Counting my blessings

Here it is Wednesday evening, I guess I could call it Thanksgiving Eve. Why is it that Christmas Eve is practically a holiday in and of itself, but none of the other major holidays score their own Eve. I guess Christmas should be that special, we are celebrating our Savior's birth after all. I just think it's kinda funny that as much as human beings love repetition that we would have come up with a few more "Eve's" by now.

And then there is Halloween which is an Eve with no holiday the next day. Have you ever realized that. Funny huh?

For this post though, for all intents and purposes, I consider myself smack in the middle of Thanksgiving Eve.

And ya know what? I'm feeling pretty darn good. Ya betcha.(Did that sound too Sarah Paliney?)

I'm feeling good for several reasons and I decided to make a list of some of the things I'm feeling particularly good about tonight.

I'm feeling really good that my daughter Heidi and my son-in-law Jeff, and my granddaughters Abbey and Lindsay came down from Spokane. This is really a much bigger deal than it appears. We had all (all, being me and Don and Shawn, and Donald and Lisa and little girls.) agreed to head over to Spokane this year and treat ourselves to a Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of Heidi.

Heidi is a really good cook and has NEVER turned out a bad Turkey. (That's really quite an accomplishment if you think about it)

Anyway, a few weeks ago I started adding up how much it was going to cost for us to go to Spokane, stay two nights in a Hotel, (Donald and Lisa had dibs on Heidi's extra beddage, and that's really okay, Don and I are actually more "stay in a Hotel" travelers, than "stay with friends or family" ones.) Provide my assignments to the dinner, and then more gas for the ride home. So I did the only thing that made sense.

I called Heidi and tried to sell her on the idea of them coming up here.

I pointed out that it would be a lot cheaper for me to reimburse their gas expenditure, than for us to come over there.

Heidi, failed to acknowledge my logic.

Then I realized that if we were in Spokane my mom would be here all by her little lonesome. The places where she could have normally gone (her sister's, my sister's) were for various reasons not available this year. Not only that but my 26 year old son Kelly would have been stuck here because he has to work on Thanksgiving.

It made me sad to think of him coming home from work to an empty house with no Thanksgiving left-overs in sight.

Heidi, acquiesced, somewhat reluctantly, she did have good reasons though. There's a pretty good chance that this may be their last year here in Washington. Their last chance to have everyone over for Thanksgiving, for who knows how long.

So kudos to Heidi and Jeff, for agreeing to come here. Heidi has by now set up camp in Lisa's kitchen and is performing her magic for tomorrows dinner.

Which brings me to the reason for this post.

I am thankful.

I am thankful for so many things. And I know that I won't have time tomorrow, and I know that by Friday, I may be more concerned about getting ready for Christmas than writing a list of all my blessings. So here I sit in my family room surrounded by Abbey and Lindsay, my sweet Shawn, and my much loved, middle child Kelly.

The coziness of it all is just really filling me with feelings of gratitude.

Without further adieu I present to you the things I am feeling grateful for this Wednesday, November the 26th at 9:30 in the evening.

I am really happy that due to Heidi's influence I have gotten most of my food assignments for tomorrow, if not completed, at least half way finished. Trust me, for me, this is a "real big deal".

I am so grateful, I could cry, that my precious baby granddaughter Elisabeth, who has been blind due to a brain malfunction (her beautiful little eyes are perfect) has shown in the last few days that there is a very good chance that she is having moments of sight.

This is a HUGE big deal!

I am thankful to be blessed with a son-in-law and daughter-in-law whom I truly love. Lisa and I have such a comfortable, loving and close relationship that we are quite often, each others favorite choice to spend time with. Jeff and I have fun teasing each other and just generally joking around but we both know there is a real loving relationship behind it all.

I love you Lisa. I love you Jeff.

I think I have probably talked about this before, but I am so blessed that Heavenly Father let us be Shawn's mom and dad. Shawn is just my guy. He is a mama's boy, through and through. And it is such an adventure watching him grow and stretch and learn.

Actually I am just plain thankful for all five of my children. They each are so different, but in so many ways they are perfect just as they are.

I love you Donald. I love you Heidi. I love you Kelly. I love you Shawn. I love you Courtney.

I am thankful for my dear husband. I can't imagine being married to a more loving, helpful, considerate, thoughtful, and just plain all around good guy. Don can look at me first thing in the morning (when I am perfectly aware of how terrible I look) and he sees nothing but beauty. I am NOT an easy person to live with, and Don has not only stuck with me through 32 years of marriage, he lets me know in tons of ways that he considers it a privilege.

