Ups and downs, in and outs, empty and full!!

The Red Ring

2009-10-07T06:53:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I wrote about the red ring or not.....But I remember the first time I coveted something!...It was a red ring. I was in first grade at half days in Lebanon Jr. High while our new grade school was being built. Mrs Bush my first grade teacher was horrid. She gave me my first spanking. Needless to say, she was not on my favorites list!...My first grade was full of so many problems. This year impressed me to count it as "one of the worst times of my life" even at 5 years old. But a memory of that year sticks in my mind. Linda Laskovich was in my first grade class. She wore a beautiful red, shiney, stone ring on her middle finger. It was surrounded in gold. This ring drew my eye and I so wanted a ring like that. When the sun shined in the window, it sparkled on the stone and made it ever so much more inviting!...Along with that horrible year. There was a cute boy named Doug..I don't remember his last name but I had a big crush on him. He was very tall, blone and dressed very nice. He was much taller than I was. Even at six years old, I was the shortest person as well as the youngest in my classes...This was true throughout all of my school years, even into high school. But back to Linda and her ring...I tried so hard to get her to let me wear her ring. I just wanted to have that ring. It was so beautiful and shiney, but she would never let me even try it on. She said, her mother would be mad. I am guessing, now looking back, it was a birthstone and a gift. She treasured that ring but not as much as I didn...and she would not let it out of her sight. Besides that she had really nice clothes and her hair always looked beautiful. Her hair was dark and shiny and she wore very nice clothes. I guess I was jealous even at 6 years old because of the way she not only looked but the way she made me feel. I knew it was because I lived in a trailer court and we were considered "trailer trash" by all those who lives in normal homes. I never felt like trailer trash and didn't know why others called us that!!..but that never bothered me. The thing that did bother me was that Linda and Doug were a thing, not only did she have this beautiful ring but she had the eye of the boy I liked...I remember even at such a young age how I coveted her life...her ring and her life...I asked for a ring for Christmas or my birthday that year...and I got a birthstone ring. A garnet, not quite as big or shiny or as red as Linda's but it was a very nice ring and I loved it...I wore it, spinned it around on my finger and treasured it...until one day while riding home from Dormont with my Dad on a Saturday afternoon...I had it in my mouth and bit it in half....I broke my ring, my birthstone ring...My mother was not happy!!! She took it from me and I never saw it again..And as far as Doug..I guess he went off to a life full of Linda Laskovich's.....and I ended up with an obsession of rings!! Not all red but rings none the less!!! In fouth grade after moving to Cooperstown...I had another episode of total ring fever....this time it was an opal ring. Royene Sterling had a beautiful opal ring...it probably was a birthday or Christmas gift...I wanted a ring just like that...the opal moved in the light as opals can do...and it fasinated me...One day, I asked her to wear it..and she let me. At the end of the day, I wore it home..She had forgotten I had it and I was happy to go home with her ring on my hand. The next day, I forgot to take it back to school, on purpose. I thought perhaps she would forget I had it...and I could keep it!!...But after a many days her mother called my mother and I was forced to return it to her at school!!...Oh how I wanted that opal ring!!...So when I grew up and got a job, after buying everyone in my family a gift....one of the first rings I ever purchased for myself was an opal ring...I still have that ring, it has a big crack in it but when I wear it, it reminds me of how something, material like a ring can lead you down a road of evil ways. To lie, cheat, and covet something that doesn't belong to you. It starts so innocently in a little ring, that shines like the sun!!!

We learn wisdom after the fact!!

2009-10-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Now that I am older and consider myself wiser. I have learned whenever you want something done. It is best you either entrust it to someone you are sure will do a better job than you, or you will do it yourself!...I have wasted so many moments in my life screaming orders and requests to people that have no intentions of doing ..nor do they even hear what I am yelling. I know now when you speak...speak softly and carry a BIG stick. Getting another person attention doesn't necessarily work when you speak louder or more often. Having six kids seasoned me for this exact practice. I would request something like..."Please run the vaccuum cleaner today" and name the person I wanted to have do it...but on my return it seemed nobody had any idea of what I said, or to whom I said it!!!...Frustrated, I would find myself yelling louder and repeating the request 2 or 3 times..threaten, and scream..and still it wouldn't be done. Or it was done so fast and unmanaged it would have been better left alone. I offered incentives, rewards, and even over and above payment. Still the committment was not fulfilled to my satisfaction. What I learned about this is people (including my own children) do what they want and they do it when they want regardless of the recompense. My mother for example would speak and we would not listen. She ended up doing everything herself. I look back now and see how I could have been a help to her....but she really didn't seem to mind. And without a word...she would finished the chore, on her own. On the other hand, my father said something ONCE...with a tone in his voice that said..."This better be done or else"...instantly you knew it was a priority in your life to obey!!...but why wouldn't we obey my mother as well...Growing up parents are manipulated and formed into obedience from their children from the beginning. The cry, we obey. They smile, we fold into a crumble.. They know after a short time just how to get everything they want and they know how to do it!!! The joy of motherhood is a two fold one. The joy of having a family and children is to be able to convience yourself you are able. You love and nurture them...trying to teach and give them a true sense of who they are. But, self worth is a bit harder to nurture....I don't believe I ever conquered the secret to provide this in my children. My expectations weren't high enough and for this reason they suffered with many unfullfilled goals. Lives that are hanging in the balance of good and evil. Someone told me once I expected too little of my children...and now I know they are correct. If I asked to have the vaccumm cleaner run and it wasn't done in two, three days, I then would do it myself and complain the entire time about nobody listening to me...and doing what I asked!..My mother never really asked me to do much of anything, that I can remember. We did wash dishes at one point my sister and I. But usually as things go..it would last for a time and then for whatever reason the chore would cease and we would be back to my Mom doing everything. I mowed the grass, but always got yelled at for mowing over the wild roses...by accident. I wish I knew the secret to keeping that expectation mode in check for my grandchildren. However, my time has passed and now it is time to sit back and watch those children I spent so many hours yelling and performing tasks that were long overdue and neglected to be passed on to my grandchildren...I see now, the error of my ways, and would love to be able to screw off my childrens heads and place the "WHAT I KNOW, BUT NEVER TAUGHT YOU" button inside of them so they won't look back and see they have made the same mistakes I made. Seems life takes on the role of "HARD KNOCKS" and that includes all generations!! AND SO IT GOES!!

Children and Parents

2009-10-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

It seems we make our choices when we get older but when we are children we are subject to our parents choices. When you are a child you go along with whatever your parents decide and never think anything about things being what they should or shouldn't be. You trust your parents always do the right things and you will spend every day of your young life standing up for what they do. You accept them and are sure anything they do is for you best interest. You would never think they are trying to do anything to hurt you or make your life miserable. This is why so many children are found in situations of terrible peril. Their parents choices reflect their futures...good and bad! When we moved from West Mifflin to Cooperstown as children we were excited about the move. Knowing we could live in the country with land, have pets and no close neighbors. We learned to live a completely different life than the one we lived in the trailer park. We had no close friends. We had no neighbors. We had no playmates. When we moved my little sister was very small. She was three years old and remembers very little of the change. However, I remember alot of the turmoil that came along with the huge move. The clearing the ground, the well being drilled, the confushion of lives turned inside out. We all were like fish out of water. My father was never a farmer and my mother has always live in the city. She was raised in the West End of Pittsburgh were there were trolley cars, buses, and city life. My father worked at Pittsburgh Outdoor and worked on huge billboards when he and my mother were married. He was from upper North Side and when he and my mother were neighbors at one point, they fell in love. She was 19 and he was 23. My mother spent much of her time doing what young girls do. Ice skating, playing instuments with friends on a weekend night. Life was so much more social back in 1934. People visited one another, the teens pulled taffy, made popcorn and played board games. They spent their time at home with friends. Life was simple and less complicated in so many ways. My mother had two sisters, Anna and Alice. She was the youngest. My father had a younger sister. Alice was two years younger and a stepbrother, Tom. He was 18 years older than Dad. He was born to my Grandma Davis from an earlier relationship or marriage. My father was responsible for everything his little sister Alice did. He was to watch her and take care of her. When he was 6 years old, his father, Brooks Curry died in the flu epidemic of 1918. He was an alcoholic and those days, alcohol was used for medicinal purposes. His body was so immuned to alcohol it left him vulnerable for the influenza to take over his body and attacked his organs. My father hated his father. He told us his father came home drunk every night and beat him with a slipper. He never told him why, he just told him it was for what he was thinking of doing. When my grandfather, Brooks Curry, died, my father had nothing but hatred for him. He actually was glad he was dead!..I thought that was one of the saddest things I had ever heard! My father at six years old the brundt of a drunkards insecurities of himself. For a six year old to have to face the consequences of an adult life and accept those mature responsibilities forced onto him. Perhaps that made my father try to be a better father. He strived to be the man that his father never could be....I am sure he suffered as children do when they are ponds in the game of life that adults make for them!!!

A Life Change

2009-08-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

One of the strange things about life is looking back..and seeing where you've been. Questioning your choices. Wondering if decisions you made would have changed your destiny and taken you down a different path. Just how would that have influenced your life...I do believe in free will, I also believe that what happens has a purpose. It is our choice. We somehow are driven and guided to learn something from whatever circumstance we find ourselves. I guess you could say...we need to bloom where we are planted!! But wondering if our seed would have fallen on different ground...in a different place if our life would have taken a different turn. We are who we are because God made us who we are!!!...We have a desire to place our lives according to his will if we choose. However, so many people, so many times decide not to seek to belong and run off down their own path. I know many times I did that exact thing without much thought about if it was the right thing or not. I always paid for it somehow, some way..We have a mind of our own and we do the things we want and not what we should...This is the reason why my life has been such a mixture of constant striving to be who I turned out to be today. Good or bad I am who I am and now probably won't change. We are all given a measure of faith and it is up to us to excersize it...We can let it stay dormant or we can increase it by hearing and listening to the giver of all faith...God! I consider it like a muscle, use it or lose it!! That is how I see faith. If you don't use it..you will not have any. God has given us that measure and it is up to us to make it grow by reading the Word of God and praying and trusting...with those things our faith grows and we become an instrument of a loving and caring God. These things that you will read on my blog are true stories of my life..they are things I think and feel. Some you may not like and feel they are private and should not be public, but my life is an open book. God gave it to me..to do with as I like. It anything I might say in my blog helps one person, then my life made public has been worthwhile. If there is one person that can grow, or see their way though a difficult time by what I write here than it has all been worth it. So don't judge me for what I write in this blog. It is an instrument to be used to let you see human beings are imperfect. We are needing help. We came into this world naked and we are leaving the same way. Only what has be presented to us through our Heavenly Father and what we have done with it...is the theme. I am a sinner, saved by grace. I know that!! I accept my Heavenly Fathers love for me. I trust He knows me better than I know myself. I also know that He is in contol. I am now owned and operated by the Holy Spirit that dwells inside of me. He is my all in all. Where He takes me I will follow. It is not man who judges me..it is God and God alone. I am in love with him. He is my world!! So read my blogs with an open heart and let the Holy Spirit minister to you by the words of my life....as He has given me!!

The Night of the Living Ducks

2009-06-21T11:18:00.000-07:00

This being Fathers Day, I can't help but to share this story of the time my Mother and Father almost got divorced...Now you might say, "What does that have to do with Fathers Day?" This leads me to the contents of my blog!.. While the MacAnnys were our friends with all their animals..they must have shared a few of their ducklings with us. We built a large circle of wooden fence held together with wire. Placed a large turkey roaster in a pre dug hole. This substitiuted as their lake for swimming. We now had three ducks, the first was a male we named him Sassy..he was my older sisters duck that had survived a prior Easter. My Quack Quack had seen the light and buried up at Mae and Franks Cottage. Sassy thought he was the boss of the other two ducks who later joined the little group. They were Mac and Annie... We knew Sassy was a male because male ducks have one feather on their tail that curls up away from the others and the females don't..Mac and Annie were probably both females because they eventually laid eggs!! And they didn't have the odd feather..Sassy was much smaller then the other two..We enjoyed watching them make the mud in the circle that was their home. They slopped water through their beaks until all the grass had turned so sloppy mud. The rain that continued to fall helped as well..The water pump was up a small grade away from the trailer. It had been raining and all the ground was soggy. So we would not to be walking in the mud, my Mother devised this walk way from the trailer to the pump out of boards. Old boards that had aged and cracked from the weight of those that trailed up to the pump. We filled buckets and hauled them down to the trailer for use. This day the boards were soaked with the rain. The ducks continually escaped their fence and would parade through the yard for grass...Now if you have never had a duck you can't realize just how much waste they make...The drop the biggest globs of slimey goo you have ever seen..and they are no respecters of where they do it..So walking, eating, and dropping all over the yard and the boards, we were victium of poop abuse!!..This day, my father traveled to the pump to gather two buckets of water...filled to the brim, he turns and continues down the soft, wet, slippery boards. Unaware of his footing..and where he was walking, he stepped and slid off the boards into the mud. The buckets flew in the air and came down on my father. Now my father you could say, had no sense of anykind of humor!! And didn't consider this anything but death to the ducks...Leaving the now empty buckets and soaked to the skin and covered with mud...He runs for as many ducks as he can catch screaming...."I am going to wring your necks"...and he meant every word..While he chased the ducks around the yard..grabbing and sliding in mud, duck crap and anything else that was on the ground. Words coming from his mouth could only be considered X rated!!..My mother wondering what was taking my father so long at the pump, looked out to see him running around grabbing to kill the ducks...I guess you could say he had reached that point of impatience where there was no reason!!!...My mother screaming at a level of shrill that a mother can do. "If you kill those ducks, I am leaving you!!..If you kill those ducks that's it. I am done" she screamed over and over..."I am leaving" and she meant it!!..My father, as mad as a hornet..dropped the duck he held in his hands. Seconds away from putting him into ducky heaven. Came into the house and didn't speak to anyone for a few days..Mother finished the water hauling job and for a few days we had a small amount of peace and quiet..with no fighting!!..As hard as it was, we never mentioned the fate of those ducks for many years passed...Eventually it become one of those stories everyone lived on at any family get together...Now I can look back and see the desperation of life my poor Dad had to spend everyday in...and I can only say, The past is over and forgotten..and now that you are gone...we are all still left with the memory of the night of the Living Ducks..Thanks for the memories!!!

When your a child and you are poor, you don't know it!!

