Happy 23rd Anniversary to My One and Only

So the truth is, I never meant to fall in love. Not in happily-ever-after-till-death-do-us-part love, anyway. I had this idea, at the ripe old age of 18, that a woman didn’t need marriage… didn’t need a man… didn’t need any relationship that might stand in the way of a career and an exciting, fun-filled live of travel and accomplishment. It’s funny how I still believe that, yet I’m glad I found mine. Whatever the hurdles, the trial and error, the ups and downs, I would spend the last 23 years the very same way if given the chance.

I didn’t think of him as “the one” for several years. Certainly not the summer we met. He was fun. He was new and exciting. With him, I had a voice I was not accustomed to using, except perhaps at the tail end of parties, when I was past drunk and still upright and the mood of adolescent debauchery had turned philosophical. We talked about things; ideas that were deep and wide and it was nice that it didn’t require an abundance of alcohol to get myself to speak my thoughts out loud as words. 

I liked that about him. 

Being with him was a little bit like doing drugs… all of the buzz, none of the day-after hangover.

I didn’t think of him as “the one” those first few years… weekend drives between two colleges, countless letters written on spiral notebook paper, our first apartment together in Lawrence… somewhere along the line we decided to get married. I loved him. At least per my limited understanding of love at the time. It seemed the practical thing to do, get married. It assured our future together in some very real and tangible ways and that somehow frightened me less than the idea of us growing in different directions and eventually apart. We were moving forward, most definitely, as a couple, rather than as two individuals who just happened to enjoy spending time together.

I’m not even sure I thought of him as “the one” when we got married on December 29, 1990. It was the coldest day in Dodge City, Kansas in something like 50 years. I don’t remember much about the cold. Only that it is the first thing people talked about for many years when they talked about our wedding. Several family members did not make it to the event. It was that kind of cold; the kind of where cars wouldn’t start and people were afraid of being stranded, even for short road trips, because of the deepness of the chill. 

The sky is blue in our wedding photographs. The ground is white, but not freshly so. The oreos were stuck to the windshield of our car so solidly that they required multiple blasts from a carwash hose on the way to Wichita to clear the window enough that we could see. We added ice, but at least we had visibility.

The whole experience of meeting him and falling in love and getting married a short two and a half years later still feels like something of an out-of-body experience for me. The wedding, especially; I was never a center-stage kind of girl. I never dreamed of tiaras and princess gowns and spotlights. I was still operating under the assumption that I should do what was expected of me. I grew past that, eventually. We both did. And I have to give him at least half the credit for what we’ve become. 

Authentic. Real. Both perfect and imperfect in our made-for-each-other ways. Yin and yang in some respects; oil and water in others. 

Ultimately, we have both grown stronger in our visions of ourselves, both individually and together, and after 23 years the fact that we are still speaking—still each other’s first choice for company and entertainment— would seem to be a good sign. 

Sometimes, looking back on my life with him, it feels more like we blundered into a relationship and were just lucky it turned out to be a good thing. We grew up together, in many ways. We had disagreements. We made some mistakes. Hell, we are likely still making new ones.

More often I think of it in terms of what we deserve, because we worked for it. Some days it came easy; some days it felt like a never-ending chore, this act of living together in happiness and harmony.

Somewhere along the line—likely years after marrying him, believe it or not—I decided he was “the one” and I guess he must have made that decision, too. Perhaps earlier than me. I really couldn’t say for sure. But the commitment that feels real and binding was made long after the out-of-body-experience of the early years of our dating and eventual marriage had taken place. My memories of us as a couple at some point grow more solid.

The fairy tale divisions that made up my understanding of a modern woman versus my mother’s generation had blurred by then and I understood that we were building our own life to be what we wanted it to be.

I was never one to dwell on doubts, but was always well aware that I had choices. And the fact was that I kept choosing him, over and over again. One might think that after 23 years it’s simply habit. But I think it is not. It remains a choice. And I pick him again, to be “the one”… and only.

Let’s see where the next 23 years takes us, Bubs.

published also at www.TracyMillionSimmons.com

When I was a Cowgirl, My Uncle Shared His Boots

Barnie H. Lee, Jr.

October 6, 1929 – November 14, 2012

When I was a Cowgirl, My Uncle Shared His Boots

  

I was in my early teens when I convinced my father I needed a real horse. I’d had my fill of our ornery Shetland/Welch pony cross. I’d impressed upon him the seriousness of my desire through the hours I spent riding with a neighbor.

  

My Uncle Barnie was perhaps the only person on the farm whose appreciation for a new horse rivaled my own. Uncle Barnie was a real cowboy. He’d been a PRCA Bull rider when he was a kid. As constant a presence as he had been in my life, the husband of my mother’s sister, I likely would not have recognized him without his boots and cowboy hat.

  

Barnie watched with interest as I got to know my Palomino mare.  Peggy was three years old and had not been broke to ride. I had not been trained to break. Equipped with the confidence only a 14-year-old who’d been riding ornery ponies for most of her life could muster, I spent every day of my summer teaching us both.

  

Inevitably, my Uncle Barnie would appear as I held daily morning and afternoon sessions with my horse. He’d lean against the garden fence, chuckle and shake his head. “I’m waiting for her to throw you,” he’d say. “There was never a broke horse that didn’t have a good buck along the way. You need to push her to it. You need to get it over with. Jump on her and make her buck until she learns she can’t unseat you.”

  

The problem was, of course, the lesson I knew I would teach her if I could not stay on her back.

  

Peggy and I made our way in our own time. I spent the summer on her bareback, believing the saddle too much of a barrier. I could read her mood more easily if there was nothing between us. I could feel her tense when she was uneasy. I could feel her relax which improved my confidence in my ability to take her up and down the driveway, then up and down the road.

  

Right or wrong in my approach, I introduced the saddle slowly. I led her round and rode with it not cinched. I tightened it in small increments until I finally felt it was snug enough I could climb on without it toppling. Uncle Barnie watched. He offered advice, all of it sound, though not all of it taken.

