Move to Magnolia

In 1985 we decided to move from Houston, Texas to a little bitty town called Magnolia, Iowa. I was still married to Clown Shoes and my girls were only 2,3, and 8. We never had really gotten on our feet in Texas and by this time we were out of options there but we knew some people in Pisgah, Iowa who had been inviting us to come stay a while so we headed that way.
It wasn't winter so we fell in love with the countryside in Iowa and the simplicity of the people around Pisgah. Our friends lived on a 160 acre farm outside of Pisgah on the border of Magnolia. We found a house two miles from theirs in Magnolia that needed tons of work done but the landlord was offering three months free and then only $75. a month for rent so we jumped on it. It took most of the three months to fix up the house but we lived there while fixing it.
It was a big old farmhouse built in the ere when houses were built without closets because they were taxed by the room and a closet was considered a room. The farm it sat on was about 100 acres and rented out for grazing or farming. Besides the house there was a huge three sided garage for tractors and such and two large barns and two sheds. The barn closest to the house was use for the cattle on the land but the other buildings were unused providing a lot of exploring and play space for the girls and us.
The first thing I wanted was chickens so we set about the business of getting some. We started by buying three big white Leghorn hens from a farmer near Logan and put them up in one of the little sheds that appeared to be designed for chickens with a door to a little fenced yard. Clown Shoes made them each a nice soft nest and that night he went to check on them and found them sitting up on the rafters instead of in their nests. He shooed them off of the rafters and put them each in a nest and left them only to return and find them again sleeping on the rafters. Finally I looked chickens up in the encyclopedia and read that they sleep perched up high to avoid weasels and such. It was one a.m. already so I called Clown Shoes in from the shed and told him to leave the chickens alone.
Eventually we got more Leghorn chickens and then a rooster for them. We also got a flock of guineas and a couple of lambs, two ducks, a goat and a pig plus we had three dogs and a few cats that turned into a barn full of cats. Someone gave us a little colorful rooster that we decided to let run free away from our Leghorns and that was the first note of discontent on the farm. That rooster was mean. Maybe because he was kept without any hens to be with but he was meaner than all get out and particularly hated me. Maybe he knew I was the one who decided not to cross him with our precious double yolk Leghorns but he really hated me. He attacked me one day spurring me badly and knocking me in the cess pool and I got so mad I shot him. Not only did I shoot him, but I waited for him to look at me, not pulling the trigger until we locked eyes so he would know I was the one who shot him. Then I threw him in the burning barrel not even wanting to give him the honor of gracing my dinner table.
The pig fared a little better. He was a runt a neighbor gave us because my brother spotted one of his sheds on fire and alerted him, saving the farm. I named him Stewart and played the guitar and sang to him his first few nights in his shed to calm him. He got so big he would lay in front of the door and trap us in the house. We finally decided he had to go when he got to be 400lbs and still wanted to play tag like when he was a baby. We sadly took him to the butcher (he filled a 4 by 6 trailer) and left him but on the way home I had second thoughts and rushed back to save him but it was too late. That meat sat in a meat locker for three years before I finally asked them to throw it out. Never name your food.
We lived on that farm for eight years before moving back to city life. We went through some hard times and tragedies but mostly I remember the wonder of the animal and plant life around us. My children didn't even have or miss having a TV growing up because they had nature to watch. I regret many things in my life but the years on that farm will always be a wonderful memory of my little family.

Memorial Day

A very good friend of mine wrote this and I found it better than anything I could write for this day.

Memorial Day

We march down the long sloping street, lined with people, all rising in honor of the American flags our Legion Color Guard carries. The flags catch the wind as we come out from the tree-lined street, and the flag carriers struggle to control the whipping cloth. We are growing older now, and the flags and rifles are heavy, but we march proudly, shoulders back, striding in step to the "Hup, twoup, threeup, fooe", of the caller's cadence. Ahead of us, across the highway, between the Veterans' Memorial and the gray gravestones of the cemetery, we see the crowd, waiting. Latecomers stream from cars lining the roadsides, joining the crowd, filling the small parking lot and spilling out onto the green lawn.

We make the turn into the cemetery drive, pressed close by the crowd, as they part to give us room to march through. We turn again and halt, facing the five polished, black stones of the Veterans' Memorial, surrounding the flagpole, guarding the big American flag rippling in the breeze. Small flowers bloom in carefully tended beds near the black stones. Service flags ripple near the podium, where the Legion Commander sits ramrod straight, wearing his best suit and his Legion cap. With him are the minister, the speaker, and the Post Adjutant.

The crowd gathers, visiting, waiting, but staying at a distance. It grows quiet as the Legion Commander steps up to the microphone. The program is brief. A few words from the Commander, a short speech, the minister offers a prayer. Sometimes there is a solo. The band plays. I hear little of it. I see the kids in the crowd, moving about, not paying attention. I think of the soldiers only a few years older than the kids, who fought and died, barely yet men, with a whole lifetime of living and loving ahead of them. I look away from the kids, look again at the flowers.

