God's Children

When we were around 3 or 4, my cousin and I got into what was probably our first argument. She called me "a dirty ole publican" and I called  her " a mean ole democat". From what I was told, everyone laughed and thought we were cute. Today, so called adults are still calling each other rediculous names and it is no longer cute. I wish the world would remember that "God so loved the world that he sent his Son..." It does not say God so loved the Democrats or God so loved the Republicans.There are sooooo many verses in the Bible that apply to how we should treat one another. I wish more time was spent reading those instead of screaming, yelling and lying to and about each other. We are all God's children.

Just Call Me "Big Ears"

I was born with ears just like my daddy's. This brought no comfort to me as I grew up. I was always being teased about my ears and was very ashamed of them and very self-conscious about them. I kept my hair long enough to make sure the were always covered as I became a teenager and young adult. My attitude about my ears changed in my second year of teaching. I was teaching a class of second graders. One of my students was a young man with very large ears that stuck straight out. He was teased alot about those ears at home and at school. One morning he came in with tears streaming down his cheeks. He put his coat on over his head and would not take it off. After giving him a big hug and talking to him, I found out that everyone on the bus had called him "big ears" and "elephant ears". I sat him on my lap and told him my secret. I then pushed my hair back behind my ears. His face lit up like a Christmas tree. My ears were just like his!. I told him that our ears were cool and made us special. I never again hid my ears and every time anyone picked at him about his ears he would tell them that his ears were just like his teachers and they were cool.  I learned more from him that day than he learned from me. God made me just the way he wanted me  and that is just fine.
Have you ever been ashamed of anything about you? Remember, you are the way you are supposed to be.

There's A Hole in My Biscuit, Dear Billy, Dear Billy

The title of this posting is an adaption of an old song that goes"There's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza,dear Liza..." I grew up among a sister, and two brothers. My eldest brother, Donald, was 15 years older than me and was more like a second father, than a brother. My other brother, Billy, was 8 years older than me and was the bane of my existance at that time. He took his job of irritating his two sisters very seriously. Among the many tricks he used to play on me was the "hole in the biscuit".
I used to tell my children that I didn't know that biscuits came without holes until my brother left for the navy. My mother cooked a big dinner every night right down to the biscuits. If you needed anything, it would be passed around until it got to you. We sat in the same spots every night. The biscuits always set between my brother Bill and my daddy. Whenever I wanted a biscuit, my brother would take one, poke his finger into the bottom very quietly and then proceed to pass it one to me. It took me several years to discover why only my biscuits came with holes in the bottom. I should have known something was going on since my brother was always smiling and snickering when I got my biscuit.

Lessons from Mama's Kitchen

The lessons I learned from Mama's kitchen while I was growing up were many. The obvious ones were those of learning to cook many things the way Mama did. I still cook many things just like Mama. I not only learned how to cook but also how to enjoy food.
But even more important than those lessons were all the other things I learned while I was in Mama's kitchen. I learned to sing harmony as I blended my voice with the voices of my mama, sister, and father and occasionally with my two brothers. It was literally "daddy sang bass, mama sang tenor". My sister sang soprano and I sang alto. We sang without music most of the time. We just sang.
I learned the value of words sitting at the table while Mama cooked supper. I would do my homework and then I would get the dictionary and play "Try to Stump Mama". I very seldom did. That woman's vocabulary was AMAZING! I would thumb through the dictionary picking out words. I would read the definition and she would guess the word. Sometimes I would read the word and she had to give me the definition. Little did I know that while I was working so hard to "stump Mama" she was expanding my vocabulary and making me a better reader.
Another lesson I learned in the kitchen was actually from my daddy and not my mama. My daddy use to dance with me as we sang or as the radio played.  It was made up silly dances but it filled me with joy and a love for dance.
Our family always sat down together for dinner. We had a big "eat-in"kitchen. Everybody knew what time supper was and that we had better have our behinds in those chairs. We ate ,talked, laughed, and solved the worlds problems sitting at that table. When I had my own family I tried to do the same and managed to succeed most of the time .If I could wish one thing for families today, it would be for them to have the opportunity to create their own "lessons from mama's kitchen".

