http://postcards-from-my-sofa.blogspot.com/2008/10/

Thursday, October 30, 2008

T. Boone for President

Over the last several months I have been intrigued by the commercial that T. Boone Pickens has been airing. He has taken on the oil crisis as his cause and wants to end our dependence on foreign oil.

Last night I watched a 90 minute town hall meeting he held in Nashville, TN on the subject. He is a big advocate of using natural gas for transportation. He wants to start it out on Federal vehicles, public transportation, and 18 wheelers. Can you imagine the impact that would have on our environment alone?

He also wants to establish wind energy along the wind corridor between Texas and the Canadian border. This will take longer and there is the logistics of getting the energy from point A to point B. Our power grids will need to be changed but the technology is there and it would mean a lot of jobs for our country.

Being a child of the 60's it is fun for me to have a cause to believe in and I think this man has the right idea, not to mention an army of 1.3 million who are helping to spread the word. He will need help from Congress and the White House to get this initiative moving forward.

Please visit his website at www.pickensplan.com where you can join the army, sign petitions, and spread the word. A cleaner environment. What a great legacy to leave our children and grandchildren.



Saturday, October 25, 2008

Fall Musing

From my usual spot on the sofa, I can look out one of the living room windows and see a bright yellow leafed tree. My eyes are too bad to zero in on the leafs to see if it is a maple or oak.

It has been kissed by the God of Autumn and stands tall allowing me enjoy its beauty.

Soon, the real Fall rains will begin and the wind will pick up and the tree will lose its beautiful color, until Spring brings buds of new life and leaves of green.

So I will enjoy its beauty now and know that the cycle of life continues for us all.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Fall Frolic


I thank God for the maple trees that line the path of my daily walk.
The fall air is crisp and the leaves that have fallen rustle at my feet
Colors that only maple trees can bring, vivid orange, bright yellow and crimson
fill my eyes with their beauty.

I close my eyes and inhale the unmistakable aroma of autumn
My mind is awash in memories of jumping into big piles of leaves with my young son, his joyous laughter still ringing in my ears

Memories of bonfires with the grandkids
Making smores in the dark, trying to find the graham crackers
Gooey chewy goodness
More chocolate outside the kids than inside

I walk through the deepest leaves on the sidewalk, kicking them up
Still the little kid
Remembering my childhood

I pass a young couple at the bus stop
"Good morning", I say
"Good morning, ma'am" the young man responds with a smile
How polite, I think, then it comes to me that he is merely respecting his elders,
like his mother probably taught him

I pass a man at the next bus stop
"Good morning" I say looking into his steel blue eyes
No response
Just stares at me in defiance
How sad
Makes me feel bad somehow, kind of ruins my morning
But I get over it and keep moving

This is me pushing the envelope
Getting out of my comfort zone
Starting another day.







Thursday, October 16, 2008

Hugs

There is nothing quite like a hug. It wraps you in warmth. It brings you close to another person. Group hugs are good too.

Then there is the "I don't want to get too close" hug. Where you go though the motions, but don't quite make physical contact. Those are usually reserved for people we know, but not too well.

Hugs say a lot of different things; "I missed you", I love you", "I understand", "Hello", "Goodbye", "Hang in there", "I'm with you".

The hugs I remember most are from my grandchildren. Feeling their little arms around my neck. Jumping off steps into my arms. (I always had to be ready.) Picking them up when they fell to comfort them and dry their tears.

The greatest part of a hug is when it is fully enjoyed by both parties. Sometimes it's fun to see who can hug the hardest. Sort of like a "dance of joy".

The goodbye hugs are the hardest on me. Tears come to my eyes now thinking of them.

I remember the last hug my Dad gave me as I was leaving for home in the dark of an early May morning. It brings me both joy and sadness.

I look forward to all my up coming hugs. Feeling the joy of seeing my family and friends again and holding the essence of their love in our goodbye embraces.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Roots


We all want them
Some of us have them
As trees growing where they were planted
their roots reaching deeply into the earth

Sometimes our roots are not allowed to
deeply furrow into the ground
We must leave the place where we
are comfortable

Like tall, strong oak trees we
refuse to bend or be bent by strong
winds trying to blow us down

The roots hold the tree so it is stable
but the roots also do not allow the
tree to move, from flames of fire, the
wrath of tornadoes or the like
The tree
is broken but the roots remain

For those of us who must give up
our roots are able to move
when the fire comes and seek
shelter from the cyclonic winds

So roots are good
and roots are bad
the part that makes me really sad
is giving up the roots I had.

The featured picture is by Lisa Feather and is from her website pixelpearls.net

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Old MacDonald

The sun was shining brightly and it felt nice and warm on his face. It was a beautiful early spring day in Michigan. The sky was a bright cobalt blue color and no clouds were in sight. The newly mowed hay smelled sweet and fresh.

He sat up high in the John Deere 8840. An air conditioned cab sheltered him from the elements and he could listen to talk radio too. Sure was a far cry from the old days he thought.