  

One day I came home to find a pair of snakeskin boots in the entryway of our house. I would not have chosen snake-skin on my own, but the beauty of them was undeniable. They were shiny and new. I couldn’t imagine where they had come from.

  

“Your Uncle Barnie says you need to be wearing boots when you ride that horse,” my mom said. He was right, of course. I had already discovered the danger of tennis shoes in the stirrup. Without a solid heel, it was easy to slide your foot too far into the stirrup. If your heel went through the stirrup, you forfeited a lot of control.

  

The boots had been a gift to my Uncle Barnie from his son Brent. They were custom made. He’d sent an outline of his feet when Brent was living in Guam. The problem, apparently, was that the boots had been made the exact same size as the outline he provided rather than large enough that he could slip his feet inside of them. Barnie had never been able to wear the boots, but they fit my feet perfectly.

  

On that day, I became a snake-skin boot wearing cowgirl. Uncle Barnie wasn’t the type to boast or make a big deal over gifts. Looking back, I can only hope that I at least acknowledged his gift with a thank you. He continued to watch my efforts, and when I was finally successfully riding Peggy for hours at a time, he continued to offer advice and commentary.

  

When Peggy did throw me, several years later, Uncle Barnie said, “I told you so. You never did work the buck out of that horse.”

  

Every time I was on horseback from that moment on, those boots were on my feet. I wore Uncle Barnie’s snake-skin boots until their sides began to droop and the scales lost their shine.

  

I can’t say that I’ve ever considered that I had much in common with my Uncle Barnie. We were neighbors when I was growing up and neighbors again when I was grown. We shared a yard. We shared a drive-way. We shared a party-line phone for years. But our lives connected in other ways, as well. We certainly shared a love for his grandkids, my first cousins one generation removed. My Aunt Gerry, his wife, remains one of the most important influences in my life, and his place is my life is cemented as her husband, as well.

  

Barnie is perhaps the one true cowboy I have ever really known. We shared a love for horses, and my Uncle Barnie, I now believe, shared with me in a way I am sure I never sufficiently acknowledged.

  

When I was a cowgirl, my Uncle Barnie shared his boots. 

Timeless Tuesday: Grandma Skaggs

Grandma with my cousin Chantell.

My brother Barry, my sister Diane, Me, and Grandma Skaggs.

I was just reviewing old Timeless Tuesday entries and I was thinking about why I started these in the first place. Once we were visiting western Kansas, my sister and I with the kids, and we were on a little family road trip. Big Sis and I were just yacking away as we often do, and I heard from the back seat, “Shhh… everyone. They’re talking about Grandma.” My niece said she loved when my sister and I told stories about when we were kids. She especially loved hearing stories about my mom. Only one of my mother’s eight grandchildren really has any memories of her.

At the time I started writing Timeless Tuesday entries, I was thinking about collecting stories about family members to share with the nieces (and nephew!). It also struck me that I hadn’t shared any stories of my grandmother (my mother’s mother) in the entries I had collected so far.

Grandma Skaggs was a constant figure in my life. She moved her mobile home out to the farm when I was fairly young, so she was close enough that I was able to drop in and visit her whenever I wanted, and I did so often. She spent a lot of time at our house, too. Grandma, Aunt Gerry and my mother were always gardening together—sometimes flowers, sometimes veggies-- and preserving what they harvested together. The three of them got together to watch soaps daily and trips to town for shopping were often joint events, as well. It was pretty much a ritual that they met for tea mid-morning every day. I always looked forward to summer when I was out of school and could be a part of their gatherings.

Grandma served Tang out of those colorful, metallic cups that were so popular in the 70s. I can’t think of Tang without that metallic taste. The two go together in my mind.

She was something of a quiet soul, but always good for a hug or to go adventuring with my mom and I. She read Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. She also loved to embroider. She made quilts with handprints and the names and dates of all the babies born in each branch of the family tree. She would also embroider themed quilts, like the shapes of all the states with the capitals, all the presidents faces, or squares with each of the state birds.

Grandma wasn’t much of a story-teller, but it was her past that always fascinated me. She was one daughter in a family with six boys. She had a sister who died at birth. Her mother passed away when she was only four years old (a month after the birth of her second son born after my grandmother). Her father remarried and Grandma always kindly referred to that woman as “the woman I thought of as mother.” Her daddy’s second wife had a stroke which left her disabled. She died when Grandma was in her early 20’s.

The way I understood the story, Grandma’s brothers all fully expected her to stay home, remain single and care for their aging father. I always got the impression that she had done a lot of the raising of her brothers, as well.

It was hard to get a story out of Grandma. Most of what I knew about her life came from my mother. I remember asking her about meeting my Granddaddy, however (always Granddaddy, never GrandPA).

This is what she wrote in “Sketches of My Growing Up Days,” a collection of stories I begged her to write for us when I was still a teen.

“That was about the time that the bridge construction group reached Rayville, and that was the group that Elkin Skaggs was with. He boarded with my school friend’s mother’s boarding house, so one night she asked me if I would like a blind date to go to a show. It was a blind date for about 2 miles to the town before I got a good look at who I was with. It wasn’t long before my plans for nursing school I made were put off. That was the beginning of the years of going places and seeing things.”

(Grandma went back and got her nursing degree when she was in her 40s. She was actually the nurse at the hospital the night I was born. She loved taking care of the babies in the nursery and did so for many years.)

As Mrs. R.E. Skaggs, she moved a lot. My granddaddy was part of a bridge construction crew that took them all over the south, from Louisiana to Texas. He also spent some time building cabins for the workers in the oil fields. Sometimes Grandma would travel with him from job to job, and sometimes he would get her a place in Dallas or Houston where she’d stay a while with the kids as he moved about and visited when he could.

She had five children, three of them grew to adulthood. My mother was the middle child.

Ethel Pauline Sorey Skaggs
July 31, 1908-January 23, 1999

Grandma and me, Garden of the Gods, Lucas, Kansas, 1986.

