Peace and Grace

 Fifty-nine trips around the sun later. It is funny how at sixteen I knew it all, yet all these years later I have more questions than answers. All those years ago, my parents and I lived in a house with extra space. Over the years they filled that space and then some with my siblings but for that first year, it was just me. 

I remember so much of my childhood even parts people say I shouldn't be able to remember but yet I hold those memories like little clips of video reels stuck in my head. Remember when, I was about two and my mom was getting me dressed on the end of my parents bed. Remember when, we went to church at Clearwater High because Light of Christ was still being built. Remember dad holding my hand while I walked down the hallway in front of the cafeteria at Clearwater High after church.  No one is left but me, and my parents could never believe that those were memories and not stories that I made up that I remembered.

There is a memory of a story I don't remember but my dad told me when I was in about 7th grade. I was writing a paper about getting over something hard. I had no idea what I was going to write. My dad said, he remembered a time when he and I were walking and I tripped and dad stood there waiting for me to get up. There were these two ladies and they said to him aren't you going to pick her up? My dad said, I won't always be there for her. She needs to be able to get up on her own. That story has stuck with me. Now a days the world makes video reels about oldest children and how they need to learn to ask for help. At a very small age were we all told we don't need anyone to help us. Is that why we are stubborn and can't ask for help now?

Last night I met my sister Beth and her girls Emily and Ashley for ice cream. When we were leaving I mentioned that my brother's birthday is coming up next and we should take him out to lunch in the next few weeks. My niece asked if I wanted to have lunch with them by myself to celebrate my birthday with just the girls and Paul or if I wanted to share that with Al. My sister laughed and said she has been sharing her birthday with Al her whole life. We have always kidded each other about sharing birthdays. My sister Tori had her daughter Alex on our sister Beth's birthday. Since genealogy has always been a hobby of mine I have always believed that there are days that seem to matter in a family. Dad died on his parents wedding anniversary. Tori was born on my mom's parents anniversary. Some of the numbers of birthdates go in order: 15,16,17,18 then there are the outliers 5.22,24. Then there are the later numbers that lay to the side of the originals: 23.25 and 26 which takes the outliers and makes another group. Oh I almost forgot my day is shared by my aunt and uncle that got married on my birthday. They didn't know it was my birthday until their wedding day. See they gave me a pair of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. I thanked them for the birthday gift and they were really a gift for being the flower girl in their wedding. We were all confused that day.

In my 59 trips around the sun, I have spent more with Brian than I ever did with my parents or siblings. Yet somehow those first sixteen years, made their mark, left the scars and opened wounds that like a diabectics foot that will never heal. LOL. Not many would laugh at that analogy but not many would think of it either. Then again there are the lessons I learned, to be independent to stand up for myself and others. My ability to know what others feel and the empathy I have for them somehow was it always there or was it learned as well? 

Still more questions. In my adult years most of which I have spent with Brian we have had our moments as well. There are the ones that left scars and those that opened my heart like no surgeon ever could. Unfortunately, to open my heart they didn't crack my ribs. Just straight in with surgical prescision some have come into my  life and once they entered my heart they didn't close the door when they left. My pets would be one example. We are have had four dogs and six cats share our home and none of them sewed up the spot they entered my heart. Even Riley with his underbite ripping through my semi-old lady skin, I couldn't give him up. Maybe I am just a glutten for punishment.

Back to that know it all sixteen year old, she was a piece of work. So smart, yet naive. There are times I have questioned how it could be that I know somethings and other things that seem to be common knowledge to some is an obscure concept for me. It doesn't bother me when people don't get me. I understand that. My brain is clearly wired differently than most. I don't find it to be all bad. There are parts of me that people have told me along the way that I should fix. I shouldn't carry other people's back pack. It refers to me lugging along others problems as though they were mine and sometimes I set down my own and don't pay them any attention because of someone elses that I want to help. I understand the concept. It goes back to dad and that I need to help myself but there are times I dream of my load being lightened by someone willing to pick up my slack, but then again some of my slack I am the only one that can fix it or resolve it or carry it. 

As the new day is litterally about to dawn on my sixtith trip around the sun. I hope that my heart being opened for others will let me learn to give myself grace. That same grace I would offer any other living soul. I should offer to myself. That is the lesson I need to learn this year. Peace and Grace.

New Beginnings

 It has been a while maybe too long since I wrote here regularly. For the last few years it has been one thing or another. A project for the museum, or a new display. During the pandemic I wrote daily and the time that followed I worked on compiling those daily posts into a book. That book I completed last night. The book itself has been done for a year. I have spent the last year battling formatting and trying to get it just the way I wanted it. Each time I thought I am going to just pay someone to do whatever it that needs to be done. I would hunker down and research the problem and I would figure out a way to do it myself. I can't say it will be perfection. I can only say it is truly a work of passion and resilience. This morning I ordered my proof paperback copy after working for a short time last night on finishing touches. Now I will move on to the next phase sharing that book with the rest of the world.

"New beginnings are usually scary" said Sandra Bullock in Hope Floats. "Endings are usually sad." "But it is the middle that is important." Well I guess I am at the new beginnings stage. I have been wallowing through endings are sad, and have been for months. It has just felt like an endless stream of sadness. 

I don't' want to be sad but our pretty girl Princess passed away in May. My girl. She spoke to us in bow- wow-wow voice. She would look at me with her cloudy cataract ridden eyes but that isn't what I saw. I saw a young girl who fought like hell to not be left behind. When she found us at the SPCA they told us she has been returned 3 times. I almost felt like they were either trying to talk us out of her but at the same time they were like you can take her home today. We had a 17 year old cat at home and they said just don't write that down. We went into a small pen with her and Brian got down on the floor and she played with him licked his face and when she was done she came over and sat on top of my feet. My pretty girl had won my heart with one fell swoop. 

She was 3 years old, 50 pound, black Shar pei mix, her little ears folded over on themselves and her tail curled up over her body and she wagged it when she was happy. That was all the time except when she was guarding me. We took her to obedience classes and we couldn't be at the same end of the room as the rest of the class. They called her reactive. We tried to do the exercise where we walk her on a leash between other dogs but that wasn't going to happen with out a lot of barking and pulling and scaring the daylights out of everyone in the room except for us. Years later we came across a lady that was a volunteer from that class at the park and she couldn't believe it was the same girl. She still pulled and barked but we learned how to distract her from whatever was too close and we  moved on. 

Now I am trying to do the same thing. Move on. Brian has been ready for another dog since the day she passed. But me I look at a dog or a picture of one and want to cry. The tears are hard to see through right now. I can make many similarities between Princess and Kody (our first dog). Medium size black dogs that wagged their tails. Each with their own issues. Kody had seizures his whole life. Princess had a reaction to the sun and heat. If she got too hot she would get welts all across her body and her face would swell up. She would truly look like a Shar pei then. Many trips to the emergency vet and a boat load of Benadryl. One day we figured out what was causing it and after that we could at least know what her exposure was and if a pill would do it or if we needed her to get a shot. She didn't fuss or cry she was a good girl as long as there was no other dogs in the vet. We would usually just ask to be put in a room so she didn't upset the others.

Since Princess had her reaction with the heat we would move her bed away from the fireplace in the winter so she wouldn't get too warm. One time Brian pulled her bed away and as he walks away she gets up and grabs the corner and pulls it back closer to the fireplace. The girl was no dummy. She knew just where she wanted to be.

Three days after Kody passed the day before my birthday in 2009 we made a trip to the emergency room for me. My first panic attack. I returned to the ER two more times in a week. After that I had to find a resolution to my panic. I met a beautiful soul of a counselor and after listening to me she gave me an assignment. Go home and write a letter to Kody and tell him everything you want to say. I sat down a few days later home alone and hand wrote 11 pages of memories and wishes and all that poured out of my soul for the Best Dog (what we called Kody). The first time I wanted to call Princess the Best Dog, I told her you are the best girl dog. I knew it would take a while before Kody would give up that name.

So as the time has passed since I last saw Princess pretty face. I have thought about that exercise of writing about what I missed but the feelings have been so raw I haven't been able to do that. As she was aging I was already mourning. I mourned what I had, what I was losing. We accommodated every need of hers as any good pet owner would. Couldn't jump on the bed cleared off the bench at the end of the bed for her to use as a step up. Couldn't make that jump we called it spotting her. We would spot her to make sure she got all the way up on the bed. Never would I have let her believe she wasn't the strongest dog in the world. Thinking about her jumping up, her favorite place to watch the world go by was the wooden trunk under our front window. She would jump up there and watch people, dogs & cats even the bunny rabbits in the front yard. She barked to let us know what was there. We would commend her on her watchful eye and tell her thank you pretty girl for letting us know. This was another thing that slowly slipped away. she stopped jumping up and she would bark from the ground, just knowing something was out there. It would make me sad. Knowing she couldn't do her thing. Towards the end she would be laying on the floor or the couch and barely lift her head and let out a single bark and put her head back down. But we knew what she was saying. 

