writing – Page 3 – Angel Wheeler

In Memory of My Dad #6

It’s Saturday. Which means I’m thinking of my dad today.

He died on a Saturday.

My sister nailed it when she compared it to a new born’s age. You count every day of their life. Here in the beginning stages of my dad’s passing, and our grieving, we count each day too. It’s been 12 days, It’s been 18 days. We have now entered the week stage. Five weeks. Thirty-five days.

I have a storage building sitting in the backyard of my mother’s house. It was the very first thing I bought, outside of a car. My uncle owned and ran a portable building shop and he sold me a building for $600. I, being very young, but needing a place to store my stuff when I moved back in with my mother, paid him $50 a month for a year until it was paid for. Interest free.

My dad asked to store some boxes there once. The building just sits. No one ever adds to or takes away.

Today something compelled me to go to the building. I opened the heavy door, cautious of waspers that sometimes fly about. I pulled the heavy door open, stepped inside, and the Texas panhandle wind blew it shut, leaving me in the dark. Outside, I saw a rake lying near and propped it open. Inside were boxes from my highschool years, old clothes, a box of carebears from my childhood, an old couch and chair, a desk, and several boxes belonging to my dad.

They were labeled in his handwriting: Important papers, Colored Bottles and Teapots, and of course Books.

I love his handwriting. But more than that, I love his writing. His actual writing. So often the people who knew him and speak of him, talk about his words. Just today at my garage sale, an old co-worker of his spoke of how he could write and use words so well. I know that his special friend Jane fell in love with him through his commentaries in the local newspaper before she ever even met him.

Being a “writer” myself, I was thrilled when I opened a box and found his stories from his stint at the newspaper, and then I found a journal. A small, light green spiral bound Mead notebook. On the cover is printed in his hand NOTES #1 Journal. The inside cover reads in cursive The Journals of Bob, and printed on the back cover is The Journals of Robert lee—soldier, statesman, Author. My mom always cautioned me about keeping a journal. Others will someday read your innermost thoughts and feelings. I’m anxious to read this journal, but I’m also excited. I’ll hear from him again. His words will live on.

I do believe my dad lived longer than he ever thought possible. In the Important Papers box, there was a manilla envelope filled with printed computer articles with titles such as “Brain Basics: Preventing Stroke”, “Guidelines for Management of Ischemic Attacks”, “Practice Guidelines for Acute Stroke” that my sister had mailed him in 1998.

And written in his hand on the outside of the envelope in a red pen are these words:

In these, my final years, I believe in Love.

I also believe in Kindness, Tenderness and Mercy.

I believe in The goodness of mankind.

I above all believe in family.

I must never let my life be ruled by drink or drugs. I must never let my happiness depend on the thoughts, whims or demands of another person.

I swear that I will never forget the goodness of Truth and honesty. I will always remember the harshness of life…And, I will always know its warmth.

I have known its Love.

Bob

’98

55 years, and holdin’

2 or 3 strokes

Each Saturday after today, I’m going to share a story from my dad.

Until I run out of stories.

Or Saturdays, whichever comes first.

Funnies from the SchoolHouse: Class Clown

Class clowns. They’re in every classroom across America.

Yes, even mine.

Today before writing time (which I love to teach by the way), I read a sweet children’s book called The Old Woman Who Named Things by Cynthia Rylant.

It’s about this cute little old lady who’s outlived all her friends, so she reluctantly gets a dog and they become good friends. Don’t you just love her cowboy boots?

After reading, I told my students to think of a topic to write about. To help them, I suggested they use the story I read as a springboard. I recommended writing about a pet dog or cat. Or maybe tell about a time a stray wandered up to their house. Did they get to keep it? Did they feed it like the little old lady in the story. What happened? Or, if they didn’t have an animal story, maybe they would like to write about their grandmothers. Their sweet, loving, kind grandmothers.

Here’s a story written by one of my girls.

My Grandmol’s Flab

My grandmol has more chins than a Chinese phone book.

She can’t see her feet.

When she sits on the toilet it says a-b-c-d-e-f-g, get your fat butt off of me.

Peace.

I hadn’t read this story myself prior to asking her to share it with the class. Needless to say, she had the whole lot of us in stitches.