Great Aunt Edna

It's been several years since I've seen my Great Aunt Edna. When her sister, my Great Aunt Evelyn, passed away I was able to take the day and drive west to visit with friends and family. I sat beside Edna after the funeral and we got to chat. She was having problems with her memory by that time, but on the day I saw her it seemed to be only short term memory that was an issue. She knew exactly who I was and was very happy to see me. In fact, she'd tell me how wonderful it was that I was there and we'd catch up on where I was living and what I was doing and how old the kids were. Then other family members would come along and we'd each end up turning away and talking to other people. When Edna would turn to see me sitting next to her again, she'd say, "Oh Tracy! It's so good to see you!" And we'd start our conversation all over again.

I can't remember ever having felt more welcomed.

That was several years ago. Edna was one of my grandmother's younger sisters.

One of my earliest memories is of being at church. The walls were turquoise and I was running. I threw my arms around stockinged legs (I wasn't much more than knee height) thinking I had found Grandma. When I looked up, I realized that it was not Grandma I had caught, but one of her sisters. I think it was Edna who was the recipient of my spontaneous hug that day. She had laughed and bent to hug me back.

Grandma Christena passed away when I was six and several of her sisters became my favorite aunts. Aunt Esther was the one who had owned and lived in our house, the one I grew up in, before my family bought it several years before I was born. Aunt Evelyn was a reflexologist and spoiled me early for foot rubs. My Grandpa Sam and I would stay at Aunt Henrietta's house when we went fishing sometimes. Those three lived far away, but Aunt Edna lived in town and I saw her frequently.

I remember one time she came out to our house to visit. We spent the afternoon sitting in my mother's flower garden chatting and listening to Aunt Edna's stories. I always thought of Edna as quiet when I was young, but as I got older she got more talkative. My mom had rescued this set of monkey bars from an old school playground and had turned it into a trellis. When Aunt Edna realized what the trellis was, she said, "I used to be able to chin myself. I wonder if I still can." She proceeded to reach up and grab the bars above her head and easily lifted herself all the way up. I was blown away. I could barely do a chin up and I wasn't too many years past being a gymnast at that point. When I marveled out loud, she said, "Well I lift my hand weights every day you know," and flexed her bicep for me.

Aunt Edna passed away last night. I get this type of news via Facebook these days. It's a good medium for family news since my mother is no longer living to keep those of us who are no longer there informed by phone. Although it would have been nice to have seen her more often these last few years, I have no regrets about my final visit with Aunt Edna. It does make me stop and think, however, about the rest of the family and how deeply rooted I was as a kid. There was a time in my life when it seemed like the whole world belonged to me. Every other neighbor was a relative, or related to a relative. I could name every member of the church we attended by proximity to family.

Sometimes it strikes me that I live in that same kind of town, but in this place I don't have the history. I am new here. There are no cousins to categorize by generations once removed, twice removed, three time removed... There are no great aunts down the road or around the corner to make me imagine that this is what my own grandma would have been like had she lived to die of old age.

My Great Aunt Edna lived a long and full life. She has many grandkids and great-grandkids, as well as nephews and nieces (like me) who loved her dearly. She will be missed and remembered fondly.

Edna Misegadis Dirks

October 17, 1915 - April 9, 2011

I think a little bit of my childhood died yesterday.

Last night hubby spent the evening pulling up Micheal Jackson videos on YouTube to show the kids. They knew a lot of his songs, just didn't realize that it was Michael Jackson songs that they knew.

Man did it take me back. When I was a kid, I spent a whole lot of my time at a place called The Commotion Center. Took gymnastics two or three times a week after school, and sometimes every day through the summers. I can't tell you how many aerial cartwheels and handsprings I threw with Michael's music blaring in the background.

I even learned to break dance from a Michael Jackson look-alike...

Okay... maybe "learned" is a strong word. I participated in the breakin' clinics and I had a very good time, if not any rhythm. That's me in the blue unicorn shirt (go figure) and the very cool, dark blue parachute type pants. My mom made these pants for me and they were so awesome, people would actually stop me and ask where I got such cool pants. One of the few fashion worthy statements I ever pulled off, I believe.

And then the news of Farrah.... my good friend Missy was a great fan of the Angels and we used to play Charlie's Angels when we were at her house. I wasn't a big television watcher as a kid, so I had to talk to my mom about watching the show a few times so that I understood the role I was playing. I was always Sabrina, and Missy was always the blond one, which was probably more Cheryl Ladd than Farrah Fawcett... none-the less, Farrah always takes me back to those days of playing Angels and then in later years wishing I could get my hair to style like hers.

On a local (and adult memory) note, Kansas author Don Coldsmith passed away yesterday. I didn't know him well, but I had met him a number of times and really enjoyed his keynote address at the 2004 Kansas Authors Club Convention. Here he is signing a book for me. (Yep, I'm the body without the head.)

Timeless Tuesday ~ Molly

When I was a kid, I had a pig-friend named Molly. She was a runt, of course. Our neighbors raised pigs and I begged my parents for a little one. I'm pretty sure I was inspired by Charlotte's Web and the neighbor was glad to accommodate me.

Molly had black spots on her rump and on her nose. I fed her with a baby bottle, dressed her in baby clothes (when she was quite small), and led her around the yard on a dog leash.

Just like Charlotte's Wilbur, Molly grew up to be very big pig. She had two liters of babies before we sent her away (to a farm--how cliche--but I really believe they kept her to have more babies). While living with us she had two very large liters.

Timeless Tuesday ~ The Graduate

When I was 16, someone really cool came into our family.

My niece was born.

I thought she was the most miraculous little thing I had ever laid eyes on. When she was baptised, her parents chose me to be a godparent. It was probably the first time I ever felt like one of the adults in my family.

They let me babysit, as well, even when she was just teeny-tiny. The first time I took care of her she cried and cried and cried. I finally called my mom for help and she came into town with my grandmother to help me. By the time they got there, of course, my niece was sleeping soundly. She slept the rest of the evening. Mom and Grandma and I just watched her.

She was pretty special.