The best Princess story at the front window was when she was young we would have K-9 police officers bring their dogs to our street. They would hide something and have the dogs look for it. One afternoon they were running the dog down the street and the German Sheppard stopped in front of our house made his way around our front yard the whole time Princess is warning him not to come a step closer to her house. He actually stopped and looked up at her then continued until he found the contraband. After that the police officer without his dog came up to our door and knocked. As he stood at the bottom of the step he realized he was looking in the eyes of the dog that was doing all the barking. When we opened the door he was surprised to find our pretty girl standing on top of the trunk barking in his face now that the door was open. He said I just wanted to meet the dog that made my dog stop working. LOL. I don't think they did that in front our house anymore.

As Princess was getting older she didn't want to eat dry food so I cooked chicken and rice for her just like I had Kody. One thing about dogs with seizures the medicine kills their liver. But we were able to help by feeding fresh food. Princess she loved scrambled eggs or anything on my plate. Just like with Kody I knew one day I would cry that I got the last bite of my own food. But my pretty girl would gobble up what ever I had made so fast I would say she couldn't even taste it. 

Princess was good with children and older people. When my nieces and nephew were young we could sit on the floor and as long as they weren't trying to eat we would be ok. If they were eating Princess would often deem them too slow and take the food out of their hands. She didn't understand why the kids would hold the food so long and the kids didn't know why Princess was eating their food. As for older people after my mother's stroke she stayed at our house for a few weeks. Princess was her companion. She went everywhere mom went. Mom would open the back door to smoke and let Princess out. Princess would come in for her treat. Mom couldn't go down the steps but I didn't like her smoking in the house so this was her compromise until there was someone to help her down the steps.

When we had Kody we had taken him on a few trips to North Carolina with us but Princess always stayed with one of my sisters. We did take her camping the first time we took out the RV. She was really good and sat on the bench in the back while we drove. She slept on the small bed with us at night. She loved the outdoors but it rained that weekend so we went for a few walks but spent most of our time inside. She was just a happy girl. she loved being with us. 

So many memories flood my brain. The time after Hurricane Irma we had no power after 5 days my first day off. I took her to Chick fil-a and drove through got me a sandwich and her some nuggets. We sat in the car at a park with the air running in the shade to cool off and eat our food. When we got home I was going to hose her down and when I went in the house to get on a bathing suit the power came on. Thank God. Not soon after that our fence was still down after the storm and she got stuck on her side with a board and had to have staples in her side. She didn't cry or whimper we didn't even know she was hurt until Brian went to pet her and he stuck his finger in the hole. No cone for the pretty girl though the vet tech suggested since it was going to be weeks with the staples to get her a t-shirt and tie a knot in the back to cover her side. She never messed with it at all. 

Speaking of Princess getting hurt about 3 weeks after those staples came out our girl was chasing a cat through the back yard, not our cat. Just one passing through the wrong yard. The cat went over the picnic table we had and Princess tried to go under. She ended up cutting a V shaped section out of her scalp. Don't know if they counted how many stiches that took but our regular vet was like you are going to have to take her somewhere else. The poor girl with her head split open and they couldn't stich her. Emergency vet here we come again. We were like really we just got done paying for the last emergency vet trip. And one more.  Another time she got into a scuffle with a opossum. The opossum scratched her eye lid she had to have 15 stiches.  Who would know we live just a block from the busiest street in our area. 

My pretty girl we could go on and on with memories and funny stories of things that you did. When you were a bad girl and when you were the best girl. When you were my pretty princess. I miss you everyday. 

Excerpt from a poem She is Gone by David Harkins

You can shed tears that she is gone
Or you can smile because she has lived

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her
Or you can be full of the love that you shared

You can remember her and only that she is gone
Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on

Thank you for the years of good times and good memories. The memories will live on as long as I do.

 

Grand Opening

Tonight I was thinking that this week has been a lot of Sunshine even though it has rained a lot. This Blog started out at a very sad time in my life and it helped me live with the sadness and pain I carried. I have always found it ironic I write more when I am sad or mad then I do when life is good. So today's post is to say I am thankful for the good times. The times that go by that I am not dwelling on yesterday or worrying about tomorrow. I am busy working on today.

In the last year and a half I have been volunteering for the Clearwater Historical Society. I signed up at a Fish Fry and thought it would get me out of the house and maybe I would enjoy it and meet some new people. Well. I started a few weeks later with a lady named Susan at South Ward Elementary School sorting through boxes of items that have been packed away in Plumb House on MLK Jr or Greenwood as I prefer to call the road. I have always had a tie to the Plumb House indirectly I dated a Plumb when I was in high school. I remember in their house in Dunedin was a framed poster of the Plumb House. 

George Washington portrait in kids corner

After mom passed away we had so many items that were related to Clearwater that we felt we should give them to someone to preserve them. My sister Billie and I dropped off multiple boxes at the Plumb House to people I now know to be Lila and Buddy who have spent countless hours along with Susan and I and many more sorting through items and boxes at the South Ward School. The historical society has had a lease with the Pinellas County School Board for a few years and with the help of donations and grants they rehabilitated the original school building from 1906 and tomorrow we are going to have our grand opening. I started a couple days a week a few hours before work and one of my days off. Brought some more items and cataloged items my family donated. I know to some they are just old things but to me they are memories. Tomorrow we at the Clearwater Historical Society will start sharing these memories with other residents and visitors in beautifully restored building. 

Wednesday night we had a party with a Who's Who of Clearwater and the turn out was great. It is the middle of June and people were visiting outside with each other and checking out the displays inside. Displays showing off businesses of days gone by. Some everyone will know and others I had never heard of. We also have school displays covering over 100 years of schools. I am anxious to share my story about the camphor tree on Gulf to Bay near US 19. On Wednesday night there were two ladies that were standing near my tree story and I started talking to them and let them know that I wrote the info on the tree and it's history. One of the ladies wanted to fact check me and was pleasantly pleased that I did my homework. The other after talking for a minute we realized she knew my mom. She read my story and loved the voice of the tree telling the story. My heart was so happy.

Paul working the sign in table for Grand Opening

That afternoon when I was leaving in the rain after working as long as I could, I crossed Fort Harrison on Turner one of the older houses on the right I spotted a white egret and anytime I see a egret I think of mom. So as exhausted as I was the tears started rolling down my face wishing I could share this with her. I don't know if she was still living she would have parted with some of the items we did but as my nephew Paul and I walked in the museum on Wednesday night I said, see that George Washington picture over there it came out of North Ward. Your grandma took it home when the school was going to throw it out. That picture spent years in a closet that we only saw when digging through the closet. Paul reminded me that yes, I had told him that before. I said, grandma would be proud. When my oldest niece was young grandma wanted to teach her that some things were sentimental. That was probably a big word for a Kindergartner getting picked up by grandma but it has been a running joke ever since. Someday soon I will start teaching her daughter words like that.

Grand Opening visitors

Days have passed so I am going to finish this post we had our Grand Opening, and it was a hit. We had hundreds of people in the museum. Seemed like all at once. I greeted people as they arrived along with Paul and heard their kind words of encouragement as they left. Most pleasantly surprised that the City of Clearwater now has a museum we can call our own. I am so glad that I signed up to volunteer that day. That was me sticking my neck way past my comfort zone and no matter how tired I am I love every minute of it.

Mom would be proud

This week we finally had an estate sale. I took the week off from work and finished organizing and cleaning out closets and emptying out boxes and we had a sale. I spent so much time there this week and am tired but I didn't realize I was going to have a Panic Attack well two. One on Thursday night because I didn't feel like I had gotten enough done and the other Saturday night because I could do no more.

Panic is like breaking your arm. You forget over time what it feels like but then when it happens again your like, oh yeah. This sucks. But with the help of some friends I got through it. And even though I am awake in the middle of the night I am feeling rested and have off today also for me.

I knew we would have all kinds of people come through the house but the ones that were Jack Asses really got me mad. The people that everything is too expensive and your not going to sell anything. I had one first thing Saturday morning and I am not a morning person and he pissed me off. I told him I didn't need his negativity so early in the morning and since he didn't have anything in his hands I couldn't do better on the price. One of my sisters walked by and I said, "what a jack ass." She turned and looked back and said, "he is still there." I didn't care.

