Burying the Buick

 

Everybody in my generation likely has a Buick embedded somewhere deep in their psyche.  Mine is a pale yellow 1955 model that sat in our driveway in Pasadena, Texas for most of my childhood.  And the memories I have of the beast are incredibly different than the carefree images in pictures of the era.  You see, I was scared of the car in every way possible.  I was nine years old, a quiet little girl who had an even quieter big sister and three noisy and hyperactive younger half-siblings.  Parents who apparently hated each other.  We were seven souls living a few blocks down the road from the Houston Ship Channel.  A violent and abusive step-father and a mother who had little education and no coping skills whatever. 

Seventy years later, I have compassion for all of us.  But the journey from there to here wasn’t smooth or easy.  For most of my life that Buick served as a symbol of abuse, neglect, and poverty.

My only pleasant memory of the car is riding on the “back shelf”.  That’s what we called it anyway.  I could arrange myself on it so I saw only clouds in the sky, green grass or occasionally the sandy beaches of Galveston.  While looking at the town from that unique vantage point, I remember daydreaming about having a pair of penny loafers or my very own ball of Silly Putty. 

One of many unpleasant memories is the first time I ever saw the Gulf of Mexico.  We were all piled into the Buick; kids in the back seat and grown-ups in the front.  The little kids could stand up and see over the dashboard – out to the sand, but my sister and I weren’t allowed.  So when the wheels of the Buick hit the sand, from my vantage point anyway, all I could see was water.  I looked out the side windows, saw nothing but more water.  I thought the entire vehicle had just launched into the shoreline and I panicked.   

I screamed.  Got yelled at. I dropped to the floorboard to hide.  Covered my head with my arms and shut my “big mouth”.as instructed.  Later I got another cussing and a spanking anyway for “scaring the little ones”.  I don’t remember the rest of that day. 

Many years ago, I had lots and lots of therapy and did a lot of healing from that childhood abuse.  But once in a while, one of them will surface like the Buick just did.  And my response, as always, is to write about it.  This way; I am comforting that scared little girl inside me with a gentle hug and telling her everything will be all right. 

Anticipating the Arrival …

 

Of people.  At my front door.  As soon as the outside temperature drops to my age or lower. 

You see, it’s like this: parties are not my thing.  Never have been and never will be.  I’m an introvert, a wallflower, a loner.  Being a hostess is the very last thing anybody would ever expect me to enjoy.  But here I am, thinking of having an open house at my new home.

It’ll be after Labor Day, when all the children will be back in school and most folks will be home from wherever they spent their summer.  It’ll be on a weekday, because most of my friends are retired or self-employed.  The weather will smile on us.  The house will finally be unpacked and the walls won’t be bare of artwork.  I swear I can smell cinnamon in the kitchen just thinking about it. 

The other day I counted up all the chairs I own.  I had already made my guest list and wondered how many of them could actually sit down.  I know, I know, it’ll be an open house and people will be coming and going, but still – I have no idea how to be a hostess.  I told myself it’s high time I learned, because I want to show my appreciation for all the people who have helped me survive this past year. 

So, if you helped me in any form or fashion since the Hill house hit the market, during the Possum Event, the fender-bender fiasco, the apartment-duplex-rent house-assisted living search, the fall, the walker(s) the packing and moving from Dumble or the unpacking and settling in … you are on the guest list. 

Heck, since this is probably going to be my one-and-only experience of being a hostess, I might even put on some lipstick and wear a dress.  We will see.

Sixteen posts in seven weeks

 According to my calculator that’s a tad more than two essays per week. You may have noticed that all sixteen have titles starting with a number. That part wasn’t planned, it just happened as those first few words of welcome began to emerge on the page as I started typing. When I realized what I had done I could feel him there with me. My late husband Jim Brannon (1933-2011) was a numbers guy in every way. During our many years together, his numbers and my words often collided in amusing ways. We had quite a few private jokes about it that nobody else ever knew.  I still think often about his birth and death dates – 3-9-33 and 2-11-11.  And I often feel that he sends me ‘just the perfect words’ when I’m writing. 

You may recall that I had a little accident the next day after that first post and ended up on a walker. Four days after that, I moved into a much safer residence. And for the following six weeks, writing these little 300-word blog posts became a calm place where I could tune out the chaos of unpacking, settling in, reorganizing my lifestyle and adjusting to my new world.