2009-06-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

I now as an adult can look back at the wonderful childhood I had. Realizing at this point and time how terribly poor we were. How even a small bottle of cola and small bag of potato chips were like the best thing in the world. Somehow my parents made friends in our new surroundings. Usually by being in need and asking for help I would imagine. God knew just the people to bring into our lives to bless us..when we didn't even know his name!!..There was the little grocery store call Luethharts. It was owned by a women and her husband and brother. They allowed my mother to buy food and not pay. We had a charge on a paper bill we paid from time to time. I am sure what we owed always out weighed what was paid. But we survived..sometimes on canned gravy and noodles. Sometimes on canned creamed corn and bread. The only meat we got was usually from a couple of wonderful people at the bottom of our hill. I don't know how my parents befriended them...maybe our car broke down and the gentlemen came out to help us. Eventually they became family friends. They were wonderful. They had no children. Probably in their 60's and had animals everywhere. Geese, little banty chickens and regular ones, ducks, cats everywhere, goats and lambs to eat the grass. They had a few cows...They were what we would call a gentleman farmer!...I can still see her face and the way she talked. Her name was Annie. Her teeth kind of pointie and broken in the front. When she spoke she had a lisp that allowed sprays of saliva to push out between the broken part of her front teeth. She always wore red lipstick and her hair was always tied up with a scarf..When she spoke her voice always had a kind smile in it..you knew you were always welcome. Her husband Mac was heavy in the stomach, I think he smoked and drank alot. He usually sat in a living room over stuffed rocker watching television, not much for conversation especially childrens. Looking back now, I am sure these animals were Annie's doing!!..We would spend alot of time there and she taught us all so much about so many things...Farming, gardening, animals and things that we would need to know later on to survive..After all we were city people and never had any idea how to grow an ear of corn...Perhaps it was the eggs my parents went to Pittsburgh to sell that led them to the MacAnnys. This turned out to be their last name, but everyone called them Mac and Anny..We all learned about raising chickens of our own..all about animals and farming..so for whatever reason they were our friends...Friends we had alot to learn from and ones we would never forget. They were kind, helpful, and loving. They gave us food, most of which was out of their freezer and old. I remember my mother crying sadly saying people think we will eat their freezer burnt meat because we don't have any...but the fact of the matter was...we didn't eat it...my mother would throw it away!!!... We would eat spagetti with butter on it for dinner!!..This was a time when I began to learn when you share or give anything to someone..don't give them the stuff you don't want...Give them your best..the biggest..and you take the least...this is the "Christ like" way..and with this concept, we all had alot to learn!!

The Double Dexter Washer

2009-06-12T13:39:00.001-07:00

Can it ever be said, that looking back so many things that happened to you when you were just the smallest of a human being has prepared the way for where you are now!! I know it is true for me..My entire life has been like a puzzle laid out on a big table and one piece at a time was placed just in the perfect spot...Many pieces had to be spun around and tried several different ways but in the end..the perfect spot was found and the piece fit correctly...things I now see were just the right time for such a person as me!! My mother always trying to apease everyone and make things right. My father the quiet, but all knowing person that knew about so many things finally got a job being a cyclotron supervisor..He supervised one of the first atom smashers owned by the U.S Government and run by Carnegie Tech...now Carnegie Mellon University in Saxonburg, Pa. It was in the very early 60's . Finally after all the terrible times of the sherrif banging on our door. People suing us for debts owed, wolves literally at the door. I remember when a strange car would come up the driveway my mother would tell us run inside and she would close the door!!!..They came and would knock and knock sometimes leave but most times not until my mother would go out. She would always say, "Don't let them look inside or they will take all of our stuff away"...I can't imagine now anyone wanting any of our stuff!!! But, I suppose the repo man would show up and carry the chair out with you in it..That never did happen thanks to my mothers protection. But, one time our dog bit one of the collectors..and he was going to shoot the dog. We grabbed our dog and he ran off.. It was horrible, we lived like common criminals. Our only crime was that our government was not willing to compromise on my fathers bankruptcy of his businesses. I remember one specific time....When we where outside, it was summer. We had a very old Double Dexter Washing Machine with a wringer. An extention cord led to the plug inside and the washing machine was outside under the tree. Both tubs filled with water one for washing and one for rinsing. The water heated from the stove inside and carried out, dumped then dumped into the tubs. First whites, then colors then darks. The ringer spun around from one tub to the other, it was great and kept us from having to wash our clothes out by hand. Then we would hang the clothes out on the line to dry. One day a man showed up..a collector. We could not run, he caught us in the middle of washing and this particular day the motor caught on fire and flames were shooting out from the machine. Not being an mechanical my mother just put out the fire...and unplugged the machine..while all this was happening, the collector stood and watched the preceedings..He couldn't believe his eyes..He stood speechless watching...and finally came over and introduced himself. He explained he was there to collect a debt...but then he turned and said. "My wife complains about her dish washer when it isn't working ..I should bring her out here and see how lucky she is." We never saw that guy again. He left shaking his head in unbelief...I guess the debt was considered PAID!!

God is in control of all things!

2009-06-12T13:39:00.000-07:00

Can it ever be said, that looking back so many things that happened to you when you were just the smallest of human beings has prepared the way for where you are now!! I know that my life was meant to be just who I am...I trust that I am following the right path to what my maker had in mind...Although the choices I make may and I am almost sure are not the choices God would have picked for me..I have made so many really bad choices for myself!! But, somehow, those choices have brought me to where I am today.. Right or wrong, I am here, now and at the place in life where I need to be!!...I know that all things work together for good, to those who love the Lord and I must say I do love the Lord!!...Actually, He is the only one I can truly trust. He is the one I know will never abandon me when I am in need. He is the one I can go to and tell anything to and He understands...I am sure the love he put inside of me for Him is from Him and He is always there to comfort me. My life has been so many times emotionally abandon by so many people and so many things!...If I had no Heavenly Father to comfort me and help me through those trying times of abandonment, I know without a doubt, I would have been destroyed. His love and comfort got me through some very trying times. I am comforted in knowing that my life is His and in Him I live. I can prusue anything that God brings before me, I can do anything God gives me to carry. In Him is my strength. There is no good thing in me, but the only good in me is because of Him and what He has allowed me to be. If I am good, it is because of God, and if I am bad, it is because of me...My choices many times have been bad, but with His patience and kindness of heart. He waits for me patiently until I can agree that He wants only the best for me and I continue foiling His plan. Now getting closer to the end of my life than the beginning I am finally getting to understand He wants only the best for me. It is I who mix the message. It is I who decide to do things uncomely onto Him. But because He send His son for me..He understands that I am living my life as a human, I sin and He forgives...I finally come to the point of understanding that what He has for me is His best for me..I finally understand that my decisions must be made in his light and not my own. So I wait and let him lead, I follow, it is just like that...I am happy, He is pleased..He never condems, He instructs...many of those times are hard. Many of those times are sad, but I know that with Jesus, my God is in control there isn't anything I can't do. There isn't anything I can't conquer. He makes me strong, He gives me joy, and he pours His love into me!! Don't ask me how He does it, I am not God! I just do what is laid on my heart! He alone is worthy..and desires to have all the Glory for all the great things He has done..and I so love him for that. I trust him and know he has nothing but good for me!..I keep my eyes off of other people and upon Him, he is my refuge and strength in time of need. I know He is able and willing to keep me until that day I meet him face to face and He peers my way and say.."WELL DONE"!!

The first day of childhood misery

2009-06-07T09:46:00.000-07:00

It was one of those cold days of fall, when the leaves were off the trees and the air was filled with the cold blowing wind of winter. My sister, Carole and I arrived home from school...the days were short and darkness arrived early. On this day, the sky was filled with torrents of cold, damp rain. The kind that beats down creating mud puddles and all the dirt has turn to muck. The walk home from the bus was cold and wet. Knowing Mom and Dad were in Pittsburgh selling eggs and wouldn't be back until late. My sister and I were on our own. Looking forward to a warm room and a place to curl up and feel safe. Instead, we walked up the drive way and discovered...all the chickens were out and running around loose. How did they escape? One thing we did know...if my Dad got home and those chickens were out, we were in the biggest trouble of our life...quickly we opened the door threw down our school books and headed out to corral these renigade chickens. Now, I don't know if you have ever tried to corner a chicken...but it is one of the hardest things you will ever do...actually these were still babies and a bit slow on their feet, but still it was going to be a challenge. Something neither of us wanted to face, but knowing the consequences, we must capture the escapees. With the cold rain, pouring down on us and the stormy clouds getting darker and darker every minute. We crawled under the old truck body, slid in the mud, ran through the mud puddles corraling and grabbing at random these chicks as they ran past us...It seemed forever, we slid, rolled and ran cornering these bandits. After what seemed like hours, the light now gone, the rain still dropping and the chill of cold, dark night was on the horizon. Finally we captured them all..wet, tired and freezing we dropped into the safety of our house. Only to find out we had no heat. The cold air wrapped around our wet bodies. Feeling completely abandoned and in such misery now the cold seeped into my skin making wet wrinkles on my body. We had been wrapped in wet clothes for hours...chasing these chickens...My sister and I decided to take off our wet clothes and wrap in anything we could find that would suffice for a blanket. So hungry, tired, chivering my teeth chattering from cold...The darkness consumed us and we finally fell off to sleep...I will never forget that miserable night, I will not ever take for granted the warm, peaceful, feeling of wellness. I pray I never ever have to be miserable like that ever again. I can't imagine and have such compassion for people that encounter that kind of uncomfortableness often...all because they are poor, unable, and forced into a lifestyle not of their choosing...Life deals so many stumbling blocks..in front of us. It is up to us to learn to crawl over them..Oh, yea and by the way, it turned out, we were out of kerosene..my father was proud of us when they got home, we saved the chickens...after going to buy 5 gallon of fuel for our stove from the profits of the day..... finally it got warm. So on now to a new day!! This one is over and we are still alive!!

Looking back

2009-06-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

I can say now.. I understand the pain, suffering and constant turmoil in my parents life when they didn't have means to supply for their family. When your a child you can only see the surface of the problems. You only see how they affect you. But now having raised 6 kids alone, and know what I went through for so many years...the desperation of an everyday chance that things will get better tomorrow...and just get through this day..Without a word, the everyday fight was what I now know my parents suffered. While my father was wiring houses for free to pay for the land we live on...he needed to find a way to feed, his family and pay the bills. I must have been in fourth grade and my sister Carole was in ninth. I'm not sure, but what I do remember so vividly is the day of desperation for us. My parents plan for survival was to go to Butler and buy cases of eggs. We would candle them in the living room and put them in boxes for resale. Incase you don't know about candleing eggs, you take one egg at a time and set it on a box with a light inside. You can see if the egg has been fertilized by the rooster or if it is good to eat..the light makes the egg see through. Anyway, we candled one by one, placed them in egg boxes. My Mother and Dad would leave early in the morning after we got on the bus for school. They would not return until 8 or 9 at night. They would go to the city of Pittsburgh, sell eggs door to door...for 50 cents a dozen. With the profit my parents tried to pay our bills, that is what we lived on...the small amount of money each dozen of eggs would bring. Mom and Dad would take my little sister Georgetta with them because she was just small and not in school yet..My parents bought a few dozen peeps. They lived in the house with us. We covered with a small light bulb to keep them warm. All night they peeped..I grew to love that sound, it was so calming. I think my parents plans included starting a chicken farm and sell eggs for a living..if we could make our own eggs then our profit would be higher..but being kids, we didn't care anything about any of that...we just loved the peeps..and enjoyed holding those little fuzzy things that were vulnerable and needed us. The days went by and all went well...things were beginning to look up...I can now relate to what my parents went through day after day...trying to keep us fed, clothed and for survival for another day!!!

My first boyfriend

2009-05-25T14:45:00.000-07:00

My first boyfriend was in fourth grade. His name was Charley Ganster. He had blonde hair and a really cute smile which revealed two big dimples. He lived back Crukshank Road, near my house...My memories of Charley Ganster are still strong. He lived in a much nicer house than I. He even had a swimming pool...In my eyes, only really wealthy people had cement swimming pools...with a diving board, no less. The winter of my fourth grade our school had a dance. Charley asked me to go...the winters in the 50's were gruesome. The township road equipment was not at all like it is today. Plows only came out when there was 12" or more...and sometimes they put cinders on the roads but bascially...you were on your own...People were stuck at every turn, chains came out and bull ropes were in everyones trunk. Everything you might need for rescuing vehicles that found their way into the ditch. I specifically remember that night of the dance. Charley's family had someone that worked for them and he brought Charley to pick me up and drive us to the school. My road had a very steep hill after crossing the creek. If anyone had any hopes of getting to the top in snow they needed to make a run for it when you made the crossing at the bridge. Most everyone would spin and swerve the entire way up...Usually, someone turned sideways and ended up in the ditch that supported hard spring rains. Charley and I sat in the back seat. He had his arm around me. The sky had a dark gloom filled with large, soft white flakes. The air, so cold, the windows were steamed up inside. With the windshield wipers on high..they made a loud slapping noise as they fell down scooping the fresh flakes from the window glass. I felt the car speed up and make a run for the hill. We sat still gritting our teeth, wondering if we were going to make the grade. Spinning and swerving...from side to side...finally we came to a stop. The driver turned to back down the road..and tried again. On our way backing down, we turned sideways and the car slid out of control...down the hill...we finally got stopped and he tried again to make the hill...without any success. The driver turned to let us know, we would have to walk the rest of the way. I was freezing and so was Charley..the snow laid on our eyelashes we scurried up the hill....both scared and knew the walk would be a long one. I felt so bad for Charley, he had to walk me home and then he had to walk all the way back to the car...have frozen..He kissed my cheek and waved goodbye. I guess they got home, I don't remember that...I do know that later that year..Charley and his family moved away to another state. I thought he would be my boyfriend forever...Funny how when you are in fourth grade your expectations are in your small circle of what you know as life. You never think anything will ever change. What you don't realize that, this is just the beginning of things and people that sear their way into your memory...as well as the beginning of a lifelong trend...CHANGE!!

A Memorial Day to Remember

2009-05-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

After moving to the country...we had to make all new friends. Our old life was left behind. We were miles away for visits from old neighbors. School was the place to start. I rode the bus on my way to school and during the first year I made my share of friends. I have always been very personable and had no quams talking openly to everyone. I was friendly and interested in everyones life. I now know, that God placed that gift into me when I was born. He gave me a strange sense of personality. I got to know everyone on the street visited them regularly. Some of them weren't too willing to have me for a friend, but most welcomed me and and we visited. I wanted to be a part of those people that lived near to me. That included the kids in my neighborhood. Being a tomboy and having an out house filled with bugs and spiders, I learned quickly to fear not. When I was 4 or 5 I ate earth worms..( they just taste like grittty dirt.) Now I was challenged to be likable to those around me. On Memorial Day weekend..spring had come and I spend most everyday outside. There were many things to do and places to go. I was new and I wanted to blend in..My neighbor Kathy Ritter lived at the top of the hill on Steiner Bridge Road. I rode the bus with her. She was 2 years older than me and I wanted to impress her. Why and when the bet came to pass, I don't recall...but at some point she dared me to rub poison ivy all over me. My father was not allergic to it, and perhaps I bragged that he could rub it all over him and he would not get it...for whatever reason..I took the dare and rub the new spring leaves of poison over my exposed skin. Within a few days I was covered with the red, seeping rash of poison over my body. In my eyes, down my throat, in my private parts...EVERYWHERE!! As the holiday presented itself. I was completely swallowed up with the poison. My parents had to find a doctor some place that was open on a holiday and they took me to get a shot..I was in misery. I have never itched so much in my entire life, except one time in my 50's when I got the hives, but that is another story...From that day on..I had alot of respect for that little green plant. Now, I find that I too am not allergic to it anymore. I imagine I had such an overdose of the poison in my blood. I have an immunity to it...????I don't know, but I still respect the power of that small, green, three leaved plant..that sits so innocently under the shade of that beautiful woodsy tree.

