Edging into eighty -- not at all a bad thing

Grandson Billy and former student/ choir member/present friend

James West at the birthday party

It's certainly better and more hoped for than the alternative, right?

My children (four + grandson Billy), inlaws, grandchildren, nephews, cousins, siblings (five, plus-inlaws) and friends Lydia and StefNi planned and produced the greatest party one could ever imagine.

 
The Salem UMC's (Benton AR) fellowship hall's round tables were decorated in red-white-and-blue (July, of course). The long, long serving table was a Southern Living scene with all the fruit, cheeses, crackers, cookies, sandwiches and goodies one could fathom. A sign-in table with small sheets available for folks to write their own haiku in my honor, a long table with some-stealthily-procurred and otherwise-gathered photos, plus a basket for cards. Unexpected gifts were slipped under the ends of that table.

 

Previously, the publicity included a flyer "commissioned by Gordon (son), created by Barbara (sis) and emailed by Carolyn (sis)." Gordon later posted it on Facebook and wrote an article (he's in Public Relations at Gulf Power in Pensacola) for the Saline Courier.

 

And what was I doing beforehand? 'Way beforehand? Sprucing up the yard AND the house, knowing that various and visiting family would be spending some time at Couchwood.

 

But Bermude grows from one pulling to the next, even through pea gravel, river pebbles and marble chips--all of which I'd de-grassed before--decorated various beds and the sidewalk.

 

Summer's heat meant an every-third-day watering of the north and west property-line plantings of roses, eleagnus, crape myrtle, redbud, spirea and althea. The life-giving water also caused the grass around the rock fence to spring up again.

Dead-heading the dianthus, the coreopsis, the verbena and zinnias to keep them blooming was necessary. Filling in bare spots with baskets of sweetpotato vine, and periwinkles put the finishing, last-minute touch on the yard.

 

Brother Guy, once of P. Allen Smith's employ, served as landscaper par excellence, and also re-sided the north wall of the long-ago-added-on back porch. And like anything new, making the old seem shoddy and seedy, he decided to repaint the other two sides so the entire addition looked new. Even to a new storm screen door.

 

But back to the present. Eighty-five people signed the guestbook and as many more sent wishes or cards to my Facebook page. The mailperson left cards from those who either lived in other places or who couldn't attend the event. Folks arrived from Searcy, Beebe, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Conway, Little Rock, Fayetteville, Hot Springs, England, as well as from the Saline County area.

But the attendee whose coming actually stunned me speechless was Karen Trout, pictured on the left, who drove four hours from the Piggott area. She is on staff at the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center in Piggott--a dear, dear person, who insisted that I was a beloved supporter of the writers' retreats there and she wanted to be here.

All this made me grateful that, as my daughter-in-law Karen said, my "village" was so supportive. I can never give enough thanks to everyone who had even the tiniest part in this wonderful celebration.

Edging toward and past eighty isn't so bad. I intend to live to be ninety, Lord willing.



Too many deaths lately; too close

 

 

                Not two hours after I mailed a “Thinking of You” card telling him how much I appreciated him, I found out that Frank “Corky” Chenault had died. “Mr. Chenault,” younger than I, was my principal at Eastside Junior High during the 1980s. His and Linda Jo’s grandson and my granddaughter are in the same grade and we saw each other at school events, the most recent being the 6^th grade’s choir concert in mid-December.

                Just a week earlier, Jean Adams, musician extraordinaire, died at age 90. Jean and I had lots of experiences together—MacDowell Music Club and the Saline County Choral Society for two. I accompanied her flutist daughter Judy on the piano for many of Judy’s local performances.

                On January 9, a beloved United Methodist minister and journalist, Dr. John S. Workman of Conway, died. He was religion editor at the Arkansas Gazette. I inherited his books, Fireflies in a Fruit Jar, and Open Windows. The latter was a gift to my mother from her Sunday School class in 1988. Each member had signed it. All but the teacher have now died.

                But there’s more. I read the daily paper top half first with the bottom folded under. The second column of the day’s obituaries began this way: “Corning; from Hendrix College in Conway; and from Duke University Divinity School in 1962. He pastored churches in the former North Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church and in Missouri… Lynn crafted mountain dulcimers….”

                I keened and wailed longer than ever I’d done. He was another of my early “boyfriends.” Lynn McSpadden of Mountain View had died at age 76.

                When I was a senior at Hendrix and he was a junior, I was in love with him. If he’d asked me, I would’ve married him in a heartbeat. But he was smarter than that and it didn’t happen.

                Later, when friend Pat Guthrie and I made a trip to the Folk Center in Mountain View, we saw Lynn in his dulcimer shop. Since I taught folk music to middle grade students, I purchased one of his lap or mountain dulcimers—whether at that time or later, I forget—which I still have.

                The saddest part about this was a paragraph in the obit that his wife, Mary Catherine, or one of his children added. “If you do not smoke, or use tobacco in any form, don’t start. If you are already a smoker, QUIT NOW! Emphysema is a miserable disease.”

                During the early 1990s, when my friends and I visited the local VFW regularly, I met a woman named Margaret, whose body was invaded by cancer. She eventually died. I wrote a Butterfly pattern poem for her. I am updating it and reprinting it here in memory of the four saints I mourn today.

 

FOR CORKY, JEAN, JOHN and LYNN

Four lambs have passed through death’s bright door;

They will not feed again before

They visit God,

Whose shepherd’s rod

Has pulled them gently from this side

Of pain into God’s healing tide.

 

                Feelings of sympathy too strong for words go out to the Chenault, Adams, Workman and McSpadden families. May the strength of faith and the love of friends bless and keep them all. Amen.