And here we are on the eve of August. Going forward, I plan to continue writing as a form of self-care and therapy.  It’ll be a new chapter in my journey. Each post’s title will start with an active verb, because I’m not ready to give up on life.  Instead of counting cardboard boxes or hours at Walmart, I hope to be making or doing or planning or learning or enjoying or researching.  Or whatever else strikes my fancy.

Thanks to everyone who reads my stuff. I do it for my own mental health primarily, but knowing I have even a small audience out there in cyberspace comforts me.

One artsy-crafty project

 Notice I did not call this item art.  I am not an artist by any stretch of anybody’s imagination.  And I don’t have any delusions about becoming one, either.  Let me tell you why.

For the past sixty years there’s been an unspoken rule in my home: only original works of art are allowed on my walls or on display anywhere.  Store bought stuff is tacky, they all told me.  Early on I realized that both sides of my family tree have plenty of artistic souls and my creative talents lie elsewhere. 

My father created metal puzzles out of wire (he was a pipefitter) and did a lot of whittling.  His mother made closets full of handmade quilts she designed herself and never bought a pattern in her lifetime.  My mother was a poet, published several times in local publications.  Her mother hand-sewed Barbie dolls of her own designs back in the day when Barbie was brand new and Ken hadn’t yet been created.

One of my maternal cousins is a well-known songwriter who has won awards in country music; you would recognize most of his songs the minute you heard the first words.  Another cousin was an extremely popular local radio disk jockey for many years before he retired and decided to have a second career driving an eighteen-wheeler and traveling all over America.

One of my daughters went to art school and became a real artist.  You probably have no idea what joy that has brought me through the years and how many of her early works I shelled out good money for, and they were worth every penny.

My son plays a guitar.  He’s not famous.  To this day I’m trying to decide how that squares with having a college degree in physics.  We just never know where talent might spring up in a family, do we?

With all this creativity orbiting around in my life, I discovered along the way I enjoyed just messing around with crafts.  I’ve done macramé, crewel embroidery, quilting, acrylic painting (on anything except canvas because those are for real artists), junk journals, found object things that defy description, and probably some more stuff I just made up one afternoon and decided it would be fun.

The photo with this blogpost is one of those afternoon things.  I found an old rotary phone in a thrift store and decided it needed a little makeover.  That shade of black seemed boring, so I glued quilt scraps all over it.  I seldom sell my creations, but I do enjoy giving them away to anybody who happens to admire one.

Before my mortal clock loses all its battery life, I just might create a few more spontaneous masterpieces.  But they’ll probably be in writing and published somewhere for future generations.  Truth really is stranger than fiction, and I’ll never, ever run out of ideas for research projects.

Twenty-two empty cardboard boxes

More or less.  They were all sizes and shapes.  Strong ones and flimsy ones.  The ones people pick up on the curbs in residential neighborhoods.  Some of mine came from Home Depot brand new, and others showed up in the back of a Jeep or off some curb in my own neighborhood.  You know these boxes, don’t you?  Of course.

They were in my garage, just taking up space because t’s almost impossible to carry more than one small box when using a walker.  I was getting a few of the bigger ones out by just bumping them down the driveway with the front edge of the walker.  That wasn’t the safest thing, I know, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

When Betty came last week to help with the unpacking (no, I’m still not finished six weeks later) I asked her to put all of them on the curb.  After all, this is Alvin, Texas in the summertime, and I just knew they would disappear within hours.  Win-win situation for my neighbors and me.  I was so wrong.

I forgot about Bertha.  Lurking out in the Gulf of America.  Then nearing New Orleans.  A few more boxes disappeared.  The storm made it to Beaumont the next day and a few more boxes disappeared.  My plan was working. 

The wind gusts came along with the rain and lightning, right on schedule and right out of Galveston Bay.  Not too bad, but oh-so-messy.  I felt helpless.  There wasn’t any way I could get them all back into the garage, much less hide them in the big garbage bins.  So I just looked out the front window and watched them all get soaked.  I may or may not have uttered some unladylike words.

