Grandfather Teaches a Lesson About Time

My grandfather stands, handsome and stoic, counting the hours, minutes, seconds of my life. 

At almost eight feet tall, he sits slap dab in the middle of the long hallway that dissects the front part of my southern home and the rear.  His handsome face – the face of Father Time – is encircled by a hand-painted moon dial featuring the seasons of the year.  Spring.  Summer. Autumn. Winter.   He is forever watchful as my family gathers in the great room in the evening and as we hurry past him in the morning, rushing to leave for the day.  Often as I pass, my hand reaches out to touch him affectionately, absentmindedly, feeling the cool, smooth grain of his buffed mahogany case.  

For the past ten years, Grandfather has told me when it is time to get up and when it is time to go to bed.  His melodious chimes have been the backdrop for all of our holiday celebrations and his long, slender hands have officially announced the arrival of the New Year for the past decade.    I have wearily listened to his lonely calling of the early morning hours during sleepless, worry-filled nights and anxiously counted down the hours with him as I waited for my son to get home after a long trip.  

Loudly and with purpose, Grandfather has warned me through the years that time flies out of my hands like sand blowing on a deserted beach. 

Suddenly, last summer, my grandfather clock fell silent.  He no longer reminds me when it is time to leave for my hour-long commute to work or when it is time for my family to arrive for a holiday dinner.  I cannot lie awake at night listening for time and am no longer comforted by his chiming voice. 

At first I thought I could fix him.  I tinkered with his innards and pushed around some of his parts, but he refused to speak to me.  I catch myself whispering to him as I pass by, asking him to please come back to me.  I miss his sweet music and I miss having time fill my home with ticks and tocks, music and chimes.

Not having my old clock to announce that I am running late or that deadlines are near or that the day is coming to an end, has made me re-evaluate how I spend my time.  I’ve found that I am a very poor steward of time.

I have been so very blessed in my life, but I’m not so sure I have taken the time to enjoy the blessings.  Days turn into weeks that turn into months and before I know it, a year has passed.  My son was born, started walking, went to school, learned to love music, started college….and I was present for all those events.  At least in body.  I’m pretty sure my mind was thinking about the next meeting or what to feed the people coming to my house after the event or how I was going to manage getting from place to place on time. And, I am positive I never took the time to savor the small things. 

We live in a 24/7 society with instant messaging, instant coffee, instant meals and instant replays.  

Like so many others, I spent the first half of my life reaching for the stars.  More money.  Bigger house.  Faster car.  Better title.  Today, I would give a year’s salary or more just to spend one more day with my daddy.

Live and learn, an old adage that is so very true.  The Bible says, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)   I have made more money; have a bigger house; driven a faster car and have a nice title following my name.  Today, I want more wisdom, more quiet time, and a bigger heart for Jesus. There simply is not enough time in our lives to do all the things our heart desires.  It doesn’t matter how much time we have; it matters what we do with that time.

A dear friend gave me the book, “The Knowledge of the Holy” by A. W. Tozer and it has become daily required reading for me.  I love this quote from Tozer:

“The days of the years of our lives are few, and swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.  Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give.  Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down.  There is simply not time enough to think, to become, and to perform what the constitution of our nature indicates we are capable of.”

He continues, “How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none.  Eternal years lie in His heart.  For Him, time does not pass, it remains; and those who are in Christ share with Him all the riches of limitless time and endless years.”

Because time is such a precious and priceless gift, we should manage it very well and strive to be good stewards of our time.   I guess it took the silence of my grandfather clock to remind me to seek silence and peace in my life.

To stop.  To listen.  To be grateful.

Very early Saturday morning I was alone having coffee in my kitchen. My house was quiet and still; everyone else still asleep.  No radios or televisions or cell phones.  Just me and my dog, Zeke.  As I sat there, I realized that I was hearing music from somewhere.  Very faintly, I could hear a melody of some kind.  I wandered out of the kitchen and stood in the middle of the house trying to determine where the lovely sound was coming from.  As I neared my Grandfather clock, I stopped.  I laid my head against his wooden case and listened.  Sure enough, I could hear his chimes.  He had not stopped speaking to me at all.  He was just whispering and I had not been still or quiet enough to hear him.  If I leaned my ear against his wooden chest and listened carefully, I could hear his Westminister chimes clearly, followed by his Big Ben dong striking the 6 am hour.

I stopped.  I listened.  I am grateful.

My Sister's Love Story

Most of my memories are big, loud, elaborate affairs that come barreling across my mind like a loaded dump truck on a gravel road.  But, there is a memory that flutters into my senses so softly, so quietly, I’m not sure if it is real or a wonderful dream.  Such memories are as sweet and comforting as Blackburn Syrup on a hot buttered biscuit in the dead of winter. 

