Feeling nostalgic....and a bit sad.

Today is the anniversary of D-Day.  Storming the beaches at Normandy.  Taking control of the European front in WWII.

I realized when I woke up this morning, that today is another anniversary.  A more memorable one for me.....and a few of my classmates that are still here.

June 6, 1957 was on a Thursday and graduation day for us.

 60 years ago today.  60?  

It doesn’t seem possible. 36 in our graduating class, most of us started Kindergarten together.  Born as WWII was starting, we’d seen it all.  Ration books, savings bonds.  The Atom Bomb, the Hydrogen Bomb, the dang Commie threat.  None of us had any fear though, we lived in or around a town of 543 people.  Who would want to bother wasting a bomb on us?  Carefree lives. 

TV had been invented a few years earlier, some of us had one in our living room—17” screen, if you were rich enough to get one that large.  $100.00—my gosh!!  We had telephones in our home—used for really important or emergency calls mostly—9 people on the party line, each person having a special ring.  ME4-5551. 

Riding our bikes all over.  Hitch-hiking into town.  The “townies” playing outside way after dark.  No problem.

Sunday School and Church every Sunday, the Youth Group Sunday evening.  The Baptist Church up on the hill, our Methodist Church at the bottom, across from our school.  My Baptist friends saying you could always tell which was the better church.  The one up on the hill.  Their next question, "Are you saved?"  My sarcastic remark, "Saved from what?"   Yet, on field trips and band trips--those Baptists were the ones in the back seats of the bus, necking up a storm, while us sinful Methodists played Euchre, up in front.

In high school, band was most important to me—band and chorus.  More important than anything, other than English and History, and they weren't all that important. 

Those who took the Commerical courses, graduated with a higher GPA than those of us who took required College prep.  Algebra, Chemistry, Geometry, Physics, just about killed me.  We all had to take Civics class to graduate.  We had to memorize and say the Preamble to the Constitution, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union," ……………..we knew the workings of the government, we still do.  

Senior Trip to Washington, D.C. to see it in action.  Visited Arlington Cemetery.  Strong patriotic souls we were, still are.  I graduated 16^th in my class.

Our first stop on our Senior Trip--Somerset, PA.

                                       

                         May of 1957--Sally, Arlene, Emma,                     Me, Bethie--Judy B. took the photo.

Me, Judy B. Sally, Arlene

The six of us--friends from the beginning.  3 of us gone, Beth, Sally and I still get to see each other at our classmates monthly luncheon.  

                                  Arlene, Beth, Emma

                             Judy B. Me, Sally

Many of us married those first few months after graduation.  By the time we were “legal” (21), we had a couple of kids and more to come.  The husband worked, the wife stayed home, kept the house clean, supper on the table and raised the kids.  That’s the way it was back then—the best years of my life.

Our kids going to the same school—their photos right there beside ours and our parents.  3-4 generations at the same school.  Life in small town-rural America.  The best of times.  We didn’t march in protest, we were too busy and much too conservative.

60 years!!  Many good and best friends gone.  We that linger are confused.  Not by age, but by the world we now live in.  How it has changed in the last half of those 60 years, even more so in the  last decade.

How lucky we were.  Kids nowadays don't understand how it was possible to not only know everyone in our class, but to know everyone in the entire high school and a lot in the grades below us.  City kids in big schools missed out on the feeling of "family".  We were like brothers and sisters, some of us knowing each other way before we started Kindergarten.  

That's what makes me so sad.  Many of my brother's and sister's are gone.  My very best "brother" , now with pancreatic cancer, is making ready for his final journey.  I know where he's going.  He knows where he's going.  We will see each other again.

That makes me wonder, why am I still here?  My lifestyle not any healthier than theirs.  My life not any worthier than theirs.  In fact, most did better with their lives than I have.  Why?

Well, none of us are afraid.  We have seen it all.  It is as it is, it will be as it will be.  We smile when we look back and remember our youth.  The 1950’s were the best.  We all have the pride in our Country we had back then.  We know it will never be as good as it was back then, but we all have faith that it might get better.  

Those of us, in the last decade of our lives.

Silly optimists that we are.

    

The Look-Back ponderings of a woman approaching a birthday.......

