New Year's Resolutions

It has been many years since I've done this: I'm making some New Year's Resolutions:
1) I will blog every day possible.
2) I will read one non-fiction book for every five fiction books I read.
3) I will add at least a half hour of stretching and/or yoga to my daily excercise routine.
4) I will really, really try to lose ten pounds by the end of May and another ten by the end of October.
5) I will drink my first cup of morning coffee on the patio when weather permits.
6) I will enjoy a beverage on the deck each afternoon weather permitting.
7) I will attempt container gardening.
8) I will do something special with Bud to mark our Silver Anniversary.
9) I will get back into the habit of using my C-Pap.
10)I will sort through the boxes in the garage.
11) I will ride my new bike more than I did last year.

That seems like enough for someone who hasn't resolved for a long time. After yesterday's marathon, I should probably add "not watch so much HGTV", but I don't want to break one before January 2nd!

"Getting Back Up On The Horse"

Hi, Fans of the "Chances R..." blog. My name is Les Lynam... you might know me as the younger brother, or little brother, or (my favorite) the baby whose head got whacked against the door when a ten year old Ramona was babysitting (if you've been faithful in reading these blogs).

Anyway, since my sister might be having a writer's block moment, I thought I'd offer to do a guest blog.

Family who read this blog already know of my recent adventure. For those who don't, I've just experienced my first ever auto accident. Forty-some years of driving without even a minor fender bender, and then I hit the jackpot. I was smacked nearly head-on at highway speeds by a pickup towing a vehicle that came across a grass median. I'm sure he was already breaking, but he definitely had the mass/weight advantage even if I had the greater forward motion.

It was rather odd. I was in the left lane looking to get back into the right line when my peripheral vision detected motion to my left. I remember thinking, "that's not right", and then it was a series of wham, crunch, crash, wham, crumple crumple, wham (there may have been a few more whams and the crumples might have been in a slightly different order, but I hope you get the idea). The odd part was that the physical impact seemed very much like my memory of county fair bumper cars. Very jarring, and momentarily disorienting, but not what I would have assumed a high speed crash to be like. I then followed that with another first. My first ride in an ambulance. These are two "firsts" that I would have been happy to never experienced, but I guess any experience that one can walk away from must be some kind of learning experience. (Isn't there some quote like, "that which does not kill you can only make you stronger"?) To shorten the story, after several x-rays and CT scans they declared me "very lucky" and said my neck and bones were all normal. Because of the battering and bruising, I didn't feel too normal, but who am I to argue with a Doctor?

So I'm on the road to recovery, still moving very slowly and I have a few muscle spasms that remind me of where the seat belt and shoulder harness restrained me. (BTW, if anyone reading this still doesn't buckle up every time you get into a car, then I proclaim you a fool).

I could go on about mundane recovery and even the adventure of shopping for a new car, but if you recall, the title of this entry had a horse in it. Not a literal horse, of course, but the old adage of getting back up on the horse that just threw you. One couldn't be a decent cowboy in the 19th Century if he didn't know how to to dust himself off when thrown from a horse, and get right back in the saddle. There is one element of that eluding to showing the horse who's boss, but the other element is learning to not let a setback defeat you. It has to be scary to be thrown from a horse, not to mention painful. I was never thrown, but did have a horse lay down and roll over me... but since I never got shook loose from the saddle, I guess I didn't have to face getting back up on the horse.

When I recently talked with my brother (that would be the fellow mentioned here in an earlier blog that is never going to take Ramona to a show again), he warned me that I'd be a little "goosie"when driving for awhile, and that I'd see motion off to the side and wince. He was right. What he failed to tell me was that there would be ten times as many pickups on the road now, and that they would all sneer at me as they passed. Not only are there ten times more pickups on the road now, it seems there is a much higher frequency of pickups pulling something or other. So the first long trip I took out on the road was fraught with little butterflies in my tummy whenever one of those pickups appeared.

I know that there aren't really more pickups on the road now, it's just that there was no reason to notice them before. They'd never harmed me before, so they were just part of traffic. Now, at least temporarily, they are evil emissaries of the devil who shout at me each time I meet one, "we'll get you next time, my pretty, and your little dog, too". (OK, yes, I recently moved to Kansas, but NO, I don't wear ruby slippers... or have a little dog).

Each trip "back up on the horse" has been a little easier, but I have to wonder how long it will be before I don't think about the time I was thrown.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the guest blog... and perhaps we will soon get back to Ramona's tales that I (and I believe others) have come to enjoy each day.

