Several years ago I decided to change up the vertical blinds in our bedroom for some shades and curtains.  I had seen some curtains at Target that I thought I would like to have. The hubster was working full time traveling to Chicago two hours there and two hours back home and said he was unable to help me put up the blinds.

I don’t remember how I found this young man to do the job for me.  He said he was an assistant coach at Dakota High School and so I figured he must be a trustworthy individual.  We set a date and he came over and he inspected the windows.

After some time he figured out how to install the blinds and got them up in no time at all.

I asked him how much I owed him, and he told me that his mom had passed away just a short time ago.  He had promised her that he would “pay it forward” as often as he could.  He didn’t charge me anything and wouldn’t accept a tip.

I was so grateful but I couldn’t ask him to install the curtain rods for me for fear he wouldn’t charge me and I’d feel guilty as hell.

I hired a service to install the curtain rods.

I have never forgotten that young man and his kindness.

Recently, I was a at grocery story on a Sunday buying a few things I needed.  I was behind a very well-dressed black couple that had obviously just come from church.  Behind me was another black man.  The man behind nudged the man in front and jokingly said, “Hey, how about buying mine too?”  The man in front laughed and turned away.

When I checked out I grabbed the man’s chicken that was behind me.  I told the clerk that I’d like to purchase this gentleman’s chicken.  I gave him a wink.  I felt so good for the rest of the day.

I’ve often wondered if the guy that I bought the chicken for, told anyone what happened to him that day.  I should have reminded him to “pay it forward.”

And the absolute ultimate pay it forward of them all – be an organ donor.

Peace be with you.

The best trip I ever took had to have been when the hubster and I took off two weeks from work and headed out west. We drove to Denver non-stop in 17 hours.

There was next to nothing as far as gas stations and once we barely coasted into the station near Lymon, Colorado.  We ran out of gas when we turned off the key.

We saw the Rocky Mountains quite a while before we got to them.  We were too excited not to go into the mountains, even though we were severely tired.  I had on a bikini bra and levis.  I got out to make a snowball which I threw at the hubster.

Coming down out of the mountains we noticed that there were pull offs with heavy duty iron rails.  We figured these were for those folks whose breaks decided to quit working.

Since we were so tired we decided that we would stay in a hotel that night and get a good night’s sleep.  The next morning we were off on our way through Colorado.  We noticed three types of climate.  The first flat and empty, the next the mountains and their third was desert like.  I really liked Colorado.

I believe our first stop was Arches National Park in Utah.  It was lovely with orange rocks and rock bridges.  We had borrowed a friend’s camera and I took lots of pictures.  We were going to camp, but our tent kept falling.  We realized that we needed special tent stakes for sandy areas.

The next day we proceeded through Utah to Zion but it was closed due to snow.  The same for Bryce Canyon.  I was severely disappointed as I had heard both were very beautiful.  We drove on to the north entrance to the Grand Canyon.  The cars coming out had two inches of snow on the tops.  The entrance was closed due to snow also.

We made the decision to drive around the east end of Grand Canyon, determined to see the Canyon.  We had no idea of the time involved.  It took forever to get to the south entrance.  As we drove through the magnificent desert we saw various stands where Native Americans had put up to display and sell their hand-crafted items.  We didn’t stop because we felt we would buy stuff just to buy stuff and we would rather see the Canyon.

When we were on the road we would stop for coffee at various cafes.  We kept noticing that they were floating stuff on the coffee.  We started calling it “minnows in our coffee”.

We finally made it to the Grand Canyon.  We walked to the rim and I started crying.  It was so completely overwhelming and beautiful, and I couldn’t stand it, I just had to cry from the beauty of it.  We took tons of pictures and marveled at all of the various foreign languages we heard from the tourists around us.

That evening we went on a night tour.  We sat at the brim of the Bright Angel Fault in a circle and the ranger gave us a background of the Canyon and told us various stories concerning the Canyon.  We had a campfire going and we were very quiet and listening to the sounds of the Canyon at night. It was quite a spiritual event.