It was the other people I never thought about. The people that were like mom and grandma, that loved to go to the sales and find a treasure and bring it home. The pastry chef from the Yacht Club who went through mom's cook books and was so excited by her finds. She said, "what a great collection mom had." So I showed her one of my favorites that mom would be glad to know she has, it was a Treasury of White House Cooking. On the first page it said, Jackie Kennedy Onassis returns to the White House. It had stories of when the Kennedy's were in the White House and other first families and some of their favorite things. She came back and sent one of the other chefs as well. I told her the second time she was there what it meant to me by her appreciating mom's cook books. I told each of my brother and sisters that story so they all knew someone else other than mom will love her stuff.

We also had a young bride-to-be that collects vintage Fisher Price toys for her future children that couldn't believe mom had saved all these toys from our childhood. And the Barbie collector with OCD and asthma that went through boxes of miss matched pieces. She bought Barbie's with missing limbs and heads that my mom saved. These are the people that I want to remember.

Our best customer as my sister said, "was the ad she didn't place." She had called to place an ad in one of the weekly little newspapers and was too late to get in but the lady on the phone said, sounds like a good sale and can I tell a few people anyway. Sure. So she came and her friends came and so on. People called people once they walked through the house and told others. My sister would say when they walked in the house walk through the whole house twice and you may see half of what it here.

The people I didn't count on were the neighbors that stopped in that didn't realize that mom had passed. One lady walked in and said, "where is Jeanne?" I lost it. I just started crying right there in the living room. We had a few and that was really hard but then there were the people that also grew up on the beach that we reminisced with. The ones that went to the Youth Center or sailed Prams. The ones who knew other people we knew back in the day. And the ones that remember Pier 60 and the old hamburger stand and the pool and the soccer field that is now a parking lot. The ones that remember how great it was to grow up on Clearwater Beach.

This weekend was as therapeutic as it was difficult for me.  Mom would be proud. She would have loved talking to the chefs and sharing her stories of finding the cook books and telling the stories of how she loved her cast iron pans that one of the chefs bough all of them. She would have loved the cat lovers that bought her cat statues and she would have even had choice words for the jack ass. That was mom.

And not only did all those people walk away with a treasure they all got a story and now they will have a memory of the lady in the big house that had saved all these things for so long for this weekend so that they could find them.

My brother and sisters did as we have done many times before and pulled together and worked hard for a common goal. Mom raised us to be a team and even through the difficult times we know when we need to walk away or when it is our turn to step up to the plate. And I can say this weekend we all hit home runs.

When I see you again...

In this last year I have written about all of the emotions of taking care of a parent and the loss of that parent. And over the last 11 months have been working on clearing out that same parent's home. That home that we have all walked through the back door a million times and the home that same door was never locked. For years no one had a key because it was always open if someone was home and someone was always home.
I have shown you around the house. Told you stories of the kitchen and the tv room. Talked about holidays spent in the living room. But over the last year or so I have always found in the midst of whatever was going on in the house I really tried to hold it together but always found that when I get in the car and start to head off of the beach I usually feel compelled to call someone. Because it is in those moments that I am truly my saddest.
Last week when I left a friend called at that very moment and she could tell something was wrong and I told her that I was just leaving mom's and she said, "I called just to make you smile." Thank God she called. We talked and laughed my whole ride home.
Tonight as I left was no different but tonight I decided to tough out the drive home and then comes on the radio a song that made me cry. See you again by Charlie Puth. The words just hit me, "It has been a long day without you my friend, I will tell you all about it when I see you again." That was our ritual at night on my way home from work I called her. I told her about my day. She hadn't driven in two years so unless I took her out or someone else came and got her she was home so she always wanted to hear about what I did during the day and the same with when my brother got home from work. He would tell her about his day. Even at the end when she couldn't speak on the phone, I would call and talk to whomever was with her and tell them to tell her a few things and hear about her day. Some asked why I still called every night. Why would I stop?
The song goes on to say "Why did you have to leave so soon?, I know your in a better place but it is always gonna hurt", I know mom was ready and it was her time but we did have a lot of things yet to do. "We've come a long way from where we began" In this last year my brother and sisters have worked hard on getting the house ready to sell, garage sales and auctions and part of that has meant going through 40 years worth of stuff. Over the last week my brother has moved into his own house and we have all five of us worked together which up until now has not been easy but we are working hard together to get this job accomplished. Mom would really be proud of us. "Hold on to every memory" We have sorted through boxes and closets and still there is more to do but we are really close to having one last sale and it is amazing. We laugh when we find some old picture and some strange thing that only mom would have saved. I have seen what I thought would not happen come to life right before my eyes in the last week, "Give me all the strength I need to carry on."And in the next week we will be ready for the next part of this journey. "And every road you take will always lead you home" This I am not so sure of. I don't know if I will ever go back by after it isn't our home. I just want to remember it the way it was for the 40 years that my family held down the fort there. But there is one thing for sure mom: "Oh I'll tell you all about it, when I see you again."

Silent Night

Yesterday I was reading online about a story telling event coming up and the theme was music. It said to come tell a true story about music in your life. A song from when you were young that you loved or one you couldn't stand. It said no notes or props and you have 5 minutes to tell the whole story with a beginning a middle and an end.

Well being that Christmas has barely passed by and our tree is still up I thought of Silent Night.
Now anyone that knows me knows that Silent Night makes me cry. Just the thought of the words will bring me to tears. And I thought of all of the things in my life that have brought me to this point. I was trying to think of where to begin.

Do I start when I was young and how my mother loved Christmas? So many gifts, and that she would put up two Christmas trees in our living room one with traditional decorations and one with decorations we had made. She would save the ones we made from year to year and decorate with them. But it always seemed as we were decorating you know five kids and a couple parents and next thing you know there would be an argument over something and someone was getting in trouble and someone was going to their room. Well fast forward a few years and I just learned to avoid that whole experience and would not be around when it came time to decorate the tree. If your not there you can't get in trouble.

Dad who didn't have a long fuse or a lot of patience for the holidays,  I remember him saying he didn't always know how to act because he didn't have a father while growing up. I was a little older when I heard of how he lost his father at Christmas.

Lets flash back about 40 years to 1950 my father he is about 7 years old and the tree is decorated and the house is all ready for Christmas and his father passed away on Christmas Eve. Well for those of you who didn't know back then in Ohio where my dad lived people didn't get laid out at a funeral home they were laid out in their own home. So there it is Christmas morning my dad and his two brothers and two sisters having Christmas with their dad laid out in a casket in their living room.
My uncle the youngest in their family recently told me that he didn't remember that Christmas he was only two but that his sisters had told him that he played with a car he got for Christmas along by his father that day.

We have gone from the 1970's to the 1950's and now to 1990 my grandmother, my dad's mom passed away on December 20. My grandmother loved Christmas. She always had a beautiful tree and it was the same every year and when I was a kid of my dad's brothers and sisters there was a time when we all lived within a mile of my grandma. That was 15 of 16 cousins most of which were young children at the time. We would all go to grandma's house on Christmas. She had a little chalk board by the front door and we would sign in when we got there. She would always take a picture of our names all crammed together. By 1990 however we weren't all as close in proximity and weren't all going to be able to go to grandma's for Christmas. But there we all were on Christmas eve at mass for my grandmother's funeral. Then back to her house for the wake. And the picture I have posted before that the whole family is in except for me. I went back to work.

I know I thought what a tragedy Christmas is for this family and how sad that is just to think such a thought.

So another 10 years have passed and I am now an adult and have found my way around the sadness that comes with Christmas. I have found that if I decorate the tree alone that there is no arguing. I just found as I got older my fuse got short around the tree and it was easier for me to just do that part alone.

2004 Christmas eve and there I am sitting in the same Church that we had my grandma's funeral all those years ago. Me and my youngest sister and her husband and her beautiful little baby boy. And that is the day that I remember for the first time that when the song Silent Night started to play and the words just rang in my heart. That little boy laying in his carrier next to me who when he breathed it sounded like a giggle. That little flap in his throat didn't close all the way and you would hear hee-eee, hee-eee.

By this time I have reached beyond the years that I would ever have a child of my own and this little baby was about the most beautiful thing in the whole world and all of my life and this reality all mixed together and when I heard the words, "Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace." I just started to cry. Still to this day I see the image in my head. Him in his little green onsie with a Christmas tree on the front.