The speeches are over soon, and the Commander leads the way from the podium to the American flags spaced across the front of the memorial. Each year, I have the same thought. There are too many. Each flag represents a member of our Legion Post who has died during the past year. As the Adjutant reads the final roll call, the Commander and his entourage salute each flag in turn. I remember each man, and how he was. Most of them, I knew well. It will not be the same without them. They ate with us, drank with us, marched with us. We disagreed, sometimes argued, but we were comrades, veterans, Legionnaires.

Solemnly, the group returns to the speakers' stand. The minister prays. The first grade class places wreathes on the graves. The band plays. After so many years of participating in this ceremony, I cannot tell you the order of the program. For me, the people evoke such emotion that the structure is lost.

"Ten - hut!" The color guard snaps to attention. I wonder if the crowd sees us as a group of middle aged, graying farmers and carpenters and retired businessmen, or do they see us as we feel, soldiers again, standing straight, ready to do our duty. "Firing squad, fall out!" Those of us who carry rifles leave the formation. We line up, away from the crowd, facing west. "Firing squad, ten - hut! Prepare to fire!" We step back, raise our rifles. "Aim! Fire!" Three times, the seven of us fire. The first volley is ragged, the second better. The last volley is crisp, perfect. "Present arms!" Once again, we snap to attention, holding rifles vertically in front of us. After the crashing reports of the rifles, the silence is deafening. The crowd is silent; the kids are still, waiting, frozen in place.

From the cemetery, out of our sight, the first notes of Taps ripple across the grass. Little shivers run up and down my spine. I blink back tears, not looking to see if anyone else does the same. How many times have we heard these melancholy notes as one of our comrades was laid to rest?

"Fall out!" The Memorial Day program is over for another year. Little boys swarm around us, looking for empty shell casings. I watch them, and hope they never have to fight as did those we honor today.

We mingle with the crowd, visiting, greeting friends. Buses are waiting to take us back uptown. Slowly, we filter through the crowd and climb aboard. Every year, someone says, "Can you believe all the people that were here today? It seems like there are more every year. All the things they could be doing on this nice Memorial Day, and they chose to come here this morning. We can be mighty proud of the people in our community."

We talk, and sometimes laugh, on the trip uptown. But sometimes an old soldier stares off into the distance, thinking, remembering.

Thrown up Family

For over a month now I have been having nightmares in which I am vomiting through the whole thing no matter what is going on. I never get my mouth clear of the foul things I am vomiting and have to carry one conversations in bits and pieces to pause to vomit. These are long, complex, dreams and almost always include family and friends who I no longer associate with. Tonight I got out of bed and entered "dreams, vomit, analysis" in my browser and was amazed to actually have a few answers pop up. The Internet is truly an incredible thing!!
The first interpretation said, "To dream that you are vomiting, indicates that you need to reject or discard an aspect of your life that is revolting. There are some emotions or concepts that you need to confront and then let go."
I can't think of anything in my life that is revolting but maybe there are things I need to reject or let go of. If I go about this like the references I found suggest, then I would look at the other things and people in the dream for a clue and, as I said, the people gone from my life are always in these dreams.
These people in my dreams are all of the family I have besides my own children and grandchildren and any friends I had growing up in Texas. Four years ago my brother and I had a disagreement while I was trying to recover from a terrible divorce and my brother, Mike, decided I was dangerously insane if not an evil Witch. He is an extremely paranoid person; one of those who go and recheck the locks on their doors ten times a night redoing the locks who whispers stories to you about hit men who have sought him and the likes. He is the owner of a small fireproofing company and I guess people want his formula so badly they will kill him yet he can't figure out a way to market it to make any kind of money. His stocks were at thirty cents a share last I looked.
Well, Mike told everyone in my wacky family about me being insane and dangerous and the next thing I knew no one would take any of my calls and I haven't spoken to a soul in our extended family since after being very close to them all all of my life. Closer than Mike in most cases but you've got to know Mike to understand how this could happen. He has a way of creating what I call Mikelites, followers, who are as sure as he is of his greatness in all aspects. I have found that people either become a Mikelite or just can't stand him and believe him to be false and delusional. I went from being a Mikelite to knowing he is extremely delusional the night we argued. It was truly an experience of the scales falling from my eyes and seeing for the first time that he was really nobody special in any way. He has a very high IQ but it is sadly offset by the outrageous things he believes and stories he tells.
I have gone through great grief over losing my family and then anger that they would turn from me without even speaking to me or asking about the things Mike was saying and I like to think I have simply washed my hands of them all but then there they are in these nightmares indicating they are all still here. In the dreams they always still love me and I can feel it so strongly I don't want to wake up even though I am vomiting and likely being shot at or attacked by monsters in the dream, too.
Another reference on vomiting in dreams says, "This dream may be an expression of your desire to be rid of feelings that cause you upset."
So how do I purge myself of the feeling of wishing these people still loved me? I love them in return in these dreams and in the deep recesses of my heart where I have been trying to kill them as effectively as they have all killed me off. How do I do this? I'd like to think that I am doing it right now in some part by getting up and writing this down at two in the morning. I don't know how much I believe in this dream analysis stuff but I do know I am getting tired of dreaming I am vomiting all night and I'm tired of spending this much time with people who never want to see me again.
I am happy with the family life that I do have left to me. My children are very loving and supportive and I have a wonderful relationship with my grandchildren. My oldest granddaughter and I have a bond that takes my breath away sometimes it is that close. I have no clue why I would seek any more in my dreams. I truly believe that my family have cheated themselves out of knowing some very wonderful people as they have had to cut out my children and grandchildren with me. It is truly their loss more than mine!

