Due to ever increasing shadows

And mobility issues galore

Where once I moved with agility and grace

Now body movements are slow and thoughtfully paced

I will not name these age old developments

For to do so would just slow me more

The moral of this tale is clear –

Turn your back on Time

And hope He neglects to be near

Reblogged from BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog:

Stephanie Bane, author of  “We Have Peace” in the March 2013 issue of Brevity, reflects on the origin of her essay and on sincerity, naiveté, and the importance of faith.

The sincerity of my essay – We Have Peace - embarrasses me.  The unabashed patriotism, the near-total lack of irony, make me seem unsophisticated, a fool.  It’s an essay I wouldn’t like if someone else wrote it. 

Read more… 657 more words

But then I let you;

so who’s at fault?

Time has not lessened

my anger or hurt;

so who’s at fault?

I try and try to let it go

But still it sneaks up on me

like a festering wound

that will not heal.

So who really is at fault?

One day Dad was thumbing through the newspaper want ads and saw 4 cemetery plots for sale at Valhalla Cemetery in Belleville, IL  He and Mom discussed it and decided to purchase all 4 of them.  They also decided that Dad would be buried in plot 3 and Mom would be in plot 2; with number 1 reserved for me and number 4 for Bernie because Dad was concerned that there would be no place for me and Bernie to buried.  When Dad died in 1995 he was buried in plot 3 just as he and Mom had planned.  When it was time to place his headstone, Mom told the mortuary that Dad was facing the kneeling Jesus statue; so they contacted the cemetery and was told Mom was wrong because “Nobody ever does it that way.”  So the cemetery personnel x-rayed the grave site and wound up placing Dad’s headstone exactly the way Mom said it should be!

Fast forward to 2002 when Mom was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  One of the requirements for the nursing home was that all assets had to be “spent down” — all the rental property and Mom’s house had to be sold; even her funeral had to be prepaid which was emotionally draining for both Sis and me.  We were also told that the extra 2 cemetery plots had to be sold as part of the “spend down.”  Sis said that was impossible because Dad was in plot 3 and Mom would be in plot 2.  ”Nobody ever…” was what we heard; so once again Dad’s grave had to be x-rayed, and you guessed it … We didn’t have to sell plots 1 & 4.  Us 2; The “Establishment” 0!  So the moral of this story is:  Forget about “Nobody ever…” and as Ol’ Blue Eyes and The King sing:  ”I did it My Way!”

Moi’ with Rev. Keith Ital at Carla’s Benefit Concert April 20, 2013

My childhood friend Barb (also known as The Gad About) loves Elvis.  She even has a black velvet painting of him that used to hang in her living room.  I know because I’m the one who gave it to her in the early ’70s.  (Yes I’m telling my age, but …)  She no longer has it hanging over her couch because she now lives in a small trailer, but she still has that portrait.

When Elvis came to St. Louis in the early ’70s to perform, Barb was the one who got up before 6 am and stood in line to purchase tickets for me and my co-workers.  I paid for her ticket, but such devotion cannot be bought; it must be earned.  Thanks to Barb’s devotion to Elvis and moi’ we got to sit in the 6th row.  And lucky for us, one of my co-workers had a zoom lens on her camera so we got great photos too.  There used to be an Elvis Museum in Wentzville, MO and Barb was offered $5,000.00 for her Elvis Concert photos.  She declined even though she could have used the money.  No one ever offered any money for my photos; so I cannot say what I’d have done.

When my son and I moved from Panama City, FL back to Cahokia, IL my friend Barb baby sat for me when Bernie had pneumonia so I could work.  (As I said such devotion must be earned, and we’ve been helping each other for years).  Our friendship has lasted even though we’ve spent many years apart, and are doing so again because I now live in the Dothan, AL area and she lives in Troy, MO.  We didn’t get to see each other when I was “home” for my cousin Carla’s benefit due to the flooding, but we talked on the phone and bless her heart she even apologized to me for not getting together.

