabbed three of their children by their arms and pulled them, barely allowing their feet to touch the ground and I did NOT let go of those arms until all three children were safely in the suburban. I shut the back passenger door. Our daughter was in the driver seat with her baby in her arms and they drove up to our farmhouse.
Our son in law, ask if I thought he could save his Bosses truck, that He drives as the main crew leader for the company. The drivers side was all smoking and the flames from the building appeared to be the only dangerous part. So I said, “Maybe if you slide in from the passenger side. The moment He started that truck and drove it out from between the two building the wind hit it and the entire side of the truck was in flames. I was screaming for our son in law that it was on fire…..but as he is always a calm and collected man, he drove it to the water pump, put out the flames and then had the mind set to drive the truck out into the middle of a field just in case it still would blow.
Once our daughter was in the house with her children safely I then called 9ll. Carl was standing outside watching the barn in his pajamas and was constantly walking behind our wood shed building, and the grand kids playhouse. He was throwing up. Now the flu bug had hit him. Between his vomiting sessions and mine we stood in shock, in tears as we watched ……
.24 years of hard work and struggling to make ends meet and trying and acquire decent used, dependable equipment just going up in flames.
We had Four tractors, Farmall M restored and parade ready, A farmall 706 that ran but we had bought a motor to replace the one that was in it….a 1755 Oliver tractor, (my first tractor I ever bought of my very own) and was our steady work horse. We were just coming off of winter, so we had all of our equipment stored in the barn and lean to additions to keep them out of the weather. We had a New Idea EAR Corn picker, a New International hay baler, a Gehl 95 Feed grinder, a beautiful Ponderosa 4 horse stock trailer, three John Deere lawn mowers, (2 Honda Recon 250 four wheelers, a Badboy zero turn lawn mower that belonged to our daughter. While they are building they stored their outdoor things in our barn.) All our hand tools, hay and straw, wooden barn doors that I used for photograph props when I take pictures for families. All our yard ornaments were in there. Each fall I take everything out of the flowers gardens and rock garden and store them for the winter.
We continued to watch as our chicken coop full of chickens scattered and screamed with no way to get near them to save them. A turkey coop was gone. The barn which was 32 x 64 and had a 15 x 64 additions added on to the entire back of it. Added to that, was a 8 X 15 X 12 foot high corn crib that held 600 bushel of ear. It would have fed our cattle until late November when a new crop could be harvested. Now we will struggle to keep feeding our cows till fall 2018. We lost 20 Isa Brown chickens that were layers every day, along with 27 small chickens that had feathers and were bought and being raised to increase our daily egg production.
If the shock, and trauma wasn’t enough to endure try and adjust to,
Exactly 3 months earlier, to the day, Jan13) On our way to our grand daughters birthday party we were in a head on collision when someone else crossed the center line and we hit us . The claims adjuster from the Gauging Facility said She was doing 68 and we were doing 41. That was a G force of 109 mph. We had multiple injuries that we are still healing from, we lost a beautiful truck that we were unable to replace with same like qualities…..and a fire to our barn…
Whenever we get into a vehicle and another car appears to get too close, we both tense up. The force of that impact was so surreal. It haunts me all the time. I lay in bed at the end of the day and the scene from the fire plays over and over in my head. It just didn’t seem real. We are grateful that no one was hurt, that the flu HAD ME UP at 1 in the morning. And yet…
We were NOT prepared for the devastation of the visit from our “Insurance co”. They showed up on Monday morning….after we called 3 times. The “person/serpent” arrived at 10 a.m. turned on his recorder and grilled us until 2 p/.m. We had to sign for them to do a credit check on us, they made us answer questions about our mortgage, our utility bills, who we owed money to, did we have a drug or drinking problem, did we smoke…They would be diving into our checking account and our finances….what a total creep. Why. Because AFTER he got everything from us HE WANTED. He shut off the recorder, closed his little boy rule book and said..”None of your farm equipment was covered. You have no blanket policy.
Another hard hit. In 14 years the “AGENT” has never been to our farm, never called us. I called him about 6 years ago and added the new barn/bungalow building and made sure it had replacement cost. Our home also has it when I opened the account 14 years ago. Why this agent has never been here not one time in all those years SHOULD BE A NEGLANCE act and there should be some severe reprimanding for it. As of this writing he has still not bothered to call us or come by. Not that he would be welcome. The adjust that was here that Monday made us feel like criminals and he meant to. He later chastised me a couple days after when he let me know how “Unfriendly” we were to him after he said they would not coverage. Not sure what kind of world He lives in but I can assure you that I would not have his job of beating another person when they are already down, and I sure wouldn’t expect them to smile while I did it. Dealing with this adjuster was debilitating to both my husband and myself. For two weeks and two days we have hit every plateau of emotions like a bad rollercoaster ride. We are shocked, angry, hurt, angry again, we cry, our insides shake, we run to the bathroom, our nerves are shot. Our spirits broken.
The barn that burned is the ONLY building on our property that apparently did NOT have replacement cost. It supposedly was Actual Cash Value MINUS depreciation. How does a building depreciate when you keep up the maintenance on it. We painted it several times. Its a metal building. We had the roof painted . We built doors for all four of the open fronts on it. And yet they say depreciation is 1 percent per year. The barn was about 50 years old so they say that our payment will be about 30K. (after they give us 8 pages of drawing that the adjuster did, and shows us that it would cost about 64K to rebuild everything. Such a nice insurance company. INSURANCE is something you pay and pay on for years believing that you have some piece of mind, when in fact they are NOT there for you, they are modern day PIRATES that rape and steal from you with their hidden clauses and constant new amendments. That’s how they all get so rich and keep so much money that have their own credit unions and such. Where is our govt…..in all this. Well, again it wasn’t enough yet…then we were told that 7500.00 of the 30 will be sent to the township until the inspector says that we have cleaned up the fire mess to their specifications. Then we can put in a request for the return of the money. Had we NOT had insurance, we would have received a 90 day clean up notice. Its the little extra kicks into our already seeping wound that you gotta love. NOT
As far as our personal belongings we are allowed to claim our mowers as lawn care equipment but NOT anything else. They wont cover a 24″ pipe wrench or a vise as they are deemed for farm use. Again by their SENIOR FARM SPECIALIST. What a joke….guess no one uses pipe wrenches on household plumbing and obviously we must all HOLD our mower blades in our hands when sharpen them with a grinder. Couldn’t use a bench vise for that…….They crossed off a pink cozy coup car with matching trailer as a piece of farm equipment also. ITS A CHILDS PEDAL TOY.
All around this has been a bit of a rough patch for sure. While I tend to like the rodeo, I don’t care to live it and its been pretty tough to stay in the saddle and not let go. My faith took a direct hit.
I understand that God is not a vengeful God, and obviously if HE were in charge of everything and everyone there would be no children beaten, raped, or sick with cancers……there would be no murders of innocent lives. We wont ever know this side of Heavens Gate why any of the bad things that happen to ANY OF US on this earth. We have to square our shoulders, damn the torpedo’s that others are firing at us, and walk forward at full speed. We dare not take a moment to feel sorry for ourselves or sit down and wallow in the muddy puddles of life. It will get us no where. We will be covered in mud, dried to our skin, and still be just as sad and broken. We have to fight, we have to believe that things will get better, that beyond the rain clouds ..there will be sunshine. Eventually.
Its not the manner in which a man falls that is important, but rather how he rises that shows his true character and strength and faith. We temporarily lost our faith and hope, but The GOD I CHOOSE to believe in knows our hearts and understands our state of mind during trials like these. Id like to believe HE UNDERSTANDS
whispersofmylife.com 