The next morning I couldn’t get out of my driveway without backing over a big pile of sodden cardboard.  So I did the best I could and knocked a few of them away.  Drove to breakfast anyway.  Around noon I was back home and got to watch the mailman as he pulled up and gaped at the mess.  But what could I do?  If I had tried to get out there and tell him what happened he would’ve been long gone before I ever reached the front door.

So there they sit.  And they will just have to stay there until Tuesday when the trucks come.  And I’m grateful there’s no HOA in downtown Alvin.  I’m embarrassed enough already and I’m planning to find a refresher course somewhere about Making Good Decisions.  My journey continues.

Three personality types at the Senior Center

For more than ten years I volunteered at our local museum almost every day.  Volunteers came and went.  Everybody got along with everybody else, it seemed to me, and it never occurred to me to sort people by personalities.  Why would anybody do such a thing?

Six months ago, I retired from the museum at the age of eighty.  I took a month off before I finally decided to get involved in the Senior Center.  It happens to be across the street from the museum and I’d been there to many events and programs through the years.  So I signed up for the crochet group, the lunch gang, the monthly trivia contests, and several day trips on the center’s bus.  Spent lots of days working jigsaw puzzles in a room set aside just for that purpose. 

It was great.  I met new people and laughed my way through learning to crochet for the first time.  I had lots of sewing and quilting experience but wanted to try something new.  Left-handers are always good sports about their ‘hand-icap’, right?  I went to a few exercise classes and promptly dropped out.  Maybe I’ll write a post about that someday.  Or not.

The trivia games were fun.  Four people to a team and four sets of questions.  Winners got a $10 gift card from Walmart.  Lots of laughing at silly answers and groaning when we finally heard the right answers.  The bus trips always included a great lunch in a nearby small town.  Adventure!  Live entertainment!  Excitement!  Once in a while we even went to the Big H - HOUSTON.  Not my thing, but everybody said a good time was had by all.

In the puzzle room there were fond memories for most of us, serious discussions about the merits of the 500-piece box versus the 1,000-piece box, and whether it was cheating if you looked at the picture on the box or stored it away out of sight.  Yes, indeed, these are important topics and issues for all us boomers.

After a few months of all this activity, it struck me one day how certain sub-groups had formed within the larger group.  That caused me to start paying attention.  It seemed to me, for example, that the puzzle-workers shunned the exercise rooms and vice-versa.  That the trivia players liked the bingo games.  That the bus riders and karaoke folks were more likely to get all dressed up in holiday or special event garb than the dominoes and card players.  And so on and so forth.

I finally sorted everybody into three neat categories.  Just for my own reference and edification, don’t ya know.  I think of them the Visible Ones, the Lonely Ones, and the Thinking Ones. 

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.  Do you ever sort large groups of people into categories?  

 

Zero Whelms on a Sunday

This morning I woke up early, around half past six.  I realized it was Sunday.  No plans.  No pressure.  No hurry.  Not even a small list in my head of things to do, things to buy, things to clean, things to think about, nothing at all.  I rolled over and thought about spending the entire day in bed.

My bladder had a different idea, and once I was up, I was up.  Soon I was dressed and ready to do nothing again, just vertically instead of horizontally.  The word ‘whelmed’ popped into my head, so I wandered over to my unabridged dictionary.  It is a hardbound book, 5.5 inches thick with 2006 pages not including a bunch of maps, charts, diagrams and tables that add another couple hundred pages to its heft.  It sits on its own custom-made wooden stand.  I take a minute to fondly remember the man who made it for me.  His name is David, and he was a master carpenter.  Alvinites might remember him as the fellow who restored and crafted all the delicate gingerbread trim on the museum’s Slover-Rogers Cottage several years ago. 

But I digress.  I’m on my way to discover if I can be just whelmed.  Not overwhelmed.  Not underwhelmed.  Turns out I can.  My friend Noah Webster tells me the word is medieval if not ancient.  It means being submerged, engulfed or capsized.  And yes, I’ve felt that way often the past six weeks or so.  I’ve seldom felt like my old self since I fell. 

Having satisfied my curiosity about the word, I wandered into the kitchen.  Took my pill and my blood pressure (121/70 thank you very much) and cut up a banana and an avocado.  Opened a can of ice-cold pineapple chunks and went to my office with no idea what I would do when I sat down.