I LOVE you Don!

I am thankful for my house. I love my house. It has a few things I would change if I could, (I would love a bigger bedroom) but I don't ever dwell on things like that. All I have to do is remember how many people in this world are grateful for their own little cardboard shanty.

In the face of such desperate poverty, how could I ever complain.

I am grateful to have been born in the USA. There are other really wonderful places in the World to be born as well, but it breaks my heart to think that the majority of the people on this earth, do in fact, live in the most miserable, filthy, unhealthy, and poverty stricken third world countries. And yet even they find joy in life.

How can I ever complain about anything in light of that.

In the same vein, I am so grateful for the incredible book, "The City of Joy" written by Dominique Lapierre. This is a life changing book. You will never again feel sorry for whatever condition you happen to find yourself in after reading this powerful book. It is the story of a Catholic Priest who had such a love for his fellow humans that he moves into the slums of Calcutta India to live with the poorest of the poor. If you read nothing else in 2009, please procure this book and READ it. I promise it will change the way you look at life.

Well I am getting tired. It also occurs to me that I have a really big day in front of me tomorrow. I think I will sign off, tuck my two granddaughters into their couch beds, kiss them goodnight, give Shawn his nightly "love and kiss", and go find my husband and tell him that it's bedtime.

I love my life and I pray that you love yours!

Good night.

Thanksgiving thoughts

I am going to come clean here. Thanksgiving is probably my least favorite holiday.
When I was a kid I loved it, just like most children do.
It was an exciting time of family get togethers, fancy tablecloths, using the nice dishes and mom's best silverware.

Thanksgiving had left such a favorable impression on me, that I was well into my late thirties before I started to notice the secret, unattractive, underbelly of this once glorious day.

I promise you that I'm not by any means on a mission to turn you against the Big Day. No, it's more of a, me feeling the need to vent, rather than trying to gather up a few followers.

One of the first things that I realized after hosting several Thanksgiving dinners of my own, was just how much money was involved. It's not that I didn't know how to delegate, because I do, but no matter how efficiently you hand out food assignments, it still ends up costing quite a lot more than I had ever intended.

The money spent isn't really the big problem for me though, more of a minor nuisance. I include it mostly, because it was the first catalyst towards my new feelings for this old Holiday.

After all, Don and I spend quite a lot on full sized candy bars for Halloween and that doesn't bother me at all. I think it's worth it because we both really love Halloween.

Around the time when I started feeling the money issue, were new feelings about the amount of work involved.

First off there is the tradition of "The Little Woman" waking up at the break of dawn to get the turkey ready to put in the oven. This early morning routine is usually due to the fact that for some insane reason, the country as a whole has decided to turn Thanksgiving "Dinner" into Thanksgiving "Brunch".

Preparing a Thanksgiving Dinner is not for the faint of heart. You may be lucky enough to have more than one oven. My sister-in-law Cindy does. I'm not sure why, but it seems like just about everything for Thanksgiving needs to be baked. I realize I'm exaggerating here a bit, maybe a little. But why is it that, so many of the traditional menu items need baking?

Pies need baking, rolls need baking, sweet potato casserole needs baking. Do you make that green bean, onion ring strips, cream of mushroom soup casserole? I never have but I'm pretty sure it needs to be baked.

All of this amounts to a pretty big problem.

Yes, yes, I realize that pies can be, and usually are, baked the night before. You can do that with the rolls as well, I guess, but I can tell a fresh baked roll from a baked the day before and quickly heated up for the dinner, roll any day.

So thus begins the huge balancing act, of, how do we get everything in the oven, the very oven that at the moment seems to be mostly taken up by that big twenty pound gobbler.

Families have been broken apart over issues like this.

For the life of me I don't understand why it has been decided that this big ceremonious event needs to be over and done with by 1:00 in the afternoon.

That is actually one of the big reasons I have become somewhat negative to the T Day.

As far as I can see Thanksgiving is a LOT of work. Just so everyone can sit down to a hopefully pleasant dinner, that if you really stretch it, might last up to 45 minutes. And then it's over.

Except for the huge task of cleaning up.

