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.

Badges Earned

I started this blog on Nov 15th and couldn't finish that day so today I will try to finish off what I was thinking.

I always say that I think about things too much. Well the last couple days my thoughts have been on a year ago. A year ago today that day the phone rang before 8 AM and it was my brother. He just put mom in an ambulance. The paramedics weren't sure if she had a stroke or was it something else. So the day began. I was thinking this morning how a girl scout gets a badge for successfully completing a project or task. Well that was the day I got the badge for sitting in the emergency room with my mom alone trying to make decisions I didn't think I would ever have to make. I also got the badge for handing off the responsibility to my sisters while I went to work badge. And I got the badge for the first day of the next 90 days badge.

I know I have said plenty of times that my mom was stubborn and hard headed or as my nephew liked to say she was bull headed. The next few days were very difficult we were told she couldn't safely swallow anything solid or liquid then the doctors told us if we sat with her it was our responsibility so she ate. She gained strength but they never gave us hope. Mom did though. We all did our part. Took turns. That would be the care giving badge which we found has multiple levels. There is the sit with a sick person badge. There is the bring food to the one sitting with the sick badge and the know when it is time to walk away badge. So you can see in just the few days she spent in the hospital my brother and sisters and I have already raked in multiple badges.

I read what I write and the memories come flooding back and some may think then why do you read them. I read them to remember. To remember that we did what we did because that was what mom expected us to do and that we did in respect and honor to her.

Today is now December 20th and last year I was getting the badge to be brave enough to go to Alaska and enjoy my nephew's wedding and see snow for the first time and enjoy the company of friends and family and experience all kinds of new and different things and know that your brother and sisters will take good care of mom until you return home badge.

Over the next few weeks there were more badges to earn for all of us. We each bared the burden and stepped up where we probably didn't think we would ever have to step up before. Of course Christmas was not the same as years past and this year will be different again but we are all learning new responsibilities and mom would be happy that we are all going to get together and that was the most important thing to her. Presents weren't important. It was having her kids and grand kids and anyone else who had no where to be should experience Christmas at mom's house. Most people the first time was a sense of awe. Absolute amazement that my mom she always bought gifts all year and they may have been thrift store, garage sale gifts but she tried to find things that you liked. For me it was always cats and geese. My brother it was always something beer or bottle opener. But there was always something that could be given to the surprise guest that showed up, a can of peanuts or box of candy. Mom always wanted everyone to have something, even if she had nothing.

Sometimes I remember how hard we had it at times and yet she always figured out ways to get us what we needed. And if it meant her doing without that wasn't even a question. In these last few months I have sorted through papers. So many papers. I know some would have just tossed it all but in the process I found an envelope that I had written a note on and left for mom to find in her car. It said,  Have a good trip, do something for yourself. I remembered I had put money in the envelope for her because she never would have taken it from me. I was about 18 years old at the time.

So I have lost track of my badges I have earned but along with each was a lesson. I remember the year my Grandma Helen passed away. She died 26 years ago today. One of my sisters said after my dad had to pay over $600 to fly her home for Grandma's funeral, "all grandma would have wanted was for all of us to be together for Christmas." Well we were. We had her funeral on Christmas Eve. There was not a more appropriate day than that for my Grandmother. I can see her as an usher at church with her white coat on and her Christmas tree pin, which I am now the proud owner of and will wear today for Grandma.

I am the only one not in the picture. I left after the funeral and went back to work. This was taken in front of her house only a few blocks away from where we lived. I see the faces of my cousins and aunts and uncle and right there in front mom. This wasn't her mom. It was my dad's mom and the divorce was still new but my mom knew it was the right thing to do.

Me not being there was a mistake on my part but I have always felt an obligation to the place I work and always had a very strong work ethic which I learned from my father and mother and my Grandmother.
So as these last few weeks pass up until next month when it will be a year since mom passed. I will continue to earn badges for things I thought I would never do, like move my brother into his own house and finish emptying out mom's house. I am also learning to live without her even though I speak of her a lot and probably think of her more. I am learning to decide which things that she loved that I love and how to let go of some of the others. That is a hard badge for me. Letting go badge.

I know this may not seem like the joyous Christmas message you thought but it is a message of giving selflessly as mom did and accept the gifts given because they were chosen with love. And enjoy the time you have with family. You don't know what the next holiday may bring.

Merry Christmas and to all of my angels Mom, Grandma Helen, Grandma and Grandfather Yearout, Aunt Jan, Aunt Mary Jane, Uncle Chuck. I know you will all be enjoying this Christmas together.

Feelings

I have always thought it funny how my brother and I are left handed and my 3 younger sisters are right handed and how different all of our handwriting is. Yet we all grew up in the same house with the same parents and for the most part had the same teachers but we all learned to write differently.