And for the rest of the day, I did whatever thing emerged from the cosmos and floated into my brain.  I sewed for the first time since the move, just mending one of my shirts.  I organized another box of craft supplies.  I did a load of laundry and gathered up five wastepaper baskets worth of trash.  I read Lesson 22 in ACIM.  To feed my genealogy addiction, I posted several obits on Find-a-Grave for the local LDS library.  Worked on the history of an old building in Rosharon.  I did my online Microsoft Word Games and patted myself on the back for solving all the Daily Challenges.  Those Word Twisters are perplexing.  But I never, ever got overwhelmed.

Two hours in Walmart

 

She was right on time, my newly-hired driver.  It was 9am and I was ready.  She rang the doorbell.

The first thing that struck me was how much faster things went.  For weeks I had been grabbing my purse, sunglasses and keys, walking myself through the house to the garage, unlocking the door to the truck, and heaving the aluminum walker over the driver’s side panel before securing it with a recently-installed carabiner (which had been a story of its own).  Probably took five or seven minutes at least.

But with the new routine I found myself out of the house, seated in Betty’s little Camry in the driveway, buckled up and in motion within two minutes.  Now, those three extra minutes might not seem like much to you, but to me it felt like warp speed. 

Walmart is 1.8 miles from my house.  Same no matter what vehicle I’m in, right?  Even though the Camry doesn’t have handicap plates like the pickup does, we still easily saved another five minutes.  By the time she parked and joined me inside, I was already paying for my sausage biscuit.  Because who wouldn’t if they hadn’t been out of the house in several days?

After a brief discussion of options, we decided the walker would fit inside the shopping cart and I wouldn’t have to use one of those big clunky store scooters.  Off we went to the shoe department.  Because I hadn’t had much success with ordering online, I felt it necessary to actually try some on my actual feet.  What a concept!  Maybe when you are my age you’ll have your own quirks.  There wasn’t any place to sit to try on the ones I picked, so off Betty went to solve that little problem.  She found one little bench way over in the Men’s Shoes area, so we high-tailed it over there.  Five minutes later, there was one pair of $25 shoes in an actual shopping basket in an actual Walmart store.  Success.

Next on the list was to look at rollators.  Real ones, not pictures of them online.  I had no idea if I could even lift anything heavier than the aluminum one.  Long story short, we discovered I can lift a sixteen-pound one but not a twenty-pounder.  Who knew? 

Mission accomplished.  Two items seen in person, one purchased.  Two hours on the time clock for Betty.  Money and time well-spent.  Plus, I got out of the house, ate a meal, and had a nice little nap when I got home.  God bless patient people like Betty who are willing to help slow folks like me.  Amen.

PS:  My new shoes are not much to look at, but they feel safe and comfy and they fit well. My journey continues.

One Surprisingly Quiet Business in Downtown Alvin

 It’s scarcely two blocks from downtown Alvin, hidden from traffic and noise by 100-year-old oak trees and a bunch of old frame houses.  It’s been sitting there quietly for almost forty years, minding its own business. 

There’s extraordinarily little traffic on these city streets.  No retail stores, no advertisements in the local papers and no foot traffic or sidewalks.  No civic events or nonprofit fundraisers.  All those kinds of events happen nearby, and they tend to ignore this quiet neighbor that doesn’t hanker for visitors in the first place.

Founded in 1989, (yes that was almost forty years ago), Alvin Chemical, Inc. purchased 4.7 acres of land along the south side of the railroad tracks.  The seller was Dr. Granville Hayes, who was well-known around town as the owner of the old Alvin Memorial Hospital and the Gulf Coast Furniture store on Gordon Street.  

A chemical company?  Downtown?  Yes.  It wasn’t until twenty-five years later that the area began to awaken just a bit.  This time the corporation purchased the north half of another city block adjoining the complex.  This time the seller was another well-known citizen, Warren Stanton.  The City of Alvin agreed to make the eastern parts of Talmadge and Snyder streets disappear, and more warehouses and tanks began to appear on the new property.  The growth was steady and subtle, and again the local news made no mention of it.

And so it goes.  Trains continue to load and unload their cargo on the two-track outer spur and the one-track inner spur.  Twelve blending tanks continue to hold inventory.  All six warehouses are busy all the time.  Every day, eighteen-wheelers travel quietly along W. Willis in both directions, headed out to Highway 6 and then their final destinations. 