Now, lucky for me, I have a wonderful husband who is always more than willing to take charge of the, "lets clean it up" problem. He realizes that it is only fair for the men to take over the job of clean-up, since it was mostly the women who made the mess, uuuh, I mean prepared the lovely Thanksgiving Dinner.

Still though, I just can't help but feel like it was a LOT of preparation, for something that took probably a sixth of the time to eat, as it did to prepare.

My sister Janice feels pretty much the same. A few years ago she decided to do just the appetizers and desserts. I think she is really on to something.

I guess that I'm finally getting to the root of my problem here.

Thanksgiving, so we are told, is all about those early Pilgrims. There are quite a few versions of the story. I liked this one they brought up last week on the Today Show. It said that basically the "P guys" got together with the "heavily feathered ones" to celebrate the fact that they had survived their first winter in the New World.

Mostly through the help and friendship of those pesky Indians of course.

Most of the versions I have heard said that the Pilgrims, were celebrating their first successful harvest. That would put Thanksgiving right where we celebrate it. Here at the endish part of November. But if the Today show is correct, and it was more of a "Just happy to be alive after that nasty winter" kind of thing, then shouldn't we be celebrating it in early spring.

Of course that could end up clashing with Easter, couldn't it? And here in America the timing of "Holidays" is very important business. The retailers depend on this.

So we have Thanksgiving (rightly or wrongly, does anyone really care?) at the end of November. And guess what else comes at the end of November?

Football!

I don't know when Football became synonymous with Thanksgiving, but somehow it did.

This brings me to my biggest complaint about the day. It seems to be Human Nature to take anything that is considered good, and try to make it better. The fact that this almost always fails seems to go unnoticed by most people.
Here we had a Holiday whose Noble purpose was to encourage us all to be thankful for our many blessings. That was good. That was right. A day to give thanks. What could be better?

Apparently everything goes better with Football.

This really rubs me the wrong way. How on earth can you be expected to spend a day reverently contemplating all that we have been blessed with, when just a room away, some stupid Football game is turned up to maximum volume, with thunderous cheers and jeers coming from those, too busy with the game, to be helping those who are preparing the feast?

And DON"T even get me started on the retailers and media's determination to rechristen the whole thing "Turkey Day".

Thanksgiving has received the same treatment as most the other holidays where you get a day off work for. It has been cheapened. It's original purpose has been debased. In my family, as I'm sure in many others, we try to protect some semblance of tradition by going around the table and having everyone announce what they are most grateful for. This is good. It actually does help us to remember for maybe 15 minutes the REAL purpose of the day.

If I had my way, I wouldn't get rid of Thanksgiving. No, not at all. I would just like to see it scaled back to the original purpose. A day of Thanks. Go ahead and make the big dinner. But in my opinion it should be given the respect of being a "Dinner". Instead of a "let's hurry up and get this over with so we can watch the big game and have some of that pie."

I'm not trying to be judgemental here. Really. I'm just pleading for a little more respect for a day that was not intended to be one of the biggest boons to the turkey industry. And not a day for being completely focused on Football. I just think that a day given over to feelings of gratitude should be celebrated as it was intended. Gather your family together, spend some time enjoying each other, and never forget that the name of the day is NOT Turkey day.

The name of the day is Thanksgiving.

Shameless Promotion

I wanted to let everyone, who reads my blog, to know that my daughter Heidi finally gave into the pressure and has started a blog of her own. If you have been reading my blog for a while you might have seen one or more of the posts I have written about her. Heidi is my second oldest. She is very creative, very funny, as well as lots of fun to hang out with.

She also has a passion for Cinema.

She makes really good use of her "Net Flicks" account. She likes to watch old black and white films as much as newer releases. And she likes to let people know about movies that they may never even have heard of.

Heidi is the mother of my two oldest grandaughters, Abbey and Lindsay. So now you can get to know my family better and sometimes even hear a different version of things that I might write about.

If you already read my son Donald's blog, and/or my Daughter in law Lisa's you should try out Heidi's.

I promise you won't be dissapointed.


Okay Heidi is that good enough? Can I see my grandaughters now?

Coco Bear, a love story

This is a story about a little girl and her stuffed bear. I don't believe any bear had ever been more loved by a child than this one. I'm not even sure if Christopher Robin and Edward Bear (of course that would be Winnie the Pooh to you) had the love for each other that this little girl had for her bear.

It all started the Christmas she was two.

