Once Upon A Time

I worked for the J. Peterman Company.

Actually it was part time, on week ends and some evenings during the week around Christmas. It was short lived and in the height of the J. Peterman popularity. Before Seinfield, yes, there really was a J. Peterman. It is not that guy that pranced around on Dancing With the Stars. But, we all know that, don't we?

J. Peterman somehow ended up in Lexington, Ky. Not sure why or how, but he did. His empire blossomed on the North side of town, pre-Internet. It's funny to think that anything was before the Internet! It has become so much a part of our lives and infiltrated every aspect of it! I know that I have altered how I spend my hard earned bucks.

Back in the day, there was a large building that housed the J Peterman warehouse. UPS loved the J.P. company. The US Post Office loved J.P. No telling how many catalogues he mailed out all over the world. For years. All over the world!

Before having a part time job for J.P. (call me Elaine Jr.) I ran across him in the back pages of a magazine I was reading in the mid to late 80's. It was an advertisement for the Duster. It was how he got started, selling the Duster because whereever and when ever he wore it he was stopped and questioned. The question always was the same.... "Where can I get one?".

And the J. Peterman Company was born.


I rummaged around in my closet for a hat to shield my head from the death inducing rays thrown down from the relentless heavens that was frying my brain. I found this...

My Panama hat, or as I like to think of it, my Miss Blue Hat. (it was called several names depending). And when I placed it on my head and was into the mind numbing process of picking out yellow black spot leaves I remembered the Peterman Empire and my little part in it.

First of all, I was young! And everyone working there was young. We were all so young I guess that would answer the question of why we would work for such low wages and have such high standards demanded of us! The J. Peterman company was noted and praised for being the BEST in the business, which was mail order. Any given night, 100 customer service reps manned the telephones and were placed in the cue. There was no telling who might call on any given evening/night as the phones remained open till 1am. Celebrities called all the time. I never caught a celebrity call, but when it happened THAT person always stood up attracting the attention of everyone in the room and would gesture wildly towards the phone and mouth the name of the caller.

Standing up was common, as it hurt the ass to sit all the time through out an eight hour shift. I would love to ask the customer on the line, "Would you like me to get the garment so I can describe it better for you?" and with that, would un-plug and trudge around the "show room" and pick out the item. J.P. was great about having all the merchandise available for the CSR's to have at their disposal. And it was quite an affair, for he had thousands of items. I would gather the garment and go sit in my chair and begin to describe it to the person on the other end of the phone. Description was essential and we were coached and thoroughly refreshed through out our tenure with the company. He was not the BEST for nothing.

It was fun. But it did not last for long, just that one Christmas season and into the spring of the next year. I remember this vividly because it was 1996 and UK won the NCAA Title that year. We listened to the games much to the despair of the customers calling in! The final four...that Saturday night I'm certain J.P. got more complaints than ever before. I remember it as if it were yesterday (doesn't every Cat fan?)


"Okay, do you have a tape measure, now bend over to the right .... that's your waist, measure it. (a pause) Okay, what does it say?" The customer replies with his/her waist measurement and UK hits a 3 pointer against U-Mass in the final four game and you forget you have not muted the mouth piece and you yell out loud, "THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!"

Truly, it was fun and I was shocked when he went bankrupt and exhilarated when he got his company back!!

The Bus Stops Here

The school bus for this side of the neighborhood stops right across the street from our house, at the stop sign. Around 730am the High School kids are picked up and then about a half hour later the younger kids. There is screaming from the younger kids and much running around and playing while waiting for the bus to arrive. The High School crowd is silent and sullen.

Which reminds me of my school bus days. We had to walk to the end of the street, also by the stop sign, to catch the big yellow machine driven by Shorty.

Did I say walk? Oh no, I do not remember too many walks towards the stop. It usually was making a mad dash across five yards to hop on the crowed sweaty screaming mass of Baby Boomers.

The bus had a route that entered our subdivision on the street that ran behind our house. One of us kids would be stationed at the end of the kitchen table as the look out. When he (as it was always one of my brothers, never me) spotted it making its first stop he would stand, grab his book bag, his lunch and yell out to the rest of us.......

BUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

And then the mad dash would begin.

If you missed the bus? If you were dragging your heels and could not participate in the running of the procrastinators, well you just had to walk to school! (No worries, it only took 10 minutes if you went as slow as possible).

Which reminds me of another story.

My Brother-in-Law's family owns a piece of property on a TVA lake. In February about 10 to 15 men (no women) make the pilgrimage to participate in their version of an Iron Man competition. It is a long week-end of drinking beer and a horse shoe competition where only the winners do not have to jump into the frigid gray water of a late winter lake.

It is about a three hour drive to reach the Lake House. As they approached their destination this past winter, they saw a bar open along the way. It was around 3pm and the place was packed!

"Wow", they thought as they ordered their beers, "this place is really hopping for so early in the afternoon". Just about this time someone jumped up yelled.........

"BUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS"

And the entire place cleared out as the bus unloaded its cargo and they clamored into the waiting pick-ups for the ride home.

Somethings never change.

Alphawoman's Garden of Grass

Sometimes I just have to fill up an entry with help from a visual narrative. Yesterday I was working in my garden aka the back yard.



Usually I am out there in the mornings as the heat of the day has not yet hit. Anyone living in this area knows we have had a very hot summer and little rain. At least little rain as of late. My roses have suffered from a multitude of circumstances including but not limited to the heat, the Jap beetles, and the dreaded yellow spot. I have inherited approximately 21 rose bushes/plants and have not, to date, killed any of them! As a matter of fact, since the heat has broken, and the Jap beetles have died off for the season, the roses are looking very spiffy!



Please do not point out the black spot disease! Only this year (because I am a slow study) I have learned how it happens and how to treat it. The other day I spent hours picking out the dropped leaves from the mulch. Mindless work that allows deep cracks in the brain to appear.