Bye for now,

The Baby Brother

Les sent the above guest blog to me the 18th - 10 days after his accident. I did not know how to move it from my e-mail to my blog until he helped me with it tonight. Likewise the pictures of his demolished car were on Facebook for 10 days before I saw them. But once I saw them I realized how lucky I am to still have my baby brother. What an autumn it has been for him!

Ghosts of Christmas Past

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..." That's what the song says. For me, it is the worst time of the year. The only thing good about the time is the winter solstice which means the days will once again become longer - more daylight.
I do not know why I dislike xmas so much. Perhaps if I visit the ghosts of xmas past, I will discover the reason:
As a child I looked forward to xmas to see what Santa had left under the tree. I don't remember any specific xmas as being the most memorable. Our tree was always one we had cut out of the pasture or along the road. Stockings always held an apple an orange some nuts and a bit of candy.
Christmas dinner at Grandpa & Grandma Ridnour's were the most fun. By the time we all packed into their little house there were 24 of us - 8 adults and 16 kids. We drew names for the gift exchange plus the gift from the grandparents. One year Grandma sent away for pencils with our names printed on them. Another time we got Lifesaver Books - they looked like a book on the outside, when opened each side held five rolls of lifesaver candy. That was something I had always wanted.
I don't even remember any special christmases with my own children. Once again it seems like it was more fun when we got together at Mom & Dad's with my siblings and their families. We drew names for several years then finally settled on playing "the game". Each one brought a wrapped gift, numbers were drawn, #1 went first, chose and opened a gift. #2 could choose a gift or steal from #1 and so on. Really good gifts could be stolen up to 3 times. Some years it made for a lot of fun. Some years it made for "cheating" to get a certain gift which resulted in bad feelings for another year.
One year which was special was the one when my ex-daughter-in-law allowed my oldest grandson to come for xmas. We hadn't seen Brock for six or seven years. I didn't tell his Dad he was going to be there. The look on Doug's face was all the present I needed. It was a good day.
Maybe the reason I dislike the season has to do with unmet expectations. I was never in a position financially to give my kids a lot for xmas. That may not have hurt them, but it hurt me.
Have I hardened my heart against disappointment for so long that I can't let myself enjoy xmas?
It does not seem the ghosts of christmas past hold the answer.

Grandma's Feather Bed

"The best darn thing about Grandma's house was her great big feather bed. We didn't get much sleep but we had a lot of fun on Grandma's feather bed." John Denver

One of our presents to ourselves arrived yesterday just in time for the start of winter. I had been thinking of getting a down comforter for several years but put off purchasing one because of the cost. This year when the weather turned cold and I added another blanket, it seemed like I was achier upon arising. Could it be the weight of the covers? Then Kohls made me an offer I couldn't refuse - they marked their comforters half off then gave me a 30% off coupon and free shipping. (Plus $20 Kohl's Cash on a future purchase.) Other than the times we have stayed at hotels, I hadn't slept on or under a feather bed since childhood. Ah-h-h-h.

The old farmhouse I grew up in did not have central heat until after I was grown and gone. Even then, only the downstairs rooms had heat ducts run to them. The two upstairs bedrooms still had their original registers; their only heat what rose up the stairway and through the small grills in the floors.

As a kid, you wanted the west room in the winter and the east room in the summer. The west room register was directly above the old oil burner stove. We would leave the warmth of bed and sprint over to stand on the register to dress for school. In summer the west room was stifling from the heat of the sun and no breeze. The east room was shaded plus had windows on the south and east sides.

The feather beds came out after fall cleaning was done. They went on top of the mattress. We slept in the feather ticks rather than having them over us. Over us we had umpteen blankets. Those old farmhouses weren't insulated and the windows didn't fit very tight. You could actually feel cold drafts wafting through.

I don't remember when nor why we quit using the feather beds. I believe the last of them was used to make pillows. I might complain about the heating bills in winter and the cooling bills in summer, but I am grateful for central heat and air conditioning. And after only one night, I already love the lightness and warmth of our new down comforter.

Solstice Spirituality

LET THERE BE LIGHT

The Old Neighborhood

Osil Steadman Mitchell's funeral is today, December 16, 2009, the sixth anniversary of Mom's death. Osil and Mom were neighbors east of Guss when they were teens. The Ridnour's lived in a big house on the west side of the road. (Where Walter Johnson's later live(d) for many years.) Steadman's lived south about 3/4's of a mile. North of Ridnour's on the east side of the road was the farm of Lee and Ruth Mitchell. They had two boys, Alvin and Paul. Mom's sister, Lois, married Alvin and Osil married Paul. Eventually Osil's brother, Byron, moved to the same neighborhood as my parents. (Byron & son, Bryan farmed Mom's land after Dad died.) Paul and Osil moved to Iveyville half a mile from where Joe & Delphia Ridnour had moved to in the 40's.