If you live long enough, you will experience more hurt and pain than you ever could imagine.  Unless, of course, you are one of the lucky ones that married well, have enough money so you don't have to worry, never been abused, never lost it all.

I know of a few people like that.  Fortunate.  They wouldn't understand the other 50%'s story.  They couldn't fathom it.

I'm in the other 50%, or is it 60?  80%?

I was born into a wonderful family, at a perfect time.  The first girl baby in three generations!  Now, don't you think I was the best gift they ever got?  Yes--I was!  My great grandparents, who had two sons, lived just down the road a 1/8th mile away.  One son never married, the other--my grandparents, who had one son, lived 1/2 mile away.  I was loved by all.  My Mother thought I was just the cutest thing ever invented, my grandma, widowed at an early age, thought I was her gift from God.  My great grandma, thought I was a charming, well mannered child.  My great grandpa and grandpa, smiled every time they looked at my pretty blond ringlets and sunny disposition.  I was such a lucky girl.

Somewhere along the way, I came to realize that my Daddy, didn't think I was all that marvelous.  He had done his "duty" and had the child--the girl child that everyone in the family wanted.  He sure didn't want anymore, which became more and more apparent as the years went by and no new babies arrived.

I learned many years later, from an Aunt, that he was jealous of the time I took my mother's attention away from him.  He, an only child, raised by over-loving parents, called "The Little Prince", by his Aunts, adored by my mother, was shocked when their attention settled on his little daughter.

Not that he was abusive all the time, but I was whipped for reasons I didn't understand, and told I was a "fool" and "stupid".  That does something to a young child.  Still, I look back and think I had an idyllic childhood.

But.............I wonder.  I know how important it is for a girl to have a loving and supportive relationship with her Dad.  She is less likely to settle for a man who treats her less lovingly than her Dad.  Her Daddy is her example on how any man in her life should relate to her.

Of course, now as I approach seventy-eight years of completed life--this kind of pondering comes to my mind.

I found a sure fire way to get away from my Daddy's physical and emotional abuse.  I purposefully got pregnant--the first time we had sex, a month before I graduated.  I say purposefully, well, I knew what time it was in my cycle, and he had been begging for a year, so----------let's just see what happens.  I married the boy I had dated for three years in high school, just one week after I graduated.  As a joke, on my wedding day, my Daddy said, "Beat her thrice a day and you should have no problems."  Hah--too funny.

This solved all my problems.  I didn't have to go to college, which at the time scared me.  I didn't have to stay at home.  I had my own home, a husband that was handsome and hard working and honest and a baby on the way.  Life was perfect.

Until it wasn't.

I got nothing in the divorce, except a big house I couldn't afford.  He walked away with his $80,000 a year salary, his pension (that I had to sign off to keep the house that had been in my family for 60 years).

Then a second marriage, because he was so sweet to me, thought I hung the moon.  Because my youngest was going off to college, I couldn't afford the big house and I was lonely.  I thought I was his 2nd wife, I was his 4th and he is on #7 now.

His abuse started the day we were married.  Now--I was too open minded.  Too stupid.  I couldn't do anything right, except keep my job and support him, because two weeks after we married, he quit his.  He tried to kill me twice in those horrible three years.  He beat me regularly.  It was my fault!  If I just didn't do things to make him so mad!  Kind of like the way my Daddy felt about me.

So, another divorce.  Now I had really lost everything.  No home.  Only my job, that paid hardly anything, not even enough to pay rent on an apartment.  I moved in with an  old friend.  He was a wonderful man, he loved me, but, as he affirmed from time to time, he wasn't "in" love with me.  So, I settled.  I had always settled.  I was in love with him, had been years ago.  It was fine.

Then I lost my job, but found another one in the city I lived in, for half what I had been making.  I had to stay where I was--there was no where else I could go.

Twelve years of goodness.  At least I wasn't getting beat.  We traveled.  We had fun.  Then....an old girlfriend of his, divorced and came back to town and notified him she was back.  He decided he wanted to sell his house and move to Alabama.  I was told I would have to find a place to live.

Then, I lost my job there.  Thankfully, only six months away from the time I could collect Social Security.

He did help me.  He "lent" me the money to buy this place.  My lawyer daughter said he should have "given" me the money as a settlement, for twelve years of cooking, cleaning, doing his laundry, mowing his lawn, painting and wall papering the interior of his cottage, and sharing his bed.