On a cool, clear morning in the summer of 1997, I got a glimpse into the heart of my sister.  It is a memory that comes back to me often.  Like an old reel-to-reel tape player, I replay the scene in my mind over and over, as if savoring each second will keep it tattooed onto my heart forever.

I wake up slowly, rising up through the layers of sleep like a scuba diver coming up for air.  With no blasting alarm clock or whining dog waiting to be taken out for a morning walk, I take the leisurely route to waking up that is reserved only for vacation mornings. The early morning sunlight is dancing across the heavy quilt that is appreciated on a cool mountain night but kicked to the bottom of the bed at the first hint of a summer morning.  I lay there thinking that I am the only one of our vacation party awake at such an early hour until I smell the heavenly aroma of coffee brewing in the kitchen of our Smokey Mountain cabin.  I quietly roll off the very edge of the bed and reach back to cover up my three year old son who is spread across the bed, arms thrown up over his head, legs sprayed across most of the bed, as wide open to the world in sleep as he is fully awake.  He always starts out as a big boy sleeping in his own bed, but ends up “sharing” mom and dad’s bed, forcing both of his parents to opposite edges of the mattress.  Dennis and I have learned to sleep perched on the edge of the bed like old hoot owls clinging to the tip of a branch.  I look at Drew, my precious son, in his Buzz Lightyear PJ’s, his light brown hair going this way and that, his soft, sweet baby breath whistling through his slightly stuffy nose and I marvel, once again, on how I could be so very blessed.

It was the summer of 1997 and my sister, Gail, asked us to join her family on a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  We had never vacationed together before, so we were both eager to spend that time together with our families.  My baby sister and I had not always been best of friends.  As the oldest child of four children, I always thought it my responsibility to “take care” of my siblings – which often resulted in me being the bossy and opinionated big sister.  When we reached our teens, Gail decided that she did not appreciate her sister telling her every move to make.  We were very close to the same age, but we could not have been more different.   While I was serious, studious, obedient and a book worm, Gail was outgoing, rebellious and, let’s face it, a lot more fun than her older sister.  I wanted to become an award- winning writer, work for a big-city newspaper, make millions of dollars and get as far away from my little hometown of Senatobia, Mississippi as possible.  Gail wanted a family, a nice little home in Senatobia, maybe a part-time job as her children got older.  She wanted a yard full of flowers, Saturday night steak dinners and the PTA.  Most of all, she wanted to spend the rest of her life with the man of her dreams.  She eventually achieved all those goals.

During our 20’s and 30’s, while I was climbing the corporate ladder, driving cool cars and wearing designer clothes, my sister was having her babies, buying her first home and taking care of her family.  She married her high school sweetheart within two weeks of graduating from high school and had her first child a couple of years later.

She and I stayed in touch but really did not have much in common during those years.  I was too busy with work and she was busy with her husband and children.

In 1992, at the age of 35, I was pregnant with my first child.  By then, Gail was an old pro at all things motherly and I soon learned that my sister was the smartest person I knew.  For nine months, I called her every single week to ask her about the weird things going on with my body.  She laughed at me, but was very patient and understanding about my hysteria.  Once when someone hurt my feelings during an unusually hormonal day, she sat with me in my mother’s tiny bathroom - me on the toilet and her on the side of the tub – for over an hour until my hiccuping tears finally dried.

After Drew was born, Gail became my own personal Dr. Spock.  I called her every day to get her advice about something – was Drew going to the bathroom too much or not enough?  Should I feed him rice cereal now or wait until the books said to do it?  Shouldn’t he have teeth by now?

“Is nine months too early for Drew to walk?” I once asked her.

“If you saw him walking, it must not be,” she quipped.  

Drew’s first birthday party was at Gail’s little ranch style house in Senatobia.  She made hamburgers and hot dogs and she let Drew put his hands all in his cake and make a big mess.  My sister loved my child about as much as she loved her own.  Her house was filled with kids, dogs, food and love.  It was just her nature.  It was who she was.  I was just figuring that out.  She had known it all along.

So, in June of 1997, we loaded up a small convoy of kids and food and headed to the mountains for our first ever vacation together.  It was a week of adventure, laughter, and family time.  We sat in chairs on the cabin’s large deck and talked about our childhood, enjoying the amazing views, mountain air and each other. 

On this special vacation morning, I tip-toe out of the second story bedroom of the mountain-side cabin, to have coffee with my sister before the rest of our group got up.   I close the bedroom door as quietly as possible and peek over the balcony into the kitchen below.  I see my sister standing at the kitchen counter in her husband’s extra-large t-shirt, her curly blond hair making a halo above her tiny face.  Just as I am about to whisper good morning, I see her husband come into the kitchen and slip his arms around her.  Standing just under 5 feet, my little sister nearly disappears into her husband’s embrace as she turns her head around and up to give him a kiss.  Like teenagers in love, they are giggling and whispering and stealing kisses like there is no one else in the world.  At that moment, I think of when they were dating.  She was still in high school and he had a job working until 10 pm.  He would come by our house and blow his car horn – once for “Hello” and three times for “I love you.”  A few minutes later I would hear the phone in our bedroom ring – actually, half a ring so it would not wake up our parents - and she would take the phone under the bed covers and whisper and giggle with him for hours.

