Once Upon A Time.....

Aground In Boston - Arrogance and The Old Lady: "The fog in Boston harbor wasn’t just thick, it was solid. Cutting off the reflection of light for more than a few feet. With no wind, the sea was like glass and the fog seemed welded to the sea, it was going no where. As the sun rose, it was hardly an improvement."
a true story..... Click on the title above to read more.............

The Ol' Fishin' Hole. | Gather

The Ol' Fishin' Hole. | Gather

One mans memory of his dad.. great read

I like being old | Gather

I like being old | Gather

A good article to read.... tells it like it is!! click on the title above!

The First Automobile - Granpa's Only Ride | Gather

The First Automobile - Granpa's Only Ride

My father used to tell a story a about the first car he ever saw. His family lived down a long dirt road in the coal mining country of northeast Alabama. They scratched out a meager living in the backwoods where his ancestors first arrived in the early 1800’s.

When dad was a young boy, the first automobile in the family was purchased by his uncle Jim-Tom. It was a Ford Model T. Uncle Jim-Tom lived on a farm down the road in a large “dog-trot”. It was a house with an open, wide area, right in the middle that ran from the large front porch to back. They say the old place once looked like and orphans home with all of Jim-Toms 10 kids running about. ... click on the title above to read the full story

Sunday Dinner, Love and Devotion

The closest and most devoted couple I ever knew, were Dink and Thelma. For most of my life they were the icon of the perfect couple. Almost anyone who knew them felt the same. He called her “mama” and she called him “daddy”. They only had one child and he  was born almost 10 years after they were married. The affection in their voices when ever they called for the other one was unmistakable. . Good at reading each others mind, they almost never had to communicate in full sentences. They existed like two parts of one thing

Both of them came from hard poor histories. Dink had a loving family but they were more than just dirt poor. Thelma was said to have “just growed up on her own” from a poor and rough family. Both of them though, had a great sense of humor and loved to laugh. When  first married, his family was not taken with her. They were serious people who spent every waking moment just trying to survive and a great hope hopes for their first born son. Dink was serious too in his work, but fell deeply in love with the little light hearted worry free girl from down the road. Thelma was slight and small and a “ball of fire”. It was said she had a hard time telling work from play and constantly got them confused. That didn't help her image out much when they first got married. On more than one occasion, she was found in the house playing on the floor with kids from the local community while Dink was out working in the fields.

She started out not knowing how to cook very well and spent little time in preparation for Dink’s noon meal, much less his supper. In that place and time, a farmers wife spent from sun up to sun down preparing meals for her husband and whoever else would be spending from day light to dark working in their fields. When I asked her about it, she said she was having too much fun in those days to spend all that time cooking, besides, she really didn’t know much about it. Dinks mother, must have spent a good bit of time walking down the their house to teach her, because Thelma eventually would become a renowned cook, known throughout the community for her skill.

It was amazing to watch her cook. She never used a measuring device of any kind and had no recipes written down. When it came time to cook, she was like a whirling little devil in the kitchen. No one could learn from her if she didn’t want them to, she just went at it so fast! A pinch of this, a smidgen of that and “just about that much” of something else. Every single thing she ever cooked came out exactly the same each time. Famous for her chocolate pies, they all came out perfect, with “calf slobbers” (egg whites) as high as a three layer cake, nary a one was too runny. Eating at Dink and Thelma’s was pure delight and everyone had plenty to eat. In her old country kitchen stood along dinning table which on Sundays no one could sit at. It was absolutely so full of food there was no place to site. She always made a point of making one two or even three dishes that were special favorites for whoever she knew would be there. We all had to line up and fill our plates, and then spread out through the little country house or out into the yard to eat.

Now this Sunday meal always followed a huge breakfast of every southern country delicacy there was. In those days, no body was on a diet, but no body was fat either.

I guess it was because the food was all natural home grown food of one kind or other and we all stayed moving constantly. (except for the nap after the noon meal). You couldn’t set in front of the TV all day cause there wasn’t much on TV and people would have thought you were sick or something if you did. No one had air conditioning and in Texas it was too damn hot to be in the house most of the time anyway. If all the work and play didn’t keep you slim, the heat would sweat it out of you.