My brother must have trusted me a lot, because he let me babysit her again and again. It got easier, or I got better at it. By the time she was a toddler, I loved hanging out with that kid and was thrilled that her parents were the "going out" type of people so I got to watch her a lot.

My brother used to tell me that I could invite people over when I babysit. "It's fine to have a friend or two over," he would say. "We don't mind."

That's a rare thing to hear when you are babysitting, but I preferred to have my niece all to myself.

When she was about two, I remember watching her late one evening. She was obviously getting sleepy, but didn't want to go to bed. She parked herself in front of the television and insisted that she would stay up until her parents got home. She kept talking. She was sitting up, ramrod straight, her eyes open wide.

I sat beside her and we watched television. At some point, I looked over at her to see her eyelids getting heavy. I finally put my hand on her shoulder and sort of gently leaned her to the side. She was passed out, sound asleep. She didn't even twitch. So I curled up beside her and we slept on the floor until her parents got home.

Then I went away to college and my niece kept growing up without me. Here she is in 1992, wearing my cap and gown.



This past weekend she graduated from the University of Kansas. She walked through the campanille and down that same hill I did.

She's all grown up now, and I still think she's amazing.

13 Candles

I am officially the mother of a teenager today. I think it's safe to say that we've both grown quite a bit in the years since we've been introduced. She's this beautiful, amazing, intelligent person -- one of my favorite people in the world to hang out with. And I'm... at least 13 years wiser... I hope.

I had a textbook case of nesting the day before munchkin girl was born. We were living in Houston and my midwife had advised a dozen times, "If you feel like cleaning house, take a nap. You are going to need that energy for labor."

Somehow I didn't recognize the signs. Between noon and midnight on the 22nd, I scrubbed our bathroom AND kitchen from floor to ceiling. I remember taking toothpicks to all the crevices in the stove. Our little place sparkled. I vacuumed, too.

At some point I had the bright idea that I was going to make myself a dress. I bought fabric, cut it out, and had the whole thing stitched together (except for the hem) by the time I went to bed that night. I'm not typically a seamstress, but for some reason that day I was determined to have a brand new dress to wear after the baby was born. It was a nice dress, too. One of my few true successes with the sewing machine. The only problem was that I had to wait a couple of years to wear it, because I hadn't counted on gaining so many inches in my bust line!

We watched KU beat Arizona that evening in the NCAA tournament. They lost in the next round, but the night before Miss Munchkin was born, we were still dreaming that they might become champions.

It was after midnight when we got to bed, and about 1:30 am when I woke up to my first contractions. Talk about a long day. I really wished I had taken that nap advice rather than all that work. The midwife came about 8 am and Miss Munchkin made her appearance just after 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It was a rainy day in Houston, but I hadn't even noticed. Life was all bright and sunshine in my house that day.

At some point during the day we had lost phone service, so the family didn't even learn about the big event until the following morning.

That's what was happening in my life 13 years ago. What an adventure it has been!

Poor kid - her birthday will forever be celebrated along with St. James Day, our family celebration of NCAA basketball season.

The grandparents (my parents) arrived on day 11 to meet their newest grandkid. My mom was thrilled to have another "Texan" in the family. She had been born in Texas, as well, and had fond memories of a few years of her childhood living in Houston.

Today is my birthday! March 23, 1996


Me - 36 weeks pregnant. I look at this picture and all I can think is how much I lovd those shoes. They were mocassins. I wore them until they fell apart. I think it's about time I got some new mocassins, don't you think?

Timeless Tuesday: A Wedding

In the spirit of capturing images for tomorrow's memories, I'll post a recent photo. I took pictures for a friend's wedding on Friday. They turned out beautifully (probably because the bride and all involved were simply beautiful people) and I had so much fun documenting the occasion.



Of all the posed photos we took, however, I think the casual snapshots were my favorites.







I was just a few seconds slow to actually catch his finger in the cake (you can see the indentation dead center on the bottom layer). The best part was the way everybody laughed. Take a look at the bride's face and the way his mom is grinning as she tries to scold.

Timeless Tuesday: Jo

I grew up in a rural neighborhood, about 5 miles south of Dodge City (population about 18,000 when I was born, about 22,000 when I left home 18 years later). For all of my childhood, my family attended Christ the King Lutheran Church. The church was the result of a merger between Hope Lutheran, a small rural church with a tight congregation of families who were primarily 2nd or 3rd generation Germans, and one of the two Lutheran churches in town. I was always very aware of the history of these two churches. My cousin and I were the first babies baptised in the newly formed church. Probably, as well, because the growing pains of the merger were still going on through much of my early youth. The church members were one to my generation, but I was always aware that some of them came from the city church while others were from the little white building with the steeple that sat nearer my home until it was loaded up on two flatbed trucks and moved to town to become the chapel for the old folk's home.

The important thing in my mind was that nearly everyone in that church was related to me. If they weren't a great aunt or uncle, I could usually figure which degree of cousin we were by tracking the family tree on the back of church bulletins with my mother. Those who weren't directly related were often related to relation. I couldn't make any direct claim on the Gerdes family, for instance, but as first cousins to my first cousins, I thought of them as mine anyway.

Two of my great aunts had married into the Dirks family, and since my grandfather once told me that he "stole" grandma from another Dirks, I claimed all people with the Dirks surname, as well. And within all those faces of people I knew by blood, became familiar many people who were just as much fixtures in the church, and therefore my childhood, with whom I could not claim a common ancestor.

I probably first became aware of Jo as the sister of my aunt's good friend. And by the time I was seven or eight, I knew her as the grandmother of a classmate. Since that classmate and his little sister visited our church often with their grandmother, Jo was someone I began watching for at church. She became someone I knew and looked forward to greeting each week.

We celebrated Jo's 88th birthday at my house this past summer. My children--Jo's great-grandchildren--made her a birthday cake. (I married that classmate's big brother, if you are wondering.) Jo has been a part of my family for almost twenty years now and in that time I have added her stories and her relations to my own.

It's nice to think about. My world has gotten bigger, but the roots run just as deep.

