Living in the Country

Late yesterday afternoon I was just sitting at my window looking out at the pond and the reflections. I decided to make this shot of it. As the season goes more into winter the bright colors of the fall leaves reflecting in it change daily.

I love living in the country. I was born 80 miles north of here in the country and grew up there. We lived in cities all our working years but when we retired we came back to the country.

I love the sounds of the country. The frogs on the pond, the birds in the trees and the sounds of the animals in the woods nearby. I am losing my hearing and have to have amplification now but am trying to store all the sounds I can in my memory. The hearing loss started when I was working and lightning struck the phone I had on my head to test some trouble on the line. Then it gradually worsened. I look like I am listening to a radio with the earphones on my head. Hearing aids don't work for me and the earbuds worry me falling out so I stick to the earphones.

Back when I was growing up, the woods were so deep around the house we could hear the wildcats and other animals. Only once since I have been here have I heard a wildcat.

And I love the smells of the country. Although there is a highway that runs in front of my house, I still get the smell of the grass and flowers. Nothing has ever smelled as good to me as the smell of honeysuckle early in the morning. My idea of heaven would be fields of honeysuckle.

We lived in such an isolated place when I was growing up that we didn't have a telephone until I was grown so I didn't have the disadvantage of being bothered with it. After I left to go to work when I was 17 they ran the lines where my parents could get one. It was an 8 party line and everyone listened to everyone else on it. Lack of one freed me to sit under a shade tree and read after my chores were done. I used to set up an old army cot with a pitcher of Kool Aid and surround myself with books. There was no air conditioning. Children in those days had such an advantage over children today. It saddens me to think that they have to be entertained all the time instead of learning to be self sufficient and creating their own entertainment.

I know a lot of city folk look down on country folk because they think they had no advantages. But I feel they had all the advantages to become decent people.

Yes, I do love living in the country. And I wouldn't trade it for a blue nose mule as Aubrey used to say.

My father

My father was a railroad man. Born in 1900 in Terry, Mississippi, he was the oldest by 11 months of two boys. When he was 16 his father died and his mother and the two boys survived by truck farming for a couple of years. Then shortly before he was 20, he went to telegraph school and became a telegraph operator. He went to work for a major railroad in 1920 and had over 50 years service with them before his retirement.

He loved the railroad--everything about it. He loved the big steam engines and worked many out of the way places just so he could be around them although he could have worked in a larger office.

In 1931 he married my mother, Kathie. This was the tail end of the great depression and jobs were scarce, yet he managed to keep his seniority by getting a friend to let him work the required one day out of 6 months to hold onto it. He gave the money back to his friend and that was a well kept secret as it was against the rules. He bid in the agency in Eden, Mississippi and we moved there. Then oil was discovered in Yazoo County and the agency came open in Anding, Mississippi and he bid that in. My mother and I were already there as my grandmother had passed away and we had to go and take care of my grandfather, who was alone.

We were allowed to ride anywhere we wanted free on a pass and my mother and I used to ride the train a lot.

Dad was a rather short, slender man and full of life and energy. He always had something new going on. Once he decided to plant gladiola as he loved flowers. But unlike most people who would have simply planted a couple of dozen, he planted an acre of them. They were the most beautiful I have ever seen with each stalk blooming up to 20 blossoms. The only problem was that we had trouble finding homes for all the beautiful flowers as he cut them! Then the next year he changed from flowers to garlic. And planted the whole acre in it. It surely was a difference in the smell of the place that year. Garlic is very pretty when it is growing and blooming though so we all enjoyed seeing it. The problem with that was that no one else, at all, wanted any of it.

In a way, he was a strange man. He was friendly to everyone but hard to really know. I knew he loved me but he never once told me he did. When my mother would ask did he love her, his answer was always "I married you, didn't I?" My mother told me he used to take me when I was a baby down to an old tree on the property and sing to me in the evening. I was the only child they had. When I got a little older, he took me to work with him every day. At that time he was working about 15 miles away and I would spend the whole time with him and he played with me when he had time.

The way my parents met was when he was sent to Anding to work and he boarded at my grandmother's house. He was 8 years older than she was and she immediately loved this young man, who at that time looked a bit like Clark Gable. She was engaged to another young man but soon broke that engagement to be with Dad.

I grew up with his love for the railroad and followed in his footsteps as a telegraph operator. Once you work for a railroad it never gets out of your blood. He missed it after his retirement and all these years later, I still miss it too.

These were just some random thoughts about my life with my father, who I loved dearly, but never quite understood.

He was a good man and I miss him although he has been gone 40 years this month of October 2009.