We stayed at a desert view campsite and it was cold the next morning, I awoke on top of Rick.  I was so cold!  We joked about that for quite some time.  The next night a tremendous storm arose.  The Canyon looked even more beautiful with the overclouded skies.  We were afraid our tent would collapse but it held up nicely.

Our next adventure was Las Vegas.  Our friends, Kay and Charlie Watkins, had invited us to stay with them in Vegas.  I was not so taken with Sin City.  It was very pretty at night all lit up and splendid.  However, we saw a woman in her housecoat, curlers in her hair and house slippers, with a child tugging at her coattails.  She was at a slot machine and not paying any attention to the child.  It made me sick to my stomach.

We had a wonderful time with Kay and Charlie.  We went hiking in the Fire Canyon and I will never forgot the beauty of the dessert and the mountains.  We slept in a new waterbed that Charlie has just build.  A new experience for me.

We went into town one evening and saw BB King in concert.  A highlight of the trip for me.  We saw people betting thousands of dollars at a time and it just made me ill.  Thinking of all the good that could be done with that money and it was being pissed away as if it was nothing.  I will never go back to Sin City!

As much as I hated to leave our friends, we continue on our excursion.  We headed to the Teton Mountains.  We stopped at the lookout at the Three Breast Crest and took pictures.  Rick had been looking for a place to try his hand at fly fishing and he found a little stream and we stopped for a while.  He had fun casting but that was all he did.  No trout bites for him.

We stayed at Jenny Lake Campground and met a couple of folks and had a beer with them.  The guys decided they were going to fish.  We headed off to a small lake nearby.  They discovered they had no bait and it was decided I would drive back to camp and get some bait.  I didn’t realize it was over sixty miles from where we had camped.  Time goes by fast when you’re having a good time.

Anyhow, I got back to the campground and there was this moose there.  I got the bait and headed back to the lake.  I was so excited about the moose and said I wish they’d hurry up, so we could go back and they could see the moose.  After fishing, we headed back and sure enough, the stupid moose was still there and eating everything green in sight.

Our next stop was Yellowstone.  I was so excited because we were going to camp there.  The campsite was a canopy of pine trees.  The ground was covered with pine needles and the soil quite sandy.  The trees lower limbs had been cut to about twenty feet above our heads so you could see all over the campsite.

I discovered the most beautiful painting.  In a knothole of one of the pine trees someone had painted a picture of a little cabin in the forest with smoke coming out the chimney.  It was so very special, and I was honored to have witnessed this splendid work of art.

That night we heard the bears trying to break into various garbage cans.  They have these huge cans and the tops screw on so the bears can’t get into them.  They warn you highly not to leave any food out and to pick up any major crumbs.  It was kind of scary when we heard them that night, but we made it through alive.

We saw Old Faithful, other geysers, and the hot springs and all the wonderful sights.  I was appalled at the litter I spotted in the beautiful mud flats.  There were wooden walkways and you were not supposed to stray from them.  You could feel the heat from the Earth and the smell of phosphorus was intense.  Again, we were surrounded by tourist from all over the world.  I was sort of proud that this tremendous park was in my native country.

We drove and drove.  We were getting on each other’s nerves by this time.  We would stop and get some more of the coffee with minnows.  We stayed in hotels at times or if possible, set up our tent and spend a night or two camping.

I was totally impressed with Dayton, Wyoming.  It was lush green mountains with red earth.  You could see the red contrasting with the green grass here and there.  It was lovely, and I could have stayed there but it was a little nothing village.  I don’t think we even got coffee with minnows there.

The Big Horn Mountains were not what we had anticipated.  We were driving our brand-new Lincoln Mercury Capri.  It was a four-cylinder and not a very powerful vehicle.  We had made it so far, but the Big Horns were going to tax this vehicle alarmingly.  We had been tailgated by semis and bigger vehicles.  Once on the way down a huge mountain, we had a semi about ten feet behind us all the way.  It was very scary!

As we topped the Big Horn Mountains, holding our breath the entire time, the view was awesome!  Behind there were unbelievably huge mountains and in front of us spread the vast prairie.  It was like a massive drop off.  Here mountains, there, flat as far as the eye could see.