This is the story of just one of Alvin’s hidden gems.  There are several more.  And your octogenarian historians are busy taking notes and saving the past for future generations.

Eight young men of Alvin started 4th of July rodeo

 

The year was 1922.  World War I was done, and the Roaring Twenties were well underway.  All over America the jazz age was in full swing and Prohibition laws were in effect.  Flappers were dancing, smoking, drinking, cussing, and voting.  Housewives were getting new-fangled appliances like washing machines and vacuum cleaners.  Yes, indeed, the U.S. of A. was in high cotton in those days.

Here in little ole Alvin, Texas (population 1,519) John Owen lived on the corner of Hood and Cleveland, and bought himself a new Ford Model T to park in his new garage.  It was the first residential garage in town, and legend has it that people came all the way from Angleton and Columbia just to get a glimpse.  The Gem Drug Store even had a radio! 

Perhaps to match John Owen and his wealth, eight other prominent men decided that Alvin needed a rodeo.  As reported in the Alvin Sun, Gerald Abbott, W.K. Flora, George Pennock, Kiddo Tacquard, George Seibel, Johnny Wehrly and Armour Savell (son-in-law of Alvin Morgan himself) pooled their resources and started organizing the construction of rodeo grounds way out on Mustang Road.  The American Legion pitched in and the project was finished in record time.  For many years the Rodeo Parade was held on the Fourth of July. 

Eventually the old Mustang grounds were moved to Tovrea and eventually closed to make room for a housing development.  But to this day, several generations of Alvin’s little buckaroos (now called elderly citizens) fondly remember the excitement of the annual parades, the hot dogs and fireworks and of course the thrill of watching that old wooden gate open with another cowboy hanging on for dear life. 

One more lesson in ACIM

Today I am eighty years, six months and twelve days old.  If I die before midnight (very unlikely) my Texas Death Certificate will probably use those very words to fill in the blank that asks “Age at Time of Death”.  I’m not sure when or where or why this peculiar tradition started, but I’ve seen it thousands of times in certificates and family Bibles as I’ve researched my own family heritage back through the history of the American South.  Not to mention hundreds of other families during my time as a historian and biographer.

But I digress.  Having said that, tonight I’m remembering one particular rite of passage I’ve been going through every decade or so since the early 1980s.  For those of you in the back, that’s fifty years or five decades.  Ha.

If you don’t recognize the acronym ACIM, you might want a hint: It means A Course in Miracles.  It’s a spiritual program that transformed my life back in the day and still governs it today.  Without it, my life would’ve undoubtedly been one hundred percent different than it is today.  The Course was (and still is) a major highway in my life’s journey.

This morning I woke up feeling the call of my spirit to take the Course again, maybe for the final time in this bodily form.  Or maybe I’ll make it to Decade Seven.  Who knows?  In that regard, the Course and the Twelve Step programs agree: One Day at a Time. 

There are 365 lessons in the Workbook.  I plan to share some of my reflections and thoughts here on this blog as I go along, maybe once or twice a month.  You may subscribe as you wish.  Or unsubscribe.  This is absolutely not about me getting any likes, comments, shares, bells, feedback or other social media perks.  Remember I started the blog to take a break from Facebook and share my journey over here where it feels more in-depth and more like real connections can be made. 

One Alvin police chase

 

In August, 1979, an alert Alvin Police officer named Joseph Esquivel was on night patrol near Alvin High School when he noticed a young man riding a blue English Racer bicycle at the corner of Johnson and Adoue, and carrying a toolbox under his arm.  Immediately suspicious, Esquivel followed.  Slowly at first, then faster as the suspect started to accelerate.  As both of them raced through the parking lot of First Baptist Church at Adoue and Hill, the man threw the entire toolbox at the cruiser – and missed.

At the corner of Cleveland and Taylor the suspect abandoned his bike and took off on foot.  Undaunted, Esquivel followed suit and the foot race was underway.  Two blocks later, the chase began to include jumping over fences and running through lawns in the dark in the middle of the night.  With Esquivel only a few feet behind him, the youth unexpectedly crawled through an open window at a house on Hardie Street.