I smile and quietly slip back into my bedroom and never let them know that I have seen this amazing testimony to true love and devotion.  I am so very blessed to have witnessed this moment; a few seconds that become more and more precious to me as the years go by.

That fall, I unexpectedly lost my little sister to a heart attack.  Looking back, I now know that brief look into my sister’s life was one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.  God opened the blinds and allowed me to see inside the heart of my sister.  On an early morning, in a little log cabin on the side of a mountain, I witnessed the love story that was my sister’s life.  Not a fairy tale, mind you, but a real life filled with hard times and disappointments, triumphs and victories.  Children, a mortgage, car payments, disagreements.  A yard filled with flowers and Saturday night dinner dates and pre-dawn rendezvous in the kitchen.  Laughter and hugs and kisses.  

A life that was way too short, but filled to the brim with love.

Always love.

John, Jr. Leaves a Hole in the Heart of the Camille Street Gang

 In 1967, when I was 10 and he was 15, John Jr. was the closest thing to a BIG MAN ON CAMPUS that we had on Camille Street.

Camille Street in Senatobia, Mississippi – Hometown USA.  A whole passel of kids ranging in age from six to fifteen growing up in the 1960’s in a small town in the deep South.  Possibly the last generation of totally innocent children who played outside, had a mother who worked at home, went to church on Sundays, and got our behinds whipped when we disobeyed.  We played in each others' yards; ate fried Spam sandwiches at each others' tables; and dreamed big dreams together.  We are lifelong friends, just like family.  No amount of time or distance changes that kind of kinship. 

This week we lost one of our family members, leaving a hole in our hearts.

John Jr. was in the top echelon of the Camille Street gang.  He was the elder statesman of the neighborhood who pretty much ignored the rest of us.   Oh, occasionally he would slap his little brother, Mike, across the head and make him cry or make fun of his sister, Charlotte, just to get her to yell for her mom.  Mostly, he worked on his old 55 Chevy and hung out with his friends.  

 At 15, he was a working man who got up at the crack of dawn every morning to deliver the Memphis newspaper to Senatobians who wanted news and enlightenment.   When Charlotte, Ricky, Kathy, and I were in the elementary school building at Senatobia City Schools, he was on the high school side of the campus.  How we longed to be on the high school side. 

I guess all of us neighborhood girls had a little crush on John Jr.    With his curly brown hair, sparkly eyes and dimples as deep as the Coldwater River, he was cute in a big brother way.  As we got older, Kathy was, by far, the most enamored with John.   With her red hair and fair skin, Kathy lived up to all the legends about red-heads.  She was feisty and full of fire with a quick temper, the face of an angel and a kind heart.  John had a girlfriend in high school – a black-haired beauty, the daughter of a local judge. At that time, Kathy was just a neighborhood friend like the rest of us.  A friend of his little sister. 

As time went by and our group became teenagers, John Jr. became a busy college guy and we rarely saw him.  We moved on to high school life – different friends and boyfriends – and he moved on to college life.    I saw John when he came home on the weekends and sometimes in the summer time. He was the first one of the Camille Street gang to leave our safe little nest.

In the summer of 1974, something changed.  I started seeing Kathy come across the street to talk to John while he was working on his old Chevy.  Next thing I knew, they were getting married.  Everybody’s big brother from the south side of Camille Street married the red headed, freckle-faced girl-next-door from the north side of Camille.  A perfect union based on a foundation of lifelong friendship.   They built their careers and raised their children in Oxford.  Over the years, they made trips back to see their parents on Camille Street.

This week, I joined Kathy to say goodbye to her husband; Charlotte’s & Mike’s brother; my lifelong friend.  Looking around the room, I saw pictures of John with his kids and grandkids.  His brown curls had turned as silver as moonlight; his eyes sparkling and proud as he posed at his daughter’s wedding.  There was a picture of his old 55 Chevy, still his pride and joy, which sits in a garage in mint condition. And, a shot of him with his first grandchild.   In the pictures, I saw the lifetime of happiness and family that two of my oldest friends shared.

I saw faces from 1967.  Friends and school mates, family and several members of the Camille Street Gang.  My mind was filled with memories that I had not thought of in years.  I was once again reminded  that life is a mere second in time.  Seems like just yesterday, Charlotte, Kathy and I were sitting under the tree in front of Charlotte’s house on a hot July afternoon gossiping about boys, telling secrets and planning big, fancy lives.   Today we gathered for a much different reason - to honor one of our own. 