We started across the Badlands and began seeing signs for the Passion Play starring Joseph Meier, famous Jesus impersonator!  The guy was like five feet tall, chubby, and was a famous Jesus impersonator.  Years later, I discovered that one of my friends, Toni Bortoli, was from the same town in Dakota and had been in the famous Passion Play.

Another thing we kept seeing were signs telling us to “See Rock City” and to visit “Wall Drug”.  We laughed and joked that we had to go to Wall Drug to see if they had any good ones.  Sick puppies that we were.  We wondered if Rock City was really made entirely of rocks.

I think we did stop at Wall Drug and it turned out to be one of those places that sells ashtrays and dirty post cards.  I think we got some coffee with minnows.

We stayed at a really cheap hotel during this part of our journey.  They had a curtain covering the entrance to the bathroom and pelace smelled of mold.  They also had posters in the room for the Passion Play, starring Joseph Meier, famous Jesus impersonator!  We lived through the room and didn’t get bugs or crabs, thank goodness!

It seemed the Badlands took forever and there wasn’t much to look at.  I believe Rick and I were on our worst nerve ever at this point in time.  It was night when we came into Mount Rushmore.  It was so startling!  Darkness, but the mountain was lit with huge spotlights.  I was entranced.  I am so glad we saw it at night because it would never had had the same effect in the daytime.

We drove on.  I believe we stayed overnight in a clean, not moldy smelling hotel and continued on our way the next day.  We came into Wisconsin and it had been raining for quite some time.  The sun broke free from the clouds and a huge rainbow appeared before us.  And then another appeared above it.  I got out the camera and hung out the window just as another rainbow appeared.  I got a photo of a triple rainbow in Wisconsin.  I have always loved that state and it was welcoming us back to civilization.

We ended our trip with a visit with Rick’s parents in Rockford, IL.  It was a trip of a lifetime.  Amazingly, we didn’t kill each other or divorce.  And we didn’t choke on all the darn minnows in the coffee.  I still have no idea why they coffee had all that junk it it, and why everyone’s coffee had minnows in it.

The sad part about the trip was that we had borrowed a camera and most of our ten or so rolls of film were ruined.  I guess we didn’t understand how to operate the camera.  We got one shot of Rick and me in front of a waterfall in Yellowstone, a wonderful shot of the Three Breast Crest, a photo of the little painting in the knothole, one photo of the magnificent moose and a few others.  We had enough to make a slide tray to show our friends.

It was a wonderful trip and I will never forget it.

Peace be with you.

P.S.  The photo is not one of mine but about the same as I took of the Three Breast Crest in the Grand Tetons.

Well the infamous food processor that wouldn’t die has done it again.  Today I made beet relish.  I chopped up the beets, onion, carrot and green peppers.  The thing is indestructible.  Thank you again Scadutos for the donation.

Beet Relish

4 pounds, beets, cooked and peeled

4 large onions

3 large green peppers

1 Tbsp whole cloves

1 ½ cups sugar

1 ½ cups vinegar

Grind beets, onions and green peppers.  Tie cloves in cheesecloth bag.  In large kettle combine vegetables, clove bag, sugar, vinegar, ½ cup water and 1 Tbsp salt.   Bring to boil, reduce heat.  Cover and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove clove bag. Ladle into hot jars, leave ½ inch headspace.  Adjust lids.  Process in boiling water bath (half pints) 15 minutes.  Makes 13 half pints.

Now that is what the recipe reads.  I know Diane at the Extension Office would have a hissy fit, but this is how I adjusted the recipe to suit me.  (“That’s not acceptable”, is what Diane would say!)  But I am a cook who does fluctuate with her recipes.  I have threatened to make rabbit tacos or hot dog fried rice before but never have.

I don’t feel badly when I have to substitute because I don’t have a certain ingredient.

I added shredded carrots, a jalapeno pepper and fresh grated ginger.  Instead of water I used the water I cooked the beets in.  I didn’t use whole cloves but instead used ground cloves.  I also sprinkled in a little nutmeg.

It is delicious.

Today I jumped on the bandwagon and made kale chips.  I seasoned with garlic, paprika, onion powder and chili pepper.  I sprinkled with pink salt when they were finished.  I hated them!  They tasted burned and were horrid.  I'll go back to my kale salads.