After the noon meal was over, the table and the food was covered with a long, plain white cotton, table cloth. Today we wouldn’t think of not putting the left over away, but back then no body thought to do it… we never ended up sick from food laying out as long as it was under a white cotton cloth. What was on the table was the only food for the rest of the day. It was Sunday, and around here women didn’t cook after noon on Sunday.

She might cook up a batch of makings for afternoon home made ice cream, but the kids or the men had to crank it.

Thelma always said there was only one reason to be good at cooking, it was a way to love those who needed feeding. She was not proud of her ability to cook, she was proud of how much we enjoyed it. Each and every item had one main ingredient… Aunt Thelma’s love. She would sing and laugh while she worked in the kitchen, then sit at the table and absolutely beam watching you eat it. Eating her food, with her there with you, was like being held and loved and pampered by an angel who had a one track mind….centered on you!

If I Could Just Let Go................

A misty cold fog, hanging just above the point of freezing, grips the woods tightly. The sounds of life are swallowed up in the dreary cold, making it as silent as the grave. The woods, damp and cold, clings stoically to the earth as the fog and damp envelope it’s soul. 

In all my years, it’s a familiar place. Like another world which visits once a cycle. Waking on a day like this is similar to crossing a threshold into a realm which exists forever in a parallel with life that we only get to experience in small annual doses.  This journey into the woods fills my heart with a bittersweet welcome. Like a reunion with the earlier part of my life, never changing and assuring of life’s permanence amongst its ever changing  facade. Foreboding and endearing at the same time, it makes me want to remember how many times I have experienced this, and at the same time worrying me with the question of how many times do I have left. 

Sitting on a moss covered old stump deep within the woods, as the memories flood . The good times and the sad, and the sweet and the bitter. My wonderment at the  limbs and trunks and mosses as a child. Reeling in the mystical feel of the woods and her earthy spirit within, with fog closing off the rest of the real world with its mist. Watching the water collect and drip from the bare winter branches…. reminded as child how it symbolized the fertile possibilities of life. Like an ever flowing nourishment to be stored in the fiber of the woods awaiting the growth of spring and the warm days of summer. Special and surreal, the woods was a wondrous place as a child….. when the mist and fog made it into such a mystical wonder.. I never once really remember being too cold on days like this. Nor do I remember the humid heat in the same place during a rainy hot summer. 

But today I am no longer young and full of endless excitement for tomorrow. Today I am tired and old. Today I am full of endearing memories and the deep feeling that I am closer to “the other side” than ever before. The spirit of the place and time seems like an old friend sitting beside me while the spiritual world seems just a few feet away through the mist. Its here at this time, if I just let it happen…. I could drift into a realm far different than mortal life. If I just let go, I could hear the voices of my childhood and feel the touch of the loving hands that once held me. The warmth of my mothers soft hands and the strength of my fathers arms. It’s as if it would take so little effort to give my sanity over the foggy woods and let myself pass through divide between this world and another. 

Surely deep in these woods is a small clearing with a fire burning warmly above a bed of glowing coals. There, around it would sit all my family who is no longer alive, waiting, softly talking and laughing. They who knew me as a child, innocent, trusting and oblivious to pains and misfortunes life would hold. Sitting there in their old worn cotton clothes of yesterday, calm and peaceful, free from the burdens of this life finally at last.

No longer worrying, working and trying for some temporary goal they are sitting in a way of being alive we mortals have never fully known. 

I know the clearing must be there, I can almost see a path disappearing in the fog leading there. I cannot move or stand up. Its not possible for me to go there without letting so many things go. Somehow I know I could, and it would be no problem to come back. Oh but would I want to come back? I have let go before and drifted to a world of spirit. It’s a gift I have always had. In those days, I could let go just enough to see and hear things and to gain understanding at times. But as the years went buy it got harder and more dangerous. I would eventually sense if I let go too much or for too long I may not come back. It’s never been clear if that was the ultimate insanity, or if it was the awesome power of such a world and I was afraid I would not be smart enough to survive in it.