The same can be said for our feelings. We all had the same experiences together as kids but since we were of different ages and stages in our lives when they happened and we look at them differently. One thought that always comes to mind for me is when my youngest sister was born. I woke up that morning and saw on the changing table already set up in my bedroom that there was a box of baby announcements missing. So I got up all excited knowing that my mom had gone during the night to have the new baby girl. I was 7. My brother and sisters they woke up in their rooms and didn't know something was different until they got to the living room and our grandmother was there.

Last night my sister and I went to my mom's to get some things for another garage sale. When I got to my mom's house and walked in, the furniture was moved and the living room was not as I left it I got upset. Not because the things were moved or changed but because I didn't know it had been done. So it was a shock. But that shock unraveled into the feeling that this emotional roller coaster is so different for all of us and one point of view is the stuff has to go and the other is the touchy feely side that I feel.

Feelings a 1974 Morris Albert song. Wo-o-o, Feelings, Trying to forget my feelings of love.
I guess the emotional baggage I have carried my whole life, the very fiber that makes up me again is feeling discounted. That is the thing that is truly upsetting. The things that matter to me that don't matter to others. Which makes me feel like I don't matter. That is not a very nice feeling.

Since I like to know why, I looked up the definition of feelings. An emotional state or reaction. So I read that some neuroscience professor believes that feelings are the brain's way of interpreting and reacting to emotions. After I got home and cried for quite a while my sister called me and she said that this stuff upsets her to but she has to work and puts on her smile and moves on. Well I do to. I try really hard not to let the feelings stop me from living. I am not terminally sad but to some it may seem that way. Just at this time in my life my mortality and the fact that I never had any children and there will not be anyone that looks at my things with the memories I have for my mothers is what really is getting me down.

I watched a movie the other night under the recommendation of my favorite movie buff friend called "Hello my name is Doris". Well Doris and I have had some similar situations in our lives. The movie starts at her mother's funeral you know the one after she has taken care of her mom, her entire life. And her brother brings up the fact that now that mom has passed on Doris there is no need for you to keep that big house and all the stuff in it on Staten Island. They were still at the funeral. He sets her up with a life coach to help her and she goes to visit but isn't ready to part with her mother's things. But her brother seeing the money they could make off the house pushes for the sale. Pushes so much that he brings the life coach to the house one morning unannounced. Which totally devastates Doris. Now this reaction I know. My mother hated change so much when you changed anything for better or worse she hated it. I don't hate that there was a change. I just need to be for warned. Which I think is so that I can prepare myself for the feelings that I have in regards to the loss of my mother and that they are so different from others.

My brother has not been like her brother in the movie. My brother tried and wanted to keep the house. And we all were aware that the things in the house had to be thinned out even if one of us was going to live in the house. So, back to the movie. The part that really got me was when her brother brought the life coach over unannounced and the sister-in-law who has no regards for Doris's feelings just threw her hands up as though Doris is being selfish that this home that was hers not someone elses and she is not ready to change. After Doris throws a temper tantrum the sister-in-law leaves and the brother says, "Doris, I am very disappointed with you." And this is when I felt like Doris and I had a true connection. She says, "You are disappointed in me?" She had taken care of their mother her whole life. He lived his. He went to college and got married. She didn't and that makes her mad and sad. He doesn't knows the things she gave up to do what she felt was the right thing to do.

Well Doris she does clean out the house and sell it. And so are we. There are other parts to the movie but what I have mentioned was the parts I related to. Sally Field portrayed my feelings perfectly.

I will work on my knee jerk reaction that I don't matter to others. And I will try not to worry about life after I am gone.

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.

Pushing On

There is an old saying: somethings never change. But I have recently found the things you think will never change will. So it seems the sadness ebbs and flows and that doesn't end either, but I am learning to live with it. Today I took another step, I talked to someone about my mother's books. I have thus far not been willing to let others in to buy anything direct from my mother's house. My sisters have told me multiple times it would be easier but I feel as though it would not be easy for me. My sisters and brother have nudged me along to make progress and sometimes I have to step back and re-group because they are pushing on. I too will push on.

So if you have never been in my mother's house the bedroom my brother used as a kid became her tv room and library. One wall is floor to ceiling cook books and two other walls have book shelves that run the length of the walls about 3 feet high with books and in a couple places those book shelves are 2 deep not books but complete book shelves. Then there is her bedroom which has I think 6 book shelves that are 6 ft tall each again all books. And just for good measure she has one more shelf in the front hallway next to the front door full of children's books. So to say the least mom liked to read. We have already gotten rid of quite a few boxes of romance novels my grandma's favorite that mother would also read but her favorite was the westerns. Her Louis L'Amour books. At the end she gave away some of the Louis L'Amour books she wanted others to see the scenery she had scene through his words. Even I have one laying next to my bed and one of the girls that helped take care of mom carries one with her all the time. I hope mom has gotten to meet Louis L'Amour in heaven and she can hear the stories first hand now.