Jo and her hubby, Harold (passed away in 1977) with Uncle Doc.

Timeless Tuesday: When We Were Vikings

Circa 2001

Somehow in one or another of our moves, we lost the viking helmet. It's too bad. The viking helmet was very cool (you tell it was cool because of the yellow shades we were forced to wear). We still have the sword that went with it.

I was talking with munchkin boy the other day. "You remember the viking helmet," I said. "It's probably still in the dress up box."

No, he had absolutely no memory of the viking helmet. And it's too bad, because he is the kid who would most have appreciated the viking helmet (and it got a lot of mileage from the girls). So I found these pictures and it became immediately apparent why he had no memory. He was just a little guy. Turns out my middle munchkin doesn't have much memory of it either.

This is the gap between my kids and I.

I remember things like moving to Topeka for their dad to go to law school, living in Dodge City, and getting through my mom's illness like it was yesterday. To them, I am full of stories from pre-time.

"This blanket you are so fond of," I was telling my son as we did laundry last weekend. "This belonged to your Grandpa Sam."

He thought that was pretty cool. "Who is Grandpa Sam again?" he asked.

My grandpa. His great grandpa. We climbed up and down the family tree and I recalled how the blanket got into Grandpa Sam's hands (a gift from the hubby and I shortly after we were married) and how it was returned to us (one of the first items I selected to take home with me after Grandpa died).

My son's way of putting everything into perspective is to figure how old a person would be. Grandpa Sam, if I am figuring correctly, would have turned 100 this year. Now this blanket my son is so fond of has gained even more special significance -- it once belonged to a hundred year old man!

My son has his grandfather's and my grandfather's eyes (and ears). He looks an awful lot like his dad, however, and I am reminded of my brothers, as well. In that respect, I suppose we are all just conglomerations of the people who have come before us, and the stories that came before us are also the threads that pull it all together. Our past. Our present. Our future.

Last year I was riding in the car with my sister, the back seat full of daughters and nieces. We were carrying on with our conversation and they were carrying on with theirs.

"Shh..." I heard from the back seat. "They're talking about Grandma." And suddenly the back seat was entirely silent as the nieces strained forward against their seatbelts to listen to the tales my sister and I were repeating.

It's hard for me to imagine a world where my mother was not a driving force and my grandfather was not that always present man in the pinstripe blue overalls. Yet that's the world my children live in. I look around and try to imagine the people in our lives, right now, who will become the memories and stories they tell their own children. Even their perspectives on my constants will be so different, as they never knew my sister as the 19-year-old girl who was headed off to college or my long-haired brother who lifted weights and walked on stilts in the yard. For them, she starts as Aunt Diane, and he starts as Barry Builder.

Where we start in each other's lives holds a lot of significance, but it's where we stop that really counts. And if we're lucky, we never will. We'll always be somebody's memory, a tale being told on a long stretch of Kansas highway or that really old person who once owned some kid's favorite blanket.

Cousins

The cousins are visiting. Nieces and nephew to me, but first cousins to my kids, and it works just like I remember it working.

I always loved my encounters with cousins as a kid. Wherever you went, if there was a cousin you had an automatic friend. It didn’t matter if you were 1st cousins, 2nd cousins, or 3rd cousins once removed. It didn’t matter if they were boy cousins or girl cousins, a little older or a little younger cousins… a cousin, by definition, was someone you could count on.

My dad used to take us all over the country on summer trips and inevitably we’d end up meeting a cousin or two we never knew existed. In Florida when I was about 10, I met my cousins Steve and Mike. Steve was a little bit older. Mike was exactly my age. Even today, I’d have to stop and think about exactly how we were related. My father and their father, I believe, were first cousins, so that would have made us second generation. It didn’t really matter, however. Mike and Steve took me around town (or maybe it was just around their block) and showed me all the things 10-year-old kids did in Florida, which was pretty similar, believe it or not, to the things 10-year-old kids did in Kansas. Except… they drank their tea sweet. I nearly spit the stuff all over myself when I took my first big swig as I sat on the porch of one of their neighbors trying to act cool as if I drank tea all the time. Plain ole’ tea was bad enough, but the sugar in that stuff they shared with me in Florida could have held the spoon up on its own. Still makes me shudder to think about it.

Sometimes we met cousins who came from even smaller and more rural places than our own. Johnna was one such cousin, near enough to my age that we enjoyed each other’s company for the few days my family visited hers in Missouri. Never in my life had I felt like such a big city girl as the two days I spent hanging out with my cousin, Johnna. She took me fiddle-stompin’. I let her listen to music on my headphones that she had never heard.

In Oregon I remember meeting and hanging out with my older cousin, Shiryla. She was way cool and we exchanged letters for quite a few years after we met. There was cousin Bob in Idaho (way cute) and a half dozen other boys whose names and faces blur together, but man was it fun to be part of such a large crowd for the few days we visited.

Not all cousins were great, of course. My cousin Lyle, a few years older (we met when we were teens) was arrogant and rude as far as I was concerned. I got a kick out of my younger cousin, Rocky, however, (Lyle’s nephew) and managed to enjoy that trip, as well.

The best cousins, of course, were the ones who lived right down the road and my cousins from Oklahoma who spent nearly every summer with us. And even though we go years and years as adults without seeing each other, every time I’ve managed to hook up with them it’s just like when we were kids. We just yammer and chat and find it easy to hang out. Something about shared blood just makes things comfortable.

The cousins that are here this evening are near-perfect age mates for my own kids. The oldest two had seven years of living right down the road from each other before we moved away, so it’s easy to see how these girls click and seem to have an understanding of each other that runs deep. The boys, however, have barely spent more than a week full of days together in their entire lives. Mine was still in diapers when we left and my nephew not yet born. But all evening long they have been running around like they’ve known each other forever.

There’s just something about a cousin. They’re familiar in ways that only family can be.