And that’s where he was arrested less than a minute or two later, cowering under the covers of his own bed in his own home, at around 3 a.m.  It was later discovered that the abandoned bicycle had been stolen.  The toolbox was never claimed or reported stolen. 

Good work, Officer Esquivel, no matter where you are now.  You are probably one of Alvin’s octogenarians by now, so we honor you for your service.

One so-called lawn care business

 Settling into a new home requires a bunch of changes, doesn’t it?  New arrangements of artwork on the walls, different color schemes to match new room arrangements, switching to different utility companies, doing the Change of Address form for the post office, etc.  One of my least favorite among these is hiring a new lawn care crew.

So… to help me out, my lovely real estate agent had given me a list of four potential companies she had heard about here in Alvin.  And the fun began this morning when I picked one at random and looked it up on Google.  All I had was a name and a phone number, and I was hoping for, you know, some basic information like location, reviews, maybe a photo or two, etc.  AI jumped right in, of course.  Heavens to Mergatroyd.  In a matter of moments AI was as lost as I was. 

This particular company didn’t exist in southeast Texas.  No website, no handy google map, no Reddit or Quora reviews, not even a Facebook page.  Just my luck.  I expanded my search to include the entire U.S.A. and got a smattering of companies with the same name – in Idaho, Ohio, and Rhode Island.  Really?  Who knew Rhode Island was big enough to have lawns?

But I digress.  I ended up just calling the number.  A woman answered with “Hello?”  I said “Hello, is this a business?”  She said, “I’m at Kroger can I call you back in five minutes?”  I hung up without a word.  Half an hour later my phone rang, no caller ID so I ignored it as I always do for unidentified numbers.  Doesn’t everybody? 

I moved along to the next one on my list.  No answer.  No “leave a message at the beep” recording.  The third one was similar to the first, except it was a man and he was apparently outside an airplane hangar or maybe attending a rock festival in Rhode Island.  Not a business answer, just another Hello. 

I never made it to the last one on the list.  I had to go take a little break that sort of morphed into a little nap.  For the rest of the day I wondered if I’m really that out of touch with the 21^st century.  Is it really true that service businesses just don’t need to identify even their name to customers any more?  And is it really true that I might be ready for the Old Folks Home?  Then I wouldn’t care how they answered their phones, would I?   

Fourteen days of pain and chaos

You know that thing that friends do at the stadium when their team makes a touchdown?  Where they slap high-fives and scream and holler and yell and jump around and fist bump?  Well, that’s what Marla and I did this afternoon (well, except for the jumping part) when she plugged an HTMI cable into my PC.  I confess I shed a tear or two of happiness.  I’m finally reconnected to my world.  Hallelujah.

Was it really two weeks of misery?  Yes it was.  Friday June 12^th around noon I fell down and went boom.  Ouch.  Felt like a fool in front of dozens of my peers.  Tuesday my three angels showed up to pack the Dumble house even though I was the only one who couldn’t do a lick of work.  Wednesday the moving van showed up and hauled it all away.  If it hadn’t been for my friend Allen I might’ve postponed the entire thing.  He stepped right up to the plate and became my Hero of the Day.

Then came seven days of confusion.  You’ve undoubtedly heard about the missing mouse and the wayward monitor cord (which is still AWOL).  I cried and moaned and wailed for a solid week about everything – it’s really a good thing I wasn’t able to whine online, wasn’t it?  The strong, independent widow y’all know and love was an emotional mess, a pathetic helpless creature who wasn’t coping well at all.

In spite of myself, with a LOT of help from a LOT of friends, things began to take shape.  Little things, like AAA batteries for the TV remote, showed up.  Big things, like my king-size pillows, didn’t show up for several days.  I slept with an eight-inch Astros throw pillow under my head for three nights and was grateful to have it.  All my kitchen towels ended up in the bathroom and vice-versa.  See what I mean?

But today made it all go away.  I’ve fed my addiction to screen time for several hours.  Caught up on emails, paid some overdue bills online, filled out a Change of Address form, got a few more stats about my new blog’s health, and even did my word games and a hidden object puzzle.  I will sleep well tonight.

PS:  Thanks to everybody who helped.  Including but not limited to Marla, Donna, Cathy, Ned, Allen, Melvin, Paul, Debbie, Jerry, Bart, Bethany, Essie, Marijane and Margaret.  Friends rock! 