As he rounded the corner to start another row the tractor scared up a doe and her young fawn. "Whew," he thought, he hated it when they couldn't get out of the way quick enough. He was almost done with this field.

The only thing he enjoyed more than this was flying. He had to give up his pilot license long ago due to his heart problems. He could no long pass his medical exam.

He hated getting older. He was almost 80 and knew he could not keep working on the broken tractors and lifting heavy bags of feed much longer.

He had a friend named Jeff who owned a car dealership. He needed someone to shuttle cars back and forth from the auctions and deliver title work, he could do that and it would be fun, meeting people, talking about cars, drinking coffee, he thrived on being with others. It was his life blood and the only thing that made it better was being paid for it.

He was a child of the depression and he felt so lucky any time he could go to work. Work was the reason he got up every morning. He didn't understand why it irked his kids so much.

He pulled the tractor and mower into the barn and looked at his watch. "Good," he thought, he still had time to stop at the Bakery and catch up with the coffee gang.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Gardener


She tends her garden in a loving manner, careful to make sure her plants are in the right place. They react to her kindness by blooming gloriously where they are planted. The sun bathes them with its light and they are refreshed by the summer thundershowers that come calling. Occasionally they are tossed by the wind when mother nature makes the weather severe. But she gets right back out there and nurses them along to their original beauty.

Mounds of Shasta Daisies, Brown-eyed Susan's, lacy pink Babies Breath, and Roses with blooms so large they are top heavy from the weight bring oohs and aahs from all who see them.

The rabbits are her worst enemy in the garden, but she can't help but feel sorry for the baby rabbits when they fall victim to the neighbor's cat.

She is keeper of the house now. It has been two years.

Days that drag.

Empty house.

She scolds herself for not staying busy enough. If only she stayed active, perhaps the loneliness would subside. So she tries her hand at the latest Sudoku puzzle, reads her Prevention magazine, watches for her elusive Hummingbirds when they come to her feeder.

Simple things bring her joy and yet she is seldom happy.

Her body is tired and shows some signs of slowing down. It is painful for her when she rises in the morning but she slowly works out the kinks and prepares for another day.

A day of waiting; for the phone to ring, the mailman to come, the paper to be delivered.

She is thankful for the ability to drive, but doesn't trust herself to venture too far knowing she may not have the privilege forever.

She is a realist; and a dreamer. She dreams of a better world for her family, for her children to all be close to her again. She cannot understand why the world has become what it is today and so many people have to be hurting.

So she tends her garden, sleeps alone in her bed at night, but lovingly kisses the picture of her other half before she closes her eyes to slip into a restless sleep.

So she can start another day of waiting.


Friday, October 3, 2008

Hey Dad, It's Me

It seems that I have spent my entire life trying to get my Dad's attention. Here I am even now after he has been gone two years writing about him and hoping some how he knows.

When I was a kid he was always making fun of the way I looked and of course my brothers would always put in their two cents worth. The jokes circulated within our household about my cooking, driving, fashion sense, boyfriends,you name it they had a joke about it. It was fun making them laugh, even if it was at my expense. When Mom would come to my defense, it only made things worse.

The only time my Dad was home was for meals. He worked at least two jobs a day, plus he was a volunteer fireman, ambulance driver, helped out at the funeral home, you get the picture. He was a very driven man, but I wondered at times if he just didn't want to be home with Mom and us kids.There were no "Big Russ and Me" moments. Not that he did not have an interesting life, he just never talked to us about it.

I remember a couple of vacations we took as a family. One was a total surprise when I was seven years old. We took the Milwaukee Clipper across Lake Michigan from Muskegon, MI to Milwaukee, WI. I remember it like it was yesterday. The movie they showed on board was "The Glenn Miller Story" with Jimmie Stewart and June Allison. I remember my Dad lifting me up so I could look over the side of the ship and look at the water so very far below. It was a car ferry so we drove off the boat and went to visit my Mom's relatives in Okanamawoc and then drove home through Chicago and back to Delton.

The next big trip was when I was 12 and we went to the northern Michigan wilderness. We stayed in a very rustic cabin that belonged to a friend of my Dad's. I remember being scared to go to the outhouse at night. It was dark and very scary and everything smelled funny. Right then and there I knew I was not a camper. It was only a few miles from Lake Superior and it was chilly and rainy. My brothers and I ran ourselves silly going up and down the many steps to Pike lake. No one else was on the lake so we had it all to ourselves. We continued on to Tahquamenon Falls, Mackinaw Island and Mackinaw City. We saw both historical forts and ate a lot of fudge. It was a good time.

But those trips were few and far between. It was like pulling teeth getting Dad to take us on vacation. He couldn't make money if he wasn't working and that seemed to irritate him.

Looking back I don't know why vacations were so important to me. I hated my Dad's driving. He drove like a maniac. Lead foot Lynn, is what we used to call him. More than once I would look out the back window and see the State Police Officer motioning for us to pull over. How embarrassing. For a lot of my youth I would dread getting in the car with my Dad.