i have a dream

This old girl has always been a dreamer.  Oscar Bruce told my parents that when he would pass by my room at Alice Thurmond I would be looking out the window.  I went there for six years and couldn't have gotten away with a dang thing because all those teachers and whatnot knew my parents.  My first memory was in our first grade room when my Uncle Jimbo would roll in to lead us in "Good morning Mrs. Green's room!"  When my baby brother Tommy was born Mr. Bruce got me out of class, took me to the office and gave me a coke.  Ethel said Harold had a big head when he was born.  I can just see her and those choppers going as she sized this great grandchild up.  "alright?" she would say when answering the rotary phone.  Back then it was AT something.  As  young woman she worked as a telephone operator in Halls and I have a vintage photo of her there.  And you know what?  I look eerily like her.  Alright?

I'm trying to figure how far I can walk to the pocket park on Monday for MLK day.  For sure I can't do from Bruce unless I have a bus back to my car.  As I imagine it, there will be a long line of folks holding hands and singing "We shall overcome."  I honestly believe that Dr. King was a man of God who believed in equality and got murdered by a redneck in Memphis because he took up for the sanitation workers.   John Lewis is another personal hero of mine.  Rosa and them.  I have never known anything but being white but I remember the colored peoples' fountains down at the Dyer County courthouse.  So much has changed, yet a lot remains the same.

I have a super story to write this weekend about a woman who loves to bake bread.  I actually watched her knead it!  She has this huge industrial mixer for the dough and her creativity takes off from there.  That's how it usually goes with me when I'm writing.  Experience something new and then tell the story, so to speak.  Looks like the blog might get more exposure soon so there's that.  People seem to like it unless I get too rowdy and political.  I'm done with following all that stuff.  It will be what it is.

I've managed to make it through Friday the 13th without falling or seeing any black cats under ladders.  There is one outside somewhere who will be mewing to get in from the cold.   Y'all be blessed.  Tell mama'n'them  I said "alright" ^j^

across the aisle

Bubba called this morning so I could meet him at Charlie's house which is where I lived like..forever.  It's all spiffed up and the latest addition is stunning.  We have been on this journey together for three years.  I moved into the homeplace during a February freeze two years ago.  Thank the lort' Mama's bed was already here.  I don't remember who did the moving but it eventually happened.  Meanwhile, the house on the hill was FULL of memories that were taken out carefully to the dumpster out front.  Billy dug through the stuff and found things like Mama and Daddy's wedding picture and their report cards from back in the day.  All of this was passed onto me to keep up with.  Lerd.  Surely Mama knew I am not as organized as she was.  

I left there and went to the gentral' down at Four Points to get just two things.  As I decided to head to the cashier I heard a voice asking "Is anybody over there?"  Hello, I said.  And I heard it again from the other aisle, a cry for help.  A few steps found me turning the corner to find an elderly woman laid out on the floor with her basket turned over.  I sat down cross legged by her head and we talked.  She was alert and told me name and address.  A beautiful woman who did not look her age of 80.  The cashier called 911 and then his manager who showed up before the ambulance service.  I am kinda' sorta' a nurse and I could tell she was in more distress and losing it.  The ambulance showed up and put her on a "bed" as they called it. They rolled her out into their truck to see what was up.  I followed Glenda's friend out to the parking lot and she told me through tears "She's all I've got."  

Be very award of voices that call to you from wherever.  It might be an angel of God tapping you on the shoulder ^j^

it's all good

Sometimes it isn't.  If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, those words sound hollow.  After years of working the clinical side of healthcare, I found my passion with palliative care.  I wasn't actually doing it officially but I became acutely aware of the pain of losing someone you love.  While walking the halls of the hospital, I would hear families singing around a death bed where one of their loved ones was passing over.  Sometimes it took days.  Often, it was months with a transfer to a nursing home and back into the hospital.  Because we were associated with the nursing home next door, me and a lot of others had to walk over there with trays and get blood from the patients.  One time this crazy old dude tried to grab my ass...in fact he did.  Sometimes the adrenaline kicks in at the end.  

I am pretty stubborn but that's not the way I see me going.  With extensive knowledge of end-of-life care I have chosen my path and my social worker daughter knows my wishes.  I carry the living will with me everywhere I go.  If I die in a car wreck it will probably go sailing into the Forked Deer river but there are copies.  Be prepared....lol.  What a good scout.  BTW, I hated Girl Scout camp Mom.  And Lauren was allergic to the lake water!  Hey...we tried.

I write stories because it's in my blood.  Mama was a reporter at the local papers for years, doing society and recipes with Mary Lee Bowen as a boss.  They are now long gone but there is still something about the print media that grabs me.  Many folks want to have the paper in their hands and slowly read through the local news.  You have to have the ad page for yard sales and whatnot but feature stories are where it's at.  And sports, of course.  For many years the opinion page of the State Gazette has been dominated by the far right.  My friend is changing all of that, plus more.  She is a true Co-Starter.  

Namaste Rachel ^j^

the devil in the details

I won't be naming anything or anybody in particular but as it turns out there is a lot of corruption going on in Dyer County right now on many different levels.  Much of it involves COVID relief money in the form of PPP grants/loans.  Several different types of businesses such as government, education and religion are under the microscope.  These things have divided our community times a trillion.  People steal, all the time.  But as a US taxpayer, I'm pissed at this fraud.  Where was the oversight?  I am not a county tax payer since I don't own property but I think that the commission did the right thing by purchasing the property and consolidating  many services in one area.  The essentials are still on court square and those properties have been improved tremendously.  There is a growing movement of folks who seek to offer a lot of services in downtown Dyersburg.  I can tell you from my research for an art gallery there simply is nothing decent to be had at ground level except for lawyer's offices....except for South Mill.