So, here's to being done vomiting them up every night and I pray I can bury them with the past they belong to. I'm ready to get some real sleep and tired of seeing their faces every night!

Musical Meme

I was tagged with this musical meme by Katie at http://www.katiescrazyride.com so here goes!

1. Go to www.popculturemadness.com

2. Pick the year you turned 18

3. Get yourself nostalgic over the songs of the year

4. Write something about how the song affected you

5. Pass it on to 5 more friends

Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover: This song was the only one that really jumped out at me because I was in an abusive marriage and pregnant when it came out. I'm just glad it didn't take me fifty times to leave him! No, the sad truth is that I married him again after divorcing him and then left him again for good after only six months the second time we were married. Funny thing, we are pretty good friends now and have over the years worked together to raise the daughter we share. But I don't regret that I finally slipped out the back, Jack!

Being Done by Drugs

I was living in Pasadena, Texas when my oldest daughter, Jami, called me from Omaha, Nebraska to tell me that she thought she was going into labor. This was no joyous call. She was terrified and wanting desperately to stop the labor and I knew the horrifying truth about this pregnancy. She hadn't been able to stop doing drugs when she got pregnant like she'd told me she would and was now terrified of what might happen next. I had to put out of my mind the horror I felt at what had been done to my next grandchild in the womb and deal with getting her to do the right things now. She wanted me to come to Omaha right away but I didn't have the money and they didn't have enough money to fly me so her Air Force husband, Mikey, bought bus tickets for my boyfriend, Jeremy, and me to come ASAP. We left in a flurry with the allowed two suitcases each, not knowing that we wouldn't be able to get back and would never see any of the things we left behind.

Michelle Rose Manning was born March 4th, 2005 while we were on our way there. Mikey picked us up at the Greyhound station and took us straight to the hospital. We got there and found Jami looking exhausted but doing OK after delivering by C-section. We left Jami at the hospital and went to their home where I felt like I had just stepped into the twilight zone. Their house had always been cluttered but now it was down right filthy and we were haunted by the fact that there was no sign in the house that they were expecting a baby. No baby room, no crib or little clothes lay ready. Their other two daughters had vacant lost expressions that were only topped by Mikey's. I watched him carefully and he seemed to be in a far distant removed state of mind and it didn't take a genius to realize that he, too, had some kind of a drug problem going on. We talked about everything except bringing home a baby and went to bed.

The next day we were told that Michelle had to be moved to Methodist Children's hospital because she was having problems feeding and breathing. They told us they found a hole in her lungs that they were watching at Children's. The hospital Jami was at honored new parents with a romantic steak dinner together the night before discharge so Jeremy and I watched the girls, Lindsey,8, and Joey, 3, while they had their dinner.


The next day when Jami was released I thought for sure the first thing she would want to do was to go see little Michelle but she had other plans that floored me. We had taken their car and Ranger truck to pick up her and her belongings and as we were leaving Jami said she wanted Mikey and Jeremy to take the girls home and for me to ride home with her. Mikey gave her $70. and after we took off she said that we were headed for Council Bluffs and I had to hide my shock because I knew that was where she always went to get drugs. Sure enough, we went to a guys house where she bought $50. of crystal meth and then went home. She explained to me that Mikey knew all about her drug use and that he was fine with it and that he even bought it for her. The people she had bought the speed from had even mentioned something about how "cool" Mikey had become about everything. Then she told me that they had both been taking Oxycontin, synthetic heroin, that a doctor, Dr. Rosario, prescribed for her. She told me that I should see him, too, for my fibromyalgia and that he would write a prescription for whatever I wanted.

The next day we all went to see Michelle Rose and each got to hold her for a few moments and we left there and Jami and I went to see Dr. Rosario. I asked her if she had been taking the Oxycontin through her pregnancy and she said that Dr. Rosario hadn't said anything about her being pregnant being a problem.

I have never seen a doctor's office like Dr. Rosario's in my life. It was in a very nice building but when you got in his office it was set up with folding chairs that went in a circle all around the room. Sitting in those chairs were clearly junkies, every one of them. They would be called back for their turn and be back there for five minutes or less and come out with a prescription headed for the pharmacy. Dr. Rosario would be arrested on at least 14 counts of malpractice before the year was over and I was blamed for it by many but I'm afraid I can't take credit for it. I WAS investigating doing it but the FBI beat me to it.

We would sit in the kitchen and smoke cigarettes at their home because there was an air vent there to suck out some of the smoke and spent almost all of our time there. Jami told me there that Mikey was in the bathroom so much because he had been "cleaning up" and the withdrawals from oxi's caused diarrhea. She said she had no clue why they hadn't found drugs in Michelle already and taken her away. Every friend she had had lost their children for having a baby with Meth in their system but they had gotten away with it by some miracle.