Further North on the west side of the road was where Firkins lived. One of their girls, Verlene, and Mom were lifelong friends. I took Mom and Aunt Lois to Sharpsburg for Verlene's 80th birthday celebration ten years ago.

George and Bessie Lynam and their 12 yr old son, Louis, and 4 yr old daughter, Leona, moved to the Ralph Harvey farm in 1929. That was about four or five miles NW of the Ridnour's. Louis attended Spaulding School 3/4's mile west of the Lynam farm. Ruth went to Mt. Pleasant school a mile north and a mile east of the Ridnour farm. The Ridnour's and Lynam's had lived in close proximity in Adams County. I'm sure they knew each other.

One of Dad's lifelong friends from his neighborhood was Art Kapple. They ended up living in the same neighborhood after their marriages in Jasper Twp. back in Adams Co. Art's brother, Roy, was also a friend and neighbor for awhile, moving to Council Bluffs in the early 50's.

One of the entertainments of my parent's teen years was putting on plays at the school houses on the weekends. Or they might have a visiting speaker. That would draw attendance from other school districts as well as their own. That might be where Mom & Dad met. Or maybe they met at one of the many "house parties" in the neighborhood. A family would host an evening of card playing and or music and dancing.

However they met, Ruth had at least two dates with Alvin Mitchell before she started dating Louis. From her diary of those years, it seems that once she and Louis started dating, that was it for both of them.

(You can see I did not finish this post when I started it. It wasn't going where I wanted it to go. I'm still not happy with it. But I will go ahead and publish and move on. I did not attend Osil's funeral, but noticed they used a picture of her from her younger years on the funeral program as we did on Mom's.)

"What You Don't Know.......

Can't Hurt You." That was one of my sweet Mama's sayings. I'm trying and failing to remember an instance when she used it.
I can think of times when that is true, though - the worst being when you hear someone you love has died. One minute your world is hunky-dory; the next it is spinning out of control.
I had a double whammy when Dad died. I wasn't home when Mom called with the news. Doug talked to her then called me. When he said Mom had called and that Grandpa had died. I assumed he misunderstood. Dad's Mother, my Grandma, had been in ill health and expected to die. I just thought he heard wrong. I waited awhile before calling my Mom back - thinking about my Grandma Lynam and her long life and how I would miss her.
Finally I called Mom, told her the kids had called me to let me know, asked her how Dad was taking the death of his Mother. "Ramona. It was your Dad that died." Suddenly what I knew hurt very much.
I think about famous people - how their lives are scrutinized every minute; how the paparazzi hounds them looking for that perfect shot worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to a tabloid - all the better if the photo can be misconstrued and used to make it look like the subject is involved in something sleazy. I would not want to be famous.
Or the politicians who the minute they announce they are running for an office are vetted by the dirt diggers. (Nor would I run for office.) Or the performers who are trashed by the media if they sing one wrong note or forget a line. No wonder so many of them say, "I don't read the reviews."
Mom had another saying about the only ones who can really hurt you are the ones you care about. And isn't that true? It can even be done thoughtlessly; innocently. Early in my relationship with my new sister-in-law, Ruthie, she asked if I had seen something funny on the Johhny Carson show. My reply was something like, "No, I never watch that crap, fool, idiot" --insert your own epithet.
I didn't know it until years later but I had hurt her very much. By criticizing something she enjoyed, I had inadvertently criticized her intelligence in choosing what to watch. She got even though in the same way - innocently - when she made some remark about how OLD one of the guys I dated was. I think she simply said he was the same age as my Mother. I took it wrong; got so mad at her I was heading for my car; probably would never have talked to her again. Bless her for grabbing my arm, actually restraining me, and saying, "You're not leaving! We are going to talk this out."
It used to be easy not to be hurt by things we didn't know, we never heard them. Now, in this instant communication age we live in, it is almost impossible to not know everything - from the local and national news to what appears on Facebook or is Tweeted or Blogged. One person's unintentionally hurtful remarks can cause someone else pain.
From the time I was little and teased by the other kids my way of dealing has been to withdraw back into my comfortable shell. I have always appreciated my own company. Only caring about others do I get hurt.
There were times in my life when I felt as though I was smarter than my Mom. I had more education. I had been out there in the world where reality occurred. Deep down I always knew though that by far she was the wisest.