Another 12 years later and I am sitting with my mom on Christmas Eve. She is bedridden after her second stroke and I am spending the evening wrapping presents and we are watching old home movies and I know in my heart this will probably be our last Christmas together and please God don't take her on Christmas.

But my mother the most stubborn person I know, knew that wasn't the way the story was going to end. We had our Christmas, just like in the past. The five of us all were together with her we shared gifts and stories and watched those home movies and there next to the fire place was that same tree.
That tree we decorated as kids. Now itself over 40 years old, with an ornament hanging on it that said Happy 40th Birthday from 2009.

So we have come to the end. This Christmas it was not the same. Now my mom is gone. But we went to church on Christmas Eve with my youngest sister and her husband and that little baby boy who is now 12 years old. There he was sitting across from me and when I heard the music start and I looked at his face and I heard hee-eee, hee-eee in my head and those words "Holy infant so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.

I don't know if that is the kind of story they are looking for but that is the story that came to me.

Look around the Kitchen

I have been reading a book at night for the last month or so, called "The Big House" by George Howe Colt. About the summer house that had been in his family for generations and the last time back before they sell the house.

Well, ironically this summer I saw it on a table at Barnes & Noble and the picture on the cover made me cry. Not that it looked anything like the house I grew up in, but what memories that 100 year old house must hold. Tonight I read from a page saying how there are things setting places that basically because they were not moved they were left and became part of the house. A simple shell sat on the mantle was an example or even a book used in place of a caster missing from a piece of furniture. Once they are there they become familiar and they stay. Just that sort of thing was the old dining room table that we used as kids until the family out grew it and mom bought a new one on clearance at JCPenney. The old table didn't get sold or thrown out. It was moved to a place where it could be used when we had extra people over or a breakfast table on the enclosed back porch. But over the years mom would bring home little animal statues and and baskets and rocks got carried in or shells and they ended up on the table. It has been years since the table served food. The table has a whole new purpose. It was the place to drop your stuff when you came in the back door or the place the ash tray sat that mom used outside. The ashtray is an old black plastic ash tray that has a notch broke on it and she had asked me years ago to replace. I bought her two new ash trays. Don't know where they are but I guarantee they have never been used and the broken black ash tray continues to be used daily by my brother. See I understand the kind of nostalgia that causes that sort of thing to happen. Why use the new one the old one is working just fine. Same goes for just about everything I look at in her house.

I have written about sorting through things and laughing at things that we have found. I wish we could have done this while mom was alive. I wish she could have enjoyed the memories. But I know just like with me the memories are hard to part with. I know there are things that are gone that mom wouldn't have gotten rid of just because they had been there so long. And this is where I try to sit those things out and see them when I go in and out and to help me either remember the memory that goes with that thing or carry out the door and use it in my own house. Like I have said before I brought home a couple measuring cups. I got rid of my plastic ones and now I have to look to find the glass ones but I have used them and will continue to use them. I am going to do the same with some of the serving spoons mom had or a spatula. I know we have spoke of mom's love for measuring cups but I am pretty sure I never mentioned her love for early 20th century kitchen utensils.

Do you have a butter cutter? I know mom has at least two and one will be coming to my house. Do you have serving spoons with wooden handles or Bakelite handles? I bet I could find at least 3 meat grinders fully intact in the kitchen and at least that many rolling pins if they haven't already found their way to someones house. I could go on and on. Oh I know we just found them, nut crackers and picks. Mom had enough that everyone could have their own for when we had crab for dinner.
The drawer next to the stove is double the size of a normal kitchen drawer and it is so heavy you have to put your hip into it to get it to close and you have to shuffle things around to get them to settle back into place. Once the drawers were all full she took to buying plastic storage drawers which she had at least four on the counter holding the utensils that wouldn't fit in the drawer by the stove.

I would like to say those were the only unusual things in the kitchen but I did not mention the flowered wall paper on the ceiling that was there when we bought the house, Never came down because well it was there and we are all used to it after 40 years.

Will the next person say, "oh my god?"
Yes, and they can take the time to remove it. While they are in the kitchen they will probably want to remove the blue paint that is on the wall behind the refrigerator. When I was about 25 mom went away for Thanksgiving weekend and and the 5 of us decided we would surprise her remove the blue paint from the knotty pine cabinets and walls. Well this was more than a long weekend project but we did remove 80 percent of the blue paint but the remnants of that weekend are still on the wall. Mom was mad that we started, mad that it didn't get finished. Just plain mad. But it was one of those things she had talked about doing since we were kids.

Okay one last thing in the kitchen. The pictures on the refrigerator. I guess it kinda started with the grand kids, A picture of Timmy here a picture of Alex there. Oh every one's favorite Alex picture going down a slide at McKay Park on Mandalay, Smile as wide as the slide. Yellow side, blue shorts and shirt. See it is all here. Not the picture but the memory of it on the fridge. The funny thing is Alex always know as the Angel. Always reminded to keep her halo on straight. Mom would tell her things like that is okay to do with grandma but you really shouldn't talk like that to other people. Mom would spoil all of them bad but Alex she got a lot of mom's attention. So Alex would count how many pictures on the fridge were her versus her brother and when Emily, Ashley and Paul came along well it was an all out war. The kids would see whose picture got a prominent location on a refrigerator that was covered in photos. They would count how many on the front and how many on the side. I would be lucky to be in one family picture and one picture with me and Brian from New York.

Well, I am glad I could show you around the kitchen. And have preserved the memories for those that will come after me.

The last few months

Over the last few months I have stopped and started more posts than I have probably started and stopped in the entire life of me writing this blog. Most of the time when I write it is a one and done. But lately I can't put the thoughts together the way they normally flow so I stop and think I will finish that thought tomorrow but the next time I sit down to write the thoughts don't fit or I can't finish so I start again and again and again. So after talking to a friend today at work I thought maybe I would combine them into one post and share some of what I have been going through. I was telling this friend at work about the other night when I was looking over a dining room table full of measuring cups that my sisters pulled down from the top cabinet and washed and sat out for us to decide which we wanted to keep and which we were going to part with. While this was going on I kept looking at the table overwhelmed with memories. My sister Beth said what is the matter, do you want them boxed up, do want the table cleaned off before we leave. I just kept looking at the sea of measuring cups. I decided to share what I was going through. I picked up a thick glass measuring cup and said, "mom used to use this measuring cup to measure powdered laundry detergent when we were kids." I picked up a pitcher and said, "mom used to make Donald Duck frozen orange juice in the pitcher." My mom would save bacon fat in the refrigerator in a one cup measuring cup. These are not memories I think about everyday. These are memories that came flooding back when I saw the measuring cups. My friend at work thought it was great that I have memories attached to the items but by seeing the items it brought back all these memories. There was a set of holiday glasses from Long John Silver from back in the 1990's. I asked Beth if she knew why mom saved them. She said, "I know it has something to do with me but I don't know." I first said that they were from Long John Silvers and mom knew that when Beth met her husband when he worked there. So my mom thought it would remind them of when they first met. They were washed and Beth took them home.

4/20/16 Four days before mom's birthday.
So this is a quick start after watching the end of the movie Wild and a shower so it is kind of a before the hot water runs out and before I have to go to work. I have been reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, a book about his youthful years in Paris writing and living this poor Parisian life but rich with friends and living. And then over the last few days I have watched the movie Wild. I had to break it in half because I started to late one night to watch the whole thing but I found that the movie was based on a book written by a woman Cheryl Strayed. Over the last few days I have read about her because seeing the movie which is based on a portion of her life after her mother died and she decided to walk the Pacific Crest Trail. Something both her and Hemingway say is that they have to work to write. She thought she had something in her and thought it would write itself and Hemingway speaks of how he has to train to write. Which is what made me decide I had to write even if I only have 20 minutes. I will finish tonight. But just like walking a trail or writing a novel you must walk. Put one foot in front of the other. And even if I only can take 5 steps and have to go to work at least I walked those 5 steps and I will take 5 more tonight and it may take a long time but if I don't start I can never finish.

I also realized this morning after the movie that her loosing her mother and I losing mine is not the same. She was much younger and her mom was my age. Her mom thought she had so much more life and always looked at the positive side of whatever happened. She was happy she came out on the other side.

4/22/16 Two days before mom's birthday.
Today I did some things that I have been promising myself that I would do and now they are done. I don't feel relieved or that a burden has been lifted. I still feel the same. I have more tasks just like this that I am going to have to do and I don't think they are going to make me feel better either. I don't really know what will. But on the way down to the beach today I was listening to the radio and heard the song "Landslide" by Stevie Nicks. It was an acoustic version but the words made me cry. People see me in the car and think there is that lady crying again in her car.