As I stood with John’s brother, Mike, talking about old times in old places, my eyes were drawn to a young man in the corner.  He had light brown hair and his eyes – even in sadness – were sparkling like a new penny.  He was surveying the room as if looking for someone.

 “Who is that young man,” I asked Mike. 

“That’s Little John,” said Mike. 

Eventually I caught his eye and he smiled at me.  And, I noticed that his dimples were as deep as the Coldwater River. 

A Blue, Blue Christmas

It is Christmas night and my house is finally quiet and still, smells of holiday food still linger in the air and the laughter of my family echoes in my mind.  It has been a very good day, but sometimes sleep plays hide and seek with me during the holidays……so much to do; so many things to remember. Even though it is late and I am bone tired, sleep has gone out to play.   Just as I settle in with a cozy new comforter and a good book, the shiny, shimmering Christmas tree in the corner catches my eye.  I lay my book aside as favorite holiday memories click through my mind like a View Master.  Memories of a blue and silver Christmas.

I remember Christmas 1963.  I was lying in the floor in front of the television watching Mr. Ed (the Christmas episode where Mr. Ed, the talking horse, saves Christmas) waiting on my daddy to get home so that we could go cut down our Christmas tree.  It was our first Christmas in our new house on Camille Street and everything in our house was new – including the RCA color television that my mother repeatedly told me would cause me to go blind if I kept getting too close to it.

My little sister, baby brother and I were really excited about Christmas that year.  My daddy had a good job, we were living in a brand new house and my mama had a new car.  We were living big in our small town of Senatobia, MS. 

The back door opened and in came my daddy, dragging in a big, rectangular box. He lifted me up into his arms and I traced the name embroidered on his work shirt with my finger.  Ernest.  Because of this daily routine, his name was one of the first words I learned to spell.   I loved the smell of my daddy in the winter time – a mixture of Old Spice aftershave, cigarettes and frosty weather.  

Daddy pulled the big box into the living room while my mother,  a 110 pound cleaning machine, was torn between finding out what was in the box and trying to stop whatever mess her husband was about to make.   On the side of the box, in big green letters, was the word EVERGLEAM.

Daddy gently lowered the box to the floor and with his pearl-handled pocket knife, he cut the flaps of the box open so that Mama and I could see the treasure inside.

Mounds of shiny silver – aluminum, to be exact – spilled from the box.   Daddy bought us a 7 ft. tall aluminum Christmas tree – complete with a rotating color wheel that projected colored lights up through the tree from the floor. 

No mess, he explained to my skeptical mother.  No allergy problems for my asthmatic sister, he told her, pulling out a long, wooden stick that would serve as the “tree base”.  He pushed the stick tree into a metal tripod tree stand and began putting the tree together.  Each aluminum tree branch was protected in a brown paper sleeve with just the pompom-ends sticking out like a silver feather duster.  Daddy stuck each branch into a pre-drilled hole in the wooden tree, starting at the top of the tree and working his way to the bottom. 

He opened a second, smaller box and out came a little machine that looked much like a small box fan with a colored screen over the blades – red, green, yellow, and blue plastic.  He plugged the color wheel in and directed it toward the tree.  He told us to close our eyes and he turned off the living room light.

Viola!!  There before us was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  A magnificent, glittering tree changing colors right before our eyes.  Red, green, yellow, blue – SILVER!  Beautiful, stunning. 

There were over 1 million of the aluminum trees sold between 1960 and 1969 – but I’m pretty sure we were about the only family in Senatobia with one in 1963. 

I will never forget my daddy’s face in the light of the tree. Young and handsome, his black hair slicked back with Brylcreem, green eyes shining with adventure, still in his Wonder Bread delivery man’s uniform, he was so excited to bring something new and modern to our home. Always ahead of his time, a pioneer of sorts, he suggested that we put only blue Christmas balls on the tree.  He put up blue lights all around our house and placed a blue, frosted Christmas wreath on the door.

“Why blue?” my mother asked.  “Because it’s not red or green,” he answered.

When members of the Senatobia Garden Club came by to judge for the Best Christmas Decorations contest, my mother pulled the curtains on our living room picture window wide open so that they could see our silver tree in all its glory.  My parents hid just out of sight of the judges, giggling like teenagers on their first date, and watched as car after car came by Camille Street to take a look at the magnificent display. 

My daddy’s decorations won “Best Overall Christmas Theme” that year even though we were not sure what our theme really was.  Daddy sat the little trophy beside our tree and did not move it until he had to make room for Santa’s gifts to his three children. 

Santa certainly had no trouble finding us – I’m sure our house could be seen from heaven.  Gail and I got a Chatty Cathy doll, Easy Bake Oven and an array of Barbie stuff, including Allan, Ken’s new best friend.