Country Girls Now

2009-05-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

Now we are officially moved. We have water pumped up from the ground. We have electric paid for by a barter. A barter made by my father and the man we purchased the land from. We have sewage...not the way most people think of sewage but for us it was all we needed. I know now most of us live our lives so over the top. We can survive on so little and still be happy. We really don't need all those things we think we must have or must buy. All of our clothes were hand me downs from cousins or people that knew we were living in hard times. We yelled and jumped up and down thrilled when a garbage bag full of clothes showed up. We anxiously rummaged through it, picking out what would fit us..and what didn't fit, we made it fit. We rolled the waistlines, or cut the bottoms off. We became very inventive when it came to wardrobe exclusives. It was fun, as well as a necessary. We dressed as well as everyone else. We were clean, we didn't smell bad. Our hair was clean and combed. We were thankful for what we had. We carried water from the pump by the bucketsful. We heated it on the bottle gas stove. We bathed in a tiny metal square sink. We washed and shampooed our hair. Somehow it all worked. We finally realized we had each other and we were alive. Our lives meant something and we had to work to make it better. At night we used a little white potty with a lid. It was carried to the out house by a metal swinging handle. The black wooden handle at the top gave way to a sturdy trip. The outhouse sported two round shaped holes covered with a seat. It sat over a huge dug dirt hole built up on a wooden throne. Toilet paper that usually was taken over by the field mice needing a nest. Spiders in the corners that were safely out of the weather and served as mosquito and fly eaters. It all seemed perfectly normal. We as children didn't relize we were the only people on our street living like squatters but we didn't care, we were fine. We had each other. My mother and father often would shout and argue over our finances. I would hide my head under my pillow and promise when I got big, I would never fight, NEVER. Especially about money. I can say to this day and being married to my husband Ron, we never had even one fight over money...Never a disagreement about funds. We discovered a way we could support one another with what we had and I was free from hiding under my pillow..The promise I made to myself was kept throughout our marriage of 19 years....Soon summer was over and we were settled. We were ready to start school. I would go to Middlesex Twp Grade School. I was in the fouth grade. My teacher, Mrs. Painter was kind, mature and life began anew.

My move to the country

2009-05-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

It was the summer of third grade. I had finally finished school for the summer. My father now in trouble with his radio and TV businesses. The IRS forced him to declare bankruptcy and closed his remaining stores. Of course being a kid, we didn't know anything about this..all we knew is that we were moving..away from the city. We were moving to the country. Middlesex Twp. to be exact. During that summer my father purchase a few acres of land with the few thousands of dollars he had left to his name. I remember when we went out to look at the parcel of land. My father made some sort of a deal that he could buy the property from a man that needed some wiring done in some houses..so I think they traded land for labor. However, we accomplished being country bumpkins during that summer. As soon as the school year ended we would trek up to the property and work all day, clearing and cutting brush. We did it all by hand, built a big fire and cut and dragged briar bushes; what seemed like for months..Every day, we drove up Route 8 to Middlesex Twp and worked on our land in Cooperstown. We all were a part of this effort. I was a tom boy so it was fun for me..I enjoyed getting dirty and smelly. I enjoyed the smell of the wood in my hair...we fell fast asleep in the old Dodge panel truck adorned with signs of "Curry Radio and Television" painted on the sides. Some nights I think we didn't come home, we just passed out after having something to eat and fell into a deep sleep til morning than began again. Eventually we got it cleared. Somehow a drive way was dug to pull our old blue trailer in from the West Mifflin trailer park. The truth be know, we looked like a band of gypsies..moving into the wild west. I remember my father discussing the price of putting an electric pole in and having a well dug...any price would have been to much. I think the well driller was Kaufold. He had this old rusty water drill and I am sure my father explained our situation and got some sort of barter thing going with them. I know my parents borrowed and begged money from people that would help us. My parents always very private of funds and things of that nature, we would never know how any of that came about!! But eventually we did have an electric pole placed in right near the driveway of dirt...and moving day came some time that summer. I don't recall how or who dragged the trailer up there..I would now love to know so many things I didn't learn while my parents were still alive and now will never find out. The three of us Carole, Georgetta and myself were now country girls..coming from the city. We were up for many new and exciting years ahead. Survival is something you do, and we were about to start doing it!!..Things were about to get TOUGH!!

A Very Snowy Day

2009-02-04T08:31:00.000-08:00

Whenever winter comes in Pennsylvania and the snow starts to come down in streams I remember. You know that big, fluffy, flakey snow that fills the air around you. Suddenly it covers everything around you. It's that kind of snow that comes down so big, so fast it sticks to your eyelashes when you blink. It surrounds everything. It has no consideration of what it might stick to and conceal..Covering everything until the air is filled with that silent hush...that soft sound of quiet winter...Birds don't tweet, dogs don't bark and the wind blows only to pile the soft, white flakes in heaps. It usually happens at least once a winter when everyone shuts down. Schools closed, no work, people just forced to stay home and enjoy the day or night...The neighborhood is quiet, the cars cease to make even a track on the road through the new laid snow...It was that kind of day I will never forget. It was probably the strangest of all weather phenonemon. I was about 5 when I started first grade. In 1950 people there wasn't any testing done, if your mother felt it was time to enter shcool...You entered school..No matter what!...Anyway, I remember that night when it started to snow. Bigger than ever flakes, piling up on everything. At night it fell through the moonlight and softly blocked out the light into a muted gray..looking out the window we all thought we would be buried by morning. Going to bed we knew we would all be in for a surprise come morning. The next morning there was so much snow it completely covered the cars to where you could barely see them...The door to our add on living room wouldn't open...we had to push it until we could slither through a small space out into the snow covered earth. There was so much snow stacked against it...WE WERE LITERALLY SNOWED IN!! What excitment filled the house, the trailer park, the entire neighborhood as everyone made their way out the door to only find no starting place to begin the day...The day was about 50 some inches of snow fell that night..over 5' of snow. It was AWESOME!! Snow blowers hadn't been invented yet and shovel were everyone only resort...We made a path way with the shovel to get out...and throughout the day my sister and I tunneled through the new fallen snow...with our hands the way you do in sand, we carved out scoop by scoop a maze of tunneled paths throughout the yard and behind. The snow was over our heads, the cool blue color shined through as the suns rays seeped through the snow carved roof...The silence was all around!! It was like going through a maze of cold cotton..I remember that day, when I see those big flakes coming down but have never since seen such a wonderful day of complete awe struck beauty...carved out by our own hands...After a few days the ceiling all fell in and the snow began to melt..but our memories of that wonderful fun filled day will live forever!!

Sometimes bad things happen to good people

2009-01-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

I remember one summer day all the mothers were whispering and talking amonst themselves. The air was filled with anger and saddness. Being only 6 or 7 years old, nobody was ready to share what the problem was and why everyone was out and upset. Life was much easier in the 50's as you can imagine. People were generally kind, and did the right things only because that is the way people acted then. A handshake meant as much as a notary seal. Honesty was never challanged and it just was taken for granted. People were basically honest. I never knew anyone that lied, or cheated, or did harm!...You could count on people, you could trust people and you just knew people were helpful. We all treated each one including our neighbor as we would ourselves. We knew our neighbors we took food we cooked over to them when they didn't feel well. It was a totally different world...On this particular day, it seems one of the boys in the trailer park had been missing the entire day...His parents were looking for him everywhere and nobody could find him...He was a young teenager boy. He played release with us every summer night and was just a normal kid. Now he had disappeared...I also remember the fire trucks that had come and parked at the bottom of the parking lot that led into the woods. They were on a search for this boy...the fireman loaded with flashlights disappeared into the woods..The search had begun!..The mothers and fathers waited for word of the boys welfare. The kids continued to play and didn't pay any attention to all the upset of the day...Then I remember one of the mothers began to cry loudly...all the other mothers consoled her with kind words. It seemed someone had tied the boy to a tree deep into the woods..left him there all day. It seemed the older boys took him tied him up and did perverted things to him...tortured him with sticks and did sexual things to hurt him. The fireman found the boy, tied, bleeding and unconcious on the tree....The entire place was in shock, who could have done a thing like this...This kind of thing never happened, never. People wouldn't have thought of being so cruel to another human being!!..This boy was innocent, a person victimized by torture...He was taken to the hospital...All the mothers were appauled that anything like this could happen...Suddenly, everyone was on high alert for safety. The bubble had been broken..Innocence has passed...Now that trust broken. A new word was about to usher in...Now bad things would happen to good people...The seal was broken...Trust no longer ruled and reigned...It had begun!!! Nothing anymore was sacred!!!....Evil sewed its way into our little neighborhood!!!

A parade unlike the Rose Bowl parade

2009-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

When I was probably in second or third grade we still were living in West Mifflin and I was attending Walnut Grove School. I can still recall what the school looked like as well as my teachers. My second grade teacher was Miss Bashista..I imagine she was never married because she was older and had a bit of grey hair mixed in with the brown.. My third grade teacher was Miss Manandice. She was quiet, tall, thin and in her forties. For some reason back then, teachers were not married...thus getting the name..."Old school marm, or spinster." Most of my teachers were not married but as I got older and graduated into high school them were.

One summer day, I guess we were all bored and found nothing much to do, someone came up with the idea of all the kids in the trailer park getting together and instrumenting a parade. It might have been my older sister because she seemed to have a large part of telling everyone what they were going to do! However, we worked and worked on this parade. The route it would take, who would be which character, and costumes. The theme was every holiday in the year....I think back now and think, "This was pretty ingenious." It took weeks to work up costumes for Santa Claus, Father Time, and the Uncle Sam costume was really good. I wish I had a photo or two of the parade, but the only one I have is in my mind. The person in front had a big sign...announcing the parade. No doubt it was a Sunday afternoon when most everyone were home. Back in the fifties, people never worked on Sunday. It was the day of rest and everyone did just that. No stores were open, everything was shut up and stopped until Monday morning. My character in the parade was to be Susan B. Anthony....she was the one that fought for the right for women to vote...I remember I had a big hat and a green striped blouse. I wore white gloves. I can recall in my minds eye exactly what I looked like and how we looked marching down the street. When we passed the few people that lined the street. They clapped at our marvel of inspiration. There is just something about seeing a child perform, something that an adult forgets they have. A true sense of imagination, a wonderous mind of "can do!"...Children are wonders of God, he gave them the fresh innocent love that only can dwell inside. A wonder of people, places and things. The joy of being able to say exactly what is on your mind, even if it is insulting. It is always taken and enjoyed from that child like mind....Somewhere along the path of adulthood we all lose that. Some place along life, that child like faith is looked down on...People have raised the bar. People have destroyed the innocence of that child like faith.....If an adult would say things like a child they would be held accountable and made known to be insulting or crude. How sad, children are ingenious, children are the future!!

A New Year-1946-2009

2009-01-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

This is a new year..I will be 63 this January and know that everyday I live is closer to the last. So I better get busy because I have so much to tell..NEW is all about life, the newness of life is in Christ but I don't want to get ahead of myself. So back to when I was a kid!...When I was small, New Years Eve had a different meaning..In the early fifties people felt new hope. The war was over and our country was on a new track. New inventions, new ways of life. Old things are now passed away and now women could stay home with their families and men worked...Unlike during the war..people stood in line for sugar, gas was rationed and people live everyday as if could be their last! That was over now, finished, everyone had new hope to move on. That is why there was such a baby boom, women wanted to get out of the factories and back in the kitchen. Therefore the apron was a new and most popular attire of clothing...Women baked, cooked, canned, and cleaned with joy! It was their place, a place they desired. Men felt like the bread winner and had a sense of pride that our country was back on track. We had conquered and been through another World War. Men came home bent and broken but with a new heart and a new sense of pride..Life was good again babies and more babies were born to be nurtured in their homes that now would be rebuilt. Life reinvested, children happy to play. There was NO TV.. only on Saturday cartoons and all in black and white. Early morning cowboys...the good cowboys always wore the white hats! I remember so well getting up at 7 am and turning on the 5' screen to watch a black and white cowboy show. Saturday was TV day, morning only. The rest of the time a round circle overlaid in black circles and a piercing loud high hum...called the test pattern was shown. After a while a few new shows would appear in the evening...But they were few and far between..It was an amazing thing to be able to see anything right in your living room...on a small little screen. People were happy, things were simple and life was good! Men had jobs, women were happy to be Moms and kids played and ran and had no fear of the evil ways of the world..Most everyone was thankful to be alive. Happy for life and able to once again survive. It seems strange now to look back and see the difference in attitude for a people that were thankful for everything. An attitude of gentle suffering and life worth living....to the present attitude of being owed everything. Greedy and selfish. The "ME" attitude that people carry around so prevelantly now...So a NEW YEAR now a total time of complete celebration...A CELEBRATION OF LIFE AND SURVIVAL!! Thankful and joyful for a new beginning. Another chance to start over and make new!!

New Years Eve's to remember

2008-12-29T11:03:00.000-08:00

New Years Eve never really was a huge holiday in my family even when I was a kid!! I do remember we were allowed to stay up past midnight and our big night was to take my mothers pots and pans out of the kitchen..with big spoons and bang them until our little hands were numb...We also greeted the new day with a display of clanging lids...pounding like cymbals...any kind of noise, yelling, emotion was allowed that night and we seemed to do our share!! But as wild and crazy as those New Years Eve's were, the most memorable were the ones I spent after I was a Christian...We would attend "Watch Night Service" at our church. Our pastor, Ron Bailey, would spend the evening greeting everyone and then we would pray the New Year in at the Altar...On our knees, we would as a church, lay our requests, praise, and adoration of getting us through the past year unharmed and blessed to laying our new praises, and adorations to God for a new and upcoming year...We prayed for one another, we prayed for our families...People just prayed out loud as the Spirit led and it was a wonderful warm time of fellowship. We spent the entire evening with worship, singing and at midnight we all were on our knees...desiring all that God had for us!! Opening our hearts to listen to His voice and lay on our hearts His direction for our lives during another up and coming year...After the service..some families went home, or invited a few friends over for snacks or late supper...But most of us with small families decided to finish off the night with entertainment...Some years we went all night bowling, some years it was roller skating, always a wonderful time of fellowship with the families of those you loved and spent many hours with during Sunday and Wednesday services...It was a family, a family of believers..a family of like people that laughter, excitement and enjoyment filled the night...A magaical night that ended with the sun rising, babies sleeping and parents heading home after a long cold winters night of excersize of one form or another...Those were the most precious times seeing another year in with people around me that I loved and loved me!!...Those days have passed and memories of a closer tie to people you knew... will never be broken...For those days and times I am thankful for the close and warm fellowship!! A fellowship that only God and his love can present...Only on a special day like a NEW YEAR!!...I will always remember the fun, the joy and the love we shared year after year!!!