But at the beginning Stevie Nicks says something like this is for you Dad. Which made me think what I was about to do. This is for you mom. Hope I am doing the right thing. So the song talks about a child handling the changes in their life, Life is always changing. I feel like once I get through a change the next one is lining up to wack me in the back of the head. I question my ability to handle all of the changes in my life. I see people with bigger problems and wonder why can't I handle my issues as well as they do their's? Why is everything such a big deal to me? Why can't I shake some of these things off and move on?

And then the next line of the song says it all, " I've built my life around you." I see everything I have ever done for my mom, all the doctor appointments, all the trips to the bank to the grocery store. All the times she asked me to be the grown up when I wasn't and all the times as an adult that I have just wanted to crawl into a cave or walk away from whatever trouble that I didn't want to deal with or felt I can't handle. Maybe part of it was facing that one day I would be facing just this. Her death and whatever comes next. Do I want to be like her after her mother died? Do I want to sit in the house and smoke cigarettes and drink coke and fade away? Deny that there is anything wrong and hope it will get better by seeing a doctor but changing nothing. In someways that is exactly what I do. I want to lose weight but I make minimal changes and then cry that they don't make a major difference. Is that my landslide? I see the scene of I "climb the mountain and turn around". Do you see my reflection in the snow covered hill, well the landslide brought me down. When I heard that part I see her walking away and turning back for one last look but I can't bring her back down. Not even a Landslide can bring her back down. And which her do I get the sick bedridden mom or the one that still has a chance to make a change. Maybe that is what I cry for I need to make the change. I need to do it and no one else can. Maybe I only cry because mom is gone but I cry for myself because if I don't change will the landslide bring me down.

4/30/16 A little break from all the sadness.
Today Brian and I attended the second game in round two of the Lightning playoffs against the New York Islanders. For future readers the Lightning won, 4-1. We sat in the 5th row on the goal end that the Lightning defend twice, thanks to Brian's friend Arnold who had to work. The excitement of a live hockey game is amazing and I think even if you don't know much about hockey you could enjoy a live game.

Maybe a week or so ago I was on my way to work and heard a Lightning commercial on the radio and thought, they have the best advertising gimmick ever. The Lightning ask the listener to "Be the Thunder". You can't have Lightning without Thunder and no Thunder without the Lightning. Great game and a great afternoon.

5/27/16 Take a break.
A little rest for the weary is always good so one week of vacation down. Visited the In-laws and enjoyed some nice cool weather. Road a train and took a bus tour. Listened to some folk music and some poetry. Even read out loud a few things I have written. Enjoyed all of it.

Really enjoyed the folk music by a guy named David Wiseman. He is very clever. Or maybe I just think so because I get his sense of humor. He said during his performance the three cords and the truth will get you a good folk song. Well from what I could tell he has a good thing going. He sang words that made you listen because he was telling you a tale. It may not have been his story but it was a good story none the less.

So then that same evening I went along with Brian and his parents to hear a open mic poetry reading. I told the lady that owned the tea shop that I liked to write and she encouraged me to come back and bring something to share. Well I took two things. The poem I wrote For the Love of Lilly and A Day at the Beach with Mom something I wrote while sitting with mom. Very nervously I signed up and one by one I heard people read and recite poetry that they had written. I am not sure why the world enjoys watching CNN because listening to these people brought tears to my eyes it was so beautiful. I can't understand why people don't look for that beauty. It is out there.

7/5/16 One step forward a few years back. 
A busy day off today. I took a step. A big step for myself. I took some of the items from my mother's house to an auction house. The people were very nice and explained how it works and it wasn't horrible which I thanked them for it not being awful. That seems strange but even small steps are hard and I feel like I can do this again. Bring them more things and let them go. I am not letting go of everything but it is a start.
Later this evening I read at an event in St. Pete at a small art gallery. Again the people there made it better. I read the Day at the Beach with Mom and had some trouble making it through with out pausing to compose myself. But the round of applause when I was finished I am not sure if it was for what I had written or for the bravery to stand up there in front of maybe 30 or 40 people and cry. The reassurance I received afterwards was reward enough for my bravery. A woman spoke of her mother's death years ago and that she wished that she would have written about her when it was still fresh in her mind. And another person took the time to tell me that mom would have been proud of me. I hope so.
Some big steps for me when lately I have not been feeling my strongest. I am putting plans in place and am ready to keep moving forward.
When I am going through things at the house I just keep thinking in my head. Do I love this?  Billie and I were going through more clothes yesterday and it is funny we had 3 piles sentimental, garbage and retro. Mom always saved her clothes from the 60's and there were some from the 80's that were clearly our clothes as kids but she held on to them. The sentimental pile was not as big as some would think 3 or 4 things. I don't think I will keep them but still not sure. And that takes me back to the do I love this. Not did mom. Not does someone else but me. This is making it a little easier on some items.
While going through things we found 2 t-shirts that we painted Happy Anniversary on for our parents 11th wedding anniversary which I would have been 10. It is funny, I think my sister Beth had to have made the one because listed under all of our names was Pooh Bear. It was in the sentimental pile. The retro pile I will wash and see if I can find a retro store that might be interested. The idea of selling it to someone that specializes in the stuff makes me feel like mom saved the stuff like a bank acct and because it held some value to her. She just never got around to letting someone else enjoy it after her.
So the roller coaster ups and downs well maybe not roller coaster maybe sometimes it feels like the tea cups. But I keep pressing on trying to make progress I can see what I have gotten rid of and there are plenty of things to spill out of closets and take the space of the the things I have removed.

8/1/16 A break with the kids.
So had a great weekend with Brian and my youngest nieces and nephew. Took them down near Punta Gorda to go on a snorkel trip. Some of us had never done it before but everyone did great. Everyone had a great time and saw all kinds of cool stuff.

This is one of those days that as we drove home I kept thinking I would really love to tell mom how good the kids were and how much fun we had. How we swam in the pool and went out to eat and how they all behaved and everything else about today. Swimming, snorkeling and seeing a dolphin and all kinds of living creatures under the water. Some might argue she was there with us sitting on the boat enjoying the sun for the afternoon. Hanging out with the Captain watching all of us swim and call out to her what we were seeing. The kids may have even brought some of the coolest things over to the boat to show her. She would have loved the birds and the boat and even eating lunch afterwards at Leverocks. She would of loved being with the kids.

If you stuck with me through this whole post you have been on the ups and downs. I have made forward progress but every once in a while I take a step back and have a set back but at the end of the day I know there is a goal and it will be accomplished.

Reading and Writing and Stuff

So back in April I wrote a post about being Sentimental or is it Sediment. I just finished re-reading it and well. I wish I could say that my position on the subject had changed or that I have found the answer or seen the light. I have not. I am still wrestling with the stuff and the memories. Now I am not saying that we have not gotten rid of more stuff. A total of 11 bags of clothes have been donated and about 4 thrown out which is amazing considering the lady only wore about 3 outfits. And I am not talking kitchen garbage bags I am talking 30 gallon outdoor trash bags. Since then I have taken some 10 boxes of stuff to an antique auction and am still waiting for the results of how that has done. So stuff is going away. Craigslist has not been the help I thought it would be to get rid of some of the furnishings but I am going to post the items again. Now that it is time for kids to go back to school maybe some first time apartment owner could use a dining room table and chairs or a bookshelf. I could only hope that they would also want the books on the shelf as well but I doubt we will be that lucky.

The thing that I have kind of morphed my thoughts of my mom's stuff and her memory to me and my stuff and the memory of me. If mom's stuff doesn't matter to others than neither will mine and I have devalued myself to a place I would prefer not to be. There are things that the memories are so strong when I look at in her house and I think no one is going to look at anything and hold me that dear. I will give the strangest example: My mom had a cat years ago that would pee on anything to mark it. So to keep the cat from peeing on mom's shoes she used to pick them up and sit them on a dining room chair. Well the cat died years ago but mom always continued to pick up her shoes and sit them on the chair. And after she passed I noticed one day the shoes sitting on the chair and I thought to pick them up and throw them out. And then I looked at them. Hmm. I see them in my head right now and the tears are running down my face. It is just a stupid pair of deck shoes but I swear if they are tossed now I would be so upset. It has been suggested to me to take a picture of them to remind me of her habit. I know I am not going to bring the chair and the shoes to my house to sit in my dining room. I will end up getting rid of them but for now they sit there.