It was 3 months later that I found out he didn't sell his house or move--he just wanted me out of the picture to pursue his old love, who treated him like he was nothing to her.  Oh well, we won't go there.  He and I remained good friends until he died.

A month after I moved in here I met a guy.  I had to have a "guy".  Someone who would help me, be kind to me.  Someone to share things with, laugh and have fun.  He never treated me badly, physically, but it was a strange life style he lived.  He had always worked 3rd shift, and after he retired, he didn't change his hours.  He'd go to bed around 4:00 am and get up at 2:00 pm.  From 2:00 until 11:00 he sat at his computer.  I spent weekends at his house, either sitting behind him crocheting, or cleaning his house, mowing his lawn.  The weekends he had his daughter, I'd spend them entertaining her, because she got up early and he slept until 2:00pm.  

I did everything I could for him--to make him happy--just like every man I had known.  If I could get them to love me and think I was worth-while, that would prove my Daddy was wrong about me.  All I ever did, was prove my Daddy right.  I wasn't worth-while or loveable to any of them.

Two years later, that relationship was over.  

AND--I WAS DONE WITH MEN!!!!!

=====================

Over the next few months, with talk therapy and a lot of pondering on my part, I started to feel confident, for the first time in my life.  I didn't need a man!  I was perfectly smart and capable of handling anything on my own.  I started also realizing then, something I had always known, but never really KNEW--that God had a part in keeping me going all those years.  I could look back and remember coincidences when something always came through to save me.  There was no real explanation for the "saving moments", other than God sending me help.

I really "got it" for the first time in my life.  I knew right from wrong and I knew that many times, instead of "listening" to my conscience, I had just gone ahead and did something that didn't quite feel right--just to take care of a fear or anxiety I had, at that moment.  A need for financial security.  A need to stop the loneliness.

Certainly God could have stopped me from all my mistakes, but He doesn't work that way.  He has given us free choice and will present us with tests.  I failed a lot of those tests, but God stayed right there, saving me and waiting for me to sit still and wait and ponder on what would be right.

I must have gotten it, because that is when He sent Fred into my life.  There is no human way Fred and I would have met--no way.  Oh you could say it was Fate, or the stars were aligned in just the right way, or it was Karma, but after a month of talking via e-mail and several long phone calls and then an 8 hour first date, although neither one of us said it, later on we both told of how we knew, at the end of that first date, that God had brought us together.

He had gone through many hurts.  Two divorces.  An affair.  Years of too much drinking.  Two of his children not wanting anything to do with him.  Dating too many women.  Then he lost it all, through a business failure.  He decided to give it all up and go back to his Christian up-bringing and started to become involved in his church and praying hard and long before any major decision.

We used to laugh--picturing God shaking His head as he watched us lead our separate lives and then the one day, when He saw us both, finally able to stand on our own, smiling and saying in His booming voice, "It's about time!  I think you finally got it.  I think you two are perfect for each other."

.....and we were.  

Fred poured out his love on me and I on him.  My Daddy thought he was the most wonderful guy he had ever met, and was finally proud of me.  There was a conversation Fred told me, my Daddy, in his joking(?) way said, "Well you gotta cuff her up every now and then, let her know who's boss."  Fred replied, very seriously, "Oh...I would never hurt Judy.  She is the kindest, most loving and wonderful woman I have ever known!  And smart?  Oh my gosh, she is the smartest person I have ever known, man or woman!"  Fred's mother said to him, "I think you finally found a good one."  

Life has been good ever since.  

I have forgiven and asked God to forgive the people that have hurt me along the way.  I mean true forgiveness--the kind where you forgive and forget!  I had to do it so that all those past memories and nightmares would quit torturing me.  The Devil loves to keep those kinds of things coming back into your mind, as if they had just happened and you have a panic attack or can't sleep for all the remembrance's.

===========================

Yeah, Fred died.  God didn't take his life.  Fred's choices in life style from 20-60 years old, took his life.  When he changed that life style, he was given another 10 years.  His kids came back into his life. and we got to really enjoy, seven of those last years.  I am so grateful, that I've never been sad......that we only had a short time together.  Thank God we had them because, those years changed us both, for the better.