Chocolate Sings

 This was in my email this morning. Enjoy!! One day I had a date with friends for lunch. Mae, a little old "blue hair" about 80 years old, came along with them---all in all, a pleasant bunch. When the menus were presented, we ordered salads, sandwiches, and soups, except for Mae who said, "Ice Cream, please. Two scoops, chocolate." I wasn't sure my ears heard right, and the others were aghast. "Along with heated apple pie," Mae added, completely unabashed. We tried to act quite nonchalant, as if people did this all the time.. But when our orders were brought out, I didn't enjoy mine. I couldn't take my eyes off Mae as her pie a-la-mode went down. The other ladies showed dismay. They ate their lunches silently and frowned. The next time I went out to eat, I called and invited Mae. I lunched on white meat tuna. She ordered a parfait. I smiled. She asked if she amused me. I answered, "Yes, you do, but also you confuse me. How come you order rich desserts, while I feel I must be sensible? She laughed and said, with wanton mirth, "I'm tasting all that is Possible. I try to eat the food I need, and do the things I should. But life's so short, my friend, I hate missing out on something good. This year I realized how old I was. (She grinned) I haven't been this old before." "So, before I die, I've got to try those things that for years I had ignored. I haven't smelled all the flowers yet. There are too many books I haven't read. There's more fudge sundaes to wolf down and kites to be flown overhead. There are many malls I haven't shopped. I've not laughed at all the jokes. I've missed a lot of Broadway hits and potato chips and cokes. I want to wade again in water and feel ocean spray on my face. I want to sit in a country church once more and thank God for His grace. I want peanut butter every day spread on my morning toast. I want un- timed long distance calls to the folks I love the most. I haven't cried at all the movies yet, or walked in the morning rain. I need to feel wind in my hair. I want to fall in love again. So, if I choose to have dessert, instead of having dinner, then should I die before night fall, I'd say I died a winner, because I missed out on nothing. I filled my heart's desire. I had that final chocolate mousse before my life expired.." With that, I called the waitress over.. "I've changed my mind, " I said. "I want what she is having, only add some more whipped cream!" This is my gift to you - We need an annual Friends Day! If you get this twice, then you have more than one friend. Live well, love much & laugh often - Be happy. SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS including me if I'm lucky enough to be counted among them. Be mindful that happiness isn't based on possessions, power, or prestige, but on relationships with people we love and respect. Remember that while money talks, CHOCOLATE SINGS!

Look at me

I have an absolute horror of nursing homes. Aubrey and I did quite a bit of volunteer work in them during the last years of his life and came to know the cruelty that is put upon the patients, especially the ones in wheelchairs who cannot defend themselves. If it ever became necessary for me to go to one, I hope someone shoots me at the front door before I go in. I watched them mistreat my mother and some friends and have first hand knowledge of the way people are treated. And they pay a huge price for the so-called care they are given in them. While visiting my mother one day, I wrote this little poem and found it on my computer this morning. I deliberately have no pictures of her in her wheelchair as I did not want to remember her that way. I want to remember her smiling and happy and not with her head down and no hope.

Look at me
By Ann Roberts

Look at me
In this wheelchair
All bent and gray
Don't just turn your eyes away
Look at me.

Touch me
I won't break if you
Just touch me.
I can still feel the touch of a friend
Oh the days without end
When no one will
Touch me

Talk to me
Don't just say
How are you and walk away.
Although I am old and gray,
I still have things to say.
Talk to me.

Please
Look at me
Touch me
Talk to me

LOOK AT ME, look at me, look at me!

In memory of my father

On October 25, 1969 my father was killed in a car wreck by a drunken driver who hit us from behind. A while later I wrote this in memory of him. He never called me anything but Nancy.


The Keys
By Ann Roberts

Nancy lay in the hospital bed looking at the ring of keys the nurse had brought to her. They were her father's keys. Several hours before, Nancy, her mother and father had been involved in a terrible automobile accident. Her father was dead and her mother had been transferred to a larger hospital. She was alone. She had sent her husband with her mother to the other hospital so her mother would have someone with her when she regained consciousness and was told of her husband's death.

As she looked at the keys and carefully examined them, her thoughts were in turmoil. This one was the one to the house. The house her parents had paid for one note at the time until it was paid for and then improved one note at the time. Now that he was gone, what would her mother do?

She fondled another one. This one was to the office where he had worked for 50 years. He had kept the key as a memento after his retirement. He had still been welcome there.

The next one was to the automobile. He was so proud of it. He had saved his money until he could pay cash for it and it was now gone, along with him.

The accident happened one sunny afternoon in October 1969. He had wanted to take a ride and asked Nancy to go along with them. Her mother decided to drive.
They were all riding along laughing and talking when suddenly there was an impact from behind. The last thing she ever said to her father was "People should live with love and not hate".