All about Christmas

2008-12-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

It's been too long, I've been away and now I have to catch up!...Visiting, holidays, and a busy life have dragged me away from my daily blogging...Christmas Eve is too important not to share some good memories. So here we go..

When we lived in the trailer park, back in the early 50's...We had a small edition built onto our little, blue, round trailer. It was white and the size of one room. This served as our living room and this is where we set up the Christmas tree. Every year, not one thing ever appeared until Christmas Day. No decorations, no presents, no wrapping, everything was just a normal day...Then on Christmas Eve, magically, everything came into play. The world turned into fantasyland. When you awoke you anticipated the wonderous sights of blinking lights, presents under the tree, stockings full of goodies. All done in one night..That was the miracle of Christmas..Besides the baby Jesus, the secular Christmas was as much of a miracle to a little kid!! The wonder of it all...and it happened all over night. Santa had arrived and he did all of this magically...One Christmas my father hid the Christmas tree , the same one he just picked out and bought home on Christmas Eve, behind this little room so we would not see it...Then after we all were in bed asleep, on Christmas Eve my mother and father dragged it in, set it up, and decorated it...all over night. However, this year, our tree would not see a New Year. Christmas morning everyone woke up..parents very sleepy!! My sisters and I anxious to open presents and mull over the ones we saw just sitting under the tree...My mother reached to plug the lights on. All big colored bulbs, multi colored and glowing. These big, old, colored lights created alot of heat. After the screaming of how beautiful everything was and the wonder of a cold, crisp, Christmas morning a strange but yet familiar odor began to flow throughout the little room we sat in. It was not pine! All crowded in this room, now with a decorated Christmas tree, parents, three girls and all the presents...this repulsive smell came spewing out into what should have been the wonderful smell of a holiday morning. Cinnamon rolls, coffee brewing, breakfast cooking...No, instead it was the familiar smell of CAT PEA!!... Oh no, the entire house began to smell like cat pea...Obnoxious cat pea...Had a cat snuck back in the middle of the night and sprayed his scent on our Christmas tree...Apparently so! We all walked around with our thumb and finger clenching our nostrils...and saying...EWWWW!!!...Hurridly, my mother unplugged the beautiful lights that shined all around the room and gave a glow of light and a spirit of warmth. Suddenly our Christmas that year turned into a fiasco. The smell permiated the entire house...the heat of the lights brought the strong smell out and about. There was no way of containing it...Not now, not ever!!!...My father, insisted the tree had to go! We could not live smelling that odor for weeks. So before we even were able to look and see what was on the tree...the undecorating began...The garlands, balls, lights, icicles, and finally the tree was dismantled and dragged out to be placed back in the fresh air for all the neighboring cats to enjoy...and it could smell all it wanted...Thanks to a random act of a roaming cat..our Christmas morning turned out to be one of the most memorable I can ever remember...There are others that come to mind but this one was the one that will always stick in in front of wonderful Christmas memories...We ran the train, we opened our presents, and we enjoyed the rest of the holiday, but without a Christmas tree...Oh well, it didn't quench our spirit...We just went on and were thankful ...when the tree exited...so did the aroma of the fresh, the undeniable, scent of CAT URINE went too...and the rest of Christmas went on without so much as a twitch, but it sure was a story to be enjoyed. It brought many a smile to those we loved that wonderful Christmas Holiday!

The day of the tent worms

2008-11-08T07:48:00.000-08:00

I don't know how many summers we spent going up to Kennerdall. Two, three maybe four but each time there was excitement of some kind...My mother and Mae used to go out in the aluminum boat and fish. They had their fishing licenses on their hats and loaded with bate and poles...One time I specifically remember they returned with nearly 30 suckers..They had little pink mouths that stuck out..they were on stringers and when they returned they were still alive and breathing...It seemed to be a big joke that all they returned with was a stringer of sucker fish. I remember, Frank caught a huge cat fish (he used to go out late at night with a lantern to capture helgramites. I think these were flying bugs)...This fish looked like a whale to me...It was so big they put it in the spring until they could clean it...That catfish looked at least 6' long...I remember when they skinned it, they had to pull the skin off with pliers and it was tough..I remember when Frank killed it...they put a spike on top of it's head and drove it down through it's skull. It boinged back like rubber. Over and over again he tried to penetrate that skull. Finally it broke and the fish died...Those memories stayed with me for a life time...One time my Dad caught a bass and while cleaning it, I watched him...and as he was cleaning it he told me of all the parts he removed...one of these was the fish's heart. I asked him if I could have that heart...He laughed and cut it out and handed it to me on my hand...I also remember watching it beat...right there..it throbbed in the palm mof my hand...I held it until the movement stopped. I felt so sad!!..I knew that we would eat the fish, but for the heart to be beating in my hand, made me feel death. I felt the actual death of that fish!! It is hard to explain...but I think compassion dripped into me drop by drop for the first time!!....But the thing I remember most was when I collected a paper bag full of tent worms..I thought they were so beautiful and wore so many beautiful colors on their backs....I spent all day collecting them and putting them in the bag to take home...I have no clue why!! But, I remember packing to go home and my father saying, they better not get out...with a laugh as we drove away...I laid the bag down behind my fathers seat as we started home. Soon, I fell asleep. The bouncing of the van opened the bag one bump at a time. The tent worms..crawled out. All over the van and of course up the back of my fathers seat in the car...Suddenly, I heard him yelling and I woke up!! The tent worms had escaped and entered the back of my fathers neck and his shirt...Not to mention, I was the victim of a huge scolding...and a possible spanking..That I don't remember...I remember only twice, did my father actually spank me ..but the spanking I remember most, happened long after this episode!! Needless to say, my family wasn't in a very good mood trying not to kneel or step on the worms...If you did the squish exuded a bright green goo....Needless to say...IT WAS A LONG TRIP HOME!!

My first funeral

2008-11-03T13:50:00.000-08:00

When we used to spend the weekends in Kennerdall at Mae and Franks cottage. Everyone looked forward to Friday. We didn't have any pets at that time and for some reason I received an Easter baby duck. It was a little yellow fuzzy duckling and I named him Quack Quack. I really don't remember where he came from or why I had him, I just remember the day he died!!...We were in the trailer park and getting ready to leave to head up to Mae and Franks. When a neighborhood dog, came and attacked poor little Quack, Quack....He shook him, I screamed and the duck was in peril, the dog dropped him and ran. My mother doubted he would live. I picked him up and we put him in a box. We took him with us that weekend. Quack Quack died. I cried. The drive seemed long, I remember and I spent most of it looking at the duck. Wondering how you could be alive one minute and the next minute you were dead...What amazed me is he could be up and running and enjoying life and then because of one grab and a few shakes he lay silent and dead!!...It was so sad, He didn't do anything to that dog. He was just a wonderful duck. I could kiss his head and he liked it....His feathers were so soft and he was old enough to have white, soft feathers ....He was full grown by a few months and now he lay dead!!...When we got up to Mae and Franks I ran and told Mae, we all agreed we would have a funeral for him. They were so kind to know of my sadness...Everyone laughed but it was heart breaking for me...This was my first experience with death...Frank dug a small hole, right along the path that went down to the river...I could even today, take you to the exact spot where Quack Quack lay...We lined the hole with big green leaves and flowers....We slowly and with much love laid Quack Quack in the hole and we covered him with leaves and flowers....finally after saying goodbye. We covered him up with the dirt that laid on the side of the hole...I watched while the dirt fell over him and went to the bottom of the hole and fell onto the leaves...Finally one shovel at a time. We no longer could see him. The dirt covered him completely...I felt such a feeling of loss and despair...I lost a very good friend...My pet duck!! My Quack Quack...We took a few branches and shaped them into a cross and wound dandelion stems in and out of the wood where the cross met. Gracefully we posed it into the soft dirt at the head of the grave...It was done. My Quack Quack was gone, his life was finished and I was without his love...and he was without mine...I spend much of that weekend watching that grave...Every time I walked by, I said a little "Goodbye Quack Quack"....My first loss of a loved one...I remember so strongly every detail...Things that happen to us during our life are a precursor to prepare us for times we may have to experience..Times that help us get through bigger and stronger feelings of loss...How good God is to let us feel emotions and prepare us for what we might need before the day we need it!!

Mae and Franks cottage

2008-10-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Our drive to Kennerdall was a regular weekend event...Our summers were consumed with packing clothes, food, and games stuffed into my fathers old red van...with Curry Radio and Television..painted on the sides. We would leave on Friday night. It took an few hours. After the clock with the ears...(half way)...we took winding roads that soon led us to a crossroads..and an old general store...called May's...up about 5 steps and into a creeky wooden floor. We walked around and tried to beg stuff out of our folks for the weekends...Sometimes without much sucess...After we went into the store..the road led down and wound around the tall hills lines with fir trees and mountain laurel...It just smelled like fresh, cool, moist air. We drove down until the road seemed to end. But actually the road just ran right through the creek...through a large concrete tunnel. The tunnel supported the railroad tracks that ran to Erie...through the tunnel the mountain crystal clear water ran wildly through the tunnel...The water was rushing from the mountain to the Allegheny River in Kennerdall.Driving through the tunnel, the van rocked and swayed...slowly we drove right through the water and came out on the other side...The road lifted right out of the water and slowly turned from mud to dry dirt. We followed that road for about a mile. Past cottages, trees, and wild animals crossing in front of us...Owls sat in the trees looking down at us...We finally saw the post with the red reflector on it and knew we were finally there...Piling out, stiff and needing a good run...we were greeted with a smile and a warm Hello. Mae and Frank had no small children. Frank had a daughter to his first wife that died...She was grown. He married Mae and they had none. So, I think we made their weekend less than a quiet boring weekend. We came full of noise, laughter, and as much confusion as we could muster....The cottage had a little porch, with a screen door that banged when you let it go. Inside one big room with a cooking stove, sink, table and chairs. With some faded red curtains on wires...the curtains were pulled open but shut when the kids went to bed....The adults stayed up and played cards or just sat and talked...The beds were bunk beds three high. Both sides were double mattresses...so the cottage actually slept 12 people. Frank built them and the top bunk you couldn't even sit up without hitting the ceiling..but it was fun...a ladder leaned on the side to crawl up and down...In the morning, the mist laid over the river and up on the tree filled mountain. Huge bolder like rocks lined the river bank on the other side....nothing but bushes, trees, and rocks...We could watch the deep come down to drink out of the river. There was a spring of ice cold water coming off the mountain sides. We washed our faces in a metal basin...and a pitcher of ice water and red soap....Lifebouy!! After getting washed and dressed. Everything was damp and the mist covered everything outside..Brushing teeth and spitting out side was just fun!!! Then Mae made breakfast. The smells of the sausage..and bacon, eggs, and pancakes...all wonderful memories...of our weekend days in the mountains..On Sunday afternoon, everyone cleaned up, got dressed and off we went home. Stopping always at the Dairy Queen south of Butler on Route 8...Sometimes things that take you away from the norm of life are memories to last for a lifetime....

The beginning of weekend to Kennerdale

2008-10-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

Memories are a wonderful tool. We shouldn't dwell on them, but it seems to help form us into the person we are!..I think the Buddists believe we come into this world as a clean slate...whatever person we turn into it is our fingerprint. How we are raised, our circumstance, and things that come to us through the years....I personally believe, when we appear out of our mothers womb..Our personality is truly branded upon us. We are the person we are and will be. I also believe many things will form and knead you into the person you are...But, I also believe we are led by a loving God, the one who did make us...good or bad, healthy or sick, alive or dead...It is all in the entire plan...I know things that happened to me, I am sure, helped form me into the person I am. But with all that stripped aside, I still am the person God made me!! In his image..looking at the BIG picture!! During the time we lived in the trailer park. We met a a lady with our same last name, Curry. Her name was Mae...When my sister Jetta, was born, my mother had diaper service. Now for those of you who have never heard of it...A truck used to come to the door. There was a little diaper pail, with a smelly good thing, in this diaper pail, after having the diapers rinsed out in clear water...they were picked up by the delievery man. These dirty ones were replaced with new, fresh, clean, white cloth diapers...I realize many of you have no clue that anyone did this. They used to wash, bleach, rinse and hang them out in the sun...line after line after line...I myself was priviledged to do this for many years..(six kids later)...Pampers were just invented in the late sixties...and they were very expensive...you used them only to go out!! There were many days, I would run out of diapers visiting my mothers house and she would pin a kitchen towel on the baby. Well back to new friends. The diaper man went to the wrong Curry's. He visited Mae's house...She informed him she did not have any children, let alone a baby...This led her to believe another family in the park had her same last name...Frank, her husband, and Mae became our closest friends. They had a camp in Kennerdale. North of Pittsbrugh along the Allegheny River. It took what seemed a very long time to get there..When we got to Butler, I would remark, "Look, we are half way there, there is the clock with the ears". That clock still stands!! We went to their camp every weekend!! A trip away from the trailer park...A trip to the country was a wonderful treat..and full of so many memories...The door opened for us, to learn new things and be apart of God's wonderful back woods exsistence. Some thing we knew nothing about!! But, are going to learn!!!

Stories of curiosity..over the top!

2008-10-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

The real strange thing about curiosity is it can be good or bad!! It can be benificial or very harmful!!..I recall many of my curious times...when I was little. One time in particular was when, we were still living in the trailer park, I put a snake under a car tire and when the car went over the snake it smashed it and there were about 1,000 babies in the snake. It was amazing to see all those little snakes that just came squishing out of her..We had no clue that the snake was with baby snakes nor did we anticipate the way we would feel when we saw her squished. I must admit, it was an amazing experience...See the snake dead, squished and also seeing all these babies dead that came out of her..It made me feel so sad, even though we picked through them and spent time investigating the slaughter, it stuck in my mind and it always makes me feel sad when I think of it....Another times we got together and captured wasps and bees in jars with other insects like lightning bugs, praying mantisis, and other beetles. Waiting and watching to see, after a battle of the bugs, who would still be alive. Which bugs would survive and win the battles...these were all curious things we felt important..Other things, I am not proud of doing, is ripping the lights out of those poor little lightning bugs and wearing them as rings and taking the lights and smearing them on us while we glowed in the dark....I think all kids have a bit of sadist in them...and it all falls under the heading of curiosity... It also takes on the physical. I was about six years old and behind the wash house there were wire clothes lines strung from concrete poles. There must have been about 20 of them or more...these lines looked like tight rope lines...tempting me to walk them...so I shinned up the concrete pole and walked the wires...I was very active and had a remarkable sense of balance as well as rythum...I attribute that to my dancing lessons, tumbling, ballet etc. So I saw no problem to attempt to walk on the wire...they were pretty thick and seemed stable enough to walk across, so I did. One day while tightrope walking my mother came looking for me and found me walking the wire...She always told the story of how she held her breathe and didn't dare yell at me....fearing I would lose my balance and come tumbling down while splitting myself into...But, that never even entered my mind. Looking back now, I can't believe I was as brave and unfearful as I was...I still am unfearful...and do many things that other people would not even think of doing...and I have no problem attempting or doing it!!! I just think I can do anything.....if I try and fail, I try again...I am one of those people, I guess, when the door closes....I don't think of shrinking to the corner and forget about it...Instead of looking for a window to crawl out ....I just knock the door down and go through without hesitation!!! I know this is a God given talent for I didn't know what God had in mind for my life...I needed to be ready to accept things that were going to be presented to me...in the future...Little did I know, what God had in store!!! But He and He alone could prepare me what I was going to have to face!! I thank Him for preparing me...and giving me the tools to survive!!