Peace be with you.

When I was in college a group of friends went to a bar to hear some live music.  I hung my purse over the back of my chair and enjoyed the show.  Later, I got my purse to get some money for another drink and realized I had been vandalized.  My money was gone including a silver dollar my uncle had given me at birth.

For some reason, I can’t remember why, I looked at the guy sitting right behind me.  He attended the same college and was known to be a “little shit”.

“Empty your pockets,” I demanded of him.  He just laughed and looked away to talk to his friends.

I got up from my seat and grabbed him by his shirt front.  I pulled him into my face and said something to the effect that if he stole my money I was going to kick his ass.

One of my friends pulled me off him.  Two other guy friends told him to empty his pockets.  He did so and there was my silver dollar.  I started at him again and my friends pulled me away.

“You got your money back, let it go,” they told me.

I believe we all left about that time.

I never did run into that little rat again.  I’m afraid if I had, I would have given him a good thrashing.

Peace be with you.

Photo of me at 19.  First year of college.

The question my daughter has given me to answer this week is, “What do you think is the meaning of life?”  I have searched my entire life wondering what the meaning of my life is.  I have had many influences throughout my learning experience.  One of the first thoughts that came to mind was something I read from Boris Pasternak, “Man is born to live not to prepare to live.”  I had read this in my teens and got it wrong.  I thought it read, “Man was born to live, not to prepare to die.”

Another teen influence was from Literature.  “Carpe Diem.”  I always thought if I got a tattoo (I’m not going to.  I’m too old.) it would be this.  Seize the day.  I believe every day you are given is a gift.  I have tried to live my life to the fullest almost every day of my life.

The Beatles sang a lyric that has been a great influential theme in my life. “And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.” And no, I didn’t take this in the sexual interpretation.  I have believed in karma for most of my life.  I try never to do harm and I really like to do things for people.  I loved being a mother and wife.  I loved taking care of our home and cooking and baking for those I loved.  I enjoyed my career (well, most of it) as a school secretary and loved doing things for the students and teachers.  Now as a volunteer I enjoy doing things for my friends and family.  And even an occasional stranger.  (Recently, I bought the guy behind me at the grocery his rotisserie chicken.)

I did some research on the internet about quotes from influential folks as to what they thought was the meaning of life.  One of my ultimate favorites was from von Goethe a German writer and stateman.  He said, “The man who is born with a talent, which he is meant to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it.”

The Dalai Lama said, “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others and if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”

The Roman philosopher, Seneca, stated, “Begin at once to live, and count each day as a separate life.”

“The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.  Being alive is the meaning.”  This was from Joseph Campbell who is a Professor at Sarah Lawrence College.

And the Buddha said that happiness is achieved through values, strengths and passions.”

After taking all of this in and truly meditating on the question of the week I have come up with this…The meaning of life is to do the best with what you have, and to enjoy each day to its fullest capacity.

Peace be with you.

The above photo is one of my favorite memories with my girls.  We were at the Art Museum in Milwaukee and I had to pose as this statue.  Unfortunately,  I played around with the picture and ruined it by transposing another photo on top of it.  Oh and I almost got us thrown out of the museum by tap dancing on a piece of art that looked like a platform wood floor.

One of my favorite stories from childhood would have been Rapunzel.  I’ve always been a fan of long hair.  And I think the idea of escaping is another thing that I am sure attracted me to the story.

In my parents’ religion, it was considered sinful for a woman to cut her hair.  My mother was constantly cutting her own hair.  She would wear it up for a while to hide the fact from my father.

When I was in third grade my sister, who was ten years older than me, took me to a hair salon and had my hair cut very short.  I remember my father threw a tantrum over it.  My sister’s theory was that my hair was baby fine and if it was cut it would get thicker.  It must have worked because I have plenty hair on my head and other parts of my body as well.

Thinking about Rapunzel, I had to go on line and re-read the story.  I wondered as a child how the witch got Rapunzel up into the tower.  I envision this old hag carrying a little baby by its long hair up into the tower.  And also, if she didn’t want anyone to find the child, why didn’t she silence her, so she couldn’t sing and draw the prince to her?