I don't know why I'm still here.  I think maybe I have finally found my "gift" and maybe, in some way, the family histories I do for people, helps them in some way?  I am devoted now to making everyone I meet happier.  Clerks at the store.  Customer service reps on the phone.  Everyone I meet is greeted with my great big smile and a kind manner and good word.  

Another gift God gave me--at an early age, which probably made me more susceptible to "go along to get along", but the best gift I have.   I am slow to anger.  I give everyone as many chances as they need, until I just can't give anymore.  I've always been a smiley, happy person, no matter what.  

Now I don't worry and fret, I refuse to allow myself to get anxious.  I am no longer afraid of storms--which have been a torment all my life.  I'm not really afraid of anything.    

Just like 50% of people wouldn't know what it's like to suffer abuse, pain and lose it all.  50% won't understand how I can forgive AND forget.  50% will never have that happy reassurance that know, as I now know, that I know, for sure---God will take care of me.

No!  I am not a Pollyanna!  I know hard times will come.  Illness, physical pain.  Death.  Whatever will be, will be, and I'll be just fine, no matter what. I guess that's not to bad a way to live.  Eh? 

Still........I wonder.  I wonder how differently my life would have been if my Daddy had adored and loved me.  My young adult choices would have been soooo much different.

Sunday

Just look at her.  Not a bit afraid when I tapped on the window or went to the front door.What a little hussy!!!

As requested--walk-abouts--Let's try this again.

outside--https://youtu.be/y0t4nC8CoYo


Inside:  https://youtu.be/SG6e60R8V8M

Nice Day

This is what I woke up to this morning.  Just enough milk for my hot Nestle's Quik (breakfast).

 Luckily, I had that 6" sub left--I ate half so I'd have some left for supper.

I decided to walk out and get the mail--come along with me--okay?

My view from the front door

My view from the rocking chair Karen gave me when she bought new ones

 Down the steps, these are beside the front corner of the house.

Aha, Morning Glories coming up already--to twine up that trellis

 Let's take a detour to walk around the house

Where they took out the stump.  

I don't know if there is enough afternoon

light for Iris to grow here.

It's on the East side, so would get morning sun.

Hm-mm.

My shed and the neighbors behind me.

The neighbors with the yappy, damn Shiatsu.

They have raised garden-beds all over their lot.

They just throw down some landscaping cloth,

add the landscaping stone and throw in some soil.

Every year, they move them around. 

Nice garden, on west side, full sun reflecting off that white shed.

Hey!  I see Zinnia seedlings coming up.

Up toward the front of the house--west side.  My Lilac Bushes and

Rose of Sharon.  Rose of Sharon will bloom in late July and August

with bright pink flowers, white and bluish-purple.

All different types of Hostas around the Lilacs--this is where

I planted the left over Impatiens yesterday.

The unusual Hosta that was my Great Grandmas.

100+ years old and doing great.

  My nice shady front porch

Over by Jackie's house to get the mail.  Dar's house is the one on the left.

Usual mail--junk

Back across the street

My side garden around the tree--May Apples, Trilliums, Violets,

Jack-in-the-Pulpit--all transferred here from my woods

out by the farm where I used to live.

Freddie's lilies coming up by the steps.

 The sign my sister painted for me on a piece of slate

she found on Prince Edward Island.

My squirrel proof railing planters.

I see a few Sweet Pea seedlings coming up.

Back to my comfy porch.

I come out here each evening at 7:00 to read my daily

Bible devotional, relax and enjoy watching

my world.

This evening, around 5:00 I decided to take a walk.  I made it all the way to the corner!!!  It was only about 65 degrees, with the sun and a bit of a breeze.  On the way back, I stopped at Pearl's for a quick chat.  She seems to sit sort of slipped off to one side in her chair.  She had been grocery shopping with her daughter and she drove the electric buggy.  She ran into a display and knocked the whole thing to the floor.  Then when they got out to her daughter's car, she ran the buggy into the side of it.

It makes me sad to see her like this.

Sit back and enjoy---

I got the last Impatiens in the ground this afternoon.  I don't know what possessed me, but for some unknown reason, on my garden/plant buy list I had "1 flat of hot pink Impatiens", come to find out, I only needed less than half that.  Then I remembered, I usually plant my railing plants with Impatiens, but this year, I just planted Sweet Pea seeds in them.  