Comfort can come even thru a ladybug...

2008-10-25T13:33:00.000-07:00

Living in a trailer with no bathroom...posed quite a problem...Trailers back in the fifties had NO bathrooms and any place you lived you had to go to the 'WASH HOUSE"...!! A large cement block building with a couple of doors. One of the doors led into the room that had washers and stationary tubs for bathing large things...I think there were a few dryers...but I don't remember. People usually hung their clothes outside on the lines that ran beside the wash house until they were dry. In the other room was a line of toilets maybe 7 or 8 with wooden doors and locks. The adjoining room had shower stalls...with plastic curtains covering the openings for privacy...all surrounded by block. A light and a drain. There were maybe 5 of them...People had to leave their trailers and travel to the wash house for doing any kind of washing activities. Including bedside pottys used during the night..Every morning all the ladies headed toward the wash house to dump the contents of the little white porclein potty with lid and handle. The metal wire had a wooden handle with imprints to carry. This was a morning ritual...One day I was sick and couldn't go to school...My mother had to make her daily run to the wash house and do what ever she did there..She left me at the house sick. She didn't want to take me outside. So she explained I was not to leave the house, she would be back in a little while...As the door shut, the loneliness set in...The feeling of complete and utter abandonment flooded through my soul...I became very fearful. The sound of silence surrounded me and I became scared. For the reason of being alone and scared, I began to cry. I wanted my mother to come back..I felt so alone, so afraid. I just wanted her to come back...I knew she would soon, but I wanted her now!!!...I sat at the window waiting and waiting for her...I cried until I was sobbing!! I felt so alone!!...All of a sudden I saw one little lady bug on the window..I remembered the verse my mother taught me about the lady bug... Fly away home, and in between the sobs of sorrow..I talked to the lady bug...I told her I was all alone. I told her we were all alone...and I cried and talked to that lady bug for along time..She actually kept me company for what seemed to be hours...When my mother returned, I saw her coming, I ran to her thankful she returned..But, I never forgot how that one little ladybug kept me company. The joy of having someone help me forget my fear and lonliness. That is the way a friend can be.. Someone who comes into your life and just is there to be with you!!...Somehow, the fear, the loneliness leaves you, replaced with the feeling of comfort...Look around you and you will see there are many people you know, people all around you that you can be that "ladybug" for!!! I am so thankful, God saw to it to comfort me by letting me find a friend. A friend in one of the creatures he made...a common little lady bug!!

Counting my losses

2008-10-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

I really have experienced so many losses and disappointments in my life..I choose not to have or accept anymore...The losses I lived through, have round off my corners and taught me to roll...even up hill now!! Because of the things I have experienced in my life, they have taught me not to expect much of anything. That way when something good happens I can celebrate it and appreciate it so much more than if I expect something and then it doesn't happen...I then have set myself up for the disappointment. My joy comes when God allows it and gives it...I accept it, appreciate it, am thankful for it...and receive it!! I count it all as joy, when it comes!!...This always keep a smile instead of a frown of disappointment. Most people expect certain things from others. We try to control the way people act, or don't act....A control issue is probably the first thing a person needs to pray to get rid of...It brings nothing but unexpected disappointment from people, places and all things!!!..No doubt this is the reason I remember many things...I probably expected them a certain way and they played out a way I didn't expect or desire. Thus, it brought lots of disappointment. That now is over, in the past!! I remember the time, when I was about six years old or so. My parents were talking about taking a train to Lancaster. They shared with all of us, their plans to do so...We were going to visit some relatives and while they talked my hopes became very high...I had never been on a train. I instantly started to pack and tried on my favorite dress to wear. I had my mother put my hair up in pin curls. We were going to leave in the morning...I was ready!!! I was expecting big things, a train trip to Lancaster. A trip, I had never been on a trip...not one like this...I let my imagination run with me!! My passion exploded inside my heart!!...Excitied we all went to bed early. We were going to leave the next day...In the morning, for some reason, I woke up and found everyone still sleeping. I got up, got dressed in my favorite striped, dark blue and white taffata dress. It had a little paper rose at the waist...and a frilly little underskirt!!...All dressed and packed I woke my Mom and Dad up...and announced I was ready to go...My mother informed me..."We decided not to go"...WHAT!!! NOT GO!!! Who decided this...I was so angry I just went balistic...Screaming and yelling, I had a complete melt down and stammed and screamed with a temper bigger than sky!! I informed them I was going by myself then..(of course I couldn't) but my disappointment was so great it turned into rage...A terrible rage. An uncontrollable fit of temper brought on by being let down!!!...I don't remember exactly what happened but no doubt I got my fanny warmed and I probably went back to bed and cried my self to sleep!!!...I remember what that felt like. I remember how damaging it is to try to make things happen. I have learned after so many years, I am in control of nothing. Nothing in my life, other than my choices ...With prayer and my depending on what and where God takes me...I trust my choices are his...So now, I don't expect..I just accept!! ...and that always brings a comfort to know, I AM NOT THE ONE IN CONTROL!!! HE IS!! and I am now never disappointed!!!....I learned to trust and obey!!

Major Effects of Bankruptcy

2008-10-21T20:43:00.000-07:00

Times were good, my father feeling accomplished owning three radio and television stores. The first on in Dormont, on West Liberty Ave. The second was in Mt. Lebanon, and the third was in what they called "Little" Washington, back then...He hired people to manage the stores and my Aunt Diddie worked with my father doing the office work in the main store in Dormont...The building still remains there, when I pass by floods of wonderful memories of my childhood fill my mind. Dormont Appliance is there now, but basically it still looks the same...There was an Isley's Ice Cream store, we bought those "skyscraper cones" then. There was a Woolworths 5 and 10 cent store. And of course the movie house that now has been closed for some time....Those are the places we frequented; my friend Evie and I. We owned Saturday, we roamed and spend the day walking up and down, busily visiting people in the stores and shopping with the few coins we had...During this time in my life, my mother bought me my first birthstone ring...being in January, it is a garnet!!. It was 14K gold and had a beautiful garnet stone in it!! I loved it, and wore it everywhere until one day, I bit it flat. What once was a round perfect circle, now was a flat golden stick with a red stone on top...When my mother saw this she flipped out!! She was so mad at me..I have no idea why I had it in my mouth or why I destoyed the only valuable thing I ever owned. I do know, she took it and I never saw my ring again!!...Strangely, I have always had an oral fixation and put everything in my mouth...People have these fixation of different degrees...some kind of brain thing..Who knows, but I know I always had my fingers in my mouth..Since I can remember I bit my fingernails. It has been a part of me for all of my life. With all this we were secure, started to have nice things and life was sweet...and then the house of cards suddenly fell. My father found out his partners were fixing TV's for their friends, stealing and lining their pocket with the funds they got when they repaired TV's... Poor management forced the IRS to come down on him and eventually his businesses failed, closed and went belly up...He declared bankruptcy...and we now had nothing. We were broke...My parents never let us know this, until we were grown. We never knew anything financial good or bad...We were spared any kind of financial situations all through our lives...They NEVER shared with us financial, not did they share the doom that lay before us. We just went along with what they told us and we followed!!! Our lives were about to change drastically. We were in this together...good or bad we had each other and we would find ourselves go down together...

Halloween scares

2008-10-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

With Halloween around the corner I am reminded of a memorable one. Visiting my Aunt Ana and Uncle Don's in the West End. The sisters decided to gather for a visit and the kids would go out "trick or treating" together...I specifically remember my cousin Jacks costume!! Aunt Ana made his a RAGS TO RICHES get up...The song was #1 that year and everyone sang it!!..On one side of the costume rags and patches and on the other side was gold, sparkling jewels, and play money and stuff attatched...It was a great costume..We just had our regular home made gear..In those days, NOBODY bought costumes or bags...or any of that extra stuff. You got dressed, grabbed a pillow case or shopping bag and off you went!!...Anyway, we left early as soon as it got dark. We had huge bags and vowed we would stay out until they were full...We did!! It was late, and we were still trudging up one street and down another. Accepting treats when they would answer the door...Walking down lonely alley ways, my sister Carole, always ready for a disturbing scary story to frighten everyone, started sharing with us there was a man following us...She could see him in the street lights and he hid behind things...to sneak up on us!!..We all got scared..and huddled together...and walked faster...our bags were almost full and bulging at the seams with all kind of goodies, chocolate, carmel apples, popcorn balls and all kinds of great stuff!!!..As she continued to scare us with her spooky antics, the man figure she saw suddenly jumped out as us. He insisted my cousin, Jack, give him his bag!!..We were all scared silly and were taken by surprise! We couldn't believe my sisters scary warnings were coming to pass, let alone someone would actually steal candy bags...Jack began to submit his bag...and my sister, Carole, who was about 12 or 13 at this time...Yelled, "NO", you are not taking our candy!!..with that the big kid came over, grabbed her around the throat, threw her down on the bank at the side of the road...and grabbed her bag.!! She held on to that candy with dear life!! I could do nothing. I started yelling, "This is our house right here" and yelled for my mother!! "Mom, Mom"..I quickly ran to a house still lit up and had their outside light on....I think Carole carried something, a part of her costume...but whatever it was she was beating the kid over the head with all her might...and warning him loud and clear, He was not getting our candy that took us all night to collect...we were all screaming...finally Carole wacked him so much..and I don't remember if the people opened their door or we just scared him off...but I don't think he got our candy....We ran home, with our loot. Shaking and scared as we could be....We had a long and scary story to share with our parents when we finally returned home to Aunt Ana's house...This was one trick or treat night we worked hard for...and the candy tasted all the sweeter....One none of us would EVER forget!!

My favorite Christmas gifts..

2008-10-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

I especially remember days when I was young or being full and exciting! One in particularly was Christmas. It came with much much hoopla...It wasn't until after I really got to understand what Christmas was all about after I got saved at 19 years old. Until then, it mostly was a time like most everyone celebrates...gifts, entertaining, making cookies, and a time when people try to give good will to one another...only by what they have to give. Most people really take little time to understand the real meaning and our family was like all those others...Pomp and circumstances didn't really happen until Christmas Eve..Back then, nobody did anything until Christmas Eve, except for waiting in those long lines at the department store to visit Santa Clause to request your deepest desires... The store windows claimed beautiful moving scenes, full of snow and animated characters on sleighs and skis.. Elves and sparkling designs of trees, snowflakes, and snow scenes. . No decorations, no Christmas music, not anything having to do with Christmas until the day actually came!! My father would go out to buy a tree on that day, the day of Christmas Eve and hide it!!...Presents were very mininmal and stockings always had an orange in the toe. Gifts were few and usually there were no more than one or two things under the tree for each person. But it seemed my parents went all out and bought us more...The most fun of all was when you went to bed early on Christmas Eve and then their work began, tree decorating, train set up, presents wrapped and put under the tree...When I woke up on Christmas morning it was like a dream come true!!! The tree sparkling with aluminum icicles, lights, bubble lights, and multi colored balls of shiny glass...Under the tree a small manger scene placed upon a platform of our black engine smoking train set!! Little houses, roads with cars, people and stores..all in minature...What a wonderful sight!!... We all woke and came out to admire the transformation of the living room we once knew!! Now, smelling like pine and displaying some of the most beautiful items...sparkling and shining in this little room!!!...I can recall getting a huge stuffed little girl with elastic straps on the feet. These straps attatched themselves to your feet and you danced with her...She was as big as I was. She had a blue polka dot dress and yellow yarn hair..with a matching hat..and painted face!!! Another gift I remember so well is a Mammy Yokum puppet...you worked her with strings attatched to wooden slates that made her walk. She had hard ceramic shoes that made a clicking sound when she danced on top of the table..Red and white striped legs and she had a smoking pipe in her mouth.. Another one I remember so well is my furry white cat...it look like a real cat with real hair. It had green glass eyes, a pink nose and whiskers...I carried that cat everywhere and smelled the fur until it was almost bald...Don't ask me where all the other fur went, no doubt up my nose!!! Anyway, didn't seem to hurt me any!! Memories are wonderful, good ones...ones you store up in your mind and recall when you want to feel the comfort of good times...But, those memories are only memories we make...and hold on to for comfort...My Bible says, that Jesus is the Comforter!! and I know, there have been many times in my life when the only comfort I can find is the kind He provides me...anytime, anywhere!! He is mine, and I am His!!!

My disbelief in Santa Clause

2008-10-17T06:28:00.000-07:00

At about 5 years old, I suspected Santa Clause was not real!! Being as curious as I was I was anxious to find out. Everyone around me talked of Santa Clause and kept reminding me I had to be good, if I wanted a visit from him. He would bring me toys and things I wanted...But living among kids of all ages, mostly older, I was bombarded with comments about Santa and it seemed there was an underlying joke. I could here the false tone in their voices, like they were trying to make me believe something....that I was questioning. I imagine I did tell my Mom and Dad. I didn't believe in Santa Clause because all the other kids were lying to me. They were telling me something not true...My mother tried to ease my suspicions of the fleeting notion that Santa Clause just wasn't true..by reminding me he comes and brings gifts to only good little children. I continued to search out the truth. I asked everyone I knew. Had they seen him, how do they know he is even real!!..The older kids would laugh and joke with me...about not believing...and told me if I didn't believe I wouldn't get any presents. I have to confess it wasn't about the presents I cared about. It was the facts. Were all of these people were telling me the truth?...I wanted to know the truth and I hated people telling me stuff that wasn't real or true!! On Christmas Eve before dark. I remember we were just getting ready to sit down to supper...and I heard bells out side the door and loud yells of HO...HO..HO..My father looked at me and said, Oh, no who's that..I ran to the door and saw a huge man in a suit of red and trimmed in white fur...black boots, and covered in white beard, long hair and moustache. Yes, It was really him...Santa..Shocked and disbelieving, I hid behind my Dad while he answered the door, greeted Santa, and shook his white gloved hand!!..Santa bent down and asked me, in a deep loud voice, What do you want for Christmas??? Stunned I stammered something out of my mouth, who knows what, and as he bent down to be about my size..he open his sack and handed me a small gift. It was wrapped up in a bow. He informed me to put it under my bed and it would grow into something very special...As he left my mouth still hanging to the floor..I now believed in Santa Clause. I saw him with my own eyes...He even gave me a gift. A special gift right from his own hand and it was going to grow into something miraculous. I imagined in my mind...it would magically grown and turn into something spectacular as only Santa Clause can make happen!!!.... Bedtime came and I went to bed with expectancy in my heart!!..The next morning was Christmas. I jumped out of bed and the first thing I did was look under my bed for a something miraculous, something wonderful...the little package was still there. Still wrapped the way it was when I put it under there...?? This thing didn't even grow!! I was disappointed. I took it out and opened it... It was a candy bar!!...A CANDY BAR!! Can you imagine, I had these great dreams of something so spectacular growing under my bed, and it turns out to be a candy bar!!!...At this point I now know....even Santa Clause can't be trusted...He lied to me...and I was looking for something miraculous!! and I got a dumb candy bar!!!....I think that was the last year I believed in Santa Clause..One of my first lessons of deception!!.. and from Santa Clause of all people!! I know now, to trust my judgements. As bad as they are most times...but at least I have no one to blame for my ill decisions but myself...I do know this, the miraculous wonderment I was looking for in Santa, I found in Jesus...and He will fulfill all my expectations...and my dreams, because He said so!! and I believe Him...I won't be disappointed!! I won't!! I trust him and I believe what He says!!......BECAUSE HE LOVES ME!!!