That night Jami and Mikey took their Oxycontin and went to check into a hotel with a jacuzzi at one of the big casinos to celebrate, I'm not too sure what they were celebrating. The birth, getting away with the birth, or just getting a new prescription of Oxycontin. We stayed home and watched the girls which included delousing them because Lndsey had been sent home from school with lice for what she told me was the umpteenth time. I asked her if the house had been deloused during this time and she said no like I expected. Jeremy and I would discuss these things when we were alone together at night and try to figure out what if anything we could do.

It was all taken out of our hands the next morning when a sheriff called from Methodist Hospital and said that they were coming to the house and for Jami and Mikey to remain at home. Mikey called his commanding officer and he and a group of military people showed up with the police. Jami and Mikey had both just done some Oxycontin before the phone call so they were in a confused state of panic. Jami screamed "Oh God! I have a warrant! I'm going to Jail! Mikey, help me get together the things I will need in jail!"

They rushed to their room and started frantically searching for clothes and things for her. Jeremy had been cleaning their house every chance he got and he tried to do some more while we waited but it was just so hopeless to try to get it clean.

The police and the military came and they all sat in the living room with little Joey sitting with Jami and Mikey. Jeremy and I stood in the adjacent dining room watching and listening. Michelle had been tested and was found to have so much Meth in her system that she wouldn't even start going through withdrawals for two to three weeks. They explained that she would be held in protective custody for the time being and Jami and Mikey dully nodded, I guess deep down expecting this all along, and then the officer went on to say that they were taking Joey immediately and would be picking Lindsey up from school right after leaving the house. Mikey's mouth flew open and Jami cried out, "NO!" because they, and I admit we, hadn't even thought about them taking the other girls although in retrospect it is obvious they would.

In a normal world I would have had a chance to take custody of the children, but during the years that I had been trying to get Jami to get off of the drugs, I had threatened turning her into the Air Force and CPS so they had in retaliation done a thorough smear job on me telling everyone that I was mentally unstable, insane, and couldn't be trusted with anything I said or did. So I could do nothing but stand there and watch.

They had never bonded with the baby to come but had ignored her pregnancy to the extent that Jami hadn't seen a doctor during the nine months she was pregnant. I suppose that and their drugged condition was why they could dispassionately hear that they would lose Michelle but losing them all was a blow they hadn't thought of and now couldn't accept. There was wailing and screaming and crying in the house after the police left saying for them not to leave home and that they would be hearing from them soon.

Mikey threw himself on the mercy of the Air Force telling his commanding officer everything and was instructed to divorce Jami and place all of the blame on her and everything would be OK. I was stunned beyond belief that he wasn't even going to be discharged for drug abuse! And if sure worked out for him. He was never questioned about or tested for drug use by the State and the only thing he was charged with was child endangerment for the condition of their home which mysteriously got dropped along the way. He put Jami and us out of the house for good that night. We couldn't get back to Texas and of course Mikey's promise to at least take us to get our things if we came and had to stay was null and void. Jami left for Council Bluffs with the truck and would go through hopeless homelessness for the next several month. Jeremy and I moved in with my youngest daughter, Jess, in her boyfriend's home but Jami didn't want to go there and her drug use wouldn't have been accepted there any how and she knew it.

I and a lot of other judgmental people really criticized Jami for her actions after getting kicked out of the house. Everyone wanted to know, Why doesn't she give up the drugs NOW and fight for her children?? Does she love drugs more than she loves her children? It would be some time before I saw things from where she stood at the time. She watched from afar while Mikey got the children back including baby Michelle surrounded by his moneyed family all cosseting and consoling him for the terrible things that woman had done to his baby and children with her drug addiction wanting to scram at the injustice but holding her tongue so the children would at least be with one parent. I had told his parents in a fit of outrage at this that he had been addicted to Oxycontin for three years himself and that he was fully aware of Jami's drug use during her pregnancy even "scoring" some Dilada for her once. This was taken in with shock and then forgotten in the "we hate Jami" chorus. I, as I said, had been rendered powerless to help her or to fight the Mannings. Even though they lived in another state they were offered custody if Mikey couldn't take care of the children. I wasn't even allowed to call and find out how they were while the state had custody that first week. Jami was in pain that no one can fathom or judge. She knew of only one thing that killed the pain. Drugs. Even they didn't completely kill the pain. Nothing could. But they gave her a little relief. Enough that she didn't kill herself in total despair. They were pretty much the only friend she had. She lost what little she had left for them, too, which included the beat up truck she was granted in the divorce to follow. at truck was the only thing she was granted after five years of marriage. Jami went on a downward spiral that it is unbelievable that she survived it at all. She would call me crying from someone's dank basement who had taken her in off the street where there was no electricity and she sat there all night just crying. The only people Jami or Mikey had associated with over the last three years had been from the drug community from Council Bluffs and they were the only ones who took her in but nothing was ever stable. Fights and arguments break out and places get raided and a junkie like her is just constantly on the move looking for the next fix and the next place to sleep. She finally teamed up with a small time drug dealer named Kirk who fell in love with her and took care or her the best he could. He didn't have a home either but he had more options of where to stay at night since he supplied so many with their Meth. It wasn't a perfect solution for her but it was better that her out there alone. It didn't last long. Jami was arrested August first for changing a prescription written by Dr. Rosario only days before he himself was arrested. With Jami in jail, Mikey finalized the divorce getting sole custody of the children and giving Jami limited supervised visitation. She was to pay him child support, too, but couldn't at this time, obviously.