Yes, including me.

I hope someday I can say, “I knew her when.”

Home Before Dark: A story written by my dad

The benches were damp that morning along the hike ‘n bike trail there in Clearwater, Texas. Remnants of an early morning storm lingered and kept away the usual occupants of the park. No kids, no squirrels, no homeless people. Just me and the thin morning light kept each other company that day.

I was recovering from a small stroke if there is such a thing and was following my doctors orders to try to exercise a little bit. Tired and worn out from the mile or so I had walked, I sat on a park bench to blow and catch my breath. That was when I saw the old man approaching.

I watched him coming up the slight incline from the old folk’s home, he was swinging his head side to side as if expecting someone to appear out of the fog. His face was wrinkled and was lit by a ray of sunshine that quickly peeked out and hid itself behind a cloud. It would be a bright day as soon as the sun burned off the mist.

“Have you seen Bill?” He asked in a quavery voice.

I guessed his age at around eighty. He was sweatered under a heavy Carhart coat, the kind that construction workers wear. A cap with loosened ear flaps met the old gray tattered muffler ’round his skinny neck, black buckled overshoes completed his ensemble. A checkerboard wrapped tightly in plastic was cradled under one arm.

I told the old gentleman that I guessed I had not seen Bill.

“He’s a big fellow, kind of stooped and he wears a cap just like mine. Sort of our trademark.”

No, I had not seen him.

The checker player started to sit down beside me and then changed his mind and kept looking up and down the bike trail.

“Bill hasn’t been feeling good.” The old man continued. “He said he might go on up to Kansas to visit his son. Wouldn’t you know, it’s a damn poor time for him to go traipsing off.” Over on main street I could hear the honking of horns, but they were invisible to the elderly checker player and myself.

“If you see ol’ Bill, tell him his partner is lookin’ for ’em.”
I assured him that I would, and the old man shuffled off up the gentle incline. He was wavering a little and the pigeons scuttled off to either side of the trail. The sun was beginning to come out now and thirty yards away the old man sat down in the sunlight with the checkerboard resting on one knee.

A young couple, obviously in love, strolled by without a second glance. Then another pedestrian, this one a middle-aged man with an umbrella came walking by. The elderly checker player stood and watched him approach and when he drew even, stopped him. They held a conversation there in the middle of the trail. The checker player lifted one hand, no doubt to show the middle-aged man his partner’s height. After the middle-aged man started on, the old man started back to where I sat.

“You see I don’t know his whole name, ‘ol Amos knowed ’em, but he died. Ol’ Ray mighta knowed what it was, but he’s gone too. Yeah, they wouldof knowed how to get aholt of ’em.” The sunlight looked small and puny through the early April foliage.

“You see Bill didn’t show up Monday or Wednesday and now he ain’t showin’ up today. I’m ‘fraid somethings happened.”

I said he would probably show up soon, trying to put a ray of hope in the old man’s existence.

“No, I don’t think so,” the old man said before rising to his feet and starting back towards Restful Pines nursing home.

I remember standing under the long shadow of a street light, one handing a baseball into the air, trying to decide…..was it really best to be the last one home before dark?

Bob Briggs 1943-2011

written January 27, 2001

In Memory of My Dad #3

Hello friends,

Here’s a second story from my dad. This was dated January 27, 1996. It is called Marking One’s Progress Through the Ages on the Doorjamb of Life. He had celebrated a birthday 11 days prior.

As I write this I reflect back to the 16th of January. That was the day that I turned 53 years old.

For lunch I had a fine piece of catfish, cornbread and fried potatoes, and a mess of turnip greens. A slice of key lime pie completed the repast, what more could one ask for his birthday meal?

Remember how you loved birthdays as a child? The presents and the birthday cake. The thrill of having one day that belonged to you alone. All this helped to make a wonderful anniversary.

Perhaps the most thrilling was the fact that you were a whole year older. You had the inch to prove it too. You stood there proudly, at attention, while your mother marked your progress on the door jamb. You were inching up on your older sister every year.