Graduation Day

What a day it has been! Today is my sixty-first birthday. It is also my "Graduation Day".After 55 years of going to school either as a student or a teacher, I have finally stopped going to school. Today I retired from teaching. I am happy, excited, scared, and grateful all at the same time. I have been blessed to be able to do what I love to do for so many years.  I decided to be a teacher when I was seven years old. I never once changed my mind. One thing I promised myself was that if I ever felt that I could not do the job to meet my standards that I have set for myself that I would leave. My students deserve the best each and every day. Over the last week or so it has become obvious that that time has come. I will always love teaching and in a few months will sub now and then, but for now I am excited to start a new chapter in my life. I feel that God has opened this door for me . I can't wait to see the blessings that are awaiting.

Friends

As a person goes through the years that make up one's life, you constantly modifly your circle of friends by adding and sometimes subtracting a few . But there are always those that remain cemented firmly in your heart as "forever " friends. I lost one of those precious people today. My very first real BFF (as they are called today) was Reva Gail Jones Owens. If we weren't at one another's houses, we were on the phone. We played together, laughed together, cried together, and dreamed together. We even planned to go to college together but life happened as it sometimes does and we ended up going in two different directions. We kept in contact off and on, more at first, less in the middle and started back up ln the last few years. Alot has passed during these years but she remained as dear to me as she was in my youth. She used to dream of traveling to far away places when we were young. Today she left on her final journey . She rests tonight peacefully in the arms of her God. There is a song that says"Save a place for me, Save some grace for me...". Reva, save a place for me for I will see you again one day. I love you, my friend.

Battleship

I have a game of Battleship in my rainyday game collection in my classroom. My own children had not only a regular Battleship game but my son also had an electronic StarWars version. Well, the makers of the game have nothing on me. I was playing my own version of "battleship" when I was 7 or 8 years old.(I'm amost 61 so obviously that has been awhile).  We lived by a creek and right up the hill from my house lived my cousin Darrell. We played all day long out in the woods and by the creek. Both of our dads usually had a "stash" of half gallon jars of moonshine. One day as we were playing, we got the idea to use the jars as battleships and rocks as bombs.  We put the jars in the creek and readied our ammo on the banks of the creek. As the jars floated by, we bombed them and saw who could sink the most battleships. We had a blast. It was a lot more fun than the current game but I will admit my game encountered a big problem when we had to face our dads. That was probably the worst spanking I ever received.But I still take credit for inventing the game of Battleship(redneck style).

Hats

As a cancer survivor and former baldy, I have quite a collection of hats. I have them in a large variety of shapes and colors. While doing some spring cleaning this week, I came across them with a mass of memories and feelings swamping me as I looked at them. Many of these memories are not pleasant but went along with some very necessary events that resulted in my still being here.I swore to never wear a hat again. But as I was deciding what to do with these hats, I began to think about the "hats" that I have worn throughout my life time. I have been a daughter, a sister, a student, a grandchild, a cousin, a student driver, a friend, a wife, a divorcee, a farmer, a choir member, a mother, a child of God,a teacher, a grandmother, a cancer patient, a cancer survivor, and many other  things. Of these hats, the ones I am most thankful for being given the opportunity to wear are a child of God,a mother, a grandmother, and a teacher. Every hat (real or representational) has helped me express who I am and how I feel about life.  I have decided to throw or give away (depending on condition)all of my hats but one. That one hat I will keep as a reminder of my struggle with and victory over cancer and as a tributle to all the "hats" I have had the priviledge to wear throughout my life.My prayer is that for every "hat" that I wore or am wearing, was and is worn to the glory of my God.

Rain

As I was driving through a really bad storm last night, I began to think about the word rain. Have you ever considered the enormity of this word, especially for a person of faith? On one hand, we think of rain as a lovely part of Spring that brings May flowers. It refreshes the world and gives us color and beauty. Then on the other hand, we tend to look at the bad times in our lives as the "rain" and we ask for strength to live through the "rain" in our lives and to look for the sunshine. And yet, if you think about it, that too can bring beauty to our lives. For as we look to our faith to see us through the "rain", we believe that beauty and peace wait just on the other side of the storm.