Serendipity, an epiphany, and "Merry Christmas!"

 

On Wednesday evening last week, during a respite after the rain, I decided to put on my work shoes-and-socks and weed-eat the highest grass. I changed into work jeans, too, but before going out, gathered the wastebaskets’ trash to put in the bin for next day’s pick up. As I wheeled the nearly-empty container to the roadside, the rain began again, very, very lightly. No weed-eating, but could I deadhead the roses? Yes. Taking up the work scissors, I headed to the north roadside. Suddenly, I was humming—like I always do; like (maternal) Grandma Flossie always did.

            What was the tune? What were the words? Then it came to me: “Love, Mercy and Grace,” a favorite hymn of my (paternal) Grandmother Mabel. Where in the world had THAT tune come from? How many years had it been since I’d sung it? Or heard it? Serendipity? Subconscious, knowing I had a section in my upcoming memoir on “grandparents”? I’ll never know. But I’ll certainly use it.

             Thursday was my six-month dental checkup. After x-rays, cleaning, the dentist checking, then making a late February appointment, the doctor wished me a “Merry Christmas,” and the hygienist said, “Happy Valentine’s Day.” How about that for thinking ahead? A poem took shape:

AUGUST 18:

My first
“Merry Christmas!”
“Happy Valentine’s Day!”
from those who won’t see me for
six months.

            Finally, Friday, the rain stopped. For a while, the sun peeked out. It was good to get back in the yard. With the push mower loaned out and the riding one disabled, and after all the rain, the high grass was lush and full of seedpods. I weed-eated one battery’s worth, then began the task of pruning back the ten-year-old hedge of variegated privet, spirea, yellow bell and euonymus. The branches had spread into the neighbor’s property. Robert is putting in a board privacy fence to shut out the backs of his several outbuildings, plus a lot of “stuff” that sits out in the weather. I needed to trim back my hedges so his boards could be nailed into place.

              After filling two wagonloads but emptying only one, darkness crept in and so did I. Only I didn’t creep. After shedding the sweat-wet work clothes and shoes/socks, I cooled off. It was only 82 degrees.

             Then I had an epiphany: I had been pulling weeds from our old barn lot! Something I didn’t do those sixty-some years ago. I’d merely waded through the weeds from the lot to the dairy barn when I had to milk the cow.

             Saturday’s intention to continue trimming out the fence row was stifled by—guess what? —rain! But I did sit on the porch swing and read the two papers—the Saline Courier and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. An interesting but prosaic writing idea from a local clergyman in the spot where Terry Mattingly’s religious column usually was: “What I’ve Learned at the Age of Forty.” Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

           What I could write about turning eighty!

           But I won’t.

 

If I didn't know it, perhaps you didn't either

  

              Bertrand Russell is reputed to have said, "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." Useless or not depends on the reader, wouldn't you say? I'm bad (or good, depending) about jotting down items and information that is new--or news--to me. How about I share some of those things with you? I'll have no comments or opinion, just facts.

            * Early cameras produced photographs with great depth of field, revealing each pore, hair and blemish. - David Brooks' column, Arkansas Democrat- Gazette, 98/5).

            * Chiasmus = the use of two clauses in a sentence in reversed order to create an inverse parallel. An example from Frederick Douglass: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man." - (Ibid).

            * Knives are the most common murder weapon in Britain, which has strict gun-control laws. - J. Lawless & D. Kirka, Associated Press/ AD-G (8/5).

            * America's oldest post office is in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, with about 4,000 residents. The post offce is 200 years old. In the News, AD-G, (8/5).

            * Two-point-two million Americans are behind bars, and half of them are there for drug-related offenses, according to the White House. - F. Lockwood, AD-G, (8.4).

            * Dubai International is . . . the Mideast's busiest airport and is the world's busiest air hub in terms of international passenger traffic. In 2015, it handled "some 78 million passengers . . ." - A. Schreck, AP, (8/4).

            * A definition of memoir: "[T]o provide an intimate and stationary narrator beside us on the couch . . . reflecting on what s/he sees now, in the long view, that is more informed than what s/he could see at the time." - N. Kusz, New York Times Book Review, (3.8. '15, in a review of Girl in the Dark.)

            * There are 50+ Muslim-majority nations in the world. - B. R. Gitz, AD-G, (8.1)

            * Women have been running for president ever since Victoria Woodhull was nominated by the National Reform Convention in New York in 1872. Ineligible because she was under 35 . . . she attracted considerable attention, but no votes. - Cokie Roberts, writing in The Saline Courier, (7.29, 2016)

            * In 1884, Belva Lockwood, the first woman to practice law before the Supreme Court, was nominated for the Equal Rights Party, receiving 5,000 ballots cast by stalwart men. Not until 1964 - after the 1920 passage of suffrage--did another woman, Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican, enter the presidential race. She ran against the "Four Horsemen of Calumny: Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear." She took on bully Joe McCarthy while the GOP men quivered "in their boots." In 1972, Shirley Chisholm ran, but G. McGovern won the nomination - (Ibid)

            See you anon.

On hosting the monthly breakfast for the BHS Class of '54 girls

            One by one, month after month, we've all turned eighty--an age, the thought of which when we were seventeen and graduating from high school, never EVER entered our minds.

            Yet here we are sixty-two years later, meeting for breakfast on the last Saturday of each month. In the several years we've been "keeping the group together," there have been  many different venues. Some took too long to serve us, some were too crowded, but at the last place, we were seated in a anteroom at the center table. Eventually, on either side, were  two families with small children.

          Two of us have hearing aids. Noisy children and hearing aids DO NOT go together. One of the six or seven of us said, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could meet at our homes?" No noise, no hustle and bustle, no accidentally spilling syrup on a child's head (a waitperson actually did this!)

            One of the three Barbaras in our class took the suggestion and offered her home for June's breakfast. Since she lived in Vimy, she had to give the drivers among us directions. A still-beautiful widow, her children living on either side of her, she began what may become a new tradition for us oldsters-in-age, but still young-at-heart.

           I 'd inadvertently made an appointment with the Habitat Restore truck to pick up items I'd stored FOR A YEAR, so I didn't attend. But I volunteered for July--a month chockfull of other activities: a tremendous birthday party, then a weeklong sisters' trip to mid-Tennessee.

           But I had two weeks to plan. "Don't go to any trouble," someone probably said, but how does one host ANY event without going to SOME trouble? Trouble used here means "effort."  Trouble--effort--in this case meant spending thought, time, money, and planning, cleaning, sprucing the house AND the yard.

          Of course, hostesses will go to some trouble. But it's not a negative; it's an opportunity to gather dishes, match silverware, select tablecloths, place mats, napkins and napkin rings (I have literally dozens of the latter three items).

          Beverly, Polly, Glenda, Shirley, Barbara, Shari, Doris and I sat around the family pedestal table (with 2 leaves) in the quiet. Afterwards, we removed to the living room and visited until nearly noon.

          I'll have to say, trouble or not, it was 'way more pleasant than being hemmed in by two young families.