My Grandpa Brinkerhoff, who was by then a re-married former widower, got Christmas presents for my children. Not too unusual I admit. For my two youngest, Shawn and Courtney, he got two stuffed bears. The one meant for Courtney (after all it was wrapped with her name on it) was a sweet fluffy little white bear with a red paw that when squeezed would play a Christmas song.

Which song it was I have no idea, my memory is certainly not that good.

Now the other bear, was a cute but somewhat nondescript little brown bear. He didn't make music, he didn't really do anything other than expect to be cuddled.

To this day, I still don't know why, but the second Courtney had a good look at Shawn's plain brown bear, she had eyes for nothing else under the Christmas tree that year. Within a few days, little brown bear was not only no longer Shawn's. But it had been elevated to the status of the only toy Courtney had any interest in.

I realized that a bear this special needed a proper name.

Courtney for some reason had made it known that this bear was a boy bear. How do children decide these things? That's something that has mystified me for years. The fact was though that she had fallen for her first boy, and he was a bear.

I ran a few names past her. None of them would stick. I didn't think she would really want him named Teflon or Blueberry which were some early version names that didn't seem right to either of us. Suddenly I remembered a book that my little brother Brian had loved as a child. It was about a little monkey boy named Arthur.

Arthur also had a beloved bear. His bear was named Honey Bear.

The book was a cute one that I had always enjoyed, so just on an off chance, I ran the name Coco Bear by Courtney. I didn't want to plagiarize. I thought, Honey? Coco? Close enough. Apparently it was inevitable that this bear was meant to be named Coco. Courtney pounced right on it and from that moment on Coco Bear was born.

For the rest of her toddler and early childhood, Courtney would not go anywhere without her Coco Bear. He slept with her, he sat with her while she ate. He was even lucky enough, one day, to accompany her to a day of Kindergarten.

It was one of those bring your stuffed animal to school with you days.

Her heart was so devoted to that bear that on gift giving occasions there was absolutely NO point in getting her any kind of doll. Baby or otherwise. She seemed offended at the thought of her Coco not being an only bear.

Don't worry though, she may have been one of the few girls who never played with dolls, but Coco turned out to be a pretty all purpose bear.

Coco even had a voice. Sure it may have been provided by Courtney, but it was definitely Coco supplying the words.

Is it possible to have an imaginary friend who is actually tangible? I assume so, because that was also one of Coco's duties. He and Courtney would have conversations all the time. Coco had some pretty strong opinions as I recall.

Sometimes even to Courtney's dismay.

Most of the time of course those two were both on the same page.

I can't forget to mention the controversies, at times, concerning Coco. Courtney is my baby. The youngest of my five children. Now Shawn, who was only 17 months older than Courtney, had no problem with Courtney and her Coco.

He didn't even remember that the little brown bear was in reality his property.

For Shawn, if Courtney said that Coco was real, well, who was he to argue. Shawn still takes things at face value, but when he was three I don't think he ever questioned things like who or what is real and who isn't. This was one of the reasons I believe, why Shawn and Courtney were so close. Shawn just followed Courtney and believed everything she taught him.

Unfortunately, Courtney's older siblings, had a better grounding in reality.

I think it would be somewhat safe to say that those three older siblings, at best tolerated Coco, and at worst loved to threaten various harms towards his fluffy little being.

Not that they didn't have reason.

Coco's favorite form of communication was to get right in your face and talk in an undiscernible, high, squeaky voice that could only be described as fingernails on a chalkboard.

It was not pleasant.

Even when Coco hadn't chosen a particular victim. he still could be heard from one end of the house to the other. For being a bear, he most the time sounded like a monkey. A monkey in great distress to be more accurate. I have to admit that at times I even needed some respite from that noisy little bear. It's funny too, because Courtney herself, had the softest, sweetest, little girl voice you could ever have heard.

I won't go into the gruesome details, but suffice it to say that some rather heinous tricks were played on that little bear. I seem to remember spending quite a lot of time saving Coco from angry, annoyed older siblings.

It amounted to many unpleasantnesses in our household. I think Courtney might still be a little bit scarred.

Unbelievably though, was that she never was too freaked out when I would plop him into the washer for his bi-monthly "bath". I had of course quite carefully explained to her that Coco needed cleaning and that going through the washing machine was one of the things he enjoyed most.

Fortunately Coco corroborated my story.