My back patio area is nothing short of a Sahara-like heat bowl. The southern sun beats down all day long! Nothing survives on the patio of white concrete and sand colored wall. Since I have been traveling back and forth from Memphis all summer and relied on the daughter to water .... well, there were horrible deaths of many hardy plants.

As I said, I am a slow study. It took a while to realize succulents were the answer! They come from the desert, right? So, I was spending yesterday afternoon replanting the resilient remarkable succulents when my back neighbor comes across the yard.



He was so nice! He had brought along a bucket of planting soil as a gift. We chatted a bit about the things neighbors chat about when he suddenly changed the subject and waved his arm towards a corner of my yard and bluntly asked, "Is that a marijuana plant you're growing up there?"

WTH?



As if!!! How funny! It does sort of look like one if you never have seen it before! So I assured him it was a bamboo plant that a very nice person in west Tennessee had given me and I was trying to get it to thrive in southern Indiana. And behold! It is throwing off a baby shoot.

A little later my next door neighbor came over and we chatted about my tomatoes.



And my roses.



And I assured him I was not growing marijuana and he laughed. He was more in the know because he told me I would have been busted long ago if that was the case.

It was only when I went inside I realized I was not wearing a bra under my t-shirt.

No wonder I had so many male visitors!

Living on the Edge

It has long been a running joke between Joe and myself that I am indifferent to the dangers of having low gas levels in the car. When I drive he is constantly checking the fuel gage and making comments about gas stations. He has been known to break out in a cold sweat on Interstate 55.

When the refuel light comes on and I see his tension rising I always say, and I mean always, "I'm good for 20 miles".

And then I looked it up in the vehicle manual and found out I had an extra gallon adding another 30+ miles I could now say, "I'm good for 50 miles", but I do not want to give him a coronary.

On my way home the other day the refuel light came on and I felt that touch of annoyance rush over me. I hate to fill up with the gas prices being where they are now! Who would have thought that finding gas under $3.80 would be cause for celebration? While in Memphis over the week-end I gassed up at $3.31 and loved the feeling of not feeding over $50 into the proverbial black hole. The prices in Louisville are much higher than in Tennessee. A lot higher. So I fired up the computer and found the lowest gas prices in the metro area, which was $3.51 at the station located at Bashford Manor Mall.

I'll be damned! I was heading over to my brothers for dinner and the Mall was fairly close by! I could save big money by heading over there! And by big money, I mean approximately $3!!!!

And with my new found discovery that the reserve was around 50 miles, I was confidant that I could make it.

After my visit I flipped the trip and began to pay attention to the mileage thinking that I had not actually looked and the gage was **gasp** under the E.

4.9 miles to the Mall and I felt a rush of what must have been relief as I pulled up to a gas pump.

But only momentarily.

I turned my purse upside down and poured out all the contents on the passenger seat. Horrors and double horrors I had no wallet!! I could see it plain as day sitting next to the computer as I had ordered something on line before leaving for my mothers birthday.

Now I was in a cold sweat.

I had two one dollar bills on me. In the ash tray was another $1.25 and checking under the seat and in the trunk I could another 75 cents.

Enough for a little over one gallon. Needless to say, the needle did not move very much and kept its secure little home under the bigger than life E.

50 miles did not seem like much of a life line on the drive home.

This story ends well, as I made it and the trip says it was only a 26 mile gamble from my bro's house, a little gas added, to my the comfort of my drive way. A huge sigh of relief escaped from my clamped lips, my hands relaxed from their death grip on the steering wheel and the paralyzing fear of running out of gas on the I-65 Spaghetti Junction Bridge becoming a faint memory I sashayed triumphant into the house.

I guess Joe wins this one, but don't tell him.

I use to be such a Sweet Sweet Thing...

...Until they got a hold of me. ( Alice Cooper, No more Mr. Nice Guy)

I have no idea where I heard this, but it stuck in my head because Joe threw out all my unframed prints I had stored in an old, old, old trash bag. Like from the 1970's it was that old. And it looked like something important was in it, laid up against the kitchen wall. Oh well, ...oh well....I heard something that went like this, "You forgave them for throwing away your concert ticket collection".

Which made me check on my collection, which I have spread out in several places. (so that if he can only throw out part of it)and I fingered the Alice Cooper ticket from the mid-70's and remembered. (which is exactly why you hang on to stuff, for the memory bomb).

I was living in Mayberry* while I was waiting out an academic suspension from college and working at some minimum wage job (that should have convinced me to straighten up and fly right...but that is another story) and Alice Cooper was the hottest thing on the concert circuit.

It was when he was chopping off his head in a guillotine. Rock theater. I think he invented it, didn't he?

Naturally we had to drive to Louisville to catch the show. I am thinking Rupp Arena was not yet built. (damn I'm old) (but younger than Alice). I say "we" because I had talked Bad Bob into going with me.

Bad Bob.

Bad Bob.

How I hooked up with BB I do not remember. More than likely I just drove around Mayberry* determined to find someone to make the trip with me because someone else had bailed on me (?) and found him. More than likely smoking cigarettes by the convenient store and trying to pick up chicks.

I met Bad Bob at the swimming pool years before. The swimming pool was the place for summer fun and everyone went to idyll away the summer heat. Bad Bob was from the wrong side of the tracks to put it politely. I'm not certain if he/his family had a membership to the pool, but who was going to stop him? He did not earn the name Bad Bob for nothing!

Joe has known Bad Bob since elementary school. Bob was held back, much to the horror of Joe's class. Joe had gotten a brand new knife, (I know I know, this is boy stuff from long ago)as a gift, maybe a birthday gift. Anyway, Joe was at his locker when Bad Bob comes up and tells Joe he is going to swap him a girlie magazine for his new knife. And that was all there was to it. Joe was in no position to disagree. He handed over the knife and received an girlie magazine from the 1950's (or so he says) that was so looked over the cover was gone and most the pages were missing. The new knife is gone but Joe is left with his teeth (he would have had to fight Bad Bob to keep the knife and Joe is no dummy).