Timeless Tuesday: Grandparents in 1933

Sam and Christena: 1933

My Grandmother passed away in 1976, so most of my memories of my grandfather are without her. He spent the next 20 years missing her greatly. He talked about her often. Through his eyes, I knew her as a beautiful and strong woman.

He had a small picture on the wall (it may have been a painting) of her when she was about this age. Even though I remembered my grandmother much older and without her hair (chemotherapy treatments), I was always very aware that this was the picture my grandfather visualized when he talked about her.

Grandpa Sam was a card. He always wore pin-striped overalls and he liked to fish. Better than that, he liked to tell fish stories. All kinds of stories, actually. Much of my time with grandpa was spent trying to decide just how hard he was pulling my leg. I'd watch him go breathless with laughter before he even got to the punchline, and I never quite knew if I should laugh, as well, or nod my head as if I seriously understood.

When I was about ten, Grandpa brought me home a dog, Popo, a little silver poodle. The dog had been intended as a gift for Grandpa, of course. It wasn't long before the relatives in Iowa sent him home with a second dog, a small terrier named Tara. Grandpa resisted, but Tara soon became Grandpa's best gal pal. She went everywhere with Grandpa. She had her own special seat in his car and in the winter she would burrow under a blanket on her seat in the car and wait for him while he was in church.

When Grandpa said, "give me some love," Tara would stand up on Grandpa's lap and nuzzle his neck. She got a little bit fat from Grandpa's spoiling, but she was a good companion for him for many years.

Timeless Tuesday: Tracy had a Little Lamb

On my fifth birthday, my brother came home with a little black lamb. She had a big red bow around her neck. I named her Sally and fed her from a baby bottle.



The neighbors enjoyed driving by our house. My other brother had a Blue Healer at that time. My sister had a Saint Bernard. I think we had a smaller dog, too. The dogs would run the ditch along the front of our house as cars would pass and my lamb would bound along right after them... bounce, bounce, bounce.

Sally liked to drink right out of the faucet at the house, and she took many meals right alongside the dogs. She stayed in the barn at night, but spent her days roaming the farm with the kids.



I remember one time when my dad had this huge pile of sand delivered. I think we were pouring concrete for a new garage he was building. Sally was full grown by then. I certainly could no longer pick her up and carry her around in my arms like a baby. My cousins and I thought that mountain of sand was a great place to play. Sally thought so, too. In fact, she decided that she would be "king of the mountain" and spent the entire afternoon butting us off of it. All you had to do was run to the top of the sand pile and stand there and that old sheep would come push you off. There were four of us, of course, and only one of her, so she had to work really hard to keep us off the top of that sandpile. As she chased one of us down one side, two more would run up the other side.

Sally was a great pet, but sadly, her life came to a tragic end. I was shielded from the full horror of the story, but I know it had something to do with roaming dogs.



Eventually we had lots of sheep. I showed market lambs in 4-H for six or seven years. My favorite time was lambing season in the spring... those little black animals on long, spindly legs. They liked ears. Every lamb I've ever been near, would push its nose right up to my ear and sniff and nuzzle. There's nothing cuter than a baby lamb.

Timeless Tuesday: Cousin Laura

1986 Yellowstone National Park ~ Laura and I

Middle munchkin has recently started doing this thing with her eyes that really kind of throws me. It's kind of a "puppy dog" look where she tips her chin down and looks up at you with her big brown eyes. The funny thing about it is that when she does this -- I see not my munchkin, but my cousin, Laura, years and years ago.

Laura was the youngest of my three cousins who lived "down the road" as I was growing up. Sisters -- all just a couple of years apart --and you can't imagine how happy I was when their family moved their house (quite literally -- on the bed of a big, huge truck!) about a quarter mile down the road from our family.

When Laura was really little (she was the youngest of the four of us) -- one of us read (or heard) that every third child born in the world was Chinese. Being the mean spirits we were -- we used to tease her endless. She was the third child, she must be Chinese, right?

I think she eventually forgave us. Growing up, there were lots of good times in my life with Laura and her sisters. I could probably fill dozens of Timeless Tuesdays with photos and the adventures we had together.

Today I select only a few photos from a particularly memorable trip we took together to Wyoming.

Laura & Mandy ~ Yellowstone

Some hot mud puddles at Yellowstone and creative photography!

This was an intentional photo of our shadows.

About Magoo

So I sign on to Magoo’s blog this evening and now I almost feel like a celebrity. She suggested a little “she said/she said” on the topic of our meeting. Her version is almost entirely accurate, as far as I can recollect.

The boy Magoo refers to, that I’d known since my sandbox days, was exactly that. He and I lived about a mile apart and had spent many, many of our days growing up playing in the sandbox, or at least in the dirt in the field between our houses. My take on the “protective” part is a little different, however. My friend was dating Magoo and I was happy for him. It is also true, that as things went south between the two of them, I spent some time being his shoulder to cry on. It was cool. I cried on his shoulder a lot in those days, too.

One of my first real memories of Magoo, however, is when a couple of her friends accosted me at my locker one day after school and accused me of being the cause of the breakup. I was surprised, and it certainly wasn’t true! I was relieved later to find out that Magoo never really looked at it that way either.

We did associate most often, after that, through mutual friends. I nursed a little crush on her brother for a while, so I found quite a few excuses to hang with those mutual friends. I was thrilled when Magoo joined the yearbook staff because it was awesome to work with another dedicated and intelligent person who took the job as seriously as I did.

Yearbook Staff Photo - Me and Magoo - front right

And then… Honors Senior English Class… that was definitely early cement (like Gorilla Glue!) of our long-term friendship. Magoo and I sat at the back of the class with Bill (another sandbox friend) and Walter (Adina’s cousin). Our poor sub was given the hardest of hard jobs. Working as a long-term sub for such a popular teacher has to be the worst job ever. I’ll take full credit for the hostile comment Magoo refers to. My memory is that it had something to do with making seniors (in an honors English class, no less) diagram sentences for six long weeks when we were supposed to be doing all kinds of truly cool projects. Maybe I’m exaggerating about the six weeks… but it felt like a long, long time. Anyway, I was the one who got the note from the office during sixth hour and was told to leave my class to go “discuss” the situation with the substitute. My line of defense was totally deflated as the woman broke down and sobbed in front of me. I even ended up hugging her and patting her on the back, saying something like, “everything is going to be okay.”