Curisoty....something inside!!

2008-10-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

I can say for sure, I am probably one of the most curious people I know. Even at the age of 62 I continually am wondering, searching or studying something...I don't think a day goes by that I haven't tried to learn something new. Life is so full of wonderous things and I usually learn something new anytime I really set my mind to finding something out!!!....Many times I paid the price for my curosity..along with others in my life!!..You rarely go down that road alone! Once, I remember when I was about 5 years old. My father was changing his windshield wipers on his car and I wanted to hold the nut that held them on to the arm...I begged him to let me hold it, he conceded. I put it in my mouth and swallowed it. He went ballistic..I thought he would cut my stomach open to retreive it..but no, my mother came to my rescue that day!!! I don't know what he did to put the windshield wiper back on?? Another time I was playing with two pennies and put them in my mouth..they had a very coppery taste and before you know it...Chomp, they went down together...my mother was frantic..we went to the emergency room, I had an xray to find there was only one penny showing up...My mother was sure, I had two pennies in my hand and we couldn't find the other one inside of me...She was positive I swallowed two...The doctor informed my mother what goes in, comes out...and it would be her responsibility to find out where the other penny had gone...for three days after that xray, my Mom had to disect my stool with fine precision...Which I might add was not a happy moment for me...watching her!!...It turns out the pennies went through me as one...STUCK TOGETHER.. The inside of those pennies were as shiny as new and the outsides were greyand dull.. after being attacked by stomach acid...for a few days!!! Then one day, I was so curious. My mother would never let me see any babies getting their diaper changed...especially if they were boys!!!..She hid them from me.. I never was exposed to see what a boy looked like anitomically...Having two sisters and no brother, of course I was curious...why was my mother hiding it from me!! The more times it happened the more I wanted to know what there was I shouldn't see...Low and behold, I just took it upon myself to find out...I had a nickel my father had given me for doing something....and what better way to spend my money then to pay the little boy that lived in the trailer behind us...to see exactly what I wanted to see....So, I thought it only right to ask him if I could see him pee...I would pay him five cents...He willing agreed!!! I bent down and inspected his plumbing. I watched until every drop was out and then stayed to ask him questions about it!!!..My mother never knew about that, I was sure if she ever did she would never speak to me again. On top of being very dissappointed in me!! So I hid it in my heart and never spoke of it again...until my sister, Carole, found out and used it as a weapon against me...She made me clean up her shoes, do her chores, and if I didn't she would count and when she got to 10 she was going to reveal my shameful secret...She tortured me with that until I was in ninth grade....holding that over my head..Finally, I got smart and said, Go ahead and tell Mom, I don't care...Guess what!! She never did and my guilt and torture was over!!! I never forgot the anger I felt against my sister for all those years of doing her work and her ordering me around to do what she wanted...I forgave her for her spirit of manipulation and control...and have ask forgiveness for feeling anger toward her...But you know what, "forgiving is one thing...but forgetting!!!.... I find a bit harder to do!!!"

REOCCURING BAD DREAMS

2008-10-14T06:39:00.000-07:00

Can you recall a bad dream or nightmare you have dreamed over and over again....In my young life, about 6 or 7 years old. I began having a dream. It woke me up shaking and disturbed. I had this dream over and over again. I remember it because it made such an impact on me...looking back it was more of a warning than anything else. I would not have been able to understand this dream being so young. But, now I can understand the reasons behind it!!!...I can share this dream with you now however, I will not reveal the reasons behind it until later on in my blog world...The dream started the day of a wedding. The wedding was mine! Being only 6 or 7 years old it seemed to be a weird dream for a young girl...Anyway, dressed in a sparkling, white, shimmering wedding gown. I was all grown up and had a wonderful man waiting at the altar for me. He was the man I loved and was going to be the man I would spend my life with. The veil sparkling with sequins and shiny lace covered my face. In my dream, I looked like a princess. It was a wonderful day, a day I waited for and was so happy...As I walked toward my waiting husband the music played. The other people in the wedding party had already gone down the aisle. The flower girl dropped red rose petals on the aisle and the music, played louder and louder. Everyone turned to watch me in my beautiful dress come down the aisle toward my waiting wedding party....As I came down slowly, stepping with the music playing, I noticed out of the side of my eye, a person dressed all in black. A mean face with a witch like look. Now, half way down the aisle this person jumped out and grabbed me. She laughed a horrid laugh and dragged me out of the back of the church. Through the door! Everyone just stood and watched!!..I screamed, and screamed again and again..HELP ME!! NO, NO, NO, SOMEBODY HELP ME....She was dragging me away from my most happy day, my wedding day!!...As I screamed and squirmed to try to get away, My screams made it through my bedroom and into the quiet night air. Twisting and turning and screaming HELP ME...HELP ME!! My mother came in and said, "Lois, what is wrong?" "You are having a bad dream.." I was sweating, crying, and so afraid that it was true...but after waking, I found it was just that a bad dream...Rolling over and going back to sleep..the nightmare was over. FOR TONIGHT!! However, this dream would play over and over in the stillness of many nights ahead!!..There are only about three dreams, total, I can recall ..and I can still remember. Dreams.. that are burned into your minds eye to remember the rest of your life!!.........We all can recall such dreams...But, this dream was different, this dream was a warning. A warning, I didn't heed!!! Looking back, had I been able to understand this dream and heed it's warning, my life would have taken on a different turn..But, this life is the life I chose. Choices in life are the things that determine our future!!!...Good and Bad, but God is still on the throne and hears and answers prayer. When the choices we choose have proven to be disasterous!! When we could have depended on God to lead us in our choices and prayed for His guidance in everything we do!! Today as well as into tomorrow. We would know, without a shadow of a doubt..We are in God's will for our life and if we just step back and depend on Him to help us make the right choices...Life would have NO REGRETS!!

A little start to an explosive finish..

2008-10-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

My two aunts were both Sunday School teachers....at the Methodist Church in the West End. I remember sitting in the little chairs singing "This little light of mine"..."I got the peace of passive understanding...down in my heart", "jesus Loves Me".. and other songs. As a child you sing and really don't realize what exactly your singing. You sing as loud as you can and clap and enjoy the excitement of sharing that moment with the room full of kids like you. Then after a little good life story. We went to our individual classes, according to our ages and sat down at little wooden tables on little tiny chairs seperated by folding screens. We heard a Bible Story...colored a take home paper. The teacher prayed over us and we then were dismissed to go up to "Big Church". This was the ritual of every Sunday morning. I still can remember the little stairs that we walked to go up into the sanctuary..The sactuary was big, and had beautiful, tall thin stain glassed windows, each ond depicting Jesus in a Bible situation...I particularly remember the one with Jesus carrying a lamb...all in bright colored glass.On days that the sun would shine through them, it was so beautiful and brightly spectacular. The antique looking chairs covered in a wine red material sat and dark mahogany arms made for a revered look to be treasured. There was a huge pipe organ when played it seemed to vibrated the chairs. The large golden pipes (that I now assume were brass and looked gold)... spread across the back of the pulpit. The music that came from these pipes was rich and deep ....It was beautiful music. I don't remember if my parents took me to the West End Church or I stayed over at my aunts and went with them...But, I do know, I went every Sunday. I went and sat down at those little wooden tables...enjoying the experience. After church we would walk up these steps to my Aunt Ana's house...steep concrete steps that had a landing inbetween a series of 13 or so steps. I remember counting them as we ascending to the top of the hill. The went on forever, finally we arrived. Aunt Ana's house was literally hanging off the hill side. On a steep cliff, more or less. Her kitchen was in the basement that went out onto a porch that overlooked a portion of the city of Pittsburghs West End. She had a glider and a few chairs and if you looked down over the railing...it dropped about 50 ft or more...It was awesome, a little scary, but awesome. This was the same yellow basement kitchen fifteen or so years later I would receive the fullest of what God had for me spiritually. This was the place that the fire of God came to me and baptized me with his Holy Spirit. A special place, a wonderful time. A Holy time for me...My aunts and Mother praying for me and laying hands on me. That February of 1968...I supernaturally received the baptisim and we all prayed and worshipped God and spoke in tongues!! A day in my aunts basement kitchen I will never forget...and it all started in the West End Methodist Church...

My Name sake..

2008-10-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

Some people are name after movie stars or sports figures. Some named after celebraties someone in the family knew or admired..I was named after my great Aunt Jane...She actually was my mothers aunt on my grandfathers side. I believe she was his sister...When she got married her name changed to Jane Bolte. I have no idea why my mother named me after her nor did I ever ask her why...I do remember her always reminding me I was named after my Aunt Jane...an honor I imagine. However, my Aunt Jane didn't really appears to be anyone special in my life, we rarely visited her...and I never spent any time with her!! My middle name is Jane. I have a second cousin named Janet...we both were named after the infamous Aunt Jane. For no reason we know!!! As years go one people come and go. Sometime during those years Aunt Jane must have been a very impressive person for our mothersto name us after her...I have absolutely no clue what she did to attrack everyones attention. Maybe she had lots of money...or won the lottery back in the 40's..Who knows!! As time goes now, I will never know. I do know that this, once she made a monkey doll out of a pair of work socks for me, I kept it for years because Aunt Jane made it!!...it had a diamond like tail and a little red hat on...It looked like one of those monkeys gypsys put on their shoulders while playing the organ...called an organ grinder...There used to be plenty of organ grinders around, but seems they have all been disband...No union, I would imagine..or didn't have a permit!! For whatever reason, they are a thing of the past...along with my Aunt Jane!!!...Things come and things go...styles, situations, loved ones, everything is in our lives for a season and then we must be ready for them to go...and we move on!!! Nothing last forever...Nothing stays the same and a person is blessed who can let go of the past, and relish the wisdom of today.... For what you know you will need today and for the future...If it wasn't for what we have been through, we wouldn't know anything about were we are going!! It is all a learning trip...and when it is finished...we all need to be ready to move on to our after life with the one who made us... and that includes my Aunt Jane...

LIFE FLYS BY SO FAST...WE MISS IT!!

2008-10-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

When I was very small, about the time of my first memories. Besides the ones I have already shared with ...I remember my first little friends...The family was from Alabama. My friends were twins. Looking back now, I would imagine that their Dad, Louie had been transferred to Pittsburgh. For whatever reason, they were living in the trailer park for a short time...They lived across the street from us and the girls names were Danna Sue and Donna Lu...quite southern names...Their mother, Ollie Mae, spoke with a very strong southern drawl...I remember wondering why she didn't talk like everyone else!!! I would go over to visit and we would play or just look at each other...They were my first friends of my life...they were at least my size...Our families did thing together and we had a very good relationship...Looking back now, I know these people were Christians...while everyone else in the trailer park was drinking, smoking and playing cards plus I think there was alot of husbands being unfaithful...these people never joined in...They never said they wouldn't it just seemed they didn't....nobody probably thought anything about it...Now, looking back after a visit to Alabama much later in life after I was married and had kids of my own. .I recall some of the things they did and the places we went... Ron and I took the kids, and my parents for a little trip to visit them...We drove to the little town they lived in...the kids rode their horses, they made us a real southern breakfast, with biscuits and sausage gravy..eggs,.grits...the works...all served at 6:00 am...We visited a beautiful little chapel...and we got our pictures taken at the altar...I have that picture somewhere...but right now, I will introduce you to Donna Lu and Dana Sue...We had a wonderful time...we also discovered that they were Christians...as we suspected all along. They were happy to find out we came to know Christ too. God brings people into our lives, we call them friends. ...He puts people in front of us to keep, to treasure and to share good and bad with...Good friends support you, they let you tell them your woes, and don't judge you for your mistakes...I am so happy, God allows us to make friends with others and he actually places people into our lives to make this connection..That way we can share his love with them...It is an amazing thing God does...it is up to us to continue not to let them die, through neglect...So if you have a friend, and you haven't seen them for awhile...give them a holler'...that's the way they say it in Alabama!!!

ALMOST GONE IN A FUNNEL CLOUD

2008-10-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

The trailer park I lived in seemed bigger when I was little...I have been back since I've grown up...and amazingly it looks like it shrunk. It is much different than I remember it however, I think it still exsists to this day and people still live there!!!..We had lots of kids in the park and in the summer we would play outside until it got so dark we couldn't see...Release was our game and we played it every night!!!...Picked two teams...One went and hid anywhere in the park, the other team hunted them down..tag them and took them to the designated jail (which was the concrete sidewalk in front of the new wash house)...When someone on the hiding team...could sneak up and put a foot inside the jail...yelling "RELEASE" and everyone in jail could run...It took just one brave one to sneak up and not get caught to release his tagged team members...We always played in a group..One afternoon, the weather looked strange..the kids used to gather at the wash house. There was a Cocoa Cola Machine outside on the side of the building. You needed only a dime to catch a cold one...out of the shoot. Put you dime in ...and out came a dripping cold light green bottle of coke!!! On those hot summer days...yum....one could only imagine how refreshing it was...a wonderful treat for everyone!! The sky turned a yellow color and the wind began to blow...we spun around in the wind for awhile..enjoying the wind pushing us around and the now cool breeze it brought with it..The sun disappeared and the clouds thickened. Immediately the wind started to howl and we saw things flying around..suddenly an awning fell on top of a car roof...and chairs and lawn decorations were flying out into the streets...My sister, Carole, yelled for me, and we started for home...Scared and watching for the flying debris we ran down the street toward our trailer...we only had to get to one more street and turn left then run past about 6 more trailers and we would be safely home...Instead, a loud noise, louder than any airplane overhead...so loud my screams for safety couldn't be heard...I yelled louder and louder...the swirling dust and wind picked me up from the ground..and I was at the winds mercy...I was being swept away...and I had no control...of my legs...I was lifted up and being carried with the wind. My sister saw me continuing down the road with the cloud swirling around me...she ran and grabbed me by the arm and yanked me down to the ground and we quickly turned down the road toward our trailer!!!...She saved my life, I was going to be swept away by a tornado. We found out later that day how mcuh damage it did...it went right down the road ripping off roofs, and smashing awnings...I remember the power it had..I remember the power I lacked...It made a very big impression on me...and I know what real power is...and I also know to respect it. I experienced a little taste of that kind of power that will come when Jesus himself descends and we are raised up with him on that day when the trump sounds!!!