Our history has had some interesting moments:  like when I was invited to Cheyenne, WY for Cheyenne Frontier Days and Dad changed his mind about letting me go after he said I could.  Boy was I angry about that!  (I was young and fearless at the time).  Barb used to call me and I would drive over to St. Louis to give her and her son a ride to the Cahokia K-Mart so that she could buy diapers for her son who was so skinny that most diapers just fell off him.  Other trips to the Cahokia K-Mart included purchasing conditioner that she used on her poodles.  Often I would call her and she would come to my rescue: like when I needed someone to watch Bernie, or needed a ride to the doctor, or a tow for my car.  We can never pay each other back for our devotion to each other, but we can give each other little tokens of love and affection, like the above picture and when I long ago took Barb to the Bevo Mill in St. Louis to celebrate her birthday and an Elvis Impersonator was there performing!.  Happy Birthday, my friend.

Love ya,

Me

Reblogged from Clouds N Cups:

• 

Maintaining a stable yet sweet relationship always poses a big challenge for all couples

Falling in love may be a result of hormones reaction

Staying in love may require us to

Recall how our LOVE used to be when we first fell into it

Clouds N Cups 2013

Item Status: Now Available @ Clouds N Cups

My brand new bookcase which is now filled with tapes.

It’s hard for me to believe that I had so many boxes of VHS tapes in my bedroom at the trailer in Haleburg, AL.  That was the only way I could ensure that they wouldn’t get thrown away like so many of my other stuff did that had been stored on the back porch.  Most of my tapes were in a box that I had shipped UPS down to Haleburg  before I ever left Cahokia, IL in 2005 and it weighed 75 lbs!

When it was time for me to move this past Nov the tapes that had been in that big box had to be put into smaller ones.  And they had been scattered around my 1 bedroom apt’s living room since I moved into it in Dec.  Yes it was an obstacle course, but I had to wait for money before I could purchase something to store all my “treasures.”  I mean I had Magnum P.I. tapes that I’d taped when my son was in diapers when Magnum was in syndication in the 1990′s.  These weren’t all the episodes; they were my favorites that I’d painstakingly awakened at midnight and manually taped.

I’ve got movies I’ve taped from the tv.  Do you remember The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan?  I taped that one years ago.  It’s a time traveling story starring Lindsay Wagner and Mark Singer.  I have many more, but you now understand how much I love my old movies.  Someday perhaps I’ll get them transferred to DVDs, but for now I’ll just enjoy my tapes.  Anyone have a large bookcase they wish to sell?  I need another one for the rest of my “treasures.”

Boxes and boxes of tapes.

My beautiful cousin Carla and moi’.

Primping before the benefit

to get “beautified.”

Who knows who I’ll see there

and will I be recognized?

After all it’s been bookoo years –

but who’s counting, right?

I flour my face with more powder

and heave a nervous sigh…

Moi’ with Carla’s younger sister, Pam

Reblogged from Clouds N Cups:

Carla singing with Rev. Keith Ital.

My son and I were late arriving at Carla & Ray’s Benefit Concert because we went to the American Legion instead of the Dupo VFW.  When we arrived Rev. Keith Ital was performing.  Rev. Ital is the pastor of the North Williford Baptist Church in Harrisburg, IL.  All I can say is I sure wish he’d been my pastor when I was little!  I don’t know how the Southern Baptists here in The Bible Belt would feel about his Elvis impersonating, but I think it’s fantastic.  I believe that anything that gets you to read The Bible is good and think both God and Elvis would be pleased; so keep up the good work “Elvis!”

My cousin Carla is my 2nd cousin, but in my family we never much cared about such things.  (Also it was very time consuming to try to figure out who was where in the family tree — we were little, ok?)  I had never heard her sing before.  Mom & Dad used to go and hear her sing, but my schedule never seemed to concur with hers when she lived in Cahokia, IL.  Actually I never even knew when she left to sing professionally.  She has a deep, husky voice and reminds me of Cher.  I hope to post more photos and if I’m lucky get some videos posted too.

Carla with Keith Ital, Elvis Impersonator