I want to make clear here that Magoo and I weren’t trouble makers. The entire class had been on the edge of revolt for many weeks and things in that class were just getting tense, tense, tense. I think the fact that we – the nice girls – finally went over to the dark side was more than the poor woman could take. However, I pledged that day to do my part to make life easier for that poor sub. I then recruited Magooo, Walter, and Bill to help me out.

Magoo and I had more opportunities to bond, however. For the big “senior English” project, after our regular teacher had returned, we paired off and selected books to read and present to the class. Magoo and I read Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. My memory is that we had to get permission slips from our parents to read it! Of course, the theme of hypocrisy and so much ugliness in the world was particularly meaningful, I believe to both of us, at that time in our lives. Holden Caulfield kind of became a lens through which we examined the world together. Phonies, phonies, everywhere! I’ve honestly not had any warm, fuzzy feelings for that “very popular” English teacher since.

Magoo went to KU for college and I went to Pittsburg. It seems like we met up fairly often. When I transferred to KU, she had moved on elsewhere. It always was/is important to me to keep in touch with all my friends, however. When Magoo got married, I went home for the weekend for the wedding. I drove, and Magoo’s brother and his girlfriend rode with me.


From Left: Magoo, Hubby's Brother Derek, Me, Adina, Cyp, AnnMarie.

It seems like Magoo and I became fairly regular pen pals after that. Rand and I eventually moved to Houston and Magoo and Tator made their way through Wichita and Joplin. It was great when we were all back in Kansas and could see each other regularly, again. I think it helped that Magoo and I timed our kiddos so closely. Her third was born just a couple of weeks before my second. I was actually due first, but she beat me to the birthing room!


36 weeks and counting!!!

And we have built lots of great memories in the years that have passed. And I’m looking forward to all those we still have to build.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Magoo. It’s been fun.

Timeless Tuesday: A Cow Story

Magoo's family had a great example a few weeks back of how stories change with each storyteller. We probably all remember the example from psych class where 12 people witness one accident and the police get reports of 12 different accidents. Our perceptions don't always differ that greatly, but sometimes they do!

My dad would say this story is not only more fiction than fact, he would say it is pure fantasy. Only he would use a term like bull hockey or some such... This is the story as I recorded it (at the age of 16) and as my mother told it.

Click the image below to view the text.


When I was a junior in high school, I was assigned to write an autobiography for an intro to psychology class. I devoted an entire semester to this project. And shortly before my "book" was complete (66 pages!) I got an awesome gift of an electric typewriter from my dad. So I worked every evening to type my story and layout my book with photographs. As I got to the very last chapter -- the night before the assignment was due -- the 'a' key broke off the little daisy wheel of my printer/typewriter (it had a memory, so I could store and proof many pages of text before printing. The morning I turned in the assignment, I sat at the kitchen table carefully penning in all the letter a's for the text of my final chapter.

I also failed my final that year (or at least scored low, I don't really remember), but my teacher was able to see that I'd been so distracted working on my final project for the class that she forgave my inability to study for the final test! She gave me enough extra credit on the assignment to more than make up for my low test score.



Here's another picture of my dad with one of his cows. I don't know what this one was called. My sister had a big Holstein named Princess, but that's about all I actually remember of the dairy business. (Whole milk remains one of my favorite treats!)

Timeless Tuesday: Stories I Shouldn’t Share with my Children

Nah, I’m not going to share pictures of “illegal” activities or things I did as a kid that I probably shouldn’t have (not that there are many of those)… I’m talking about horse stories. Middle kid has decided that she really needs a pony. Honestly, I really wish I could give her one. Maybe one of these days. Until then, we may have to search for some horse riding friends or travel to visit friends that we know who still have them. All possibilities.

This (I request correction here from those who know), I believe, is Applejack. I didn’t know Applejack. He was before my time. But I always heard stories of Applejack and when I was a kid, I always thought of Applejack as the horse we used to have even though he was never a horse of mine.

My sister and my brothers riding Applejack.
We were never “horse” people in the sense that we cared about breeds or pedigrees. There was always a resident pony in the pasture. When I was a kid, her name was Roberta. She was somewhere between a Welsh and a Shetland and would just as likely dump you on the ground as she would give you a ride. Ornery as could be, but I loved her all the same.

My cousins and I made a game of riding Roberta. We’d saddle her up and take turns going for the “big ride”. On Roberta, that meant a leisurely stroll to the end of the drive where the row of 8-foot high lilacs ended, and then the game was to hang on as she bolted across the yard. Roberta was smart. She’d aim for the lowest hanging branch of one of the many elm trees that populated our yard. As soon as she had succeeded in scraping her burden from the saddle, she’d drop her head and munch the grass, not a bit concerned about the rider who was picking herself up from the ground and pulling twigs from her hair. We’d lead her back to the “starting line” and play the game all over again.

One of my biggest successes in riding Roberta was the stick and carrot method, only I would use a slice of alfalfa hay. I’d tie it with twine to the longest stick I could find, then climb aboard bareback and “lure” her round and round the pasture. It wasn’t a fast ride, but it was fun.

I also enjoyed just sitting on her back on a summer’s day. She never much minded how you rode her, as long as you didn’t try to tell her where to go. That was when the trouble always started. I remember lying on her for hours just watching the clouds float across the sky. She was kind of fat and round so she made an easy chair. None of that boniness down the spine you would find in more capable horses.

Sometimes I’d take a book… and just feel the breeze… and take in the horsey smells and that of pasture grass. It was very peaceful hanging out with that ornery horse, especially when you were willing to do so on her terms.

This is Roberta. Me on her back and my sister.

This is me on my horse Pegasus, aka Peggy. And no, I didn't dress cowgirl for just any occasion, only the Dodge City Days Parade. The hat wasn't even mine. The boots, however, (snakeskin!) were. Well, hand-me-downs from a cousin/uncle, anyway.