From whence I came...

2008-10-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

My mother Loretta and my father George met on their street in the West End. Chartiers Avenue, I believe. My mother had a fun loving family. Pap Pap played the drums and they had friends that played instruments. They all would get together and play music at my Maw and Pap Pap's house. With the three sisters living in the house, there was never a dull moment...lots of action, noise and music...They had a man living with them, for whatever reason!! Whether he was homeless, or a friend of my grandfathers, I don't know...His name was Johnny Lapey. My mother seemed to think he was like a helper and helped to do chores around the house. Especially when my grandfather got sick, Johnny lived out back in a little shed like room. My Pap died of a heart attack right before I was born, January 1946. but before that the house rocked with excitment...They had an ice man, a vegtable/fruit huckster,and a baker all came around and sold goods... plus lots of friends and family. They pulled taffy, and sang songs around the piano until 11:00 and that is when my Pap Pap would come out and wind the clock...This was the sign that anyone who didn't not live there was to depart!!!...Next door to my mother lived my father and his family. One sister, named Alice and a very quiet and calm household. When my father was a bit of a boy, around six, he told me how his father, a coal miner, named Brooks Curry came home every night and beat him with a slipper or belt...He never did anything to be beaten, but his father used to tell him it was for thinking of doing something bad..My father HATED his father...He said, could have killed him, there never was any love!! Looking back to what I was told, I believe both my grandmother and grandfather...were drinkers!! Anyway, my father was enthrolled about the excitement next door and all the action and fun he saw. He watched for my mother to walk past his porch and then he used to "wolf whistle" at her...She was apolled and thought he was queer. He wore riding pants..and had a mustache..My mom went to Langley High School until the 11th grade...then quit. My father was the valadictorian of Oliver and the president of the senior class, so not much more needed to be said about him!! Eventually, after long evenings of music, and waving good night from the bedroom windows, they fell in love and got married..on June 23, 1936. It was my Dad's birthday..and their wedding day. With just a small ceremony in the preachers study and a little dinner shared among the families they now begin a new...a new life, a next generation..My generation!!

My mothers family

2008-10-07T06:55:00.001-07:00

My mothers family was closer to us than my Dad's...We went to my Aunt Diddie's or my Aunt Ana's house every Sunday for dinner. We spent the day with them and returned home to get ready for the next weeks school and work. My mother had two sisters and no brothers, both married and both only with one child. My Aunt Diddie had a set of twins she lost at birth. My cousin, Jeri, was no doubt my closest cousin. She was a few years my senior. My Aunt Ana had a son, his name was John. She miscarried a boy early in a pregnancy after him. He was named after my grandfather, John Simpson, but we all call him Jack. We were a very small family, as families go. Every holiday was spent together..and we had so many wonderful gatherings..and swell times!!!...My uncles drank alot, one could say they were acoholics...most of my life, I don't really think they were sober any of the time....After work they stopped at the club and had a few and then the weekends were always...spent in the bottle!! My aunts were the real anchors of the families. Looking back now, I imagine their lives were very sad. They really never took many vacations, they just survived as most families did back in the 40's and 50's....Family was everything, they helped one another. They supported one another...When anyone was in need someone in the family stepped in...My family was very close, I can see now ...I never remember any arguments about anything, or anybody. My grandmother, we called Maw..was most memorable...She was such a joy, she was a little short stout women with a gigantic laugh...Whe she laughed outloud, you could hear it from the corners of the room...She enjoyed life. She wore a corset that tied her in and when I hugged her she was very hard...I remember the nights I stayed over, Maw lived with my Aunt Diddie. Even on nights I didn't stay over, I would ask my Aunt Diddie, if I could get a bath in her bathtub...Living in a trailer park, with no bathroom...made this a real special treat for me...I spend hours soaking until my fingers were wrinkled..singing and enjoying the wonderful feeling of a tub bath. Maw had a bedroom with a double bed. She had a picture of a night sky and a howling wolf ...on her wall. I think about how strange that was, now..But anyway, she had long, white, thin hair. She would brush it every night. It reached down to the middle of her back...and every night she would put one long pigtail down the side and crawl into bed..in the morning she brushed it out and wound it into a long twist and wound it around into a sort of bun...stuck pins in it ...and she was ready to meet the day. She had a clock that glowed in the dark..and ticked very loudly. She called it Big Ben...She was sweet and kind, I never remember her hugging me or telling me she loved me...It was just a known fact that she did, I guess!! We were Irish-English, and from what I understand the English are not a very warm or loving bunch!! But if love was measured in things...other than hugs and kisses...we had alot of it around!!! I loved my Maw..she was so much fun!! She made even the hardest tasks fun!!..Her heart held all that a heart could hold...and I miss her even now. When she was up in years...we had to put her in Torrence State Hospital..she became mentally very unstable..but her humor never escaped her...One day we all went to visit her and and I asked her..."Maw, do you know who I am?" and she answered, "Well if you don't know who you are, how do you expect me to...!!!" Enough said, she was MY MAW!! I pray that God would love her the way I did, and would accept her, for He alone knew what was in her heart!!!

My families pasts...

2008-10-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

When I was small...my family didn’t know the Lord, as a matter of fact some of my fathers family were pretty much heavy drinkers...I was raised to think that was the way life was...My parents visited my Uncle Al and my fathers sister, Aunt Alice usually every weekend night, Friday or Saturday nights..They sat around the dining room table playing poker. I remember, my mother drank Slo-gin. I remember that because it was red!! And I thought "How strange it was to drink something so red". My father drank beer and sometimes whiskey with it...They were so loud laughing and yelling. They played poker, smoked cigarettes and drinking and eating into the wee hours of the morning...I remember falling asleep many nights on the couch..the room filled with smoke and the sounds of the card playing...and laughing. Back then is seemed so right...My sweet grandmother, Grandma Davis lived there and she would just stay in her room and not join in. I wonder now about my quiet little Grandma...what was she thinking. I wish I would have sat down and talked to her about her life, when she was young, and the things that she held so close to her heart...But, I was a child and the life I had was not interested in old people...I really don’t remember thinking anything much about my Grandma’s...Both of my grandfathers were dead, and I only heard stories of the things they lived through...But, my Grandmothers were both alive. My fathers mother, Bessie...Her real name was Rebecca, but everyone called her Bessie...My mothers mother, everyone called her Murt...her real name was Murtle...They both died while I was in my teen age years...and I never got to know them the way I should have and the way I would have like to. I never remember either of them being unkind, or truly loving. I just remember, them in person in all their glory..Grandma Davis darned holes in socks, she sewed with a big wooden egg she stuck in the heel and with thick thread, she wove in and out until the sock had a big thick knot like bump... She also used a curling iron...to curl her few hairs that crowned her head...She would stick into the flames of the cooking stove...get the iron hot and then sear her hair...to a curl..The smell was awful...but it made her feel prettier...and she would curl her hair often. She never said, much, smiled and nodded, but I knew she loved me..somehow. But, she never showed it...I don’t remember any hugs, or kisses, nor do I remember anyone expressing with words they loved me!!! I really never missed it because I never had it....knowing that my family never knew the true love of God, nor did they ever experience anything more than repetition of worship in the Methodist Church, they never attended!! I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit saw to it, to find me through a family that never wanted or cared about his grace...I will never be able to praise MY LORD enough, to see to it...that I didn’t go down the same path as my ancestors. As much as I pray for them now and remember them and the wonderful ways, their time is up for salvation, they chose a different path!!! THANK YOU JESUS FOR CHOOSING ME!!

We are all the same!! do you believe that?

2008-10-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

The weather changing and fall approaching...the days grow crisp and the nights colder. When you have lived in Pennsylvania all your life, it is hard to believe people in other parts of the world are in completely different climates and circumstances..We are used to the changing leaves, however, many people have never seen a colored leaf or a snowflake..We tend to forget how many people share this world...we live in. We think we are alone in the space that God put us. Until we reach out to other people, places and things we do not realize the difference first hand. All the way through my school years I never knew anyone but people just like me. Until fifth grade, I don’t believe I ever noticed the color of peoples skin...I don’t think most children do...Children are so wonderful...They accept you as you are! You don’t need to perform in anyway, they trust everyone, they believe everyone and they are willing to try to fit into any situation. The real amazing thing, is children are loving, kind, and truthfully honest. Until someone teaches them otherwise!!! Perhaps there were no people in my world that had a different color of skin, or perhaps I just didn’t care. But, I don’t remember seeing anyone different than me!! Most everything in my world was just as I saw it...I had no reason to question anything that didn’t exist in my life!!!...That is until the day, I went to church camp in Erie...I will tell you about that later... This day, a man in a white, long robe, something like a sheet. It wrapped around his body and up on one shoulder. He wore a white turban on his head and he wore strange sandals on his feet. His skin was very dark brown with a reddish tone on it... I had never seen another human being that looked like this. I was completely stunned and very curious about who and what he was....Turned out, he was a missionary from India...and had come to our church camp to teach us..something, or just share his life with us...I never, ever saw anyone dressed like this, nor did I ever figure out exactly what he was doing there, or what he had to say..but being a child I just accepted it and did what I had to do without question...Looking back now, I search my heart and remember the feelings I had toward this man...How different I felt about him...Now I realize we are what’s inside of our skin. The person, that God made abides within....somewhere in our heart...It doesn’t matter, what color we are, or what we wear, or even what we say!!! What really matters is what is inside, like a peach...or plum...Once the fruit is eaten or rotted away, what is left, is the seed inside!! That is the most important part of the fruit...with out the seed inside, the fruit can’t be anything....With the seed inside, it turns into another fruit just like the one that was there in the first place...The skin, doesn’t matter, the fruit inside...is good but, the part that really matters "is the seed." God has done that for us to understand, how we should look at our brothers and sisters in this world...A world where everyone should be the same...and the seed is the part that is the most important !!!!

Dancing days

2008-10-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

When I was four, I started to take dancing lessons...I don’t know why my mother thought I would be interested in dancing...Maybe she saw something in me. I love music. I love to dance. Maybe it came from dancing school. Maybe one is born with the rhythm it takes to dance, sing, and love music. Either way, I started taking ballet, tap and acrobat. I could do back bends with ease. Chest rolls and back flips...Acrobatics just seemed easy for me...I could bend every which way...Tap shoes brought clapping and rhythm into my life...and soon, I was tapping all over the place...Next came little pink toe shoes stuffed with lambs wool. I still have my little pink toe shoes and a little tu tu...that I worn when I was 4. My teacher Miss Vera Leaubea had her studio somewhere in down town Pittsburgh. I remember her loveliness. I continued dancing...year after year. One year I rode the float at Kennywood Park and threw peanut butter kisses out to the crowd as we motored along on a Saturday afternoon through the crowd...Miss Vera made arrangements for me to dance on the Boardwalk of Atlantic City. We couldn’t go because my Mom was due to have my sister Georgetta. My mother named her Georgetta because hopes of having a son were gone, and my fathers name was George and my Moms was Loretta...thus Georgetta. It seemed there was nothing good that came from this baby!! Jealously reared it’s ugly head!!! What I didn’t realize is that she would really become my best friend. The person I can confide in, and one who is there for me!!! I love her!!! I remember one weekend, for whatever reason, I was to dance at a Jewish luncheon in Mt. Lebanon. I was very excited and nervous all at the same time...I was probably about 4 or 5 and when the music started..I began to dance..I danced and remember my routine...until all of a sudden stage fright took me over...I stopped, frozen in fear...standing and looking out over the people looking back at me...I exited the stage, never to return...I felt failure and disappointment not only in myself, but I felt it from those around me...I continued to dance even after we moved to the country. I danced until I was a freshman at Mars High School...but I never remember having experienced such a devastating embarrassment as I did that day of that Jewish luncheon....I never forgot!!!...So many times in my life, disappointment has played a major role and embarrassment as well...but I know one thing for sure!!! It all passes, and life goes on!!! Jesus comforts and holds us to make it all right..Perfection isn’t ours!! It is HIS!!!

Everyday teaches lessons

2008-10-02T08:03:00.001-07:00

One day during the early summer of my second or third grade. I was walking home from the school bus stop. Our trailer was toward the back of the trailer park. On my way home I saw a huge flower garden blooming along the roadway. The house was owned by an older women with grown children. It was a big two story brick home with a big front porch and large colored windows. I never saw so many flowers blooming and smelling so sweet. I just reached down and started to pick as many flowers as I could hold in my hand. They were beautiful and I wanted to give them to my mother as a surprise. I was so excited to present them to her and knew she would be very happy. Instead, when she saw the flowers, she instantly asked me where I got them. I told her, "I picked them for you!" To my surprise my mother wasn’t happy, she was angry. She scolded me and told me I had to take them back and apologize. I had to say I was sorry for picking flowers that didn’t belong to me!!....I was devastated. I couldn’t believe she could not want these flowers. They were so beautiful...She took me by the arm and marched me right up to the house where the flowers bloomed. By this time, I was crying so hard, I couldn’t speak. My voice turned into sobs of sorrow. My mother rang the doorbell and I just shuddered inside of my body. What was I going to say? Why did I have to do this? Why wasn’t my mother happy?...This was my first lesson on stealing. Until this time I had no idea that taking things that didn’t belong to me was stealing. I didn’t know what stealing was....but I sure knew now!!...It seemed like forever and the lady came to the door. My mother said, " My daughter has something to tell you." With everything inside of me..I tried to find a voice and through the tears and sobs of sorrow, I told her I picked her flowers and I was sorry!!.. She smiled and said, it was okay but my mother made me give them back to the lady...and dragged me away...I never ever forgot the sorrow I felt to have to apologize for my actions. I learned that stealing was something I didn’t want to have to go through again...At least not until I got over this!!! I always will remember how devastated I was when I had to apologize for something I did in love.. I wanted my mother to be happy, and I saw nothing wrong with taking something that belong to some one else and take it for my own...I realize now..this is exactly what Jesus did for me...even though I did things that are wrong, and I thought I might be doing it in love....or I don’t even consider it wrong!! It is!! And Jesus died for that...He forgives, and guides me down the path of correction with His forgiveness and His LOVE!!