There were also the routine check-ups. Over the years Coco ended up with various rips and tears. No problem though. I had a spool of coco bear brown heavy duty thread. He needed patching up usually a couple times a year. To this day when Courtney sees that spool of thread she smiles and asks, is that Coco's thread. (She knows it is of course but she still likes to ask.)

I think that since I was one of Coco's most prominent defenders, Courtney knew she could trust me to always have his best interests in mind.

Well as always happens little girls grow up. You know, the whole "Puff the magic dragon" scenario. I don't believe that my youngest ever lost her love for her favorite little friend. Coco still remained, most the times at least, front and center on her bed. She never stopped loving him with all her heart. it just became sort of a long distance love affair.

She knew she loved Coco. Coco knew she loved him. They had matured to the point where Coco didn't feel too bad that Courtney was suddenly interested in other things than playing with him. It seems to me like there were even times when Coco seemed to be away on vacations.
These were the times when I almost had to wonder what had happened to a seemingly absent Coco bear. Of course these little vacations never were for too long.

Coco always came back. I summed it up to the various messy stages of Courtney's room.
So that was how it had become for Courtney and Coco. A relationship that only they understood.

Then came the day when our house was sold and we moved into our much nicer, current house.

Moving out of a house that we had lived in for close to 18 years was one of the biggest pains our family has ever gone through. The sheer enormity of the task of packing up and getting rid of 18 years worth of stuff was almost more than I could handle. Fortunately Jeff and Heidi came to help, and Donald and Lisa were there as well.
In a much shorter time than I would have imagined possible almost everything was either tossed or packed.

Except for Courtney's room.

That child of mine must have felt even more overwhelmed than me. I kept getting on her about clearing out her room. She would do a token job of it and then quit.

Moving day came and furniture and boxes were taken from point old to point new.

That meant even Courtney's furniture was moved. Unfortunately it also meant that her room had the most "post moved" junk left in it. She had even more to wade through than my old sewing room had.

And that is saying a LOT.

We threatened, we cajoled, we bribed. Nothing could get her into that room to save whatever she wanted saved. Decisions had to be made. Heidi and Don and I, and I think maybe Lisa too, or it might have been Donald, well anyway, the bunch of us went in there with a couple of garbage bags.

One for things to keep, one for things to dispose of.

Now I was there, and to the very best of my knowledge Coco bear was NO WHERE in sight. If he had been I would have gathered him up and sent him to safety. And not the safety of the "to keep" bag, either.

No, I would have taken him straight to my van.

To this day I really have no idea what happened to that bear. If you have ever moved I'm sure you can relate to how hard it can be to keep tabs on every little thing, no matter how valued.

So it is with sadness in my heart that I have to report that Courtney's dear, beloved, Coco Bear, has never been seen again since the big move.

The really sad thing is that it took quite a while for his absence to really become known. It took me forever (at least it seemed that way) for all the different boxes to be unloaded and for our belongings to be put in their new designated places.

I always have thought of Coco's disappearance as the kind of story where a family on vacation might travel fifty miles or more before realizing that they left little Bobby behind at the last rest stop. Even though I know that I was not responsible for Coco's disappearance, I still feel guilty that we could have forgotten him so easily.

Coco was a Gund stuffed animal, if you are familiar with that brand. I went to the Gund site hoping that, even though it had been so many years, that they would still have Coco Bears for sale.

No such luck.

Courtney mourns her missing bear still. She has never entered a thrift shop like Goodwill without taking a quick look through the toy section just to see if her dear little Coco might be there, just waiting for her to find him. He has never turned up in over three and a half years, but she hasn't given up hope yet.

True love is simply that, true.

She will never forget that bear, and I would like to think that if he is still out there somewhere. Sitting on the shelf of some "used goods" store, or laying forgotten in some other child's toy box.

That he has never, ever forgotten His Courtney.



Courtney and Coco Bear: Friends Forever!

Coco Bear

Flying Monkeys or the Election?

I got some really nice feedback from my last post. Quite a lot of it was from people who enjoyed my story of when I was in the 3rd grade.

It's funny because I remember so few things from when I was a kid. And then someone will say something, or I will watch or read something and all of a sudden I am hit with memories I had forgotten I even had.

Such is the case for this post.

My blogging buddie Jan's latest post concerns monkeys.

In particular the "Flying Monkeys" from the movie "The Wizard of Oz".

So, I will first thank Jan, for helping me to remember this from when I was in school.

Thank you Jan for the good idea.