Ice cream was the “piece de resistance”. It was made from real hen eggs and cow’s cream. They don’t make ice cream like that anymore. It sat there in a big wooden freezer packed with ice and salt. A huge layer cake waited there in the background, the multi-colored candles just waiting to be lit and blown out therefore making your wish a cinch on coming true.

But what happens to that pride in growth as we add 40, 50, or even sixty years? We still lap up the kudos and cards from our friends and relatives, but we make as little fuss as possible over the number of years.

Birthdays are really very traumatic experiences. Today’s accent is on the young. Looking, acting and dressing the part make more than a few of us older than our years. After a fine bite of catfish and cornbread I can almost pull it off too. So instead of trying to submerge the past, there are those of us that try to preserve and respect it.

It is said that the most catastrophic birthday that we have is the one on the day we are born. Up until now no one has recorded the innermost workings of a newborn babe’s mind, and that is something that will have to wait a few years before being documented. They also say that the 40th is the big bombshell for women. I wouldn’t know about that, but even now on my 53rd, I’m not yet ready to throw in the towel.

So today I feel good about turning 53—despite the sad state the world we are living. Each new birthday becomes an achievement for me.

I wonder if our lack of pride for middle-aged birthdays is because we have forgotten that we are still growing. As each new season passes we have a new set of memories that make us more tolerant and sympathetic toward our fellow-man, and surely we should be for adding another inch of spiritual growth, it is the most important of all.

On my most recent birthday I’ve had a year’s worth of memories, ordinary, yet beautiful to me. I’ve also had unhappiness, but part of my growing process is learning that no one can grow without his own fair share of unpleasantness. The lessons I have learned go a long way toward that old saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Each birthday adds to my ability not to worry about mistakes that I might have made during the past year. next year I’ll try to remedy them, and if they can’t be fixed, so what? I won’t dwell on them.

The only birthday that I won’t be proud of, is the one where I back up to that spiritual door jamb and find that I haven’t grown an inch.

In Memory of My Dad #2

My family and I are in the midst of burying my dad. It’s hard. But tonight we sat around my grannie’s kitchen table and told our stories. And we laughed. And laughed. And laughed. It’s good medicine. It’s what my dad would’ve wanted.

My dad was a writer. He spent some time writing sports and commentary for the Tahlequah Times Journal. While we were rummaging through 2 drawers of my dad’s belongings searching for a compass to lead us towards his final wishes, we discovered a couple old newspapers. Inside were stories from my dad.

This one is dated December 9, 1995.

The thin morning sunlight cuts through the nearly bare trees warming my body as it shows up at work as it has for countless number os years. I can hear the dried leaves skitter by as I sit here and try to draw strength for my upcoming trip to Texas for the holidays.

Some people pray or actually go to church before going on an extended trip. Others break out their good luck charms or their religious medals (such as St. Christopher, the patron Saint of travelers)–and that ain’t a bad idea, seeing as there’s an outside chance that God is a Catholic.

I meditate. I sit quietly, as it were, commune with nature. After an hour of this my whole state of mind rearranges itself into a more harmonious state, and I’m comfortable with myself once more.

I don’t know how this miracle happens. But in sitting here alone, the pathway ahead becomes more clear, my cares become lighter and that elusive feeling of happiness is not so hard to attain.

“Quiet sitting”, as I call it, begins early in life. All children have a need to sit quietly and reflect on the happenings of the day. Every one of us can remember such a spot: an attic or cellar, a fence row or the spreading branches of a mimosa tree (just right for sitting).

My own personal quiet place was a huge blackjack oak tree. I could sit there in that fork near the top and watch the eagles and red-tailed hawks soaring on the uplifting thermals many hundreds of feet above me as the wisps of cloud tendrils weaved themselves in and out of the tree branches. On a clear day you could see forever from my tree.

These were our private retreats where oldsters were never welcome. An escape hatch where we could lick our wounds, real or imagined, after a solid bout of sparring in the real world. In those early years we didn’t know grown-ups needed their own little corner of the world, a place to sit down and go through their own little confusions and sort out their own problems that sometimes seemed insurmountable.

I have a rough-hewn bench since the climbing days of my youth. I call it mine although I am not the deeded owner. It sits between two giant sycamore trees This hard psychiatric bench is just right for sitting, and the sun nearly always finds it.