Back to the books. So I found a bookstore that when I walked through the front door of this old house I said to the man behind the desk. I think you are going to be able to help. He said, "with what?" I explained the situation and that his store looked like my mother's room that she spent most of her time. He was so kind and I finally said yes. That he could come and look at the books. He said he will bring everything he needs and for me to call next week so we can make arrangements for him to come over. I of course looked around and we spoke of books and he said my mother had been a good influence on me and my interest in history and books. And yes. I walked out with a book. A Marjorie Rawlings book South Moon Under.

Since I was already down in St. Pete I thought I might as well eat lunch at mom's favorite place down there. Fourth Street Shrimp Store another old Florida place. I had fried shrimp and fried clams. It was so good I brought another home for my brother, Al.

On the way back to her house I thought of what I need to do before someone can go through the books. I need to pick out a few that I want and then that moment of being overwhelmed by the sheer number of books. I know at one point she had counted and she had like 800 cookbooks. When I got to the house I stood and looked at the room and just couldn't even move. The first book I see and everyone else is one that the cover faces out, A Flower Grows in Ireland by Ron Wilson. I never knew why but it was the last book her sister Jan read before she died. She got it on her last trip to Ireland. I don't know if mom ever read the book but I know it is not being sold. It will find a place in my house. I only know this piece of information because about a year ago in preparation for mom going home from rehab my sister Beth helped me clean that room and when we straightened up the books that book was moved and mom had a fit as only she could have and the book was put back where it had been for well  more than 20 years and where it sits now because even knowing that I am going to take that book home I couldn't bring myself to remove it from the shelf.

So again, I went back to her bedroom to make sure the shelves back there were accessible and tried to figure out how to get more light back there so that the man from the bookstore can see what he he is looking at. But within the next few weeks the room that has been pretty much untouched will to be disassembled in the name of progress. It is the same feeling I felt when my sisters packed up some of the things from the living room for that my brother wants to keep. In my head it makes no sense not to touch the things that must be touched. I know I would rather do it myself than have someone else do it for me. As it was in the beginning I must make way for change and push on.

Sharing something personal

I am not sure how to start. Sometimes I realize things I deal with in my head I don't always deal with out with the rest of the world. Today one of those items came up.  As a 20 something I had yet to find the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with and when I married at 31 I thought now is the time. Brian and I had been together for 5 years at that point and it was time we have a family of our own. Well surprise, surprise, surprise. It doesn't actually work that way. Of course not. Now I know some people put the kid before the marriage, or maybe the kid didn't come from the person you were meant to spend the rest of your life with, or you came along after the kid and you welcome that child as though they were your own. I know people that fall into all of these situations. They all ended up with something I did not. A family of my own.

Yes, I know Brian has always been mine to raise. And yes, I have always had plenty of other people relying on me to take care of them. But you know whenever I hear the good news that someone is going to have a baby it has almost always been a bitter sweet moment for me. I really am happy for you and your new bundle of joy. But there is a part of me that is so sad that it is hard for me to put into words. I have a tendency to say something that is taken wrong and well then no one is happy with me. 

When my oldest niece was born I learned to crochet so that I could make a baby afghan for her. She was born just a few years after my Grandma Helen had passed away and grandma had always crocheted. She was literally crocheting when she passed away. My youngest sister has the afghan she was working on and until riddled with termites I had the chair that she crocheted in. Grandma after making afghans for her sixteen grandchildren then her children she made them for preemie babies at the hospital along with booties and hats. A friend of mine taught me to crochet a trick in itself, because I am left-handed and for a rightie to teach me I had to learn by facing her so it was like learning through a mirror. That started a life long tradition of me making afghans for everyone I know that has a baby or a grand baby. 

I have had a few opportunities to be included more than your average in the process for some friends. I had a friend that had two kids before getting remarried about the same time Brian and I got married. She got pregnant and she had some unusual complications along the way but she and I talked on the phone while she was having contractions early and bored in the hospital. Her daughter is going to graduate from high school this year. What a beauty. I did not see that little girl often but I was always the one who would play Barbie with her or whatever else she wanted to do. Soccer games and all.  As she got older she was less excited to see me show up but to this day I want to spend time with her when I am at their house. 

When two of my sisters were pregnant we spent time together preparing the babies room. We shopped for materials and cut and sewed curtains and bed bumpers and sheets and blankets in whatever color they desired. Those were some really fun memories. Winnie the Pooh and Flower power and even sports for my nephew. 

But each time someone would tell me they were with child again I step back and reflect on all the experiences I never had. I know there are plenty of parents that would love the freedom I have and to them their hum drum daily grind are the magic I regret not having. 