When I was a kid, and probably even into my older, younger years, there were no such things as VCRs. Believe it or not there wasn't even HBO. So pretty much if you wanted to see a movie that was no longer in theaters, you had to wait for it to be shown on TV. Quite often it was a very big event when certain movies were shown.There are two I can think of right off the top of my head, that were shown once a year, every year.

They were "The Ten Commandments" and "The Wizard of OZ"

I always thought that "The Ten Commandments was good for the first half hour, but as soon as Moses went into the desert it got awfully boring. It was kind of the opposite for "Wizard of OZ". I never cared much for the first part, but as soon as it turned to color, I was a big fan.

As I remember it, "Commandments", was always shown Easter Sunday. I don't remember when "Oz" was shown. I know it was the same time every year but I really can't remember.

Around Halloween seems like a likely time, so I'll assume that was when it was shown.

This is what I do remember of those times.

Back then, when a beloved old chestnut of a movie was shown, it truly was an event. I can remember being surprised that there were still shows on the other channels. It seemed so silly to me that any other channel would waste time being "on" during an occasion as important as "The Wizard of OZ" night. Looking back on it now I'm still a little surprised. I guess there were some people though that weren't willing to miss an episode of "Dr Kildare" or "Peyton Place",
even for the likes of Dorothy and Toto.

In my kid world though, everyone, watched The Wizard of Oz.

And do you want to know how I knew this? Because, (and this was even by 3rd or 4th grade, when you would think we would have been a little bit jaded) everyone, the next day at school, was talking about having seen the movie the night before.

By general consensus, "Oz" was considered a "Scary" movie.

This meant that if you didn't want to be thought of as a baby, you better have the goods. Heaven forbid if you weren't able to, join in and hold your own, in one of the many conversations going on about "The Wicked Witch of the West". Or (just as scary) the mean old, black and white, neighbor lady, who tried to run off with poor little Toto in a basket. And of course not to be forgotten was the "STORM". I have to admit that the evil old lady, riding her bike, up in the air, during the Tornado, still can give me shivers.

At school, the day after OZ was shown, was definitely a make or break day for proving how "brave", how "cool", how "grown-up" you really were.

It was a day not to be taken lightly.

This was even MORE important for the boys. All the boys, (probably not really "all" but it sure seemed like it) would run around the playground holding their coats above them like wings, trying to chase anyone gullible enough to run from them.

That's code for they chased us girls.

After a whole day of being chased by flying monkeys at recess, the Principal would usually announce that all the monkey business needed to stop. The announcement, made over the loudspeaker, (each room had their own personal loudspeaker, just like today) was met with groans from the boys, and sighs of relief from the girls.

Most of us were lying of course. It was FUN being chased by those crazy boys.

That would be the official end of the yearly "Wizard of OZ" event.

Ya know, as I think about this, I realize that there just aren't as many of these community affairs as there used to be.
The closest we can come, would have to be the Campaigning and Election that has finally come to an end for another four years.

I hardly see this as a proper comparison.

To hold a candle to the kind of "Wizard of OZ" events that I have just described, it would have to be seen as an enjoyable occasion, that everyone young and old, would look forward to. I don't think that would be a very good way to describe this years (or any year's for that matter) Election process.

I guess if I were young today I may feel this way about the opening night of "HighSchool Musical Part Three". That is if I was: A. Female B. Between the age of 6 to 14, and C. Had a cooperative enough parent to make sure I was there for the important first night showing.

I don't know, it just doesn't strike me as the same thing.

I think that this is one of the problems with the world today. We just don't have enough "Shared Experiences". Everything is so splintered now-a-days. It used to be that if you were a teenager, you would listen to the top 40 radio station. It would carry almost all of the popular music of the last few months. Top forty was such an institution that it kept Casey Casem in business for more than thirty years.

Now we have at least five or six stations for the same age group that used to require only one.

And no, I'm not forgetting about the ultra-ultra, intellectual, cool kids that listened to FM. They were a world onto themselves.

I really don't even think I would really want to go back to those simpler times. I love all the progress that has been made over the last forty years or so. I just can't help but think that it would be so nice if we could take a smidgen of the past innocence and mix it up with the sophistication we are so used to today.

A little less, Me and Mine, and a little more, We're all in this together.

Yeah, I think that would be an awfully nice development.

Now what did I do with my DVD copy of "The Wizard of OZ".