I have better pictures of the horse, but I thought this one was more entertaining. Don't you just despise all those years of Kodak Instamatic Cameras and 110 film?

The Condoms in my Wedding Album are 17 Years Old

I honestly did not intend to fall so far from my routine, but once our company left I came down with a killer sore throat and assorted head crap. It feels like I've been extra slow to recover. I was barely aware of the additional snow we received yesterday... or was it the day before? Bummer. I'd much rather be in a place to go out and slide down some hills... or build a snowman. Waaa!

But today is Saturday, and a significant Saturday, at that. It was 17 years ago today that the hubby and I got married. I'm not sure our start was all that indicative of what was to come. To begin, it was a very, very cold day. It was the kind of cold where people's vehicles wouldn't start simply because they were too cold ... I couldn't tell you the actual temperature, but I know a lot of family members on both sides didn't make it to the wedding.

I don't know that I can tell you that much about the wedding other than that. I'm smiling in all the pictures, but my memories of the day are pretty fuzzy. It seemed like every time I allowed myself to tune in, even just a little bit, there was just too much to be aware of that I couldn't quite cope with. I was probably hypersensitive to all that was going on. I had great family, great friends, and the scene and setting were fairy-tale like. It just wasn't quite as I had envisioned it. I'd wanted a relaxed, kicked back affair with all my friends and family and it felt like I'd more succeeded in offending half of them. Small meant not everyone got the role they'd hoped to play. Relaxed meant it was less formal than some expected, yet more formal than anything I'd envisioned. And I couldn't get past the feeling that people kept stealing glances at my belly, cause why else would someone like me get married so young? (Kiddo #1 came six years later -- I guess anyone who doubted me eventually figured it out.)

Honestly, I spent years cringing over the whole wedding affair. Maybe the years have finally softened me about it a bit. I've never managed to sit through the wedding video and I continue to hope that my own children do something wildly unexpected and so far from traditional for their own weddings that they never get bogged down with the kind of baggage I've managed to carry around about my own.

But the truth is that seventeen years ago I made a decision to marry my best friend, and that was one of the best decisions I've ever made. I can't take any credit for planning or even having half an idea of what I was getting into, but life with Rand has been pretty darned good, and I sure like the places we've gone together.

Rand and his brother, Derek

Derek was responsible for the condoms. He had every guest at our wedding give Rand a condom in the reception line. It was pretty funny as the pockets of Rand's tux started bulging with prophylactics. Even his grandmother and the preacher handed him one.

Me, with my cousin, Alene, and my Aunt Bonnie.


Our well decorated car -- you think shaving cream and oreos are hard to get off, try doing it in 15 degree weather!


Rand & Tracy, 17 years ago today

Some Treasure I Found Under My Bed

One of my projects over the weekend was getting all the boxes out of our bedroom.

Why are there boxes in my bedroom?

Well we've only been in this house 16 months or so... and as I grew tired of unpacking and trying to figure out where everything would fit, the inevitable box or two began to make it's way into my closet, under the bed, or shoved into a corner until I was in a better place to deal with it. The result is that our bedroom has been rather full of boxes I still don't want to deal with.

The lesson, of course, should be that if I haven't missed the contents of those boxes by now, I ain't gonna. Why not just scoop them all off to the Salvation Army or the curb or where ever useless stuff should be deposited.
There have been moments in my life when I've had that willpower. This weekend was not one of those moments. Instead, about 90% of what I had been refusing to unpack was sorted (sort of) and stacked neatly out in the shed where at least I won't have the daily reminder that I save too much crap. Some stuff did make it to the trash. A few items were deemed valuable and are now out and about in the house, sure to collect dust on a shelf or get kicked under a couch only to be rediscovered in another cleaning spree.

There were two big bonuses to event, however. First, beneath my bed it is now completely clutter free and my closet is orderly. No more boxes for sheltering dust bunnies. In fact, after all the dust I swept and sucked from the corners of my room and closet this weekend, I'm pretty sure I've raised the air quality in the room.

Second, I managed to consolidate a number of boxes containing old photographs, duplicate photos, and items saved for one scrapbook or another, into a single container. It's a large container, but somehow having only one large container feels better than having a dozen little ones. The downside was that it probably added an extra couple of hours, at least, to my cleaning efforts as I kept getting distracted sorting through photographs. There was one set, in particular, that I left at the top of the box to share. These are images that were originally on colored slides that were the bulk of my family's photos from maybe the late 50s to the early 70s. Most of them pre-date me, and since the originals are slides, they were kind of lost to our family photo albums and history for quite some time.

I had prints made about 10 years ago, with the idea of eventually getting them all in a scrapbook. What can I say? It's been a busy 10 years.

So I thought I'd start posting a few, primarily for the benefit of my children and my nieces (and nephew) who probably haven't seen many of these images. What good are photographs, after all, if we can't incorporate them into the stories of who we are and where we came from?

I was going to start calling these entries, Memories on Monday. But since it's Tuesday before I've gotten to this first post, I'm just inviting everyone to see. Feel free to leave a comment with any memories these pictures provoke. Don't be shy!

September 29, 1956
Duane & Jean (my parents)

There is a story about this cake topper that goes along with an entry I wrote last year. (By the way, my dad tells me that they knew all about the surprise all along and were just having fun messing with my head!) Anyway, as part of those festivities, I swiped this cake topper from the curio cabinet to give to the woman who was making the cake for the anniversary party. And I already wrote there about swiping photos from the wedding album so that the cake could be recreated. I still feel a bit anxious looking at these pictures. That cake led me to be more deceptive and secretive than I've ever been in my life!


I love this photograph even though it's a bit blurry and the details aren't fantastic. All the rice in the air makes it look a bit like they are being pelted with snow. And you can see that their smiles are just perfect, and the way they are clasping hands gives me a feeling of just how "united" they must have felt at that moment.

I would love to know more about who fixed up the car and all that was written on it.