I have come across a few women that for one reason or another like I never had children of their own. Both of these women I would say are two of the most successful women that I know. I know I have gone to both of them in tears and they have shared similar feelings. And I am sure that my melancholy personality doesn't help with the sadness. Both these women I respect so much. One I can tell you has always treated her nieces as though they were as good as her own. And I have always tried to do the same with my nieces and nephews. I would want them to know they could always come to me. 

I love being their aunt. It is definitely a job I was cut out for. The last couple years I have taken the younger ones on short little trips trying to expose them to things they may not have had a chance to do with their parents. A little nature, a little history and definitely a little fun. But as the kids get older they to will slip away. My oldest nephew will be 30 this year. How can that be? But he has grown into a great adult just like his sister. Everyone finds their own way in life and these kids are now adults and finding their own. But as they slip away into their own lives I am reminded again that my life didn't work out the way I expected. I always counted on having kids that was going to be the thing that was going to get me to lose weight chasing around kids. Well now I just get tired trying to keep up with my nieces and nephew.  I have nieces and a nephew on Brian's side of the family as well and they are now all adults and don't get to see them often but they are also finding their own way for their own lives. 

As I get older so do my friends. Now my friend's kids are getting married or starting families of their own. And now my friends are becoming grandmothers and  again I am reminded of my down falls. I still make afghan blankets for these peoples children and yet when I go to the baby shower. It is hard for me. When the baby comes I am happy for you and proud of you as you find your way to raise your own child but know that my tears are not disappointment but pure sadness for myself. 

I am looking forward to being the best aunt ever for the rest of my life and for multiple generations.

So if you are fortunate enough to be my niece or nephew. Whether I see you regularly or not please know that I am always here for you. And would do anything I can to help you. All you have to do is ask. I love each and every one of you if I don't get to see you or talk to you all the time. Know right now I am thinking of you.

Farewell Charles Osgood, Enjoy Retirement.

This morning was the last Sunday Morning that Charles Osgood will be on CBS Sunday Morning.

Charles has been the anchor of the program for the last 22 years. I have enjoyed this show for most of my life. Mom would call and say, "turn on Sunday Morning you have to see the next story." Well in more recent years there were times that I have called her and said to turn on the show. Ironically Brian's parents also enjoy a Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood. Through the years deciding weather to go to church or watch Sunday Morning is a hard choice. But thanks to the dvr and replays later in the day you can now do both.

Still I enjoy it the most to get up and have breakfast with Charles. Prior to Charles Osgood was Charles Kuralt. I loved Charles Kuralt for his "On the Road" segments. He even wrote books about traveling the back roads of the country. I can still hear his voice in my head. Such a resounding voice. I am so jealous of all the places he has been and spending enough time in a place to get to meet a local or two and share their story. Which years later another journalist Steve Hartman, who also does a segment on Sunday Morning called "On the Road". Steve also had a segment  "Everyone has a Story", he decided where he would go by throwing a dart at a map at the end of each weeks segment and that would be the town he would go to the following week. He would then go to a pay phone booth and open the book and randomly select a name. He would interview this random person and tell their story. I thought how inspiring. If you only take the time to sit down and learn about a person you will walk away a better person.

Back to Sunday Morning. News, Weather, Art, Theater. It is like opening up the New York Times Sunday edition and reading the whole thing. When I worked at Eckerd back in the day we sold the Sunday edition and we would get it in two segments and I loved to read through the Art and Entertainment.

So if you watch the show you would know that Charles Osgood was know for his snappy bow tie and clever wit. He always had a song to sing and rhyme for the time. So when I heard he was leaving I thought I would take a stab at his wit and write a poem that would truly fit. I emailed it to CBS and watched his final show but no they didn't use my rhyme so I thought I can share it on my own.

So Hail and Farewell to Charles.

Many Sunday’s we have spent together.

You sharing the news and the weather.

Wearing a bow tie each week.

Me sitting by listening to every word you speak.

Introducing all of the segments.

 Along with their correspondents.

I can hear you say their names aloud.

Hartman, Giles or even Geist.

On the Trail or On the Road.

A pause for a Passage or Remembrance.

Postcards from Oklahoma to China.

Or an update from Our Man in Paris.

Music and Movie reviews from David Edelstein.

Or a Commentary from Ben Stein.

Review the Calendar for the week to come.

Entire issues dedicated to Technology and Money

Or Architecture, Design and Fashion.

What is next on Face the Nation.

Last but not least the Moment of Nature.

Scenic wonder from anywhere at all.

Showing us the beauty of summer, winter or fall.

Thank you Charles for all our Sunday Mornings.

I have always enjoyed the show.

And in closing, I will continue to see you on the Radio.