One Awesome Landlord

In addition to being an all-around Good Guy, Jerry Krampota is a third generation Texan with a Czechoslovakian heritage.  He’s a businessman, a neighbor, a fellow historian, a writer, and sometimes a comedian.  Plus, he’s been my landlord for the past 18 months and a good friend for more than a decade.

Tonight will be my last night here on Dumble Stret.  I’ll be shutting down my PC and getting it off the desk before bedtime.  The moving truck will be here bright and early tomorrow.  I’d like to share a story or two about my stay here if you don’t mind.  You know how us old folks are, right?

My best Krampota story is all about the possum who lived under the bathtub at my old house on Hill Street.  He must’ve missed me after I moved out (or maybe he just wondered why the house had become so quiet).  He crawled up through the floor of the little water heater closet and probably found a little snack.  That’s when I learned possums love to eat roaches.  So every time a realtor brought a potential buyer he probably went back below for a nap.  Except for that one time.  OMG.  I had to take the house off the market, and that’s when Jerry stepped up to the plate.

He took it upon himself to trap that critter once and for all.  He was relentless, checking several times a day until he discovered Possum’s game plan.  He tried to block off the door.  Possum came back anyway.  It was quite entertaining from my vantage point.  Long story short, Possum was finally located to somewhere out near Chocolate Bayou and we hope he is living happily ever after.

My second favorite Krampota story involves his lovely wife Peggy.  She’s not a native Alvinite but you’d never know it.  She’s listened to Jerry’s stories for more than fifty years, and her memory is excellent.  She volunteers at a local charity called the Landing Place, working with memory care patients.  She loves to cook.  She’s active in her church.  She’s always happy.  But the best part?  She usually invites me to join her family for her delicious meals on holidays, and she’s especially generous with the leftovers.

I’m really grateful to these good folks for adopting me and being my neighbors and earning my assessment of them as the best landlords in town.

 

 

Four Alvin Friends

 

It seems like weeks ago that I fell down and went boom, but it was only last Friday.  Three days ago.  I ought to be back up and walking and driving by now, I’ve told myself a dozen times.  But nooo… it seems my body has a timeline of its own these days, and it forgot to send me the message.  Such is the fate of an octogenarian, I suppose.

This morning bright and early, three ladies showed up at my doorstep armed with boxes and tape and markers and muscles and energy and good balance and excellent eyesight.  They brought laughter and conversation and hugs.  And they brought me hope and healed my heart.  They understood this was my first day to get out in public with a walker.  They laughed with me as I learned to navigate with the cotton-pickin’ thing.  They helped me get into the passenger seat.  Trust me, all you young-uns, it ain’t all that easy. 

After working their magic with boxes and tape for a couple of hours, they packed up their vehicles and off we went.  The delivery of my new refrigerator was scheduled, the new garage door opened without a hitch, the boxes of breakables were all put inside their appropriate rooms at the new place – and it felt so odd to just sit and watch them.  Frustration.  Guilt.  Sadness.  How can I learn to live like an invalid and how could I ever repay them?

By lunchtime we all realized the rest of the day would be rained out.  They at least let me buy them all a tortilla burger and/or a hot dog at DairyLand, a local groovy place since the 1960s.  After they drove me home and went on their merry ways, I got to thinking how lucky I am to have as my close friends one retired municipal judge, plus the one and only mother of our local high school’s head football coach, and a transplanted New Yorker who has been in Alvin so long she can remember more about this town’s history than most natives. 

One Day At A Time

What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours.  Well, that’s what Dinah Washington said in her song, and until today I never had a reason to believe differently.  Her version said the sun and the flowers came where there used to be rain.  I say there might be unpleasant surprises after an elderly person falls.

Yesterday around lunchtime I fell.  Mine was a pretty soft landing compared to dozens and dozens of stories I’ve heard from my friends and acquaintances.  The side of my calf was sore for a few hours and I felt sort of frazzled and over-tired by bedtime.  Other than that, I considered myself unharmed.

Thanking my lucky stars for my own foresight, I dragged out my husband's old aluminum walker.  He died eleven years ago, and it certainly wasn't a sentimental memory, but the practical side of myself had stashed it in a closet.  