So my own new found personal lack of value is a self destructive thing that I know is just over thinking the whole thing. But the great thing about my brain is I just don't let go of it. The thoughts sit in my head and get stirred around within my daily thoughts and now I found myself wishing for happier thoughts and brighter days.

I am hoping by writing these things down that I can let them go. I have thought them they are of no value to me and now they can be gone. I am going to say on a positive note that even though I have not posted anything recently I have written some. Still not finished with a poem that I carry in my purse just in case the thoughts to complete it all come together one day when I am not near pen and paper. But I also have attended a reading of fiction and non-fiction at an art gallery in St. Pete. It was very nice and I did read the piece I wrote for mom. Yes, I cried but when I was done the lady in charge said that mom would be proud of me for reading it. And another lady said she wished she would have written after her mother passed. So over all that was a good experience and I would like to write something new between now and September when there will be another reading event. Something a little less close to my heart even though that is where the writing comes from so I doubt I can distance my heart from my writing.

Well the sun is starting to come up and I feel a little bit better. I have shared a memory or two and spilled more tears and of my guts than I probably should but I will head back to bed.

Hear is to happier days.

What are you saving for?

Some people save for the future, for a rainy day, for a vacation but my mom seamed to want to save everything. She saved her good clothes for a cruise. She saved pictures to share and she saved history and memories and things that might someday be valuable as though they were all things that were valuable.

It is funny though because my mother and grandmother both used good things as though they were everyday things. The living room furniture we sit on is very old wicker furniture. Original cushions and paint, if you know anything about wicker furniture you would think this stuff should be in a museum and we sit on it, sleep on it and have Christmas every year on it. Grandma never drank out of a plastic cup. She was always drinking her water or soda out of a fancy glass. She said, if you have it you might as well use it. She would however wear her good clothes everyday, just because they were nice.

But back to the saving part of my mom. She always had the spirit to save things that she thought might one day have a value. Like a bank account in her house. She saved the books we read as kids, she probably has every golden book written before 1974 and cookbooks. She saved the Fischer Price toys we played with as kids. Recently I even found the Barbie dream house folded up at the top of the closet. Really mom.

Her and Grandma liked to go to garage sales and thrift stores and they each had their things they liked to find. Grandma always liked angels and frogs and mom always liked birds and St. Francis and we joke about the shrine on the butcher's block in the living room. What you don't have a butcher's block in your living room? Well your dad probably doesn't have a cannon either. What can I say? My parents were always different.

But now mom and grandma are both gone and what my mother said we would go through and clean out is now down to myself and my siblings. My brother has cleaned up and cleaned out the kitchen but the cabinets go to the ceiling and he said, you know there is stuff in all of them. Yep. Glass doesn't get the money it used to. People don't care if they drink out of fancy glasses or ones from Target. Sorry Target but there is something to be said for crystal. Not that the stuff mom had was anything fantastic just better than the everyday glasses we drank out of. And people don't know the difference between a champagne flute and a sherry glass anymore and don't care. So they would not have a set of 8 of each plus rocks glasses and tall glasses and wine glasses and you see how many glasses one can have.

So I have told my sisters that I wanted to do some of this on my own at first. Why? I don't really know. I just know to see things thrown out that my mom held on to right now is just too much for me.
I had cleaned out stuff from her bedroom back in the summer trying to get her to use her own bed to sleep in instead of sleeping on that ancient old wicker couch but even with her room cleaned out some she did not want to sleep in there. She felt that if something happened to her back there no one would come looking for her.

Yesterday I pulled out a few boxes of things that were already boxed to get rid of and filled a couple boxes with things that have no sentimental attachment and will try to sell them at a church garage sale today. But when finished loading the car I sat and looked around and started to see my mom in the things that she saved. I know I don't have to do this now and it is probably too soon but if I don't do it someone else will want to do it for me and then I will get upset and then I will be like mom. I feel it. If someone touches the wrong thing now, I would put up a wall that my mom would. She would be ridiculous and let us get rid of nothing. But I learned as I got older if you showed her a few things that she to had no attachment to that she would start and next thing you knew she could get a room cleaned up and box up things she was ready to get rid of. It just had to be her idea.

I have found myself the last few weeks wearing good things I would never wear because, well I felt like wearing them. I know no future is guaranteed to us so I might as well wear the things I like and eat off the good dishes and drink from the fancy glasses because what am I saving them for. The future doesn't care about the past. It is a hard pill to swallow that some of the things I want to save no one else will. And I know my house can't hold all the things I want to save so that part is going to take some time and the fact that I have no children to instill the value of these items just because my mom saw a value in them.

I think it all comes back to my memory. I remember my mom telling me that the butcher's block came from the Fish Restaurant that used to be at the bottom of the hill in Maas Brother's parking lot before you went across the causeway and how it sat in our garage for years until my mom said it finally did not smell like fish anymore and she sanded and varnished it and how it will take 4 grown men to lift the top but the legs are light as a feather. Or how that wicker furniture came out of a house down the street from an estate sale. Original paint and cushions. Mom was very proud of that purchase. She cherished the pictures my grandma painted. The one in the living room on brown wrapping paper that is a chalk drawing of a fishing boat or the train or flowes she painted. She would paint ties that my great grandfather wore that had the L&N trains that he worked on. We don't have one of those but we do have a picture of him wearing one. Grandma signed the things she painted simply Jane. Don't forget the nativity scene that mom painted when we were kids. So simple but not so valuable? Well to me they are.

As they say you can't take it with you. Otherwise she would have had us pack it up for her. Just kidding. She thought by saving these items that one day, some day she would cash in or share her wealth which may not have any monetary value but Sentimental Value that is what a lot of these things have and held for her and now me.

Miss you mom.

Still making memories after all these years.

So it is 3 Am or 3'oclock in the morning and it looks like it is going to be another sleepless night... Two great songs that are what it is. 3 o'clock in the morning. Can't sleep. Thinking about what was and what has come of it. I know, Get to the point Jeanne. So I did go to my 30th High School Reunion. Anyone out there planning a reunion and really just want to talk and have a nice time take note. That does not take formal clothes and high priced rubber chicken. A few chicken wings and beers and a bunch of people that grew up in Clearwater looking over Clearwater Beach and remembering when... When we were young, or pretty or popular or not. When the beach was what it was and not what it is and how we were all glad that we grew up in the time that Crystal Palace and the skate shop were game rooms (arcades)  and were places that kids congregated. We remembered the Howard Johnson's restaurant and the Memorial Civic Center and how many of us worked for Eckerd. Part-time, Full time, or Lifers like me. But even that has changed.

Band kids that have not picked up an instrument since band but still treasure every moment of playing and marching and all the friends along the way. I would like to make a quick shout out to my friend Jerry. A friend from elementary school. I just caught a glimpse of his name tag and I was so happy to see him. I wanted to tell him yes, I still have your trumpet and if you want it back swing by the house. We laughed. He had just been telling the people he was with that he never knew what happened to his old trumpet. Well I have been saving it. Not feeling right to get rid of it. It was not mine. But not knowing whatever happened to him to give it back. Now it is clear. I can do with it as I please. I think I will pass it on to an aspiring musician that doesn't know the trumpet might inspire him. I really think that seeing Jerry turned things around for the night for me. Made me realize the memories I have are shared. Not exactly the same memories. I had the trumpet and knew it and he didn't know what happened to it.

Another guy from band Bill, I remembered that I annoyed him. I have been carrying that for 30 years guess what. He wasn't annoyed by me. I am officially letting it go. So in some ways therapeutic that I went.

Friday night I mostly spoke to people I know. Brian and Kim and her husband. Mary and Mike beach kids. There is always that person that remembers me that I thought how could the coolest guy in high school remember me and was glad to see me. Yes. He was. And if you think it was you and you talked to me maybe you were the coolest guy in school. Or maybe that is just me remembering high school the way I remember high school. Still feeling like for the most part the people I spoke to were people I still speak to and not sure I really needed to go Saturday. But I was hoarse when I got home and glad to tell my mom about the beach kids I saw and they all said to tell my brother hello.

But Saturday night was really it for me I thought what the heck Brian and I don't get out much. But like I said Jerry turned things around. I stuck my neck out and said hello to people that I was not sure that they would know who I was but they did. People spoke to me that I was not sure I remembered. My favorite set of twins Peter and David again another pair that go all the way back to elementary school. What surprises me the most is how many of us still live around here and I never see them or run into them at the grocery store.

I spoke to people from the neighborhood I lived in when I was little. Just a mile from where we live now. And we all reminisced about remember where this one lived or that one. And if you remember that one do you remember this one. Whatever happened to them? People that rode the school bus together or were in middle school together. Or toilet papered houses together or whatever we did. It was in good fun. Cleaned up plenty of toilet paper as well.