After Christmas, we carefully slipped each branch of the aluminum tree back into the paper cylinders and placed everything back into the box.  I believe we used the tree one more year before all of us decided that we wanted to go back to the traditional green tree with its tangle of lights, falling needles and aromatic allergens.  I don’t know what happened to the tree, but every detail of that platinum memory remains etched into my heart.

Pretty much everything I know about life, I learned from my dad. Things like the fact that change is not only inevitable but also vital.  That failure is not the worst thing that can happen to you – not trying is. That being different makes you interesting.  That the saddest four words in life are What Could Have Been.    That being true to yourself doesn’t mean that you can’t strive to do better, be better.  That you have to reach out and grab most good things in life.  That there are no wrong decisions, just different opportunities.  That we should never just follow the same old path, but blaze a new trail.     

After I was grown with a home of my own, I began searching for a silver tree.  They are very difficult to find, especially the large, pompom-ended ones.  A few years ago, my dear friend, Judy Beard, gave me her silver aluminum tree – still in the original box, an exact replica of the 1963 tree of my childhood. 

Each year I carefully take each branch out of its brown protective paper wrapping and place them in the holes on the wooden tree, starting at the top and working my way down.  I turn off the lights, place the vintage color wheel in front of the tree, plug it in. I watch as the silvery glow turns red, then green, yellow and then blue. 

 And, I think of my daddy.  It makes me smile.

Nothing Lasts Forever - Not Even BBFs

     My BBF and I parted ways this week and I am devastated.

     She and I have been best friends for most of my life.  Though thick and thin, she has been by my side to comfort me and make me feel better.  I just cannot imagine my life without her.  But, my dearest friend is going through a mid-life crisis that makes MY mid-life crisis look like a high school senior without a prom date.

     My 52-year-old best bud is now sporting a few tattoos.  A little body art to express herself - a large flower covers her chest, and a tiger curls up her neck. She has teamed up with Japanese designer, Tokidoki, who gave her a whole new look:  pink bob, skull and leopard print top and leggings, sparkly platform shoes and a faithful companion named Bastardin, who looks like a cross between a small dog and a cactus.  Barbie has always been a little edgy, but this is just a little too much.

     When we were younger, I always dreamed of being just like her, with her perfectly bouncy hair, her beautiful blue eyes, her endlessly long legs, Scarlett O-Hara waist, golden Malibu tan, and only-in-my-dreams bosom.  She was always light years ahead of me in style and fashion – wearing the latest designer clothes, driving convertibles, jeeps and even her own airplane. We spent countless hours playing together, growing up together in the 1960’s.

     My mother almost made me stop playing with her in 1967 when she wore the orange teeny bikini - modeled after the one worn by that year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover girl.  She also learned to do the twist that year, showing up at all my friends’ slumber parties with her twistable waist and side pony tail.    Mama called her a hussy.

     In 1971, when I was a clumsy, hormonal preteen, my best friend had her first makeover.  She appeared at my house that Christmas with a sculpted face, snow white capped teeth and sparkling blue eyes that looked right at you (as opposed to looking demurely downward as she always had) – and she had on blue eye make-up – something I had to wait another four years to be able to do.

     In the early 1980’s when I was making minimum wage working as a newspaper reporter for a small town newspaper, she was offered her first acting job.  Donning skin-tight blue jeans and three inch heels, she joined Brooke Shields in declaring that “nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s.”  I could never get my Mississippi backside into a pair of Calvin’s – not then and certainly not now.  But, I loved that she could.

     Modeling was not the only career my best friend has enjoyed.  In fact, she has had l08 jobs – including flight attendant, ballerina, army officer (her uniform was sanctioned by the Pentagon), Olympic swimmer, TV chef, and veterinarian.  Some have called her flighty; I simply thought of her as ambitious.

     Ok, so, Barbie has always been a bit of a trouble maker, but she helped make my simple southern life a bit more exciting.     I stuck with her through her Harley Davidson biker years and her Beach Bikini stint.  I was there for her in 2000 when she had yet another make over, what she called her “millennial makeover” which included a little lipo for a more athletic physique and her first-ever exposed belly button.  I fretted endlessly on Valentine’s Day in 2004 when she broke up with her boyfriend of 47 years.  I was always a little leery of Ken – he was just a little bit too interested in Barbie’s clothes and shoes to suit me. I heard he has moved to Key West where he is raising Highland Terriers and working on his tan.  He just never seemed to get out of the Malibu beach scene years.  