Surprise.  I woke up at my usual time and went through my little routine.  Sitting on the edge of the bed, I noticed I’d slept uninterrupted (if you know what I mean) for at least two hours longer than usual.  Didn’t think much of it except that it was a good thing.  Getting dressed was uneventful.  When I stood up and headed for the kitchen I forgot to grab the walker, though, and immediately noticed I wasn’t quite as steady on my feet.  I didn’t fall, and I wasn’t dizzy or disoriented.  I knew exactly where I was and what I was doing.  I just felt a bit wobbly. 

Being me, I went back for the walker and brushed it off, telling myself it would go away in a while.  At this point it had only been eighteen hours or so. 

But lunchtime came and went.  I was getting tired again, so I stretched out on the bed and had a little nap.  Unusual but not unheard of in my case.  Whatever, I told myself.  Maybe it’ll take 36 hours or even 96 hours to recover fully.  I won’t be driving again until I get over the wobbles, and I know my friends will appreciate that.  My journey continues.

 

One Unexpected Event

 Yesterday I said I would continue the story of why I started this blog, but Heavens to Betsy, life intervened all day today.  So we’ll just have to keep on truckin’, won’t we?

It started as a normal day.  For the first couple of hours, at least.  The coffee was good, the scrambled eggs and hash browns were tasty.  Then I made the one-block trip to the Senior Center and apparently took a wrong step on the concrete sidewalk at the east entrance – down I went.  Landed on the left side of my calf about three inches below my knee.  Ouch.  I haven’t fallen down in more than forty years, probably, but I really wasn’t surprised.  After all, I’m eighty years old and it seemed inevitable.  Something about the law of averages, I think.

Oh well, I told myself, if I must fall, this is a fine-and-dandy place to do it.  I was in the shade, literally on the bright yellow ramp leading to the automatic doors that opened into the dining hall where dozens of my peers were just sitting down for lunch.

So I sat myself up and looked around.  Empty parking lot, no construction workers nearby.  Nobody appeared for the first few seconds.  Then here they came, all at once.  The director of the center sat herself cross-legged on the concrete next to me, and said she thought she would join me for a bit since I’d found a nice resting place.  Nobody seemed upset, probably because I wasn’t moaning or groaning or making a scene. 

After a few minutes, I allowed a few of them to get me on my feet and inside the building where air conditioning and a chair were waiting for me.  I’m not sure which one I enjoyed most.  Marla and Essie (the leaders of the pack) brought me water and Tylenol, ran their fingers around on my scalp and asked me a bunch of questions.  They had already watched the surveillance video and said my head hit the concrete so they had to make sure I had my wits about myself. 

I’m just fine, thank you.  By the time I left the building (escorted to my truck by Essie), all the pain was gone and I was back to my old self.  Literally.  Or maybe I should say my elderly self.

You’ll be happy to know I’ve learned my lesson.  I’ll be using Jim’s trusty old walker from now on.  And I might just go to bed a wee bit earlier and a bit wiser than last night.

Welcome

My name is Marie.  I was born in rural Arkansas a few months after the end of World War Two.  My family moved to southeast Texas when I was still in diapers.  I’ve lived in the Houston area for well over 75 years and have spent the last several decades in Brazoria County.

When I was fifty years old, somebody invented Windows 95 and I got an e-mail address.  It’s the only one I’ve ever had and I still use it every day.  When I was sixty, Texas City blew up, Hurricane Rita stranded us on I-10 for what seemed like days, and my first grandchild made his appearance in a suburb of Athens, Greece.

By the time I turned seventy, I had been a widow for several years.  Looking for a change of pace and a new lifestyle, I moved to a small town called Alvin.  It had less than 20,000 residents back then.  I found my niche at the Alvin Historical Museum and spent a happy decade in their back room as an archivist, historian, curator and board secretary.  Good times.

A few months ago, I hit another milestone.  Eighty.  I quit worrying about dying young and started counting my blessings.  All my major pieces and parts are cranking along nicely (heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, thyroid, etc.)  I only take one pill a day, and if I play my cards right I’m thinking I should make at least another decade.  Which brings me, finally, to the reason I’m starting this new blog.

But I’m not telling you the rest of the story just yet.  My fingers are tired of typing, you see.  And at my age, I’ve learned it’s okay to take a break when I need one.  Maybe you’ll come back for future updates.