In the month of February it is a warm spot in a cold world. I can see the first green shoots as they nose their way sunward during these days when winter holds the world hostage in its icy grip.

My bench sits near a busy back country road, but I seem to be in a wilderness where time waits on you rather than the pressure cooker that we call the world today. April builds a new world here, the sun lingers and early spring flowers push their heads above ground for their first peek at this brave new world they are about to become part of.

On a July when there are no floaters out, the bench is a quiet place, shaded and silent. It’s not much, but you can live quiet there. If I am really quiet, perhaps a few birds will come along and serenade me with their warblings. Perhaps old man squirrel will whisk by and stop for a while questioning my sitting–so still.

I have sat on this bench in the fall when the rich autumn colors are reflected in the waters that babble below my bench. And now there is a melancholy note to my bench sitting as I try to store up enough peace to last me the entire winter.

In this hurried pace that we call modern living, I highly recommend that you find you a quiet place to just sit. It’s therapy and inexpensive and even the busiest person can steal away for an hour or so. Try it and you will enjoy a little of the miracle.

Till you’re better paid.

Goulash, Grandparents, and Regret

Last night I attempted cooking, which in and of itself is a feat. I can honestly say, of the things I have been complimented, cooking is not one of them. There are people who are renowned simply for being a good cook. If their name comes up in conversation, people’s eyes roll back in their heads as they utter the words, “oh, she’s a good cook, Have you ever tried her carrot cake, she can make the best homemade rolls I’ve ever tasted.” Etcetera, etcetera. Blah, blah.

Not me. Okay. It’s not something I’ve ever learned to do or really enjoyed doing.

Last night, my little drummer boy husband grabbed his drumsticks and headed out to play a gig, so it was just me and my niece Ashlynn at home.

I wanted goulash. J-Dub doesn’t like goulash, but I love it. Mind you, I’ve only ever had one person’s goulash in my entire life, and that was my grandmother’s. If she ever used recipes for cooking, I haven’t the foggiest as to where to locate those. So when I searched the internet for recipes similar to her goulash, I was met with an assortment of crap. Crap, I tell you.

Obviously, goulash is a Hungarian dish, not a southern poor man’s dish as I always thought. The recipes called for ingredients that I’m sure my Grannie never had in her pantry at any time, like Rotel for instance.

So I text my sister, and she immediately texts back with a bunch of rigmarole ingredients for so-called “Grannie’s Goulash”.

I had an idea that she was crazy. Mustard really? So I called my Aunt Bert (my Grannie’s daughter). She thought it was a little this, and a little that, and maybe some of this.

Well that seemed closer, but it just wasn’t good enough for me. I need a recipe!!! I need to know how much of this and that. I operate in teaspoons and tablespoons, people.

I returned to the internet, and googled Southern goulash. Recipes popped up with okra in them. Who in the world puts okra in their goulash???? Huh? Huh? Just answer me that. Next I googled Old-fashioned goulash. Marjoram and tomato soup? Puh-lease!!!

Then when my frustrations were at an all time high, and my stomach was growling, I got the crazy notion to google my grandmother’s name and goulash. Just hoping maybe, just maybe, someone had published a long-lost recipe of her goulash.

And to my surprise, that brought up absolutely nothing.

Except it led me to an ancestry site.

So my search for goulash took an unexpected turn to ancestry on my mother’s side. And I’m fascinated. I’ve never given much thought to my ancestors, but now that I’m getting older, my brain is changing, along with my priorities, and I’m understanding the impact of my lineage.

Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of “old” family. There are people my same age, who grew up with a great-grandmother, a great-great grandmother even, but not me. I’ve only ever had grandmothers. My great grandparents died before I came into this world, and I never even knew a grandfather. Sad huh? I guess my people died young, or procreated old, and too many years are in-between.

I’ve heard my Grannie talk about her parents, but I’d forgotten their names until last night when they started showing up on my computer screen. Suddenly they became real people, with dreams, and love for one another, and hopes, and journeys, and trials.

Just like me.