     I admit, growing, ah, mature is not the easiest thing in the world.  The mirror is suddenly not my friend – tiny lines and not-so-tiny wrinkles glare back at me from a face that looks remarkably like my mother.  Sizes that fit me perfectly for years now seem to be tight in some places and loose in others.  I used to be able to skip lunch and lose five pounds – now I could skip food for five days and gain weight.  When I finally went to see a doctor about a severely aching shoulder, he said, “As we get older, our bodies start falling apart and we have aches and pains that we did not have when we were younger.”  The first time he said it, I was a little irritated, but when he repeated it, I almost came off the examination table to snatch his hair out.   

  

     In Nora Ephron's best-selling book, I Feel Bad About My Neck, she laments the sorry state of her 60-something neck: "Our faces are lies and our necks are the truth. You have to cut open a redwood tree to see how old it is, but you wouldn't have to if it had a neck," she writes.

     I agree.  I keep reading all about how women over the age of 40 should strive to “age gracefully.”  That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one – like pretty ugly or clearly confused or same difference or old news or act naturally.   How is a girl supposed to “age gracefully” when her best friend is off getting all tatted up like a floozy?

     I can’t stand it when people say that getting older is great.  That older means wiser and that they look forward to being smarter, mellower.  They yearn to be old enough to understand what is important in life.  Most of those people are young folks with smooth necks.  I’ll take a smooth face, narrow hips and freckle-free hands over wisdom any day.

     I do like what Eleanor Roosevelt had to say about aging -"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art."

     So, I’ll just leave the aging gracefully to those women who choose to do that.  As for me, I’m fighting it, kicking and screaming all the way.  If getting skin art works for my friend, Barbie, and helps keep her young, then more power to her. 

     What I have learned in my 50-something years is that growing, ah, mature, does have its perks.  Like realizing that you can choose who you want to spend your time with.  You really do outgrown people and realize that some relationships are simply toxic and unhealthy.  Choose your circle of friends wisely.  My dad ( absolutely the wisest person I have ever known) told me often “Birds of a feather flock together.”  He was right.  Make sure your birds are the kind that makes you sing.

     Unlike the rest of us, Barbie is forever young.  I just cannot be friends with someone that blond, that tall, that thin, that rich, that fashionable or that hip.  

Instead, I choose to be a work of art and to age with humor just like Eleanor did.  If you can’t beat it, laugh about it.

     And, pile on the night cream.

Big Sisters are THE BOMB!

As the oldest child of the quartet of Hudspeth children, my God-given responsibility was always to make sure my younger siblings were well aware of the perils of this cruel world.  If I had to just scare the devil out of them while teaching them this valuable lesson, then so be it.  It was my job.  I was the Big Sister.  And, being the oldest child of the oldest child of the oldest child of the oldest child – yep, fourth generation elder child – I was darn good at it.

I took my obligations quite seriously.  Especially when it came to my little sister, Gail, who de-throned me as Baby of the Family after not quite two years of being in the family spotlight.  Of course, her reign also lasted only a couple of years before my brother, Andy, was born.  By the time Jeff came along three years after Andy, I had my hands full imparting all of my wisdom onto these children.

Growing up in a small town in the 1960's, we were pretty fearless.  But, we did watch a lot of television and I began to grow increasingly concerned with something we saw on the news every evening - the Vietnam War!  Like a lot of Americans of the day, we were terrified of THE BOMB. I was sure that one day Communists would come marching down Camille Street in my little town of Senatobia, MS and destroy the world with THE BOMB.  I lay awake at night thinking of all the hiding places in my house and in my neighborhood that I could jump in to when the dreaded day came.  The closet in the bathroom was my favorite hiding place.  And, if the Communists happen to come while we were playing out in the yard, my emergency bomb shelter was the ditch across the street behind Ricky’s house.  Everywhere I went – my grandmother’s house, my Girl Scout meetings, the Rexall Drug Store, Ben Franklin’s Five & Dime, Roy’s Café, the First Baptist Church – I would look around to figure out where I would hide if I ever ran into a Communist. 

I had never actually seen a Communist, mind you, but I had seen pictures of Hitler and Castro in my history book and I had watched the civil defense films at school that explained how we should “duck and cover” if THE BOMB was ever dropped over Mississippi.  I had seen the bomb shelters that dotted the countryside while riding beside my granddaddy, Pop, in his old black and white International pick-up truck. About the only time I ever saw my granddaddy with a serious face was when he talked about bad storms, bad cotton crops and the Communists.    Pop said everyone needed a bomb shelter and a storm house.  Besides, handsome Bobby Kennedy did not like the Communists and that was good enough for me.

During the summer of 1965, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley and I became totally obsessed with the Cold War.  A news junkie from a young age, I clung on to the Huntley-Brinkley Report like most kids cling to their blankies. 

Every Wednesday that summer, my mother would pile us four kids into her Dodge Dart early in the morning and off we would go to spend the day with her sister and our cousins.  We loved going to see our Wages cousins because they lived in the country and had bikes and tire swings and all kinds of cool ditches to play in.  After a lunch of cream of tomato soup and cheese sandwiches, the sisters would shoofly us kids out the door so they could spend the afternoon rolling each other’s hair and watching their afternoon stories.  Only baby Jeff got to stay inside the cool house with our mom.