Anyway, for some unfathomable reason, Bad Bob and I were friends back in the pool day. We played chess while I was watching the front desk (oh yea, I was a lifeguard) and stuff like that. He hung out with the most popular kids in Mayberry* High! We drove around, which was about our only form of entertainment when the pool closed, and drank bourbon straight from the bottle. (I think this was the summer of Easy Rider, nick nick)

I once ran across Bad Bob, who had become a respected (of sorts) builder in Mayberry* at the church carnival. He was with his wife and children. We smiled and acknowledged each other, but the eyes, his eyes told me this was no time to have a conversation. His blond beautiful wife looked on, blowing smoke from a lit cigarette. As I said, we nodded.

The last time I saw Bob was at a small bar. We were tossing back beers and arm wrestling, of all stupid crazy things. We ended up in my car and he was driving me somewhere and we were pulled over by the police. High School all over again. The police drove me to where I wanted to go and Bad Bob went to jail.

(This is the strange weird part)....There is this noon mass that is held at a church in Lexington that I use to go to when I felt the need. I was sitting in the back and realized that out of the 15 or so people there I knew one of them. A guy from Mayberry! During the mass it is asked if anyone has a request for prayer and my friend asked for prayers for Bad Bob.

He took my hand after mass and told me Bob was dead, had killed himself. He had put a paper bag over his head and shot himself.

Alice Cooper's show in Louisville. Bad Bob tolerating it for me, his friend.

I have a small collection of old concert tickets.



*Ficticious name for a place that could have been Mayberry back in the day.

Alphawoman's Guide to the Universe

(My Moleskine)

I have a moleskine notebook I keep in my purse dedicated to mundane things as shopping lists, addresses and the name of songs that take me by surprise. It is a treasure trove of interesting things such as the title of books to read, movies to rent, over heard conversations, places to go, brilliant observations, a cache for newspaper clippings, postcards, snapshots and a holding cell for quotes from a variety of sources. It also serves as a collection of off the wall thoughts usually scribbled as I drive down the highway. Those, my friends, are very difficult to read!

While flipping through the pages yesterday, looking for an obscure tidbit I knew I had jotted down sometime, somewhere when I found a list of ideas to write about. Obviously I had been traveling down a highway and written in large block letters, that indicated I was traveling at a high rate of speed, HITCHHIKING.

What has happened to the art of Hitch Hiking? It was not that long ago that it was an acceptable form of trucking around. An easy way to get from here to there in a pinch. I'm not going to say everyone did it. I only did it several times usually when my car was broken down by the side of the road. But I knew tons of people who practiced it as their only form of transportation.

The times were different way back then. Our serial killers were limited to large cities, the major highway system we now take for granted was barely in its infancy. The youth of that time was represented by huge numbers, never seen in the history of the earth before and we felt we were invincible and could do whatever we pleased.

And we hitch hiked, criss crossed the world on a whim.

I have two really good stories, both happened to people I know, not to me.

My brother was hitch hiking to D.C. with a friend and on the way home on the outskirts of Somewhere USA were picked up by a large sedan with two very nervous, very scared guys. They traveled at a high rate of speed and crossed into West Virginia and began to slow down to kick out my brother and his friend.

"What's the deal?" they demanded.

"Man, we just robbed a bank back there and they were looking for two males in a dark car. We figured two more people couldn't hurt".

The second one involves a friend of mine who was hitching back home from Arizona. As was typical of the time, he met up with a couple of other guys on the side of the road and decided to stick together.

They were picked up and in a short time were driven off the major road onto a secluded side road.

"Give us your Money!" they were told as a knife was waved in their faces. The other kids argued and were taken out and smacked around until they coughed up their cash. My friend pulled his pockets out to indicate they were empty. His back pack was rifled through and nothing was found. "Man, that is why I'm hitching, I'm broke".

The robbers rode off leaving them in the middle of no where.

My friend had his money hidden in his boot. He bought them all a meal and then they split up.

Something else was also lost by the demise of Hitching a ride. The rich stories that were born of those more innocent less violent times.

Montage of Minutiae

And so he says, "You ever heard of Metropolis?"

And I say, "Superman's Metropolis?" And that is how we ended up at the River city across from Paducah on the banks of the mighty Ohio before entering the equally mighty Mississippi. I was not suprised that the area was over run with Super Hero fans. Lots of families and motorcycle gangs. Well, the type of gangs that are very established and everyone rides a very expensive bike with lots of expensive leather (ouch! it was 100 degrees at least) and lots of hot mama's (literally).

Why is it that it you become very successful on the Blogosphere that you are a BIG target for very snippy, mean spirited and down right ugly attacks (in the comments)? I like Pioneer Woman quit a bit. I don't care that she is obviously rich. I see that her Blog has become a "job" and that to have to sit at the computer and come up with something day after day can be exhausting. Hell, I use to post three times a week and it was killing me. Now it is all I can do to post once or twice a month! The attacks or actually attacks might be too strong a word... The criticism of her site reminds me of High School. Oh hell, not even High School but Grammar School. Does anyone remember the notebooks that use to be passed around and people would write comments about each other for all to see? That's what it reminds me of. There is a lot of jealousy on this wide wide web and fueled by the cloak of anonymity makes it pretty vicious.

And it makes me realize I love the drama! As long as I am not involved. Believe me, I have had my share and it sucks and hurts.

My tomatoes are coming in like gang busters except for the variety I planted in the middle. They are cracked and creepy looking. I hesitate to eat them and as soon as they quit being so creepy I'm going to give those away.

