Along the Road to Home

~on the last day of June~ The summer is flying by us at record speed once again and just like always, we wonder where the days go.  These last few weeks of June have brought us hot and humid temperatures and the uncomfortable feeling of being permanently stuck in an outdoor sauna.  I don't remember weather like this being all that unbearable as a kid.  As a 63-year old adult, it becomes a different story. Yesterday Mike and I were working outside in the early morning hours as we tried to get our chores done before the most unbearable part of the day arrived.  The growing of grass necessitates its cutting, whether or not you want to do it.  So the push mower and I got busy.  Mike was working on the outdoor steps he is making for the front, trying to repair a break in the cement of the porch.  By close to noon time we were getting finished up, just as the summer sun was overhead.  Right before getting ready to call it for the day, we decided to ...

Two years have passed come tomorrow that my older sister Sherry died while under hospice care in Altus, Oklahoma.  24 months, 730 days, countless hours and minutes have run their course.  At times it seems like only yesterday that I saw her last while other times her passing seems like 5 lifetimes ago.  Yet even in everything else, one thing was for certain. Life went on. At age 63 and pushing 64 in late October this year, I have experienced plenty of moments when a time came to say "good-bye for now" to family members and close friends who have died.  My folks are both gone and out of 7 children born to them, only 3 remain.  My aunts and uncles on both sides have all passed away and the number of first cousins I have remaining can nearly be counted on one hand.  As a child growing up, I have so many happy remembrances of huge family gatherings, especially at the holidays.  There was no shortage of Scott or Brown family members back then. ...

My mother came from the "waste not, want not" generation.  She and countless others survived the Great Depression of the 1930's, a moment in history when most Americans learned the hard way about tight times.  65 years after that bleak period had ended, her home was filled with the telltale signs of the impact that particular lifetime experience had upon her.  Threadbare sheets and thinning towels that long ago should have been replaced, kept because there was still some good in them, could be found folded in the hallway cupboard.  The kitchen cabinets were home to many an empty butter dish and lid which could be used to store leftovers from a meal.  Empty jelly jars were filled with twist ties from loaves of bread because a guy could never have enough of them around.  Her bedroom closet was filled with clothes, but only a choice few were really ever worn.  Mom always had this way of finding a couple of her favorite "Zip and Dash" dresses and wearing t...

A package came in the mailbox today.  My face lit up with a big smile when I saw who it was from.  I only know one young lady named "Cori" and sure enough it was from her! I became acquainted with Cori when I was her 3rd grade teacher at Big Pasture Elementary School in Randlett, Oklahoma.  She was actually the very first kid I ever met after she and her mom came to visit me in the classroom before school actually began.  I knew right away that she would be a wonderful student to have in class and I looked so forward to being her teacher! During the course of our 3rd grade year together, Cori and the rest of her classmates (which numbered 19 in all) learned and grew together as a strong classroom community.  We had many marvelous adventures that year and although my stay at Big Pasture was for one school term only, I packed as many memories as I could into it.  One of the things that I did was to start a classroom Facebook page for them, pairing each...

I never knew my grandfathers and that is perhaps one of the saddest of memories which come from my childhood days.  When all the other kids talked about doing something with their grandpas, all I could do was to remember that I had none.  One of them, my Grandfather Brown, died when I was just a tiny baby.  The only memory I have of him is what my mother told me that he said once about me as he held a sleeping little baby girl named Peggy Ann in his arms. "Wouldn't it be nice to be that young again?" It's the only personal connection that I have had to carry with me all these 63 years of my life.     Mom told me of it long before she died in 2007 and I wish I would have asked her even more about him.  Sadly, I did not.  My grandmother told me many things about him when I was a young child growing up.  Especially Grandmother Brown told me about Granddad's love for raising up fine bred Morgan horses with his 4 brothers who went by the co...