One really hot July day, all five of us cousins, ranging in age from eight down to four, dressed in our summer uniforms of cut-off blue jeans and t-shirts, were hanging from the massive limbs of the big old tree outside their home trying to see who could tell the tallest tales   With about 50 cents between us and plum out of lies to tell, we decided to walk to the old store about a mile from our cousins’ house to get a Coke to share.   Our dirty, little bare feet,  accustomed to  walking unharmed across the sharp rocks and gravel, had gone about a half a mile when I noticed a small crop duster in the distance getting ready to poison the cotton field alongside the road.  Instinctively, I went into military mode.

“Here come the Communists!”  I yelled.  “Hit the dirt!  Hit the dirt!  They are coming to get us.”  I had been in cotton fields with my granddaddy many times when we watched the crop dusters, so I knew what the plane was doing there.

My sister, brother and two girl cousins screamed and dove into the ditch beside the road.  The plane got closer and closer to the cotton field, right over our heads, only a few feet from the ground before lifting back up into the air.

“It’s tear gas!”  I yelled, as I coughed and sputtered and spit.  “We gotta get out of here!”

My little sister and brother were crying hysterically as I pulled them out of the dirt and pushed them toward our cousins who were running full speed down the gravel road toward home. Before we got very far, we heard the little plane coming back for a second round of chemicals.

“Here they come again!” I yelled.  “The communists are coming back and this time I think there are two planes!  Hit the ditch!  Don’t let them see you!”

All three cousins and two siblings dove toward the first ditch on the side of the road, everyone crying for their mommas; hiccuping, the red gravel dust turning to mud and running down their faces. 

Then it got even better.  We heard a chorus of voices above the roar of the airplane.  I stood up in the ditch, my head just barely peeping over the grassy top, and saw a Boy Scout troop, dressed in their uniforms, carrying a Boy Scout flag, marching down the road as if in a parade and singing at the top of their lungs.  

I crawled back into the ditch with the terrified little ones, their eyes as wide as Moon Pies, and whispered, “They have landed and they are coming for us.”

Before I could even pull my sister and brother out of the ditch, all four younger kids shot out of that grassy hole, running with their little feet flapping like ducks down that gravel road.

For about ten minutes, the sight of my siblings and cousins, running down the road, terrified of a bunch of boy scouts and a crop duster, was just plain hysterical.  Until, that is, I saw my little spitfire mother running towards me with her hair in rollers, in her petal pushers and flip flops, fly swatter in hand. Not only had I scarred my younger brother and sister for life, I had interrupted “As the World Turns.”  I had rather have seen Hitler himself charging toward me with THE BOMB in hand than to have my mother after me with that fly swatter.  

Needless to say, I never again scared Gail or Andy with my war stories. I did learn to take better care of my siblings and to lead more by example rather than with fear tactics.  Of course, I never stopped teasing them or pulling practical jokes from time to time.  I was, after all, always the Big Sister.  Both Gail and Andy died before the age of 40 from heart disease.  Of the Hudspeth Four, only my baby brother, Jeff, and I remain.  The oldest child and the youngest child, like two bookends on a shelf with no books.

My memories of growing up with stair-step siblings are fragile and precious.  I want to remember every single day of our childhood.  By today’s standards I guess I would be labeled a bully – bossy, headstrong, demanding and sometimes just plain mean to my brothers and sister.  But, I was also very protective of them.  I could mess with my sister, but, by golly, nobody else could.  All three of the younger ones – Gail, Andy and Jeff - turned out to be amazing, emotionally grounded, secure adults – brave and strong - with equally wonderful and caring children of their own. 

As their big sis, I would like to think that I had a little something to do with that.

Train Tracks of Time

I love the distant clickety clack of the ole freight train as it slices through the early morning mist like a butter knife.  Like clockwork, the train carrying coal, lumber and grains from Memphis to Jackson and all points in between, chugs near my house in the early morning hours, often lulling me to sleep after a restless night.  The train’s whistle as it passes assures me that it is 4 am in our sleepy little town of Hernando, MS.  To me, these early pre-dawn hours are the loneliest hours of all – not quite night time but not day time either.

On this morning, I go ahead and get up, an hour and a half before my old Westclock alarm clock tells me it is time to rise.  In just a couple of hours, I will wish my son good luck on his first day of college, thus beginning a new season in our lives.  Seems like just yesterday I was wishing he would sleep through the night.

Drew seems to be riding the train of change very well, going from a small Christian school where he spent the last 12 years to the wide open road of the college bound.  But, I seem to be stuck on the little red caboose of his childhood.