On the way to the Paducah area I listened to a double CD I have of Dan Fogelberg and it reminded me of the time I saw him in concert...circa 1976....and I think it was at Bellamine University. Out of all the seats in the auditorium I happened to be sitting in the one that was in front of the guy who was so F-ed up he lost his balance and fell into me and cracked my head. I don't think there was any blood, but I was in a bad mood that evening and then....I get bonged but good.

Also listening to Dan I realized that I did not feel the guilt and regret that usually accompanies the soft rock music I listened to from that era. That was an unexpected and very pleasant surprise!

Went to the tiny town in Extreme West Kentucky that I began my college career attending and left feeling violated and ....old. The town has totally changed and if I was shown pictures of it I would never be able to identify it. The old hang out where I would plunk down 99 cents and have a big breakfast has moved form one side of the street to the other and resembles a Waffle House. Then I could not find the old house I rented a room in and with horror realized the Waffle House clone actually sat on the spot!

I am saddened that my memories of my youth are slowly being erased!

Not A Cook's Kitchen

That was a line I recently read in a book and it immediately brought to mind my little area of food paradise. Would one refer to it as "Not a cook's kitchen"? There is nothing so energizing about cleaning a kitchen as pointing a camera into its dark places. A critical eye will notice I do not have any gadgets. Except a microwave. My stove is old and on its last leg. This is so disappointing because six months prior to leaving FW I bought a new gas stove. I prefer to cook on/with gas. Even though there is always the chance of asphyxiation from loosely connected lines. (I knew I kept catching a whiff of gas every so often in the house, but Joe told me I was just imagining things!)

My stove is not so bad if it is put beside the winner of the Food Channel Chicken Cook-off. I knew she was going to win when they showed her stirring the pot in her tiny space on her lopsided stove in Bloomington, Indiana. Besides the Hoosier bit, anyone that can balance a skillet on a appliance that gives the impression that an earthquake in happening right outside her window is a real champ.

I am cooking a pot of sauce/gravy for a spaghetti lasagna. My Sis is having a bit of a


crisis in her husbands family and I thought it would be the least I could do to help her out. And, my daughter is staying with me, maybe only tonight, as she has her wisdom teeth extracted today and the Doc said she could have spaghetti.

I am very happy when in the kitchen. I hate to clean up, but that is why God gave us dishwashers. I use to resist a dishwasher thinking it was a flagrant waste of precious water. But, after spending a Spring break in a condo being the maid for three people, including two teenagers(!) I broke and feel in love. Not only does it wash the dishes, it is a good place to hide them, unlike the sink where the pile up smacks of slovenly and lazy behavior.



What do you think determines a Cooks Kitchen? Duel stoves, a warming oven, two refrigerators, expensive appliances? Or, a well stocked pantry? (I could not believe that I did not have spaghetti in my cupboard, two boxes of linguine, two boxes of lasagna noodles and a box of macaroni was it. Finally, about 50 stands of angel hair! Help!!)


Once I was requested to bring a casserole to a family dinner. I did not manager my time and found myself aghast as I frantically clawed through my freezer to discover I did not have the required boxes of spinach for my famous souffle!! With an act of genius inspired with no time to make a trip to the grocery store, I whipped together a now much praised and copied Spanish green bean casserole. I may post it here someday...someday I remember all the ingredients again!

My Mother tells me that is the way her Mother was. She would fling a handful of this and a pinch of that and could never tell you, never be able to give you the correct amounts that made that soda bread. That rhubarb pie.

I hate that pie and always thought my Mom was mistaken about my Grandmothers abilities in the kitchen.

After all that cooking, it's nice to look out the window as rinsing the dishes for the washer. Poor roses, only buds escape the Jap Beetles these days.

It was a Hot and Steamy Night

I never forgot, all those years living away from Louisville, about the summer Catholic Festivals. They are the absolute best and more fun than one would think. First of all, there is the cake booth. How can it get any better than winning a delicious confection made by a church lady covered in colored coconut. Yum yum. And what if it cost $10 to finally win? It goes for a good cause. And it's tax deducible...maybe, that is if you do creative tax reporting. Next there is the beer booth. Thank God Almighty, because it was 96 degrees during the day and not much relief at night. The beer went down easy.

And last of all, the gambling. This is not your Grandmothers gambling of yesteryear. No longer are there long lean tables of bingo cards and hard corn markers scattered about under the glow of dangling yellow lights. No, now it is "Beat the Dealer" (which I kind of still do not understand) and it is a form of craps played with over sized dice that somehow are fixed in favor of the house! I played with $10 and it was up and down for about 45 minutes and I left with one measly dollar still in my hot hand.

Or not so hot hand

Truly amazing was the wheel that had different colored horses, 1 through 10, that you could bet on up to $1.00 by choosing the winning number horse. If per chance your horse came in, the odds were paid by the number designated by the lip thingee. (can you tell I am not a gambler?) much like baseball cards we once attached to our bicycle wheels to get that sweet summer sound.


It was very hot and we sweated a lot. After dropping a lot of money, drinking several beers, and not winning a cake we dragged our sorry selves back to the car and headed to a pizza joint.

Because we were hungry.

Every week end there is a similar summer festival. But, lurking somewhere in the not too far away future, in the month of August is the grand daddy of them all The St. Joseph Orphan's Picnic.

I'm saving up my money right now, because you never know, $10 chance could win you a Mustang.

Really.

Happy Place #3

A Movie House! Any Movie House!

I remember the first movie I attended in my small home town. (Didn't everyone have a small movie theater in their home towns back in the 50's and 60's?) Our movie house, called The Bacon was located on the street that entered the heart of downtown. At the time we lived on Broadway which was only a quick walk away. It must have been the week-end, and the movie was Tom Sawyer (or some adaptation of the movie). One particular part of the movie scared me to death! I was only five years old and mortified that my four and three year old brothers were unaffected by the horror of scary life on a raft! My father walked me home. The walk of shame. That quick walk, a mere two block became the longest walk of my short life.

