Who do I admire and who would I want to thank?

I believe the first person I ever admired was my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Esther Lowman.  Mrs. Lowman seemed ancient to me in first grade but in my Senior year of high school I assisted her in her Kindergarten classroom and she really seemed ancient then.  Mrs. Lowman had built a life-sized pony out of paper mache and it was on wheels.  If you were very good, you got to ride on the pony.  Being the naughty little girl that I was, I decided one day that I would ride Daisy, the pony.  I put my left foot in the stirrup and as I flung my right leg upward onto the pony, I accidentally kicked Mrs. Lowman in the behind.  And not just in the behind but right in her butthole.  I believe I stood in the corner for most of that day.  She must have forgiven me for the goosing since I got to be her helper some eleven years later.

I had a friend who truly inspired me.  Her name was Kay Kulikowski Watkins.  She was lovely, talented, soft natured, and introduced me to organic gardening and herbs.  She had the softest southern accent.  After I had my first daughter, Kay came to visit and sat with Addi on her lap and sang softly to her.  I believe it was the inspiration for Kay to have a baby.  Like myself, Kay had two daughters.

Another person who I admire is my good friend, Laurie Timmerman.  She can do anything.  She roofed her house, she laid the wood flooring in my bathroom.  She is just so unstoppable.  And in the last few months she has become happy and it shows.

The other admiration in my life was the hubster’s grandmother, Marge Faerber.  She was a tiny little thing, but oh my, what a fabulous human being.  She took care of her husband who had had a stroke and was incapacitated.  She raised two wonderful sons.  She gardened all of her life and grew the most delicious red raspberries.  She also made a kick ass apricot pie.

These admirations are because of patience, overcoming any obstacle, and love of life.  These are qualities that I strive for but fail miserably.

Two of the people that I want to thank for helping mold me into who I have become are Mr. Vic Cummins and Mr. Nicholas, my junior high math and science teacher.  I have managed to thank both of them.

Mr. Cummins hired me as his junior executive secretary when I was twenty-four.  He changed my life for the better.  I had been temping as a secretary and this was my big opportunity.  I had worked in a factory, in a restaurant and other dead-end jobs.  The Mead Corporation was a fabulous opportunity for this small-town country hick girl.  The corporation gave us new secretaries classes in make-up, dress, courtesy.  We worked in beautiful offices and were respected.  I sent Mr. Cummins a birthday card every year on September 2.  He passed away a few years ago.  I will always remember him with fondness.

Mr. Nicholas, I forgot his first name, was so patient.  And patience with seventh and eight grade children is not an easy task.  I found my love of math in his classroom.  I attended a wedding of a classmate years after I had graduated from high school and Mr. Nicholas was there.  I went up to him and shook his hand and told him who I was.  And I thanked him for his math classes. ( We were in his class when they announced that President Kennedy had been killed.)  I think I also apologized for being such a butt cheese in his classes.

The person that I would really like to thank but probably never will is Mrs. Vivian Kruse.  I had her for Sophomore English class.  She told me that I was a good writer and that I should continue writing.  And now how many years later, I am still writing.

I haven’t written much in the past while because I have been in a funk from feeling really lousy.  It all started in May when I got a sinus infection and pneumonia.  Six weeks later I broke my little toe.  Two weeks after that my lower back went out and I am just now recovering.  My left shoulder has a big lump in it and aches almost all the time.  And I had to put out another six hundred bucks on my truck. 

Sage has been burned daily and I am finally starting to feel like a human being again.  Today is the third day in a row that I haven’t had to take pain meds.

Peace be with you.

I was reading on FB about a lady that had predicted the September 11 events.  And other predictions that she made before her death.  It was pretty scary.

I wanted to share a dream I had the week before the bombing of the twin towers.

September 8, 2001

I had a most disturbing dream.  I dreamed I was at a party and Kim Clark and I wandered outside.  There was a beautiful garden and I noticed that there were fish swimming in the air around the garden bed and I thought what a beautiful thing to be in a garden.

I hear airplanes overhead and I looked up.  Airplanes were crossing over the sky and crashing.  They just kept on and on until there was a pile of wreckage.

Kim decided to go back to the party and I told her not to go.  I was afraid.  I looked up and there was a skyscraper and I screamed, “it is going to fall.  The building is going to fall.”  I rushed inside to warn my friends.

When I awoke I told Rick of my dream.

This happened the Saturday before September 11.  When I called Rick that day he said to me, “nice dream!”

My Daddy

          “Anyone can be a father but it takes a special person to be a daddy.”  Hallmark card

          This morning at our usual Sunday breakfast, I had a wonderful realization about my father.  My friend was telling a story and responded that she saw a lot of her father in her son and in herself.  I thought to myself and brought to my mind’s eye an image of my own father.  I told the group at the breakfast table that I thought the only thing of my father that I had inherited was the ability to tell a good story.

          Later while writing in my journal I realized what a marvelous gift my father had given me.  I am a writer.  I tell stories and thanks to my father’s gene pool, I tell a pretty good tale.

          When I was a little girl one of my favorite things to do was to say to my father, “Daddy, tell us something about down home.”  My parents were from the rural Kentucky hills and their childhood seemed to be Waltonesque to me.  Big family, not much money but a whole lot of love and adventures for kids running free in the countryside.

          My dad would conjure up a story about when he was a kid.  He had such wonderful stories to tell.  My favorite one was about the time his brother had challenged him to see who could throw a rock the farthest and my father had hit his brother right between the eyes with his throw.  We would all laugh and Daddy would just beam with obvious delight.  We kids would ask for more and more stories and he would agree and give us another rendition of one of his favorite memories.

          The things that made my father’s stories so good were the fact that they were real and had actually happened.  He used expression in his face as he told the stories and you could tell from his face that he was reliving those moments as he told us about them.  He would laugh and clap his hands and we would cry, “what then? What then?” and he would entice us further even if we had heard the story before.         

Daddy had so many stories about hunting and courting my mother and stories about his brother and sisters.  My most unfavorite were the snake stories because I would have bad dreams.  My mother would try to hush these stories but once he got on a roll there was no turning back.

          I think the reason I loved my daddy’s stories so much were that they allowed me a glimpse of him when he was young.  When I envision my daddy I see him, as he was young, smiling and handsome with such beautiful wavy dark hair.  I’ve heard it said that it is a shame that we didn’t know our parents when they were young.  Because of my father’s stories, I did know him when he was young.  He will always be young to me.  And he was a very special person.