Jami served a year in jail without a single visit with her children although Mikey did accept her phone calls so she could talk to them. I also took her calls for that year and we grew closer than ever finally getting to know each other and developing a bond neither of us had ever thought possible again since before her drug use started at age 16.

Jami gained about sixty pounds during her year in jail and was horrified with herself when she was released last August. She had sworn to me that she wouldn't shoot up drugs again but wouldn't say that she wouldn't do drugs at all. She would try to say it and try to believe it but is just too honest to claim it with the urge still there. Jami shot her drugs up in he jugular vein of her neck giving herself the strongest "rush" you can get from doing them and every fiber in her craved this even after a year in jail.

I honestly think she started smoking Meth when she got out to lose the weight thinking that she could control it. She tried to find work that first month but was turned down almost everywhere, I believe because she still had the look of a drug addict, and she couldn't pass a background check needed for any kind of good job. Joining society would be a very hard thing to do. Meanwhile, Kirk and all her old friends were here to welcome her back to their world and, after being rejected too many times by the world the rest of us live in, she went back to where she was welcome.

During this time Mikey would bring the girls to see their mother once or twice a week meeting at my home. Baby Michelle seemed to know Jami was her mother right away and, even though she never really let me hold her for long, she would go to Jami willingly. It didn't take Mikey long to realize that Jami was doing drugs again. She couldn't handle them very well at first and would often be slurring and nodding out. I believe she was also doing them in big quantities, both meth and Oxycontin, but Oxycontin had become very hard to find now that Dr. Rosario was gone and doctors everywhere in the area were afraid of facing the same fate and cutting back on who they would give narcotics to. There was one doctor left in Council Bluffs who still prescribed them fairly ofter, Dr. Blair, who was nothing like Dr. Rosario in that he was also an excellent physician, but he lost his license six months after Jami got out. So heroin made a big comeback in the drug market in Council Bluffs and still is the most prevalent drug available after Meth.

August 20th Jami was diagnosed with CA MRSA, a staph infection in the skin that is extremely hard to treat and very contagious. Mikey was getting out of the Air Force and deciding what to do after discharge but when he heard of the MRSA he decided real fast that he was moving home to Minnesota with his parents. We said good bye to him and the girls in February 2007 and haven't seen them since.

AFTERMATH:

Jami is still with Kirk and they have been weaning themselves off of the heroin with a little help from me. They got their habit down to $12.50 a day each of heroin and, to celebrate and motivate them farther, I rented them a cheap apartment. They loved having their own home for the first time and talked excitedly about working to keep it. Kirk had been "scrapping" for money going through dumpsters at construction sites or wherever he saw precious metals had been thrown away and was able to make a surprising amount of money doing so. It was looking good for them until Kirk saw a non-magnetic steel sign at a car wash that he couldn't resist trying to steal and sell for scrap and he was caught and is now in Jail with a $10,000 bond. I am afraid for Jami now. She has been staying in Council Bluffs not wanting to be at their apartment alone and I know she is being offered drugs by many in sympathy for her man being in jail and by hopeful men thinking they might get something out of gratitude from her. The fear is like a rock in my gut as I hear from and see her less and less and her apartment sits there like a dream unfinished. I wish she would keep trying to get a job to save the apartment but she is telling herself that Kirk will be out in time to save the apartment and her. I'm not so sure of that. His lawyer isn't optimistic at all and is his only defense right now unless I can hire another attorney. Kirk had a bond hearing yesterday and his lawyer was out of the room the first time they called him up so they told him to go to the back of the line. When they were about to call him again his lawyer left the courtroom and I went after him but couldn't get to him so I returned to the court room and it was all over. The judge had asked another public defender in the room to plead Kirk's case, and the guy didn't know anything about the case and stuttered around a minute frantically trying to read Chuck Fagen's writing, so the judge just denied the bond. From this we see his attorney isn't going to exactly act in Kirk's best interest. When Fagen entered the room again he didn't even glance at the judge or us and just walked through and disappeared through a back door.

Kirk's only hope of getting out any time soon is if he is offered and agrees to "Drug Court" where he would have to be on supervised probation and be randomly drug tested throughout. In other words, he has to give up the drugs completely to get out. He says he can and is willing to even though the punishment for failing is to serve the maximum time allowed for his crime in prison without parole which would likely be at least five years. Mr. Fagen told me that 90% of those who fail do so because they have an addicted significant other. Jami says she is cleaning up, too, told me that yesterday was her last day to do drugs but she has been staying with an older man who sells morphine for the last two nights. She is cleaning his house and helping him do things he can't but it is hard to believe she is around morphine and not doing it. She herself told me that it would be harder for her to quit than for Kirk.