The Bacon is an icon for all of us who grew up in Smalltown, KY. Saturday afternoon all of us kids, and I mean all of us, would flock to the theater and plunk down our 25 cents for the matinee, a double feature with a cartoon. A bag of popcorn and a small coke, add another 15 cents. Being the era of segregation, the black kids sat in the balcony, which I though was so unfair! I wanted to sit up there with a driving passion!

At times we had to go into into the Big City for our Saturday afternoon fixes. There were three movie houses in the downtown area of Lexington! (only one remains today). It was our great joy that Dad loved going to the movies with us. Talking him into driving us the 12 miles into Lexington and then enduring a movie was easy.

It was, I think (researching in IMDb) The Magic Sword, (1962). There is this one scene where the guy comes our of the cave and the sun hits his skin and his skin begins to turn into ulcers and sores and I had.....to leave the theater....again. There was no walking home this time, and I waited outside the theater.....with Dad, while my blood thirsty brothers, which may have included my three year old bro too(!), finished watching the atrocity on the screen. (which is really funny when I read the only review and understand how hokey it really was).

Can you tell I have never been a fan of the horror genre?

During the 1980's when Bridget was little, every Saturday afternoon we went to the Dollar Theater in J-town. They carried on the tradition of having family friendly films showing weekly. I love the memory of Bridget climbing into my lap and watching the films.

Can you believe there is a Dollar Movie within a mile of our house right now? Such a lovely place to escape the heat, settle down in the well worn seats, the tiny thrill when the lights fade to dark and then....and then, a movie! Nothing compares to seeing a film on the big screen in the dark, with a bag of popcorn.

I find myself seeking the comfort of films to cure most everything, at least for a short time. Loneliness, sadness, frustration, boredom......

Good therapy for just one buck.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

As you may know, I have to get back into the working world. It is no longer possible for me to stay a Kept Woman. The jig is up! It is time. This morning I began in ernest picking up the telephone to campaign an interview with my Old Company in a new position. A position that has been posted since March. Why? Not certain but it seems no one wants it. It's too hard. Shoot, I'll give it a shot, just give me an interview!

So, I'm on the phone calling everyone I know zooming in on someone and giving him a chance to contact me before I have to go to the Big Guns, my first boss who is now some sort of major player this side of the Mississippi.

Gosh, I hate having to go back to work, but that is life. While reading the Career Search section of the newspaper today I gobbled up the article about being thrown into the job market "at at certain age" and competing with all those young whipper snappers just graduated from college, all dewy eyed and full of vim and vigor. All your experience and wisdom does not add up to a hill of beans sometimes if you appear "out of date".

So, I went and had all my hair cut off!! What I have wanted to do for years. And I do mean years! I went to my friend, the Internet, and asked it (Mirror mirror on the wall....) "Louisville Best Of...." and sure enough I found last years list which included hair salons. That is how I found him. He could fit me in at 230pm today. The place was on the hip Bardstown road and I was taken back when I entered and the place was empty. He made his entrance about five minutes later and I just loved him right away! He did not sing me Herman Hermits like my hairdresser in FW (the name that must be whispered) but he said something that convinced me I was in the right place. When I mentioned this fabulous hair dresser I had in the 1980's whose middle name is Magic I was pleased to hear that many of Mr. Magic's customers were now Mr. New Guy's customers. I closed my eyes and let him work.

When I opened my eyes, my hair was magnificent! Stunning! And I love it!

The visitation and funeral was totally overwhelming. I can not imagine the turn out if it had not been a Holiday Week-end.

Funny story. My SIL lives way out in the country in a gorgeous house, very secluded and vulnerable if anyone got ideas to "visit" while she was in town. So, her sister house sat that evening.

As SIL was preparing to leave she went back and pulled out a small 22 gun and tried to hand it to "Sissy". Sissy refused it and waved it away.

"Sis, you may need it. You never know." and she thrust it at her again and once again she shook her head no and pushed the gun away.

"I would feel so much better if you took it!" my SIL pleaded.

Sis reaches into her purse and pulls out a 38 and lays it on the table, close at hand.

Sis was packing.

Happy Place #2

We all know what our Happy Places reside. That refuge of solitude (maybe) when things are going astray and we need a moment to catch our breaths, calm down, breath deeply. Even just anticipating the trip to such a place brings about a peace. And a happy place can be more than just a physical place, it can be a state of mind with our imagination being the vehicle of transport. And it does not necessarily have to be a place but a tangible item to grasp in both hands. It can be as simple as just being with someone. Or day dreaming.

The best thing about happy places is that they are just that, places of escape that make us happy. Bring a smile and feeling of well being.

The second happy place that I have decided to commit to this blog is The Library. As long as I can remember, since my Mother is a librarian, I have felt an awe of libraries. The first one brings to memory the smell of musty books, dark tomes that were hidden in the upstairs dusty high ceilings ancient building of down town. This place would never do for my Mom, so she organized and championed a renovation (some people more than likely cursed my Mom due to a library tax increase) that resulted in a comfortable refuge, a learning center, a place of gatherings and children's hour, open later and I dare say revitalized a little bit of downtown.

I found myself standing in an aisle of the downtown branch of The Big City with eyes closed trying to remember the name of an author my brother mentioned as an excellent writer of Civil war fiction. Try as I may to empty my mind so that the elusive name would just POP in, I could not reel it in. I read a trick was to think of a place concentrate. I found myself laying on the front yard lawn of the first house my parents purchases. I had my hands behind my head and was stating at the blue sky and the white billowing clouds as they crossed over head. I could feel the soft grass under my arms and the smell, oh the smell of clover. I was astonished that I dragged this memory out of ....nowhere! So astonished that I could not complete the exercise which consists of then counting up 30 steps and then throwing open a door. What you are looking for (trying to remember) will be on the other side of the door.