The first dream I ever remember as a child was where I was locked in a castle room.  I was lying on a stone bed and was crying.  The door to the room was opening and I just knew whatever came through meant danger.  I wonder if the reading of the Rapunzel story triggered this nightmare of mine?

There were many stories relative to the Rapunzel story.  It was fascinating.  One was even considered “bawdy”.

I read that Rapunzel’s name came from rampion, which is a name given to several plants, one of which is campanula.  I thought campanula was bell flowers but it seems that it was formerly grown as a green for salad.  This is what Rapunzel’s mother craved while pregnant with Rapunzel, and which got her into trouble with the witch that owned the garden that her husband was stealing from.

There is also a Rapunzel syndrome where the person eats their own hair and gets an intestinal malfunction.   How disgusting is that?

I also wondered about how Rapunzel gave away that she was having a prince visit her.  One story tells that she complained that her dress was getting too tight, indicating that she was pregnant.   Suggesting that she and the prince have been doing more than talking.  This is in a children’s story?   Another version, Rapunzel asks the witch why it is easier pulling the prince up than her.  Suggesting that the witch is overweight.  I have to believe this is the story my mother read to me not the one about the unmarried pregnant woman.  I just know I would have had questions.

I think, all in all, the story just fascinated me.  I even played a game as a child and tied a long towel around my head and pretended that I was Rapunzel with long lovely hair.

I had to cut my hair when I was a senior in high school because the school felt the cheerleaders looked better with shorter hair.  I will never forgive them for that, but in a couple of years, I had my long hair back.  Now when I have my hair cut, I get it cut as short as possible.

Peace be with you.

My mother was one of the most lovable people in the world.  She was hospitable to my friends and especially loved to cook for them.

She was very strict with me.  I got my fair share of whoopins.  Her favorite quote to let me know I was getting in trouble was, “Are you looking to get some willer tea?”  She was threatening to go get a switch from a tree and whip my legs with it.  I don’t think we had a willow tree but I’m sure any little twig would do.  I was a pretty good child because I don’t enjoy pain and I knew if she threatened willer tea, I’d better cool my jets.

I remember once (and only once) running from her when she was going to spank me.  I think I got it with a thin wood board, learned a valuable lesson, and I never ran from her again.

I had many nightmares as a child and mother would get up and come lay next to me until I fell back asleep.  I loved the smell of her.  She smelled of talcum powder and Prell shampoo.

My parents often played music and sang together.  My mother had this tiny little whiney voice and Daddy had a full bass voice.  They sounded wonderful together.  Daddy told me how he met my Mother.  He said he and some friends were going to attend a certain church because a girl he was interested in was singing.  He said when he saw my mother and heard her sing, he forgot all about that other girl.  From that time on, she was his girlfriend. He told me after she passed away that she had been his girlfriend for seventy-six years.  It broke my heart.

My parents were very religious and almost everything was sinful.  I remember once my girlfriends and I were dancing in the living room, probably to American Bandstand.  My mother came into the room and began to do the Charleston.  I was totally astounded.  I had never seen my mother so happy and energetic.

When I was in Junior High School, I had a good friend named, George.  George was chubby and loved to come to my house because mother would always fix him something to eat. George had a crush on me but I had my eyes on someone else.

George asked me out in front of my mother once and I told him I couldn’t because I didn’t have anything to wear.  My mother spoke without thinking and asked George if he had ever seen me naked.  George turned a hundred shades of red.  My mother realized what she had asked him and quickly left the room.  I’m sure George told all his friends and mine what she had asked him.

Mother was kind, innocent, and welcoming to all my friends.  Her specialty was these hamburgers that she cooked up in a pressure cooker with diced onions.  They were reminiscent of White Castle burgers.  Everyone exclaimed that Mother Goose made the best burgers in the world.  With the last name of VanHoose, all of us were nicknamed “Goose” by our friends.  She naturally was Mother Goose.

I wasn’t surprised at the overwhelming attendance at my mother’s funeral.  So many people came up to me and told me they had loved her so much and would miss her.  Sometimes, I miss her too.

Peace be with her.