I'm praying.

Falling in Love Again

I swore way back in about 1986 that I would never fall in love with another animal. I had a cat then named Dusty that had grabbed my heart at first sight and I was totally devastated for months after losing him. I was living on a farm in Iowa when he just disappeared one day. I called for him every night for almost a month while going through the small town phone book calling everyone in it looking for him. Being in a farming community, I reached a lot of farmers who couldn't understand being so upset about a lost cat. Many offered me one of the dozens they had living in barns and sheds on their farms. I refused all offers and cried every night for my Dusty and then swore to never get so attached to another animal so my heart couldn't be broken like that ever again.
I grew fond of other animals that other people in my family had. My children had pets and I loved them all and helped care for them but never let them completely into my heart where I could be devastated when they were lost to us. My youngest daughter had a dog named Scotty who came very close. When he was hit by a car and had to be put to sleep I cried for several days but my heart break wasn't as deep and was partly for the loss to the children. We had two farm dogs that had to be given away when we moved to the city and I grieved their loss but again, nothing like the pain of losing Dusty. My husband had a cat named Shadow who came the closest to getting inside of my heart. He was a beautiful dark gray cat who was one of those cats who seemed more human than feline. He loved Jeremy with all his heart. Maybe that is what helped me to keep from totally falling in love with him and when he died a horrible death I cried long and hard but, again, a lot of the tears were for my heartbroken husband's loss.
Then I met Alicia. I wanted a cat to keep the mice out of our new home in Omaha and my daughter told me about a litter that a friend of hers had so Jeremy and I went over there to pick one out. There were cats and kittens everywhere as the woman was a big time cat lover and couldn't afford to spay her pets and then couldn't bare to part with any kittens. When I walked in I immediately spotted a tiny kitten sleeping in a laundry basket by their couch. We talked to the couple and they told us about their love for their kitties and how they couldn't stand giving them away but knew they had to start letting some of them go and then as we talked to them they came around to being ready to share their kitties with us because they liked us and felt we would be good parents for a kitten. I picked up the little sleepy one in the basket and the husband said that she was a special kitten because she had been born in the same birth sack with another kitten and that the two of them were still very close and seldom apart. Then sure enough, another kitten almost identical to her walked up to us and Jeremy picked her up. We looked at each other and smiled and said that we would like to take both of them. They were thrilled that the kittens wouldn't be separated and they gave us litter and food to get them started even though they seemed poorer than us and we took our new babies home. After watching them tumble and play for several hours we finally decided on names for them, naming them Alicia and Katrina, after two hurricanes well known to us. Katrina, everyone in the country will remember as a hurricane that destroyed much of Louisiana, and we had both lived through hurricane Alicia in Texas.
We loved and nurtured the kittens and they grew into cats as kittens tend to do and I was maintaining my little locked space to my heart just fine until one day when I was petting Alicia and I felt a sharp pain in my chest. It took me a while to realize that it was that rusted shut door slowly creaking open causing the twinges of pain. I kept petting her and the door sprang open and so did the tear floodgate but this time with joy. I am deeply in love again and I love her like my own child and I love that she loves me the same. She comes to me to be pet and then for a place to sleep. If she can't find a comfortable spot on top of me she will sleep up against me and I sleep loving her warmth and her purring next to me. Alicia seemed to know she was mine from the first minute and I only regret now that I didn't let her into my heart immediately so I would have those first few weeks with her being in love, too! I love Katrina but still have a bit of space between her and me. She is Jeremy's and a more aloof cat from the beginning although I expect Jeremy to get closer and closer to her.
Alicia is totally the new love of my life. I am disables and spend a lot of time in bed and she seems to know when I need her the most and is always there to comfort me and get me through the worst of the pain I go through every day and night. She does the dance winding through my legs while I sit here typing until I lift her into my lap where she purrs and waits for my hands to be free to pet her.
I'm in love again and thrilled to be in love with my sweet Alicia. I can't believe I locked my heart shut for twenty years to such a wonderful experience! I know now, of all things, we should never ever lock our hearts to love. There is nothing greater in life than love . :-)