It was too sweet a memory to let go of, so I began to browse the titles to the left of my head. I was in the "M" section and laid my hand on "At Play In the Fields of the Lord" by Peter Matthiessen. "I'll be damned" I though to myself, "He writes fiction too?". I added it to the small stack I was taking home.

I began to read the novel and halfway through it I realized this story, written in 1965, reminded me of the books that I would sneak (or so I thought) out of the library under the discriminating eye of my Mother. Actually, it was fairly easy, as she was confident that our Catholic upbringing and her unfaltering faith would lead us to the correct books for our young minds. This is how I was able to read Peyton Place, Joy in the Morning, Our Crowd etc. at a very tender age.

APITFOTL was much like those books. Well written, great story, characters that haunted your non-reading state, people you cared for and hoped that maybe you were a little bit like them. The prose was fabulous...."we were like butterflies pinned to the frames of our mortality...." (something like that) and there were missionaries and mercenaries, good and evil, nakedness and South American natives. How I would have loved this book at 12. Not quite understanding the human emotions, the driving hungers and searches for meaning and salvation, but I would look forward to the day when it would all make sense.

This is what I love about the library, always have and why I always carry a book around with me much to my husbands chagrin. I raise my eyes from the written page and respond to his criticisms of my inattentiveness of his channel surfacing!! I shake my head at him, for why would I ever compare re-runs of Combat and The Rifle Man with a masterpiece such as APITFOTL?

The library is my escape.

The library is a magic carpet.

If it's Tuesday, it's Hamburger Night

This afternoon I had to go to the Post Office (return Netflix) and I thought I would swing by Walmart and pick up some sulphur for the dreaded black spot's on my roses. I approached Walmart from the west, I usually swoop in from the east, I zoomed right past the entrance! So, off to Miejer I went because not only will they have the sulphur (could not find it) but they continue to carry the Yoplait Whipped Chocolate Mousse I am addicted to. I curse Walmart for dropping it because Miejer charges $.21 more for it. Damn you Walmart!

Then to ALDI for the $5.99 bag of 3lb frozen chicken and $1.99 gallon of milk vrs. the $6.79 and $2.50.

My shopping habits have begun to change due to the rapidly climbing grocery prices! I now read the newspaper and chase the sales when I'm able and or in the vicinity. I can hardly afford my Coconut Rum anymore! It too has gone up in price forcing me to purchase the economy size 1.75 liter which in some ways is very very bad.

I happened to catch a television program in Memphis addressing the growing problems of limited income families making ends meet in regard to grocery shopping. That was where I was hipped to ALDI. I was also informed about a program called ANGEL FOOD that operated in and around Memphis. On a lark, I looked it up and found they have many locations in Kentucky and Indiana close to my home. Alas, I have not been able to take advantage of the great program, where you receive a truck load of food for $30.

It would be no problem for me to eat whatever is in the "box" for the month because of my Mother and our menu's while I was growing up and a captive in her house.

My Mom is a very educated person. Long story cut short, my Mom is the youngest of her siblings and very smart. She was the scholar of the family and her sister Maura did all the cooking cleaning etc. while Mom studied and did all sorts of astounding stuff like graduating from high school at 16, College at 19 and then received her Masters from Columbia after her mother whisked her off to Ireland for a year.

In other words, my Mom never learned to cook.

Our menu's never deviated from week to week, except when she was feeling anemic then we got the dreaded liver and onions.

Monday was Hot dog night. Hot dogs boiled in a ause pan on the stove and served with buns and mashed potatoes and green beans from a can. Chocolate milk with raw egg for the boys, milk for me and jello for dessert.

Tuesday, hamburgers and french fries. The hamburgers were the frozen kind that came in a box that you took a knife to and separate. French fries were also the frozen string variety served in a wooden bowl. Maybe a can of corn or celery and carrots boiled together.

Wednesday night was meat loaf night. Greasy and made with egg and crushed crackers. Green beans from a can and mashed potatoes.

Thursday was left over night.

Friday was spaghetti night! And maybe some fried shrimp, which she also made in a beat up sauce pan and sometimes turned black but was still a delicacy to me! If there was no smoking shrimp, there was tuna fish. No garlic bread, maybe some toast with butter. No mashed potatoes, though there was jello for desert.

Saturday she worked at the library and Nana made dinner when she lived across the street from maybe 1967 - 1972. Then we had chicken! Yea Nana! She made Waldorf salad with apple cut up in the lettuce. And mashed potatoes. She also made apple turnovers and sometimes cherry. The new fangled kind that you purchased in the dairy section and included was a small bag of icing. Oh I still remember how we looked forward to Nana!

Sunday was always special and we would have something different like a stew or a pot roast. Mashed potatoes and more veggies from a can. And maybe fruit cocktail from the can. And if it was Easter or someones birthday that week, a cake.

We were all skinny kids. We all had to eat what was on our plates because there were starving children in China. Sometimes my brother T. had to be restrained in his chair, as was his habit to slide down his chair and try to escape under the table. He was caught every time. Unfortunately I had to sit across the table from him and I will never forget the faces he made eating mashed potatoes. Like he was going to barf.

Every night except Friday.

We laugh about it now. It is still a good joke among us kids.

Back to my point, if I get liver in the Angel Food Box I can handle it. Just like the old days.

Fabricated Memoirs

Or...Daddy, Won't you take me back to Muhlenberg Co?

While reading a review of Augusten Burrough's latest book I was taken back by the intensity of the attack against the memoir. How can anyone remember the exact words in a conversation that had taken place so many years ago? His brother came to the defense stating that Augusten suffers from some type of illness that allows this type of recall.

Others still think it is fabricated, like his remaining family members.

Which made me think, aren't many of our memories from "long ago", at the least, slightly embellished?

