December 26

On the front door
A beautiful wreath once bade welcome, come in
Now it's sagging, held together with a pin

Beneath the tree
Where presents were once in a heap
Now I find pine needles ankle deep

In the refrigerator
Once a feast, a splendid fare
Now a dab of dressing, turkey bones picked bare

At the piano
 The music rang out, we gathered round to sing
Now on top I find a dozen egg nog cup rings

On the coffee table
A forgotten Christmas toy
And my feet propped up, recovering from all the joy!

Grandmother's Dutch Oven

     A few weeks ago I was in an antique store with a friend.  We saw an old iron dutch oven with a rusted handle.  I had to stop, remove the lid and take a peek inside.  I told my friend that I had this same thing at home.  It was my grandmother's.  I don't use it.  I don't think it would work on my ceramic top stove without leaving a mark.  It sits on the bottom shelf of a little writing desk in my living room.  At one time it was used a lot.
      Grandmother liked to have pot roast for Sunday lunch after church.  She would start the pot roast cooking in the dutch oven on Sunday morning.  When we'd leave for church she would turn it down to low heat and let it simmer while we were gone.  When we got home she'd turn the heat up and add potatoes, carrots and onion.  In a short while we'd have a delicious pot roast meal. 
      My favorite memory is of white beans cooking in the dutch oven.  I always knew when grandmother would be cooking white beans the next day.  The night before she would pour out dried beans in a bowl and sort through them to remove any old or discolored beans.  Then they would soak in water overnight.  After I'd leave for school the next morning she would put the beans on to cook in the dutch oven on the coal stove we had in our den.  They would slowly cook all day.  I always liked getting off the school bus on a cold wintry day, coming into the house and being greeted by the smell of white beans cooking on the old stove.  I would have to have a small bowl then.  The rest were served for dinner.
      I will occasionally make white beans for dinner but mine never taste as good as those did.  Today the old iron dutch oven sits on a shelf in my living room, a reminder of old times, good meals and white beans on cold wintry days. 

Jack

       Until I was four years old I lived with my mother and my grandparents in a little yellow house on a shady, quiet  city street.  It had a big front porch and a grassy lawn.  A large white swing was under a shade tree.
      Jack and I spent many happy hours sitting in that swing.  He was my best friend and constant companion.  We were so little we had to climb into the swing.  Our feet didn't come close to touching the ground but between the two of us we could move it and swing a little.
      We spent time relaxing in the shade and playing little kid games.  We made piles of sweet smelling newly mowed grass and jumped in them.  We stomped in mud puddles on rainy days.  We spent summer evenings catching lightening bugs and putting them in old mason jars with holes punched in the lids.  Jack was there at every family event.  He would stand silently watching.
     When I was four we moved into a big house in the country.  I never saw Jack again.  I moved, I grew up and like all invisible friends Jack couldn't come with me.

US/1963 a poem

US/1963

We waltzed barefoot through damp evening grass
slipping in and out of twilight's dim glow.
We sat on a hill in a clear country night
with a life time of dark valleys below.
We dreamed of our future, whenever it would be,
the days, we thought, went too slow,
as we danced our sweet summer time away
with Dion on the radio.

Family Story

Martha Bass was my great great grandmother.  She was born in 1849.  No one knows for sure when she died because she disappeared one day.
She lived in the small rural community of Bunker Hill in Giles County.  Her first husband was William Watson.  They had four children.  One was Sarah Olivia Watson, my great grandmother.  After he died she remarried and had another child.
Martha and her second husband lived on a farm and raised produce to sell.  They had a hired hand to help on the farm.  According to most stories he was black but one family member always said he was Native American.
One day Martha and the hired hand took a horse and wagon to town, Pulaski, the closest city.  As the story goes, they sold all the produce then both of them and the horse and wagon disappeared.  It's not clear if they even started the trip home.
Of course there is the theory that someone saw them during the day making money selling produce and after the day's work robbed them, killed them and drove away with the horse and wagon.  They probably weren't even missed until they didn't return home.  I know inquiries were made because according to the story someone saw them  boarding a train in another small community.  Whatever happened they were never seen or heard from again.
The robbery theory would be the logical one.  But ever being the romantic I have another theory.
Martha couldn't have had a easy life raising five children on a farm, barely making a living.  Her first husband's obituary says he led a wayward life until just before he died when he found Jesus.  Perhaps her second husband wasn't much better.  She found solace, love and understanding with the hired hand.  Of course at the time, around 1900, they would have had a hard time as a racially mixed couple.
I like to think they loved each other so much they decided to take the produce money and run.  They escaped by taking the train and starting over in a new safe place.  Of course you have to think of her five children she left behind but they all survived and led productive lives.  Maybe leaving them was the price she paid for escaping her life there.
They loved each other, they ran away and they lived happily ever after.
That's just my theory.  It may be far from the truth but if I had written the story that's the way I would have written it.

Officially a Blogger

I guess I have officially come into the computer age since I am now a blogger. Thanks to Holly for telling me about this.
 I once wrote a poem about not writing a poem. This was back when I was using a typewriter.  That's right.........TYPEWRITER.  Back in the stone age.  I wrote "I stare at the paper, it stares back at me".  Now I guess it will have to be"I stare at the monitor, it stares back at me".
Joanna Long, a very good writer, teacher and leader of a writer's workshop I attended for years, said you need to write every day to keep in practice.  It's been a while since I've written anything.  And a while since I've had anything published.  I'm hoping this little blogging experiment will help me start writing again.
This is a learning experience.  I'll have to figure out how this all works.  Most importantly I have to find spell check.