It hit so hard the gas tank flew off into the road. The car careened down a fifty-foot embankment into a pine tree. Her father didn't stand a chance. The glove compartment flew open and was driven into his sternum. Her mother had multiple breaks and contusions. Nancy had a crushed vertebra. The doctor had said there was a chance she would never walk again and at best would always have to wear a brace. At this moment, this was secondary to what she was feeling.

The driver of the automobile that hit them so suddenly and cruelly from behind had no brakes and the driver was drunk. He suffered no injury at all.

As she kept looking at the keys and thinking, the thought came to mind "Is this all there is, you live, you die and someone hands you a ring of keys to signify that you were once really here." And the tears that she had not been able to shed until now came in a rush and she screamed out with the anguish and pain "Oh God, is this really all there is to life?"

Be Kind to Your Web-footed Friends

A long time ago Mitch Miller used this as his theme song. "Be Kind to your Web-footed Friends, for a duck may be somebody's mother." The following is a true story that happened to a friend of mine and for some reason it brought to mind this song when it happened.

The Inheritance

By Ann Roberts

Joseph read the letter he had just received and thought to himself "I just got back from burying Uncle John and now the lawyer wants me to come back out there to tie up some loose ends". This would mean taking more time off from his job and he needed the money badly for his family. And over the years when he would go to check on Uncle John, his wife would get upset at him. Uncle John had left home many years before and moved to Texas to make his fortune. Apparantly, all his dreams had fallen through and he lived as a pauper. Joseph was the only one in the family who ever tried to spend any time with him or help him.

Uncle John, when alive, had not been a very pleasant person to be around and the rest of his family had stayed away. But Joseph felt someone should go to see to his needs once in a while so he went.

The letter sounded as though the trip was absolutely necessary, so he took the time from his job and left the next day. He thought all the way about his uncle. Every time he had gone to see about him, Uncle John had seemed glad to see him and thanked him for his help. He just could not understand why he was the only one who ever bothered to go. Surely, some of them were better able to make the trips.

When he arrived at the lawyer's office, he was taken to a private room. The lawyer told him he had been named sole heir to his uncle's estate. Joseph thought "What in the world will I do with the few things that Uncle John had? I have no place to store them so I suppose I will just give them away." After the will was read the lawyer asked Joseph if he knew what his uncle had left him. When Joseph replied that he really didn't the lawyer smiled and said "Your uncle left you almost three million dollars and if you will sign these papers it all belongs to you."

Dear Nannie

I lost my mother in 2001. This is a tribute to her. She was one of the most beautiful souls I ever knew.



For a long time now I have wanted to write this to you. Remember how when I was working away all those years we wrote each other almost daily and talked often.

I wonder now if you ever knew how much I admired you for your courage in going on for 30 years after Dad was killed in the wreck and after your severe injuries in that wreck caused so needlessly by a drunken driver with no brakes.

I remember so many things about those 30 years about you and your acceptance and coping.

I did the best I could in taking care of you through your 5 month stay in the hospital and then when you came home you had already gotten an automobile ready for the day when you would again be able to drive.

You didn't have much formal education but you had a lot of smarts. True, I had to keep your books for you and do a lot of things most women can do for themselves, but Dad kept you down by not allowing you to do these things. I know now he wanted to take care of his "Southern Belle" and that is always what you were...a person to be cherished and cared for. I used to think he was wrong but now I know he was just doing the best he could.

I admire you for the way you always looked so pretty in your nice clothes when you would come in from church and I would be at your house to spend some time with you. I wish I had said to you "How pretty you look today". I always knew I would never be beautiful like you were but it didn't matter.

I remember coming home from school and starting to call your name when I got close to the house walking and then running so I could tell you what had happened that day. I remember how you played with me like you were my age and my friend and not my mother.

I remember all the funny little things you did like the time you locked the keys in the car and left it running all night and calling the next morning to ask Aubrey if he would come down and not bring me as you were afraid I would fuss at you. There was no way he was going to get out of the house without me and when I saw you I burst out laughing. It did no harm to the car.

It was said that you were not the smartest gal around but you knew how to love and that is really what is important in this life. To know how to give and receive love.

I admired you for going on with your life and for going on even at 90 to the dances we played and you always having a man to dance with and go places with.

I admired you when you had the broken hip and the stroke and how you and I together coped with it for over 3 years until you left me. Those times were hard and broke you financially and I also had to put in a lot of money but I thanked God your mind was still intact and we could communicate as always. After you left Aubrey said he didn't think I could make it without you. It has been very hard but I hope you would be proud of me.

You really should have been born when Southern ladies sat under magnolia trees and sipped mint juleps.

I hope you heard the words I said at your funeral when asked if I had anything to say about what you taught me and I said "She taught me to love". To me, this is the greatest gift a parent can give a child and you gave it to me.

Thank you for being my hero. I miss you.