Planes and horses...in my life

2008-10-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

Our trailer park was right next to the Allegheny County Airport. It was the only airport in Pittsburgh and planes flew in over head, DC3's with huge propellers. They made so much noise flying over head everyone would have to quit speaking, or yell very loud, until the plane flew over head and passed to land. They were so close we could almost reach up and touch them..but it was accepted as face and everyone just made do with the noise. Nobody even thought of the safety or the chance of one of those huge planes coming down to short of the runway. Behind us was the "slag dump"...for as nasty as that sounds..it was beautiful..The entire hill behind our trailer park had a train track on the top of this huge hill..nothing was on this hill. It was barren and black during the day. It laid quiet and had no life ...but as soon as the sun set and the sky turned dark. The show began! We were showered with one of the most thrilling sites...The train would come from the steel mills filled with left over coke from the ovens...every car was filled with hot burning slag....Bright orange embers glowing with fire like spikes shooting from them...all at once the cars would turn over and dump this beautiful display of liquid, glowing, orange slag...it would melt down over the entire hill and slowly come to rest where it cooled and turned dark...All night long the hill glowed and by morning it seemed the light had gone out. The hill returned to the dark barren place it is...The hill once covered in bright, shimmering orange like brilliance was now barren, black and still. A new refreshing of this bright and beautiful light came daily. Like our souls...we lay dormant and still. We await for the brilliant light of Christ to pour his life and blessing on our everyday!! Thank you Lord, for letting me see how beautiful you are...!! and to appreciate the forever presence of your light in our lives!!!
There was an incinerator and we used to burn our garbage. Eggshells, trash anything that would burn. It was a huge brick furnace like place that had a chimney. Everyone would haul their trash there and set it on fire. The rats would come and feast on what didn’t fall victim to the flames and scatter when one walked by. Nobody thought anything of it, it was just a fact of the incinerator. We also had a bath house. None of the trailers had no bathrooms back then. They were just little round gypsy like metal rooms on wheels. There was a steel tongue in the front. That was where I tied my imaginary horse, Blacky. I rode him everywhere and I might add had the sound of horses hoof prints down pat!!...I clicked my tongue and it sounded exactly like a real horses hooves on pavement!! Blacky was my freedom in times of boredom or just wanting to run through the breeze. I would pretend to mount him and gallop away!! I don’t remember when Blacky disappeared out of my life. I guess it was somewhere around fourth grade when we moved to the country. I still see him, his mane dancing in the breeze as we galloped down the rode...His body shined in the sun and he had bright wild eyes...He was my best friend...I could tell my Blacky everything..Now, I know looking back, I could trust him, I could rely on him, and I could tell him my innermost secrets...Now I tell My God, and he hears and answers my every need. Something good ole Blacky couldn't do!!!

2008-09-30T07:13:00.000-07:00

My mothers lady friend named Jean Conselme was Catholic, she had many beautiful pairs of rosary beads...and she would give them to me. I wore them everyday...and covered my jersey tops with medals of Saint Joseph..I had no idea what any of it meant...I just knew it made me feel closer to God, it made me feel safe, and protected...Another person held a special place in my heart. His name was Stanley Moses. I only remember his name because my mother would tell me the story!! I was very small for my age and people treated me small..Baby like, and one day Stanley brought me a little jacket his mother had crocheted. It was wrapped up in tissue and he presented it to my Mom for me...He reminded her that this jacket was just like Josephs, a coat of many colors....Knowing who Joseph was because of what I learned in that Bible School summer, I was honored ....I don’t recall Stanley or his mother, but I still have that little multi-colored crocheted jacket!!! I don't remember ever wearing it but here it is...Still hanging on to it...over 50 years it has traveled with me from place to place..Just like Joseph.. Many things have come and gone in my life, but this little jacket always reminded me from whence I came!!! This was the beginning of a life long spiritual journey of LOVE!!! The strange thing is even when you’re a child, God instills spiritual desires in your heart. Little things mean so much to you when your a child...and it all stays in your heart...Your spirit holds them and they grow. God draws us to himself, from the beginning of time...He knew us in our mothers womb!!!During those early years probably near the Summer Bible Time my sister and I attended church service across the street from the trailer park. It was held in the basement of the West Mifflin Fire Hall. We went every Sunday, to church and Sunday School. On the same side of the highway was a little store. A Mom and Pop store called "Shortys". It was just a small block looking building with a door in the rear. Behind Shortys Store they built a plan of homes called The Baldwin Plan. Little brick houses with one car garages and driveways. Built in the 50's most of the new homes were small bungalow types. I remember thinking people who live in those houses must be very rich. We were very poor, but we were so very happy! My father used to call it "slap happy"...I never did know what that meant!! But, as my life opened up and took on a spiritual desire to learn more about God and his love...The happiness we had then could never compare to the happiness that God places in our heart because of His love for us...Thank you so much Lord, for YOUR LOVE!!! FOR YOUR PROTECTION!! AND FOR YOUR HOLY SPIRIT!...........

2008-09-29T09:12:00.001-07:00

The summer of my second grade we moved from Lebanon Junior High School to a brand new red brick school. It had lots of windows and was all on one floor. It was built down over the hill past where the little red and white trolley came to take us to town under a huge concrete underpass. The trolley ran on electric wires along a line. Sparks would fly from the lines when it would make turns or stops. We didn’t travel on the trolley often because we never really went to town much or shopped for that matter. Only on a special occasion. I think maybe two or three times we rode the trolley, and it was fun. I loved getting to get my little paper ticket from the conductor. I recognize it now to be the pass to change from one trolley to another.
My new school was called Walnut Grove. My new teacher was Miss Manandez. She was a very nice school marm like person, quiet and kind. I no longer would have to have a watchful eye open nor be run over by those horrid junior high students anymore. For some reason, we took a cab everyday down the hill to school and back. I guess they had no buses. I just remember getting into a yellow cab with other students heading to the new school. We all came from the trailer park. The memories of the past year, my horrible first grade experience now were all over.... but not forgotten.
That second grade summer was one of the most remarkable times of my life. A summer I will never forget. This summer would be a building block for the rest of my life. One of the ladies in the park held a Summer Bible Time. To this day ..I don’t know her name, nor do I remember her face...but I do remember every Bible story she told... Adam and Eve, Moses and the burning bush, Joseph and the coat of many colors, and more. She used a flannel graph board, with colored figurines. The big flannel board had backgrounds on every page and when one story was finished she flipped it over to the next background for the next Bible story. The cutouts stuck to the board...and as she told the story, she animated the figurines...telling the story!!! Looking back I realize now...this women was doing what God had laid on her heart. She was spreading the gospel to the children in the park. She was the first person to tell the truth of Gods word. She knew that words spoken to a child heart are never returned void. I attribute and count her a huge instrument of my salvation. A salvation I would experience years later. At the end of the summer, I had learned much of the Old Testament stories...and was rewarded with a glow in the dark, light blue colored cross. It had a braided white tassel...Imprinted in the cross was the saying.."GOD IS LOVE"...I held that cross under the lamp every night and tucked it under my pillow to go off to sleep...I wonder just what happened to that cross, somehow, some where I lost it along the way, but the memories it brought will forever be burned into my heart, into my soul!!

School and ice cream troubles

2008-09-24T05:33:00.001-07:00

My first grade came with many degrading moments. One that stands out in my mind was the day Mrs. Bush, the nasty teacher, would not let me go to the bathroom...I remember that day, I had to be excused. I held my hands up until I thought they would fall off...trying to keep my arms up to be recognized, holding my arm, the right, then the left. Up and up switching one from the other...making sounds of urgency. Try to get her to acknowledge my need. She did not, she would not. I held it and held it..until I could not hold it anymore and all of a sudden I wet all over my clothes and all down the floor..She was furious! She made me go to the nurses office. There I had to wash my panties out and hang them on the hot water register to dry. Then with a little short dress on, had to go to lunch with no underwear and sit on a long cold steel lunch table bench, trying not to expose any part of myself...It was something I will never forget. The next first grade disaster, I remember, was when I wanted to take home a cho cho cup. They were little chocolate ice creams in a white, paper cardboard container. The lid was the same and one had to take the tab off to expose the ice cream inside. I loved those little ice creams and wanted to take mine home to show my mom. Never thinking it would melt all over and drip out. That night I forgot it in my desk. It melted all over the floor, the next day lay my cho cho cup in liquid form on the floor under my desk. Mrs. Bush came and asked me what that was. Frightened, I said, I didn’t know!! She investigated and not to my surprise there was a soggy, warm cho cho cup. The contents melted to the floor. She then instructed me to go to the janitors closet and get a mop and clean it up. My older sister was in sixth grade at the time. She was up stairs in her class. So heading to get the mop. I wanted some comfort from her, so I walked up the steps and knocked on the door of her room. They were taking a test, I interrupted it and was told to go back to my room. I did. With that, I was instantly escorted to the front of the room and thronged over Mrs. Bush’s lap and paddled in front of the rest of the class, watching on. I tried not to cry, but I did. I guess I cleaned the mess up...that I don’t remember. But I did remember never to bring ice cream home with me again!!

A total act of kindness

2008-09-23T03:41:00.000-07:00

My first memories of school were like a nightmare. Along with my grandmother sending me off in small dresses, then getting run over in the hall to catch my bus home. I remember the first show of complete love and affection. It came from one of the janitors at this Lebanon Junior High School. During one of those first days, I had a total breakdown. I took a huge temper tantrum right in front of the lockers that lined the halls. I began to cry and sob uncontrollably. I was only 5 years old starting first grade. I really don’t think I was ready to leave the safety of my home. Thus, the feeling of my Mom wanting to get rid of me to have this new baby. I don’t recall exactly when, wether it was the first day of school, or later that week. But, I do remember the feeling of total abandonment. My Mom gone off to have a baby, I didn’t want. My grandmother stepping in and taking over frustrated, not knowing what to do. My father busy working and my teacher, Mrs. Bush. She was a nasty lady, mean and unconcerned about anyone. Lying on the floor, sobbing and crying having a screaming fit of passion, feeling abandoned and alone. A janitor came and kneeled down beside me. He put his arm around me and had pity on my. I still remember the compassion and love in his voice, some 50 years later. He said, " You must be very sad, I know your are sad, or you wouldn’t be crying like this. How about if you get up, go into school today and tomorrow I bring you a brand new book of paper dolls. How about that?" For a five year old to remember so vividly this act of kindness, from a man I didn’t even know! I agreed, he helped me get up and brushed my hair back. I got up and went into my class. The next day, he did just as he said. He brought in a brand new book of paper dolls. I know I will see that man in heaven some day, for his love and compassion to a five year old. Because it was so great!..

2008-09-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

The trailer park we lived in was call Brosches Trailer Park, Mr. Brosches was not pleased with me. I was a tom boy, climbing trees and falling out of them. One day unconscious and he had to cut them down to keep me out! I remember the day I pointed my index finger into the face of aa little red headed girl named Susan. She bit my index finger to the bone..it bled along time and I carried that scar on my finger for along time...Mr. Brosches would repair sidewalks with wet cement...and after spending along time making it just perfect. He watched me, watch him and warning me, not to touch this wet cement...He threatened me if I did ...Well, the minute he turned his back, yep you guessed it..I walked right through it...It was just like that...if there was something I wanted to find out I did just that....I found out!! I ate earth worms...not because I was hungry but because they looked so good. Moist and tasty...I watched them crawl in and out and still can remember just what they taste like...Dirt, they taste like gritty dirt..I would suggest if you are planning on having one...don’t!!! You will be disappointed!!!..they look better than they taste.We always had so much fun at that trailer park...in the summer we played "Release" until midnight. There were so many kids and we all played together....my childhood was fun!! I remember when I learned to tie my shoes...I remember when I got my first bicycle the summer of my sixth birthday. My mother told me not to take my shoes and socks off, but of course, I did...When my father came from work, he whistled for me to come home and there I was no shoes and no socks...I knew I was in big trouble, but instead...guess what...he had a brand new blue and white bike with a little small red stripe....I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even get in trouble for being in my bare feet!!!...We climbed cherry trees and ate cherries until our stomach ached. We slept out all night in my Dad’s panel truck....My father owned one of the first TV and Radio business in Dormont called Curry’s TV ...he repaired, sold TV’s...as well as installing radios in automobiles from all the car dealers on West Liberty Ave. Radios had to be a special order to be installed in new cars. They were not built in. My father would go down and install radios into the models made for special order.....back then the TV’s were 5" black and white and had condensers and tubes...
I remember my father losing his temper with his glasses on top of his head...when he would soder the resisters together and then the TV still wouldn’t work...I remember the smell of the soder coming off of the hot metal rod that came out of the sodering gun..When I was six years old my father would take me to work with him on Saturdays. One of my friends Evie Oliver’s dad had a lock smith business right behind my Dad’s business on West Liberty Ave. We both spent the day roam the stores in Dormont...Isleys, Woolworths, and we always went to the Saturday matinee movie. We sat in the balcony of the small theater, which still is standing, and threw juju beads down on people heads!! Oh those were the days!!!...

The plan started on the 21st of January

2008-09-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

I always felt I was meant to be here. Now I know I was right. I was born in the dead of a January day. My father drove my mother to the Allegheny General Hospital and if he had stopped for one more red light. I would have pushed my way into the world in the back seat of a 41 Ford. My childhood normal and full of fun. I lived with my parents and my older sister. She was six years older than me. On my first day of school at five years old, my little sister came into the world. My whole world sank My grandmother came to stay with us. She watched us, cooked dinner, and got us off to school. That was the first time I felt a strong streak of rebelliousness. My grandmother had no idea of our regular routine. She dressed me in a dress that was way to small...I argued and cried my way to the school bus. I was only 5 years old when I started first grade. I had convinced myself it was because my mother had a new baby now...and she wanted rid of me. The first day of school when the bell rang to go to the bus...I exited the door of my first grade and was trampled by herds of older kids..They knocked me down and dragged me down the hall. I had black eyes, and bumps but survived. Our grade school was in session with the middle school, so most of the people in the school were taller. I was very small, even the smallest in first grade. I made it through that and hated my little sister, I used to pinch her hard she would cry and I would say I did nothing. I watched my mother breast feed her and the hatred grew in my heart. I was a very curious child as well as an adult...but then it got me in a lot of trouble. I walked on wire clothes lines to walking right through wet cement that was just poured and finished...I jumped off of roofs of cars thinking I could defy gravity with a towel around my neck pinned on with a safety pin. I swallowed pennies, and windshield nuts that my father asked me hold. It just seemed trouble would always find me...and I was always willing to obey it.

In the beginning...

2008-09-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to do what was right...I guess you could say I was led down the pure and wholesome path of life. However I didn't always go in that direction. Most people can relate to this feeling of wanting to do right. But, human nature draws you...into the caves of lies and deceptions. When you get to the end, you have lost sight of the entrance. The light is fading, and you lose your footing. Now all the roads from the end are narrow and dark. The bright light twinkling far off at the end of each exit. In my following blogs I am going to try to search and understand just what and how things happened. To start from my beginning to where I seem to be at the present time. I'll start from when I can remember. To a life, where I am now...my present, my future looming, ahead of me, hidden...to all but apparently closer to the end than the beginning!! I do know this, I have been taught and have learned "to bloom where I am planted!!!" THROUGHOUT!