Sometimes I will surprise myself with the intensity of a memory. For some odd reason I can recall with vivid clarity looking out a window on US 68 outside Hopkinsville while stopped for... (here comes the embellishment, because I can only surmise we were stopped for road work/traffic accident)...a delay. The day was bright, hot and the field was high yellow grass and the sound of bugs was like a symphony in the shimmering heat.

It is like a snap shot from 30 years ago.

This past week found me traveling down a thin ribbon of highway that transported me back those 30 years.

The scenery had changed drastically. Dramatically. I did not recognize much of anything. There were certain landmarks that I searched for that no longer exist. The worlds largest coal shovel sat on the Southside of the Western Kentucky Parkway. A looming beast, primitive, hauling away Paradise, down by the Green River.

30 years certainly does have an extraordinary effect on the landscape. Let alone my own personal landscape.

The drive took me whizzing past a town, on one of the several new parkways in the area, that I had spent many a Saturday afternoon drinking beer in the small Tennessee town where the legal drinking age at that time was 18. It made me wonder if that small hole in the wall was still there.

On the way home, I had to look.

My memory was like this: small downtown, railroad tracks, always raining, bathroom outside the building in the back, a rotisserie that slowly cooked the meat in the window, a old wizened African American shop keeper.

My memories include a simple suggestion, "Let's go to the Keg?"

An hour later, on the champagne flight, we would have arrived. Our presence would fill the bar and I'm certain, annoy the locals. But, we loved it. The pork sandwiches, the white bean soup and corn bread. The mirror behind the bar, the small tv in the top corner, near the ceiling. Frosty beer mugs....?

The the long ride home.

I did find the Keg, but it was not the same. The name and the location remain the same. All else is changed. Not a hole in the wall, but a restaurant with a dining room, the small cramped bar area thrown out of the 19th century into the 21st.

And, I'll be damned, indoor bathrooms.

On the wall are two newspaper articles. The first announcing the retirement of the old Black owner, in 1991 at the ripe old age of 91! And a second one in 1994, when he passed at age 94.

So, I had found a tiny piece of my past, my landscape, my memories. I can close my eyes and see Wild Bill tossing back the beer with all of us cheering him on. That man could down a brew in one gulp. I remember the glazed look in his eye after a couple of demonstrations.

And that silly grin. That silly happy early 70's goofy look.

And that's not a fabrication.

Leaves of three, leave them be

...or, It use to be easier to score drugs!


For over a week I have been battling a case of poison ivy. At first I thought it was a spider bite. That should have been my first clue. I actually blamed it on the apartment outside Memphis. I just know it has spiders! I should have known.

Two days later in horror I am watching it spread! I am naturally scratching it and complaining. My brother, N., takes one look at it and says those dreaded words, "That's poison ivy."

Oh hell no!! Please, hell no! The last time I had it I had spread it into my ear and had to call in to work because my face was so disfigured!

Immediately I began to be advised on what to do.

"Pour Clorex on it, that works. No, really, it works! I swear."

I can't imagine.

Next was Joe, "Once I had it on my back...." then I hear the whole story about how he and a friend rolled around in it while playing and ....." Baa, (his grandma, really, her name was Baa) told Mama to crush up some aspirin and mix it with alcohol and rub it on my back. It worked. Mama didn't grind up the aspirin very well and I had chunks of white stuck to my back, but it worked pretty well."

This sounded like a much better option. I bought BC powder (less grinding and chunk problems) and mixed it with rubbing alcohol. Oh sweet relief!! Joe took a basting brush and helped me get to those areas on my back.

Guess what? I spread it some more. Oh but that cold alcohol sure felt good on that burning rash.

So, off to the health store where I searched high and low for some Jewel-weed spray or dried herbs. They had not heard of it. Or course by that time I was close to pulling my skin off and was calling it Jewel-root. Finally I located a bar of Bert's Bees Poison Ivy Soap which contained (as the very last listed ingredient "garden balsam leaf" aka jewelweed. But first I had to endure every horror story they had to tell about poison ivy.

"I had it for three and one half months."

Sweet Lord!!

Yesterday found me in the doctors office showing off my revolting skin. I could wait no longer. At least he did not recoil like the nurse did the last time I had it.

Like I said, it use to be easier to score drugs!

I walked five miles to school in the snow!

Somethings just make you realize that you are turning into your parents. I find that I yammer on and on about things that as I hear the words ring in my ears, I know that I sound like an old fogey. For instance, I can not stand that all the trees in my hometown downtown have been chopped down! I realize that they are those Pear trees that have a relatively short life, but still the area looks so exposed and naked. Then, they decided to redo the sidewalks, the roads, tear down the old buildings that lined the once familiar streets to erect a modern style multi-retail building. Yuck and double yuck! I want back the old glass front "Mattress store" that old blind Bess L., who could barely see (and be seen) over the top of her steering wheel drove right into the show room after running the stop sign.

I miss having that memory rekindled every drive by.

I hate the Car dealership that now shines like a beacon on beautiful Lex. Rd. Did I say beautiful, the once beautiful Lex. road. It once boasted beautiful horse farms, gentle rolling hills with the tobacco bases, corn fields and stately mansions (at least they looked like mansions to me when I was a child) sitting behind white washed fences on expansive farms. In a rush to make a buck, the past is quickly being swallowed up as Dairy Queens and sub-divisions chop up the most coveted horse farm land in the world. The absolute worst is the farm that was sold by the heirs and leveled out for a Wal-Mart then went bankrupt. The ugly slash on our beautiful bluegrass sits undeveloped, as the preservationists slug it out with the visionaries, with a large weather beaten sign promising us a new shopping center "soon".

Ver/Lex Rd. will quickly become like the Lex/Nicholasville corridor. Nothing but ugly commercialism as the two towns attempt to merge into one.

I like stuff to stay the same so that I can count on it, look forward to it, and when it finally arrives know that it will be like it was before. Like strawberry season! And Keeneland Race Track being a 21 day event. And when Keeneland closes the spring meet, they move to Churchill Downs and its Derby Week!