There were people I miss that were not there. People I asked about that no one seemed to know about. My dear friend Jane. Man I miss her. I have so many fun memories. I told someone about us making perogies or going to Mister Submarine and getting my still all time favorite sandwich a Roast beef with everything that we would split at all ours of the night. She was a Pepsi girl all the way back then. If you are reading this and know her tell her I say hi. And think of all our fun often.

I wish I could name everyone it was great to see. But if I do I will forget someone and I don't want to do that so I am going to say I am so glad I spoke to all of you. My voice was so hoarse on Sunday at work and Monday. But it will recover. And now you all know that we live between Caponga's and Dairy Kurl and if you want pizza or ice cream don't hesitate to stop by we will be glad to go.

Hope it doesn't take another 20 years before we get together again.

Graduation Stadium

So this week was Clearwater High School's Graduation. It was at Brighthouse Field which is not far from the office I work at. From our windows we could see the fireworks they had at the end of the ceremony. Amazing. Fireworks for a graduation. Back in my day we were happy it didn't rain. No fireworks. It seems crazy because back in my day was 30 years ago. And this summer is my classes 30 year reunion from Clearwater High School. 30 years. 30 years ago I was only 17 when I graduated. I heard the speeches about how we had our whole lives ahead of us. We sang "We are the World" during our graduation swaying back and forth in front of our parents and friends. Not sure where all those years went.

My class graduated as all the classes before that I can remember at Jack White Stadium at Clearwater High School. I guess once the new bigger stadium was built in the early 2000's was when graduation was moved. But I have wondered most of my life who was Jack White. Did he go to Clearwater High. Was he a football player or principal? Well ironically in this summer of my 30th Reunion I found out who Jack White was while doing some local genealogy research.

Jack White neither attended Clearwater High nor worked there. He was actually a county judge born in 1898 in Jackson, Tennessee. He attended the University in Colorado Springs,Co and Jackson, TN and earned his Teaching Certificate. After serving as a Marine in World War I, Jack attended the University of Virginia Law School and graduated in 1922. He was married and moved to Florida in the 1920's during the land boom. Jack White was a major player in getting the stadium built at the new Clearwater High School that his 3 sons attended.Clearwater High moved to it's current location on Hercules Ave and Gulf to Bay Blvd in 1954. As the building was being built the idea was proposed to have a stadium built at the High School. The stadium was completed in 1950 and a few football games were played there that season but at that time the stadium was called Central Pinellas Stadium. It was not until 1963 that the Judge finally gave in and agreed to have the stadium named after him for all of his work organizing the imitative to have the stadium built. "He was committed to the community and believed strongly in youth sports as a character building.", From A Life of Service Jack F. White. Jack passed away in 1965.

As  amazing as that is over 50 years of football games and track meets and band competitions as well as pep rallies and home coming parades and graduations had all been held for Clearwater High at Jack White Stadium. I only attended Clearwater High for 4 years between 1981 and 1985.  But I remember as a young child being able to hear the band playing in the stadium on Friday nights just as I can today from my house. I lived about a mile or so south of the high school when I was young and I now live about a mile west of the high school. I attended every Varsity football game and even a years worth of Junior Varsity games while my brother played. I attended stadium band practices at least twice a week. One night practice a week during football season and a walk through on Friday afternoon after school. Marched in numerous band competitions and I attended all graduations while I was in high school. The band always played Crimson and Grey the school song and the National Anthem and of course Pomp and Circumstance. My graduation was not the end of me visiting the stadium. I watched my niece cheer for Clearwater For Youth on Saturday afternoons and I have attended my siblings Graduations and Band Competitions since.

So it seems strange with so much history and life in the stadium that the school officials would have the graduation at a stadium a mile or so away. Oh it is nice and fancy and has more seats and a jumbo tron screen with fireworks but I know kids don't look around and remember all their high school memories as I did and do each time I go to Jack White stadium.

I was thinking tonight about the band directors Mr. Hacker that past away when I was a Sophomore and Mr. Smith and Mr. Kelsey and also the drum major when I was a Freshman and Sophomore Wendell. He did flips across the field as the band marched on the field and Jay and Bill and Chris and Wendy just a few more drum majors. Then there were the people I marched next to. Tony and Dwight and Bill. Sandra and Jane and Kim. My other friend Kim that was a majorette and all the Tornadoettes and all the flag girls. I don't even think they have Tornadoettes anymore. 30 years and I remember names and places we stood on the field and in parade line up and even some of the music we played. Lionel Richie's Still. The song has a section that the music gets quiet and at that point we turned to face away from the stadium and as the music builds back up we turned back towards the stadium. The details I remember marching under the stadium and feeling the vibration of the drums cadence in my chest. Beating with my heart with pride in a school that has been there for years before me and is still there 30 years later. The parents that worked selflessly making cotton candy, snow cones, pouring cokes and cooking hotdogs for all.  I still have pride in being part of the original CHS. You know there is that other one that couldn't come up with other letters to use but they are not original. They didn't even get their start until the mid 80's.

I also remember some of the football players a few All Americans in my time Terry Griggley and Hassan Jones. These were the star players in my day. I even wrote a blog last year about running into Hassan at every band members favorite after game eatery Capongna's Dugout only a block from my house. Still there still the same good food and the memories of Clearwater High and Jack White Stadium hang on the walls.

So now at 3 o'clock in the morning I want to thank Jack White for his contribution not only to my life but for his contribution to the community as well as his family for having a great website in his honor which was where I gathered most of my information on Jack. But my memories in that stadium will stay with me forever. Just like the man it was named for.

Dog Gone Good Memories

So it has been two years since I started writing this blog and I thought tonight I would write about my blog and how things have changed over the last two years or how they are all still the same, but I haven't posted anything since June. Why you ask? It is not that I haven't started to write. One night I started about Fate and one night about some movies I had watched and one night about some old demons. But I have finished none.  Posted none. Sometimes I don't have time or energy, sometimes I do not feel it and really tonight is no different. I am exhausted I have worked day and nignt for the last week. We are learning a new software at work and it has been busy. And we have a few more weeks til we change over to the new software and I hope I get it.  But on a plus my one day off I got to spend with Brian and my next day off we are off together to. That has not been the norm. Our last day off together was on vacation in June. Ironic. June was my last post. June I was in the hospital.

Now it is September and I am not sure where the summer went. I know my sisters went on vacation because we watched their dogs. Felt like all I did all summer was watching someone elses dog. And now September and I am just sick over my brother's dog. Don't talk about Al much. He is just a year younger than me. We are both left handed and our birthdays are just 13 days apart. Well I am a year and 13 days older than him. As kids we shared a room, we shared our birthday. There are times where we are the same and times when we are different. I called him tonight to see how he is doing. He said ok. He said he knows where things our heading. See not much on talking. But we are together. And I did not want him to believe for a minute that he was alone. If he needs me I am here. And would be there in a second to help him however I could.

When I talk to mom each night she tells me how Radar is doing but she doesn't mention Al. This thing with us. Not very touchy feely family well. Not at all really. My friends that have been around awhile are laughing. Loudly. Someone at work the other day was talking about the being a hugger and said they totally had me pegged for one and I laughed. I have gotten better with age but it is hard to change after a whole life of not. But my heart is breaking for Radar. Radar is Al's dog.

Since I always say. I didn't know what I was going to write about. Just so you know. Now is the time that I thought of the title for this blog and know what it it is about. I know you are thinking but Jeanne really you are three paragraphs in and at the beginning of the second paragraph I knew where you were going. See. Guess you all are just quicker than me.

Radar didn't start out as Al's dog. See my first memory of Radar is in my sister Tori's pool. Sitting on the bench on the side just chillin' by himself. I thought that is the craziest dog. Well Radar did not even start out as her dog. I don't know where his life started but he ended up with my sister because her husband loves to save animals. Now again, I would not put Tim in the category of touchy feely person but he is definately an animal person.  He may be the one who saves the dog but he can not keep them all. I remember my niece was just about 6 or 7 when Tim first saved Radar. She is now 21. But when they sold their house and were moving into a smaller place while the new house was being built they thought Al would love to have a dog. Not at first but you can not love this dog.

Now another thing about me I do not like to be late. I am a lot afraid of change so this stuff at work changing scares me. But Al. Al is neurotic about a schedule. He gets up promptly at 4:30 in the morning so he can get ready for work and have time to spend with Radar in the morning before work. He walks him around the park out in front of mom's house. Up until this week that was the walk they have taken 4 times a day for more than 10 years. Rain or shine. Radar likes the wind blowing his ears back. Since he likes the pool he is clearly not afraid of a little rain.