History in the making

I know that my son Donald will probably be a little upset by me, but I feel nothing but excitement today.I really felt torn about who to vote for this election. Which I realize was kind of silly because I live in Washington State, and Washington State almost always turns blue.

Also I realized that the election would most likely be decided and over before my states' votes had even been counted.

Of course that is what happened last night.

I did vote. I decided to vote for McCain. I didn't have any real hope that he would win, but it's okay because I also didn't really have much longing for him to win either. To be perfectly honest, there is one main reason why I voted for McCain. I did it, so if Obama really does ruin our country, which I doubt, and which Donald seems so sure of. I can say :

Don't blame me I didn't vote for him.

The thing that amazes me though, is that I don't feel sad, scared, or worried. I feel excited and energized. Last night, watching President Elect Obama and his lovely wife and beautiful little girls, I really did feel hope for our country.

I certainly don't see how he could possibly screw things up the way that eight years of Bush has.

I feel, and have felt all along, that he is a good man.

I don't like that he has associated with that horrible Reverend Wright. I'm also not pleased that we are being told that we need to forget about that relationship. That it, is not important.

I will worry about it if I want to.

But my gut feeling about Obama is that even though I don't agree with all of his beliefs, I do think that he is a decent man, a kind man, and a man who has earned his chance to lead our country.

He is black. And that is one of the things I find so exciting.

I can remember when even as a child, I never liked or more importantly, understood, the idea that black people were inferior in any way to me. I would say that the most negative emotion I ever felt about black people was that I was fascinated by them.

My grandfather was an extremely racist man.

There were too many times to count when I would hear him expounding on his hatred of the black race. I never liked it when I heard him ranting about such things.

I was born in the year 1957. Not exactly a very enlightened time in our history. I don't think I ever met a real black person until I was 8 years old. I had been taught, not by my parents, but by the world around me, that they were a people to fear. It bothered me to feel this way.

When I was 8, a black family had apparently moved into the boundaries of my elementary school. I don't remember the circumstances, but I do remember being with my mom, surrounded by several other women, and they were all talking about the horrors of black children infiltrating North Hill Elementary.

The general feeling among them was: I don't want a negro child in my child's class.

My mom, I could tell, was uncomfortable with the way the conversation was heading. Several of the stronger opinioned women in the group were basically bullying the other women, my mom included, into agreeing with the general consensus that something needed to be done.

When we got home I was burning with curiosity. Some very scary things had been said about what would happen because of these unwanted people.

At least to my 8 year old ears.

I questioned my mother about them. Was it really true that all black people carried knives and switchblades with them? Was it really true that a black person would hurt a white person if given the chance? My mom really didn't know what to say to me. I could tell though that she didn't really believe what these women had been talking about.

I assured myself then, that these must be lies. I knew that a Catholic girl in my second grade class, had told me that if I ever told a single lie that I would go straight to hell. I knew that was not true. (I'd told enough lies after all and I wasn't in Hell yet was I?) I decided that those women were not being true either.

I was so excited to have a negro girl at my school. My teacher, who seemed to be not as afraid as those women my mom had been surrounded by that day, told our class that a new girl was going to be joining our class. I was usually pretty shy in school, but when she asked my class if anybody would like the new girl to sit by them, I about jumped out of my seat I was so happy to raise my hand. There were maybe two other girls who raised their hands too. The teacher told us that she would need to talk to our parents first, and then she would decide where the new girl would sit.

It turned out that one of the handraising girls and I would have her sit in the desk between us.

I remember a few days after that when she came into our class. We had already sung our patriotic song and said the Pledge Of Allegiance. She was very shy. I couldn't wait for her to come and sit by me. I felt so important to be the one she would sit by.

I was shy, but I could also be a talker.

I had so many questions to ask the new girl. I tried to see, without her noticing me seeing, if there was anywhere that she might have a knife. I was so relieved and happy to see that she had nothing of the sort.

I knew I had been right about that one.

There was not much of a chance to talk to her until lunch. At North Hill, we ate our lunch at our desks. I had been smiling as big as I could at her so she would see that I wasn't afraid of her.

That day at lunch, I had myself, my very first conversation with a black person.

At first it was probably a little one-sided. After all I had so many questions for her. But guess what? She had just as many questions for me. We discovered that both our dads worked for Boeing. She didn't have as many siblings as me. She had a baby sister and two older brothers. All I had were sisters.

The more we talked the more I felt a bit of a let down.