This year Derby week began yesterday. Let's see, Derby week use to be the lead up to the Derby beginning with the Balloon Race on the Saturday morning before, the Chow Wagon on Main (which was as many people as possible squashed into a small fenced off area, drinking beer), $1.00 Derby pins, the parade, the Riverboat race, a couple of local events thrown in and then the Oaks, and suddenly its Derby Day!! One week.

Now, it begins three weeks before Derby,starting with the Thunder Over Louisville firework show. The biggest, baddest spectacle of shooting showering color you will ever see!

That reminds me of another story, the one where I attended the very first Thunder! It will have to wait.

I must go make strawberry pancakes.

I've been in and out of Happiness*

I was leaving the Kroger store yesterday, a 12 pack of Miller's Chill in one hand, a bottle of the hard to find Ken's Sun Dried Tomato salad dressing in the other and I became aware of this strange sensation as I walked out into the waning light of a sun drenched day. What is this thing on my face? It's a smile! By gosh, I'm happy!!

Have you had such moments? I remember them like four leaf clovers pressed in some lost book I use to have. Last year I was in a Walmart and suddenly knew I was soooooooooo happy moving to the Louisville area. I don't know why they take me by surprise, but they do.

My daughter is moving into a better apartment across town and I was helping out (just a little) in the clean up and I ran across an old hard plastic pencil box from her grammar school days. I held it up and began to laugh. I had been looking all over for that damn box and had given it up as lost. And there it was, with her.

Rightfully, it/they are hers. She collected them when she was a wee thing. She collected, I bought. I loved those things!

I never did see the "Mary" version of the Garbage Pail Kids, but Bridget hated hers...I'll post it later.

This was my favorite.




* "Is your love in vain?" Bob Dylan, Street Legal, 1978

What I'm reading at the Beach.

Oh woe is me, nothing to write about that is interesting. I did go to the beach in Alabama and it was a very chilly experience. Did manage to catch a little sunshine. I think I was in charge of two teenagers, I say think because my husband could be considered to have just a smige more maturity than those two. Just kidding, but one of them did manage to get a severe sunburn under my care and I am ashamed to say that I trusted that kid to put on sun block! When I say, "Are you using sun block?" and they say, "Yes I am." I should know, I should have known to ask, "Okay, what SPF is that so called sun block?" It was pretty bad, poor baby.

Anyway, that is as exciting as my life gets.

I brought along several books to read supposedly while I laid around with my SPF 30 in the spring sun shine of the Gulf Coast.

Man, what was I thinking bringing along "The Snow Leopard" by Peter Matthiessen! Not exactly a beach book. It reminded me of the time I read "Love in the Time of Cholera" while on another beach last year (a much warmer beach in Mexico).

Seeking.....

Have not written here in some time so thought I would throw something together and maybe get back into the groove.

Since my Fathers passing I thought I would take it pretty well since everyday for the past five years I have thought he could leave us at any moment. Each birthday might be his last, east Christmas the final one we would spend together.

Just like when he was born in 1919 weighing in at 4 pounds, premature, predicted to die. My grandmother carried him around on a pillow so tiny he was.

He always was surprising everyone and when he passed it certainly surprised me. My daughter said to me, "I thought this was just going to be like all the rest, he would come home from the hospital and get better." Me too, I thought that he would resume, rebound, once again sit out his days in the "electric chair" (a mechanical chair that lifts a person and then gently pushes them forward so they can be standing on their feet in a matter of moments) watching John Wayne movies and holding court with all his many visitors. Though he could barely hear us, sometimes not know who we were, he enjoyed company.

Anyway, I though I was prepared for him passing. I have learned that no matter how certain you can handle it, it's heartbreaking and you miss them terribly.

Last Sunday I sat in the electric chair and just ....... just sat there and let my mind drain.

Is there an after life? Does the spirit of those we love hang around and embrace us, engulf us for a while? When I look at that chair I see him there, I feel him there.

Under the surface I have an emotional struggle raging.

I attended another funeral yesterday for one of my parents friends. I dread the next one I attend, knowing its going to be "A" of "B".....and I dread it.

I am becoming philosophical regarding the afterlife. Being Catholic I am suppose to have faith that those who live by God's rules find eternal life......

Eternal Life? What does this mean exactly?

The Gift

Favorite Picture of Me and Dad -

During the morning hours of Feb 4, I woke up around 2am and tossed and turned, tried to read then turned off the light only to turn it back on and try again. Finally at 430 I was able to fall back into sleep.

At 730 am my brother called to let me know that Dad had passed away during the night at home with Mom. Mom thinks it happened sometime between 2-230am. She realized his breathing, which had been labored all day, had become quiet. She made calls and my brother arrived around 3am. They did what you do when someone passes in the middle of the night, then he suggested they say the rosary and finally at 430am she was able to lay back down.

I have written many times about my Dad. As I look back at my very first entry it was about my Dad going into the hospital with CHF and subsequently had a stroke. It has been a long journey, bittersweet at times, and so full of love and the celebration of a life to arrive at this moment when I and everyone who loves him, has to let him go.

"I want to go home!" he told us at the hospital Saturday and by gosh, they let him go home.

Now he has truly gone home. I am happy that his pain and suffering is behind him. That I so firmly believe in an afterlife I know he is now residing in that place I think of as heaven, able to walk without a walker, able to sing Danny Boy at the top of his lungs, hear without hearing aides that really don't work all that well anyway, remembering all the grandchildren names, eating whatever he damn well pleases, driving any car he wants, eating a banana split and swimming in the Atlantic ocean, dancing the jig with my Aunt Pat and Nana, laughing about him being a street urchin running numbers in Hells Kitchen in the 20's and 30's with his brother, and in a safe place without hospital beds, IV's and pills everyday to get you through the day. His heart will beat with the strength of all those who loved him and will remember him.