I became friends with Chris Donaldson through his mother.  His imagination and creativity combined with that of his sister Amy astound me.  They jumped on the wagon early with co-working spaces which was "a little ahead of our time" for Dyersburg but it turned out beautifully as an office for Tencom and The Mill Workspace. The Mill is packed with gadgets to record, televise and anything else you could want.  Alan Ingalls is a premier videographer who works with Chris closely.  Plus! Get this.  It's across the street from my crack store Pennington Seed and Supply.  There are a couple of boutique type places over by the feed store.  

I remember watching Chris giving life to this dream of his.  I was schooled by him through a Haslam program which was designed to teach folks about taking an idea and making it happen.  What's your idea?  Who is your target audience?  How much will it cost?  At the time I was still at the hospital and had sick parents so that never happened.   

If the locals want to make things work, they can.  Grant money is available and I'm not talking PPP.  Get you a good grant writer (social worker) and define your goal.  Then pitch yourself and wrassle' with the economics of it.  One of the things that saved Chris a ton of money is that he did the reconstruction himself supervising every detail with a vision.  Every time I went, it looked better.  It was there that I met the founder of Buff City Soap, a lawyer who just started just making soap in his garage in Shelby County.  That business is now nationally franchised and he has moved onto boards.  They are to die for beautiful!

I think small in business.  Support your local merchants who are trying to make Dyersburg a better place to live ^j^

epiphany

My tree is still up glaring at me because I didn't dare take it down until today.  That will be tonight's project along with a movie. Or maybe I'll wait for Reaves to help me on Sunday.  I need a decent box or tote to put the ornaments away for this season.  Tonight is really dedicated to getting my shit together.  I learned this morning that one of my "kids from another mother" passed away yesterday.  He has been a constant in my life since Lauren'n'them were young uns'  I have thought about him all day, the stories that you can't make up because the details are so bizarre.  Once I rescued him from under a telephone pole when it rolled over on him while he was cutting it.  This boy scout had everything needed for all the emergency workers and passers by with CBs to pull the pole up with ropes off of his body.  Luckily the ground was soft and once the pole was off of him, the EMTs used a barrel top (also from his truck) to slide him out from the ditch.  I think Daddy came with a tractor but didn't have much luck with that and was mad as hell.

I was privy to an excellent cook making gumbo with the perfect roux today.  Her recipe will be passed on and on.  It's a special occasion because it's a full moon only it's cloudy so....there ya go.  Bang those drums anyways sisters!

Grief is hard and has really no beginning or end.  Every day brings a loss of some sort which we process according to EK Ross.  At any one moment we can see something or taste and smell something that brings back a memory of times past.  According to one person I know, it's all about the dopamine.  Do what makes you happy.  I got kissed by four dogs today and that gave me a real boost.  

Take your tree down folks.  Love ya....mean it ^j^

this will be

Well, it will be what it will be.  I'm sick and tired of wringing my hands over the future and what "might" happen.  Sitting here in the precarious position of retired but still working, I've had opportunities to augment my SS so that's all good.  At any moment that income could go away but I will try until I can't get up.  Magnesium is a wonder drug for me because I don't have the muscle aches and spasms that I did for a few months.  That will be a monthly staple at Sunflower for me.  Along with astragalus, vitamins and other healthy stuff.  As a lab person I'm amazed at what the MG does for a body.

Since I'm writing stories now I've been grabbing phone numbers from everybody I know so they will talk to me and tell their tales.  So far so good.  I only spent a week on the first piece.  Hey, I'm a novice so just give me some time to get into human interest mode.  Right now I'm reading The Secret Life of Bees and loving it.  I can relate to that little girl.  Plus there are honey bees flying all around here.  

God is good.  All the time ^j^

a brand new year

I started it off at FUMC which featured a beautiful service with communion and the children's choir.  Cousin Charlie had a solo and knocked it out of the park!  The girls didn't get here in time for church but were waiting for me when I got home and shed the fancy duds for shorts.  On New Year's Day, of course.  The temp hit 70 both yesterday and today and now the storms are moving in.

LP was horribly tired from no sleep due to knee pain so she passed out on the couch and Reaves and I played awhile.  We made soup for the baby in the tree which ended up not so bad.  Full of yogurt and fruit and cream, frozen to a perfect slush.  When I went to check the mail I mysteriously found a copy of Green Eggs and Ham so we sat in the swing and I read to her.  About halfway through the second time reading it she lay her head on my shoulder and softly murmured "I want to go nap with Mama."  Which she did, and I can't tell you what a sweet feeling seeing both of my girls sacked out and curled into each other in sleep.  

While they were napping my friend Patrick came by to put the training wheels on her new Barbie bike.  She didn't really want to wake up but I was determined to get her on that bike before they left.  As Lauren was packing up to leave Reaves and I pushed the bike across grass and gravel until we reached the paved road.  At first she was all like "I can't." but I coached her and pushed her and off she went with me whooping and hollering "Go girl GO...You've got this!"  She wanted to keep going down to where Oscar was exploring way down the road but it was time for them to get back to Jackson.  Next time, she will do it again and again and again.  It was a once in a lifetime moment, y'all.

I had peas and cornbread and pork yesterday so I should be good for the new year.  I'm still craving cream cheese sausage balls but that can wait until fifth Sunday in Sunday School.  

Y'all be blessed ^j^