I had been expecting her to be so different. I'm not really even sure what I had expected but she was just so normal. I had been assuming I could go home and tell my sisters all the things that made her different and exotic. But she was so much like all the other girls I knew that it took me a while to not be disappointed. We played together at recess that day. At first it was just me, her, and the girl that sat on the other side of her. After a few minutes, we were joined by a couple of other girls, and by the time the bell rang I think we must have had three fourths of the 3rd grade girls in our circle.

I can not remember her name, but it was just a regular name, I think there might have even been another girl in our class with the same name.

She stayed in our class for the rest of the year. After a couple of weeks we didn't even remember to think of her as different. She was just another one of the girls in Miss Duffy's class that year.

I never did have more than a few black students at any of the schools I attended. I do remember in 7th grade when we got a Black choir teacher. His name turned out to be Mr Brown. By then you would have thought it was not such a big deal, but of course there was still lots of negative talk. I had him one year. He was okay, but he was a little full of himself. That's when it really hit me that I didn't have to like or dislike someone because of their color. Mr Brown could sometimes be a pompous jerk because that was the way he was, it had nothing at all to do about the color of his skin.

Well, back to our new President.

I felt such a sense of excitement last night and this morning. Racism has always bothered me. I may not have known a lot of African Americans in my life but I have known enough of them to know that they are just people like any other people. I don't think our country will ever be truly equal as long as there is an, us versus them, attitude. I do understand the reasons behind "Black History Month" or "Miss Black America". I'm just looking forward to the day when there will be no need felt by anyone to have "Separate But Equal" anything.

I think that last night's election is a very promising start to that happening. I don't want to think of President Obama as our first black president as much as just plain President Obama, American President.

I look forward to our next Black President. I look forward to our First Woman President.And then to our next Woman President.

I want so badly to live in the times that Martin Luther King looked forward to. I can't imagine a more important time in our country than when there are no more "African" Americans. No more "Asian" Americans. No more "Mexican" Americans.

Just plain Americans.

It's coming. The time for real equality is definitely coming.

I just hope I will be here to see it.

Five more things

My niece Alicia tagged me last week and I have finally found the time to do it. Sorry to take so long Alicia.

Well here I go.

5 things I was doing 10 years ago

1. Being amazed that my two oldest were already 21 and 20. ( Now my two youngest are 20 and 22.) I'm not sure though that I would classify them all as grown-ups.

2. Praying that my oldest, Donald, had finally outgrown doing stupid things.

3. Advising my oldest, Donald, after he had done a few more stupid things.

4. Welcoming our first grandchild Abbey into our family.

5. Looking forward to the day when we would actually get up the gumption to sell our old house, buy a new house and live in a much better neighborhood. I'm still not sure why it took us so long.

5 things on my to do list for today.

1. Go exercise with Shawn. (Did it)

2. Go over my checkbook and pay bills. (Did it)

3. Go get a fill for my nails. (About to do it)

4. Go see my mom in the Hospital. She's not doing well and I need to take the chance while I still have one. (Will do for sure!)

5. Make dinner instead of a "fend for yourself" night. (Iffy, definitely iffy)

5 things I would do if I were a Millionaire (I'm assuming this would be a Multi-Millionaire)

1. Explore the world. (Sometimes with kids and grandkids along)

2. Buy a new house built to my specifications. (I love my current house but it does fall short in a few areas)

3. Make sure that my children and grandchildren have everything they need and a lot of what they want. (To a limit of course. I wouldn't want to create a welfare state or anything)

4. Donate large amounts of money to worthy causes. (Not a dime to politicians)

5. Give a card containing 1000 dollars to every young couple I know who get married.

5 places I have lived

1. Seattle and it's Suburbs(where I grew up)

2. Provo Utah

3. Pasco Wa

4. Richland Wa

5. Kennewick Wa (Where I grow old)

5 jobs I have had

1. Fairly reluctant babysitter. (Don't worry, no one ever drowned or anything on my watch)

2. Triple XXX, (In Des Moines, one of those Suburbs I mentioned) And NO, it was a drive-in, so get your mind out of that gutter.

3.Potato fields (Pasco)

4. Potato Processing Plant (Richland)

5. Old Folks Home (Yet more babysitting, this time though, the nurses had to change the diapers)

5 people I tag

1. Lisa 2. Donald 3. Mandi 4. Mikey 5. Tami.


Rules: Each player answers the question themselves. At the end of the post the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.