Well, today, I took the rest of them and planted them with the Hostas in the garden under the Lilac bushes.  That garden looks rough with dead and dying Tulip and Daffodil stems, but once they get died back, the Impatiens will spread.  They always look so pretty next to the green Hostas.  I have 6 different Hosta varieties out there.

My Iris didn't all bloom and I think they are getting to crowded.  I would like to take them all up this fall and make a new landscape stone, raised flower bed, where my stump used to be and is now gone, and just plant it with the Iris and Impatiens to fill in after I cut back the Iris.  There is only one problem .  How the heck am I going to load and unload all that landscape stone?  HAH!  I will have to ponder on that.

I am mailing the genealogy out tomorrow.  I got back 21 generations on this one-1100.  Scotland.  One of the ancestors fought with Robert the Bruce.  When Robert died, by his request, his heart was placed in a small casket and carried to the Crusades.  This great grand father held the key to that casket.  Thus the surname:  Lockhart=locked heart.  Cool, eh?

I have started on another genealogy that a lady wants for her son.  Just getting started on this one, but already finding out interesting facts about the ancestor's.

I so LOVE doing genealogy's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I can't wait until Thursday.  I get my SS on the 3rd of each month, but since the 3rd of June falls on a Saturday, I am hoping that it gets into my checking account on the 1st.  I opened my refrigerator door this noon and burst out laughing.  There is nothing to eat.  I mean---nothing.  Thankfully, I had a Subway gift card with $5.00 still on it so I picked up a Spicy Italian foot-long sub= two meals.  It was $6something, but I had enough coins to pay for it.

I have $3.00 in my wallet and $13.00 in my checking account.  This next month is going to be a killer too, because now I have to pay $20.00 to get my lawn mowed--every other week, and I have to renew my car license and it went up $11.00 this year.  $81.00 for a license tab to go on a 19 year old car!!!

I'm going to make an appointment with my car/house insurance guy to see if I can get my monthly bill lowered.  I can lower the insurance amount on my house and the contents and I think there is one thing on my car insurance I can take off entirely.  I wish they would change our car insurance back and get off "no fault".  I think the person who was at fault for the accident should pay.  Let their car insurance go up, not mine!

Gotta get a hair cut--well over 6 weeks and looks it.  Got to pay for the part of my PT that Medicare and Insurance didn't pay for, $147.00--I didn't expect that and they will get it in 2 monthly payments.  I do need to get a new bra too.  I had two, but one tore out under the arm and the underwire keeps poking me.  I tried to sew up the hole, but it keeps making a new hole, so---I put it in my bureau for an emergency.  That means I only have one bra.  That means I would have nothing to wear while it is being washed.  That would be a disaster.  

I cannot go without a bra, not with these Double D's.  Neighbor's would have a heart attack, young children would scream and animals might drop dead!!  

Such problems!!

Finally..................

It's been a long nine months, since I packed away my white jeans/shorts/pants and purse.  Finally...today...we in the North can once again wear white!

While it seems to be all right to wear white athletic shoes during the winter, I find it weird to wear them while sloshing through snow.  Those months, I wear my black or navy penny loafers.

Now--I can comfortable wear my New Balance or my cute little lacey patterend Keds.  I used to wear a lot of Thong sandals, something like a flip-flop, but with a strap to hold on my foot.



Then someone had the bright idea to take away the strap and we ended up with a shoe that made a flip-flop noise as it slapped against the bottom of our feet.  I have owned one pair.  They were to use at the fitness center to wear to get from pool to shower room or vice versa--to keep us from getting athlete's foot.  My Pammie used to wear flip-flops until one day, she stepped on something and it came up, beside the sole, and badly cut her foot.

I can honestly say I don't know of anyone who wears flip-flops.  Some of the olders in this park wear those rubberized clog thingies.

All my girl people wear cute sandals.

My guy people wear athletic shoes or boat shoes.

I have old, unattractive feet so, I go bare footed in the house and wear a pair of slip-on boat shoes for outside, or my New Balance or my Keds.

TODAY--we can start wearing all of these and.......white!!!!  For three whole months, until Labor Day...we can wear White!  This just may be one of the biggest celebration days up here!!