Now its all a fear of time. I am a lot older now….the wall between me and the afterlife is growing thinner. I know that world is over there too with the one I have seen and the one in that clearing. 

Hearing a sound, my mind returns to my eyes to look around. Nothing but a red Cardinal I see, in the cedar tree just a few feet away. Looking at me, he turns his head as if trying to understand. Another sound is made by a small rabbit working his way along the trail. He turns and gently hops his way up the path to the clearing and disappears in the fog. About that time the Cardinal takes wing, skillfully flying through the branches till he too turns and fades into the fog up the trail. Oh , how I want to follow….. but I am so afraid.

Is it just a temporary journey for me, or is it the trail to the place of passing over?

If I just let go….., If I would just let go……

Coffee Shop Perverts

 Coffee Shop Perverts

 In probably every small town (and big ones too) there sets a “coffee shop”. Now it doesn’t have to be a literal Coffee Shop, it could be a Restaurant, Gas Station, Convenience Store, Donut Shop, or is some rare cases, just a large old shade tree at a cross roads.

At such places you find a daily gathering of wise old men, a few dumb ones and some real kooks. In most of these places you will find waitresses who have seen better days and dollar tips by the handful. Its customer to leave a dollar tip, no matter how little you spend while there. In some places, if your just a member of these groups you leave a dollar even when you buy nothing. It is kind of like extortion. The waitresses lives for that dollar and you don’t want know what she might do to you or your food the next time you come in.

 Each town has its own special groups of these fellas… Some are referred to as the Perverts Club, the Dead Pecker Society, Wise Sages, Lazy Old Fart Crew… etc etc.

Often when these groups form in a combination convenience/store gas station out in the country that has a table or counter, is where you might find the a Pervert Club or Dead Pecker Society.

Despite the pot bellies, wrinkled faces, arthritis and bald heads.. these old boys spend a lot of time acting like they did post puberty.  Now, mind you, they are harmless old creatures… most only act or think like this except in a group drinking coffee in a place where strange women walk in and go out. Once they leave the place. Sex or the idea of it goes right back to sleep in their heads like always.

Whenever a female of any type, shape color, or deformity walks in the door, the sounds emanating from the old boys suddenly comes to a halt. As if they were connected by little wires, all their heads swivel in a straight line to female.

If she is young and beautiful, the ensuing silence fills the room like a thick fog for a minute. If she is wearing revealing clothing, a faint echo of inhalation, gasping, and  wind sucking takes place. For that matter if any woman walks in wearing revealing clothing the same thing happens. A couple of the old men’s face will turn pale as their eyes glaze over and at least one bald headed fellow will turn red like a thermometer, raising till his scalp is scarlet and tiny beads of sweat appear at the very peak of his head.

In most cases what do you think would be going through their minds? Visions of her without her clothing? Lustful thoughts to daring to mention?

Well sorta, but if she is young what you would probably discover if you could listen closely, is days gone by. Drive-ins, lakes in the moon light, old hay lofts or blankets in green meadows. First one then another, will softly and quietly speak of experiences long ago in their youth. The sights, the sounds, the feelings are all laced into what they have to say  while their eyes follow her around the store… Once she has left the conversations will venture to broken hearts, and immense exaggerations of their former prowess. Kind of like old rooster strutting around the pen know they have nothing to offer, but going thru the emotions anyway. Heaven forbid if the female subject smiles or speaks to them, for it would cause a brief moment of lurid smiles and tucking in stomachs.. and shuffling around not unlike a group of school boys be approached by an older woman.

There will always be at least one old fart who will then spoil the whole thing once she has gone with the declaration that the girl was probably the same age as his granddaughter, followed with a round of groans and disgust sweeping the table.

So there is a purpose in these gathers of country old timers.. and least for the ones called perverts or dead peckers… Its to take some wore out, useless, old codger back to his youth for at least the hope of one brief moment a da