 There are a few specific memories I have stored of Radar.  First memory is the walk. As you are pulling up or leaving my mom's house you will see Al and Radar walking. Al carrying the leash and Radar walking at his side. You just see their backs walking down the street. Seem's harmless but that is going to make me cry. The other is from a photograph of Radar in the pool a 130lb yellow lab with a childs intertube around his neck and he is sitting on the seat on the far side of the pool. Radar and I have one thing in common. When the kids are in the pool we stay to the far side and try to keep our head from getting wet. Don't care if my hair gets wet, just do not like to get splashed in the face.

Everybody has a pet name for Radar, bad dog, the best dog, wiggle butt. Wiggle butt is Al's. Radar only has a stub of a tail and long floppy ears. Previous owner's choice. But that little tail shakes his whole body when he see's Al come home. He knows at 3:20 the sound of Al's car backing in the drive way is just seconds away. And before you can hear the muffler of his old Camero Radar is up and in position at the back door waiting. The last couple years mom has been bringing Radar in the house during the day for company after they go for their walk at noon. Now the afternoon ritual is not over. Al works outside and the second thing he does is go for a swim now this to was Radar's thing. Everyday. Swim in the pool. Lay on the patio until Al is ready to go in and dry off. Then in for the night except one last walk before bed promptly at 10.

Another thing with me. See I don't wait for someone to pass away to mourn. I do it first. I am so sad that the things I have will no longer be there. I do appreciate every moment that I spend at my mom's and I make sure to pet the dog and tell him to be good when I leave. I know it may be my last time to see him. I followed this same with my Grandma at the end. Made sure to say hello and good bye,when I got to mom's and made sure to spend time with her when I could. And I missed her before she was gone. So I miss Radar now. I feel like crying everynight when my mom says that he fell. Breaks my heart when I am trying to get him up and he doesn't want to budge or can't. Those aren't the memories you want to hold on to but for now my head thinks of them. I see his eyes. They are the eyes of a puppy in an old dog. And I feel like he knows this life might have been hard at first, but they say dogs only have memories of about 7 seconds so if that is the case he has had it good and could want for nothing. Another thing Al and I have in common. See in my adult life I have had many cats that I speak of often and 2 dogs. And there have been times with my own animals that I would be going through these same feelings with all of them. There are moments to this day that I picture. Some at the beginning like when Blake was a kitten laying on Brian's chest purring louder than a motorboat so small he fit in the palm of his hand or the day he passed laying on Brian's lap purring louder than a motorboat not the big old fat shit head that he had been but still a loveable ball of orange fur.

And lastly a lasting memory of Radar that will hopefully be finished someday as a children's book. As a child Brian's mom told a story about why dog's sniff each others tails. Well this story has spun around my head for the last 20 years and last year I committed it to paper and have a friend who is drawing the illustrations for it. Well I am not going to tell the story but in my book it is set in the times when dogs were in charge and of course Radar is the king. Well that as much as I am willing to share but when this project is finished it will be a forever memory that I plan on sharing with kids everywhere. So in the end Everyone will love Radar not because he is king but because Radar has pride in himself and will not settle for less than the royal best.
Love you forever bad dog.

Happy Memories

Today’s installment is being written because I have been reminded that for all the sad memories I have there are also happy memories. So back to my childhood.

Remembering so much it is sometimes hard to pick a favorite memory but one I always bring up I was about 12 with my brother and sisters we would swim in the bay across the street from our house everyday in the summer.  We did it so much that our parents did not always come over with us. Well I remembered hearing a story of my uncle swimming from the north end of the beach to Caladesi Island as a teen. I thought we can do that. So the 5 of us on this day that we were unsupervised we took off from the dock across from our house and swam to Island Estates.  My youngest sister was only 5 at the time so we decided so that we could all make the trip we towed her on a raft.  We swam the further we got I remember pausing for a moment and thinking this is a lot of water and we are just 5 little heads and a raft but like everything else the 5 of us did together we made it to Island Estates. We took a break there is a small area of sand off the back of the building directly across from where we started.  Now the hard part we had to swim back. No way we are stopping  now.  We did not consider the current,  it did not seem to affect us on the way over but on the way back. We decided not to fight the current and let it carry us. We were heading west but drifting south. The closer we got back to the beach we had to pick which house we knew and whose dock had a ladder we could climb up. We got to the Jackson’s house about 2 blocks south of ours where I babysat and we climbed up their dock and walked home. We did it.

Always being adventurous another favorite memory of the 5 of us together we called it going exploring. We would walk to the north end of Clearwater Beach past the end of the houses and cut through the sand dunes and look for tidal pools where the tide has gone out and left a small pool of water and some fish and small creatures for us to check out. Starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars, back in the day we even once found a sea horse. All of which we would look at and touch but leave to live another day. Hermit crabs, conchs and who knows what else. As we headed home we might walk along the sand bar and look for shells that were no longer inhabited to take home.

Considering all my memories my next favorite, take me back to the days working at Eckerd as a teen. The manager was a character in a book all his own. Everyone knew him and his personality. The way I was hired was my mother was in the store one day and he said to her, Isn’t one of your kids old enough to work. Next thing I knew I had a job. I went in to fill out an application and they were expecting me to work that night. So I went home changed clothes and started working. November 17, 1983. I did not leave Eckerd until the company sold off their Florida stores and moved the corporate office to Rhode Island January 7, 2005.  I often joke, No one ever told me you are supposed to quit your first job. There are so many fond memories of Eckerd.  After a few years I was pretty bossy about my knowledge of how my store was run. As new people came it was no matter what their title I knew more than them. All you had to do was ask me and I would tell you that. I would teach them the ropes of the beach store but not without a little humiliation maybe even hazing. But I cannot count how many times I straightened the aisle of shoes and filled them so when someone new came along the first thing I would teach was how to straighten the shoes. If you never worked in the store you don’t know what a mess they would be at the end of the night but it was not a job many were fond of. I made so many friends in that day most of which I still have. I wish I could name them all but I don’t want to leave any out. So if you worked with me in those days. I still love every memory. I laugh at the night I was filling the paper aisle and the paper towels were stored up above the office. It took a 12 foot ladder to get to them and I would throw down what I was filling. One of the funny guys I worked with decided while I was up there he was going to take the ladder away. I could only laugh. I was 12 feet up in the air and no way down. I just kidded him saying it leaves you the whole store to straighten if you leave me up here. He moved the ladder back after I was done throwing everything down I needed. Some of which may even hit him in the head.

Years pass by but still I smile thinking of those days. I am sure things happening today will one day be memories I will look back at and smile. The same way I smile at our wedding day. For those of you not married. I always recommend to brides take your time and soak it in. You have been planning this day so long and it will all be over in a few hours. Don’t rush it.  I would say the same for those with small children. They will not be small for long and they will only walk for the first time once and they will only say mama for the first time once. Cherish those memories. Since there are no children of my own, my favorite memories of small children are of my nieces and nephews. The first time my niece Alex said my name, I had coaxed her for years and all of a sudden when she was about 3 in my mother’s kitchen out of the blue she said, Aunt Jeanne blah, blah, blah. I say blah, blah, blah because after Aunt Jeanne nothing else mattered. I was brought to tears. Alex said my name. I know for Aunt Bethy and Aunt Billie that was probably not as big a deal and they all could say Uncle Al or Unk Al as Paul would say but that day Alex said Aunt Jeanne. And that thought will always bring a smile to my face. With the younger nieces and nephew it was the day they were born. I do remember the night before Alex was born as well but Emily and Ashley, their mother called very early in the morning and I stopped on my way to work to take their first pictures. With Paul I got the call at 10:30 at night and said Billie was having a C-section.  I was right out the door. I heard his first cry and while they were stitching Billie up the nurse brought Paul out and Jeff and I held him before he was weighed. That is the closest I will ever get to the joy of childbirth.

All these memories make me smile. And not a single tear was shed in the writing of this Blog. Instead I smiled the whole time. Thinking about the great memories of days gone by and people I still have in my life and always will. If only in my memories as time goes by.

Oh how many memories I have all of which have a place in my heart and my head. At times they rise and fall and sometimes slip away other times bubble back to the surface. So if your favorite memory of me was not mentioned today do not think that you are not in my heart and my head.  You are safely locked away in my vault of memories to be cherished like an antique silk covered book. Wrapped in tissue and safe in a box to be brought out and shared and put away for safe keeping forever.