Being a Booklady

One of the greatest times of my life was when I was working door to door sales selling encyclopedias. I sold P.F. Collier Encyclopedias off and on for about six years and they were the best and some of the worst times of my life. I loved the job once I got the hang of it. At first I thought I never would sell anything. Not that we were allowed to use the word "sell". Our job was to "place libraries" in families homes and it took me three weeks of pounding doors to get the hang of it.
The sales pitch itself was a thrill for me. To go out and say the exact same things over and over and get the same reactions was amazing to me. Of course the whole pitch or "presentation" as we called it was a con. We used the same pattern of presentation that Caesar used. First we introduced ourselves and our idea, then we described our problem with it, in our case, how to let people know it existed, and then tell the people how they could help us with our problem and what we would do for them in return. We only "interviewed" couples so there would always be a co-signer available and we would tell them that we had just spent eleven million dollars and nine years of research on a new home learning program but our problem was how to tell people about it. We couldn't explain a whole new concept in learning in a sixty second commercial and we couldn't hang a sample set on everyone's door. So, we decided to carefully interview families in different areas and place a few libraries in each neighborhood and let the finest form of advertising, word of mouth, speak for us through our families. You wouldn't believe how people would try to qualify to be the family for their neighborhood! We had to find out if they had a checking account and a listed phone to sell to them so we had different ways of finding out right away. The cowardly way was to ask if they had received a flier in their returned checks telling them we would be in the neighborhood. No? Well, then did you by any chance get a phone call from the company telling you we would be stopping by? No? Is your phone listed? But I preferred to be daring and use a more direct approach like,"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we are looking for the more established families in the area, such as, have you lived here long enough to have established local checking and have a listed phone?" All the while we would be sizing them up looking at their home and if they had children and if they seemed to buy a lot of things for their children. Once we deemed the family qualified to view our wonderful library we would start them off showing them preschool learning books, and then story books, and maybe one other thing like a set of classic story books and then we would whip out the encyclopedia broadside and spread it on the floor before them saying "What do you call these?" The answer was always a dull "encyclopedias" but we were prepared for that and would turn it around immediately by saying, "Yes, we still call them that because they are numbered one to twenty four and listed A through Z and they look a whole lot like encyclopedias BUT have you ever seen an encyclopedia that could teach you how to sew, knit, dance, fly a plane or even how to turn a Volkswagen into a helicopter?" And of course they hadn't and we had their attention again and went on to show them a prospectus of the set containing all the best pages of the set in one book. We would constantly qualify them to the sale. After showing them each item we would question each of them, "Would you use this if it were placed in your home?" After showing the encyclopedias we would make the first mention of money . We would tell them we would place the library in their home if they would agree to tell a few friends about us and just send us their spare change. We'd pull out a mini encyclopedia that was a bank and ask our families to put their spare change in it every day and round it off to $20. a month and send it to us for ten years. Then we would do the conversion to the real money. We would say that we were getting complaints about the ten year plan, and wasn't there an easier way to handle it? Of course there was! We would tell them we had a three year plan where they would use the same bank, but conscientiously save all of their change for the bank and even tell them to not give change at stores but instead use bills and bring the change home for their bank. We found that most families had forty, fifty, sometimes sixty dollars in their bank by the end of the month!! We would just ask them to round that back to forty dollars a month and send it in. This would save the family seven years of saving change! And since it would also save the company seven years of book keeping we would reward the family with LOTS more books!! And then we would pull out science libraries, how to books, growth and development books, dictionaries!!! All for just telling a few friends and saving change!!!!!
And, by golly, it worked. If there was ever a snag we were trained to handle any objection the couple might come up with. My favorite that worked in almost any situation was, "John and Mary, I think you like what you see, I really do. But I feel that there is something getting in the way of your enthusiasm. I'd like to remind you that this isn't like buying a car where they jack up the price more the more you say you like it. We can only place this library with families who absolutely love it. So, I'm going to have to ask you to put your scepticism in another room while I ask you one more time before I am forced to disqualify you, do YOU (pause) DEFINITELY (pause) like what you have seen?" Badabing badabang! I had a sale. Another favorite was the "circle of knowledge"; to Agree, Re-explain, and Re-qualify. "I understand you believe you can't afford this right now. We will work with you in any way we can because we know the most expensive education you can give a child is a poor one because they pay for it for the rest of their lives. Do you feel that thirty cents a day is too much to invest in your child's education?"
Did I ever feel guilty? Not of any sales I ever made. I would look at the money spent by the family on outdoor and indoor toys and games and I am a firm believer in books being important to have in the home no matter what if they have the money to spend. I did feel bad when working with one of my managers who had a hard time getting in doors for some reason unless the people were dirt poor and he would write them up on the ten year plan while I played with their undernourished kids feeling like he was stealing from the family but thankfully most of his sales went down in the credit check. Otherwise, it was great fun for me and I would try to make it fun for the family, too. I would be in their home from one to sometimes three hours so I had to be somewhat entertaining! I've had families call me later to tell me of things like new births in the family and invite me back over many times. If a family ever firmly objected I would stick to my guns and fold up my stuff saying, "Well, that definitely isn't the reaction I was looking for so I will get out of your hair now!" and I'd make a quick graceful exit and go on to another family.
I have to add that there was a whole other story going on behind the scenes. We traveled in groups every Thursday through Sunday to surrounding cities and often go out of state so there was always romance springing up in the crews and fights and everything you could imaging went on on the road trips. We constantly had new people to train on the trip and that was part of the reason for the trips. It separated the rep from his or her friends and family to be completely ruled and dependent on the sales managers. The management, which I was quickly a part of, worked the people constantly to eat, sleep and live for placing libraries. I just realized that in a lot of ways our business resembled a cult. We would isolate the reps from everyone they knew so they wouldn't talk them out of working door to door and we even had our own language beyond using "placing libraries" for "selling encyclopedias". A family ripe for selling to was a "moochy" family, a "dredge" was a low class person, a "blanker" was someone who didn't make a sale which was referred to as writing up a family.
We sang crew songs on the way the "field" every day while we looked for each reps "area" and selected them a pick up point. The songs were rewrites like:
"The minute I knocked on the door,
I could tell they were a qualified family,
The phone was listed and employment was fine,
It seems like I've written them up a thousand times in my mind!"
Can you name that tune? It was great fun and designed to hype up the workers and relax them before hitting the field. One manager went so far as to explain that you sing with one side of the brain and think with the other so it was to rest the thinking side before working it. Whatever, it was one of the things that make working door to door sales a nostalgic memory, and, as far as PF Colliers goes, only history as there are no book crews these days. WE all knew the computer age would catch up with us as well as just the changing times. It became more and more dangerous to drop people off at five p.m. and pick them up at ten p.m. as workers were attacked more and more in the field.
I still remember every word of my book presentation and almost every song we sang. Indeed, I could name off reps and tell stories about them for hours if there was anyone to listen to the history of book sales. Instead it rests in my heart as one of the most exciting and educational times of my youth. I don't think I would be half the person I am without this in my past. I think I'll go sing a crew song to my granddaughter and see if she recognizes the tune...