Now I wish when I sat in the TV room with my Grannie, while she rattled on with stories I’d heard before, about people who were cold in the ground, with events that were unimportant to my teenage ears, that instead of slumping over in my chair and wishing she’d stop droning on, that I’d had a cell phone with voice recorder, a video recorder, a tape recorder, shoot even a pencil and pad and would have written down her stories. But of course, I never thought they’d matter to me.

How foolish we are in our youth.

Since I’ve begun blogging, I’ve been forced to dip into my memory banks. Often I find them empty or half erased, and I must fill them in with how I believe it must have been. Was I wearing tennis shoes in that blizzard, or were they high heeled show girl boots like my dad remembers?

I have stories to tell, people to remember, events to unfold. Other people may not care about them, but I do.

“You and your husband might have looked out the same kitchen window for twenty years, your eyes might be as green as your uncle Harry’s, but twenty bucks says you don’t see the world as they do. Start writing to save your life. Stories only happen to those who can tell them.”—-Lou Willett Stanek

START WRITING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE. STORIES ONLY HAPPEN TO THOSE WHO CAN TELL THEM.

And then others must remember them, and in turn, tell them.

My great -grandfather Eugene “Gene” Ira married my great-grandmother Emma Olive (oh my gosh I love that name) and had 2 daughters, Mary and Imogene, my grandmother.

I want to talk to those people. I want to talk to them real bad. I imagine their black and white faces, their frumpy clothes, their aprons, their weathered hands. They were tough. They had to be. I want to hear their stories, and share their stories. It’s like instantly, I realize I am on this earth, in part because of these people.

They are MY people.

My great-grandparents:

Eugene “Gene” Ira: Aug 22, 1883-Jan 15, 1966 Age. 81

Emma Olive: Dec 7, 1879- Aug 7, 1911 Age 32

My grandmother Imogene, whose name came from her dad Gene and her mom Emma loved me, cherished me, delighted in me and made the best goulash of which I can not recreate.

And me?

I’ve forgotten her stories.

Stories only happen to those who can tell them.

My Time Spent on Top of the “Freshly Pressed” Mountain

One of my posts was freshly pressed on Tuesday, and I was happier than a puppy with two tails. There wasn’t anything that could steal the lollipops and sunshine from my day. I was sliding down rainbows and hugging strangers. I didn’t really understand what it meant to be freshly pressed, and what I did know was due to my blogging friend Brad over at www.blockader.wordpress.com who was freshly pressed a couple of weeks ago and got a bazillion hits on his blog.

For others who may not know, each day wordpress chooses about 11 blogs to feature and puts them on their homepage. So for about 24 hours, it’s like your blog is on the billboard of the world-wide web. Which makes for pretty good advertising.

My blog was also the featured post on the postaday challenge page.

The number of page views on my site for the day skyrocketed. Granted, I didn’t get nearly as many as other freshly pressed bloggers, but I’m not complaining. I got many subscribers, many wonderful comments, and lots of look-sees, and found lots of great blogs to read for myself.

The whole day I just kept repeating how happy I was. So very happy. Happy, happy, happy.

I was obsessed. I woke up in the night and snuck my phone under the covers to check my blog stats. I was like the boy who’s supposed to be sleeping, but instead is looking at a dirty magazine with a flash light under the covers. The whole time the thought of my husband waking up and catching me made it even more riskier. Yes, I live on the edge. I’m a wild one.

I relished the entire day, and never thought once about the ‘morrow.

And then the sun rose and a new day dawned.

And WordPress chose 10 different blogs to be freshly pressed.

And just like that, in the blinking of an eye, I was replaced.

Thrown out with yesterday’s slop.

As exhilirating as it was to watch my little bloggie towers soar, it wasn’t enjoyable to watch them shrink back to their measly beginnings.

I became blue.

My moment of basking was over.

My fifteen minutes of fame.

My mountain top experience.

It was wonderful while it lasted.

But last, it did not.

I’m thankful for the experience. I don’t know why my post on an antiquated green canister was chosen, or how it was chosen. But the feeling I experienced for the recognition of a piece of my heart-felt writing is indescribable.

And I’m convinced, now even more than ever, that I want to write.

I want to keep going, keep writing, even on hard days, long days, empty days.

I want to write words that touch people, that stir their emotion, that floods their memories.

I want to write for you.

And you,

and you,

and you.

Thanks for reading.