For the past few weeks, I lay awake at night, my mind like a View Master, clicking through the stages of Drew’s growing up years.  Vivid, colorful images of Barney, Mr. Potato Head, Veggie Tales, and Garfield click through my dreams as snippets of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “You Are My Sunshine” flitter through my head.  Time has sped by so quickly, I can almost hear it as it whistles past by ears - the present becoming the past right before my eyes.  From diapers to jeans and Muppet CD’s to iTunes, the years of Drew’s childhood have raced by just like the clickey clack of that old freight train.  Most of the memories are so sweet, they bring tears to my eyes with their richness.  Others are so funny, the thoughts make me laugh out loud.

In 1995 when Drew was two years old, one of our big projects was learning to go potty.  His babysitter, Mimi, who was our expert on everything dealing with rearing well-adjusted children, had the wonderful idea of putting Cheerios into the potty and letting him “shoot” the cereal with his “water gun.”    Worked like a charm – on the No. 1 part of pottying.  Going No. 2 was a different story.  My busy little bee refused to do anything except tinkle in potty.  He would sit on the potty, playing with this cars, singing songs, playing with his toes - while I sat beside him on the bathtub reading “Raising the Strong Willed Child” by Dr. James Dobson.  Mimi assured us that he would come around and told us not to worry about it.  Emma Stewart – better known to the kids she kept as “Mimi” – was my Dr. Spock, Heidi Murkoff and Dr. Sears all rolled into one.  I often say that all the good things about Drew came from her.

The other big project in our lives during that time was our plans to build a larger home.  We were living in about 1200 sq. ft. of toy box.  Drew’s stuff was everywhere and we had outgrown our little house.  The Home Depot had just come to our area, and we spent most Saturdays walking up and down the aisles of the bog box store looking for new home ideas.  The new store was awesome in its displays of kitchen cabinets, faucets, lighting and countertops.  They set up room vignettes – complete kitchens and bathrooms to show the customer exactly what their room could look like with the materials displayed.  Excellent marketing idea.  We spent a lot of time going from “room” to “room” in the store.

One Saturday night, we were looking at the beautiful kitchen displays – rich maple cabinets, cool granite countertops, warm hardwood floors.  We were imaging ourselves eating breakfast at the breakfast bar and cooking gourmet meals on the state-of-the-art Viking stove.  Enamored with all the modern conveniences, I absentmindedly looked down and realized that Drew was no longer standing beside me.  I saw that my budget-minded husband was talking to the salesman and he did not have Drew. All thoughts of the fancy appliances vanished as I started calling for Drew and running from “kitchen” to “kitchen” looking for my child.

In tears, I walked from aisle to aisle calling his name.  Finally, I spotted a little pair blue jean overalls lying on these steps leading up to a display.  The luxurious bathroom display was so rich in detail; it had been built on a raised platform and included a Jacuzzi brand tub.  The tub was beautifully filled with scented water; red rose petals whirling around the jets. There was a tiled double shower, double vanity with makeup lighting and marble countertops.  Right in the center of the spa bath display was a magnificent Kohler-brand toilet.

And, perched right on top of the glorious pot was my two year old son, his Pull-ups dangling down around his ankles and his red Keds hanging off his little feet.

“Mommy, I go potty,” he beamed. 

I rushed up the steps to get him off the commode.  My beautiful and smart child had, in fact, gone potty.  No. 2.  He certainly brought the concept of try-before-you-buy to a whole new level.

There was lovely, scented water in the whirlpool tub, but there was not a drop in the toilet. 

I very calmly got him off the commode and took him into the bathroom to clean him up while my husband tried to figure out how to clean up the other mess. 

I was embarrassed, mortified and a just little angry that my child had decided to learn the hardest part of potty training in the middle of a busy store.  But, Drew was excited and proud that he had finally done what we had been trying to get him to do for weeks.  How could I let him know that what he had done was very good but where he had done it was not so good?

Then I remembered a favorite Bible verse, Ecclesiastes 3:1 - “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heavens.”

I praised my son for the progress he had made in his potty training and I made sure he understood that there is a time and place for everything we do in our lives.

I have thought of that verse so very often in my life.  Drew’s childhood – those were the Summer moments of my life.  Moments of excitement and fun in our ever changing, busy lives.  We faced the awesome challenge of providing a solid, loving, Christian foundation for our child and we watched him grow into the outstanding young man that he is.  That was a golden season in my life.

As I lay awake this morning, thinking of sending my child to college, I know that God sent me this verse once again this morning.  Only this time, I think of King Solomon’s words as it applies to Drew’s season – the Spring Season.  His is a season of new beginnings, of finding his own way and becoming his own person. 

And, I think of my own season – the Season of Autumn, with still so very much to do and so much purpose before winter.  And, I am so very grateful that Drew is my bountiful harvest.