The Tepee

I love anything Native American and have always read about how the different tribes lived, even before I found out that I am Cherokee myself. Jeremy and I had been living in a run down trailer house that belonged to his step father who was in prison when we started to go down financially. First we lost the car we were using and then we couldn't get to doctor appointments for his Epilepsy or my myriad of illnesses and diseases and we didn't qualify for any kind of government aid because you have to have children or be working twenty hours a week to get aid in Texas so we slowly went downhill. By the time Jeremy was selling blood every week to feed us, we had lost our electricity and water so life became very dismal and there seemed no way out or any future for us. We had tons of garage sale type items plus we scavenged for more all the time and tried to set up a little second hand business on the property but got shut down after three weeks for running a business without a license. We were dong all of our cooking on the bar-b-que pit, I even baked a pineapple upside down cake in it one day! Then I mentioned to Jeremy one day that I wish I had a tepee to live in so we could have fire in our home for cooking and heat. The next day Jeremy was gone out side for a long time and when I went to look for him he was halfway done building a tepee! He found six 24 foot iron rods that he wired together at the top for a frame and then he covered it with canvas painter's drop cloths he found out in the shed. I joined him and started sewing it together leaving a flap that opened for a door. We found enough bricks laying around to make a fire pit in the center and there was a pile or red fencing boards out back that we used to put in a floor and our new home was done. It was incredible! We used a round grill from an old bar-b-que pit over the fire to set pans on or to grill right on it and began one of the most precious times of my life. There was a church across the street that let us use their hose for water and I would get up in the morning and stir up the fire embers and heat water for coffee, and while it boiled I would put on big pots of water to run out the fire ants that moved in and started building by the fire pit every night. During the day we gathered and cut wood and pulled tall, dead nettles to use as kindling. I washed our clothes in a tub outside the tepee. We would go for walks looking through dumpsters for things to fix and sell even after our little store closed and rode our bikes ten miles to the blood bank twice a week. We bathed by the fire in the evening which was always fun, you didn't have to worry about spilling water! It just ran off between the floorboards and soaked into the ground. What was the most amazing was how warm we stayed in the winter cold and rain. The first time we had a hard rain I thought for sure the fire would go out but it burned through every rain storm. The Native Americans sure had a great design for living in!
We would play cards and dominoes by fire and candle light in the evenings until we went to bed. We were on about a half acre right on the border of South Houston and Pasadena and amazingly no one bothered us about living in a tepee. It wasn't all fun and games. There was always that hopeless feeling in out hearts that we were barely surviving and had no clue how to get out of the tepee and back into society. The trip to the free clinic was as far as the ride to the blood bank and we just couldn't get there often enough to keep up our health. We did get bothered about things like not being able to mow the property according to the city ordinances. We had it mowed down once when we first got to the trailer and found a car hidden in the weeds as well as a young Mexican man living behind the shed! We knew our life couldn't go on this way forever and didn't particularly want it to either. We both kept up a brave facade but we were terrified of every new day living in this limbo.

It all ended after about six months when my children found out how we were living and my oldest daughter sent for us and my youngest daughter took us in and gave us a chance to get on our feet here in Nebraska. We were thrilled to have electricity and running water and a real bath tub and TV to amuse ourselves again! But as we left the tepee I said, "I bet you we miss this place someday," and since then we have seen many days when we miss the simplicity of the poor life we lead back then. Our lives are now full of my children and grandchildren and we live in a real house of our own like "normal" people. We try to convey to people the simple contentment we could feel in our tepee days and never quite paint the picture for them. I don't even think I have come close writing this to capturing the spirit in our lives during that time. It was poverty in it's severest form and became a rich part of our past. I wouldn't do anything any differently that we did to survive and feel we came through it wiser and better human beings. Next I want to build an igloo...