How Did They Do It? Part One

I've often wondered, how did my grandparents survive?  Their lives were so different, and not just in the sense that they didn't have cell phones, computers, and microwave ovens!  Even I didn't have those conveniences when I was growing up, well yes, we did get a microwave when I was a teenager but on with this story. I have to note here that I intended to write just one post on the subject but it grew and grew.  So, this is part one:

My father's family just lived a few miles from town when he was small. The roads were all dirt/gravel and often their travel into town was limited because of bad weather; my grandfather gave up farming and they moved into town when my father started high school. His family from that time on  were "city folks".  My grandparents both had jobs and enjoyed city conveniences even though their finances were still limited. The years in the country were harsh, it was the depression and everyone was struggling.

My mother's family lived way out in the country, also on dirt/gravel roads, until my mother was about 9 years old when they moved just a few miles outside of Eupora.  They bought a small house and (I think) about 35 acres.  My grandfather built around the existing house and added a barn built from lumber salvaged from an old house (yep, recycling was going on then, too). There was no air-conditioning, just cross-ventilation and box fans. As I "suffered" and complained about the August heat last week I thought about how hot it was in Mississippi in the summers without air-conditioning.  My grandparents never seemed to mind, they just took it in stride. Their car wasn't air-conditioned either!

This was my grandparent's house, as I knew it.  This picture was made in late December 1964.  There was a light snowfall; my cousins and I were thrilled!  Daddy walked across the highway and made this picture.  The car on the left was ours, my uncle's on the right.  My grandfather put his car in the barn!

Steps

I don't know why but a set of steps along a curb has always caught my attention.  Especially ones that lead to a vacant lot. I always have to wonder about what was there that the steps led to and why that building is no longer there.



Gulfport, MS

I didn't have to wonder about what happened to the building these stairs led into; it was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

 

These steps lead up to the abandonded T& P Hospital. I had to wonder about all the patients and their families that went up and down these steps.





No steps here, but still made me wonder about the house that had once been there.  Now this was all that was left - two lions at the end of the sidewalk, guarding the vacant lot.



A man's heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.  Proverbs 16:9

An interesting find

When Bentley and I were on our way to Marshall Pottery I spotted an old building as we were going into Marshall.  On our way back I circled around the block to get a better look and some pictures.  There really wasn't much place to park and it was clearly posted "no trespassing" so I had to take what I could get picture wise.  There were no signs or anything, really to identify the building.

It appeared to be a school.  There was a building to the side that was connected by a covered walkway on a lower level and an enclosed walkway on the upper level.  What puzzled me was that this side building had what appeared to be a carport that was under part of the back side of the building.  The area was big enough that several vehicles could have easily parked under the carport.  It seemed odd for a school but I thought maybe it was a Catholic school and that was where the nuns or priests lived.

Here's a full view from across the street, obviously this building has been abamdonded for a while.

Here's the view from the back,  you can see the covered walkway.

When I started searching on the internet for this building I first thought it was one of the old high school buildings but I couldn't get the address to line up with the historical information.  I looked at it on Google satellite and could see a circular drive in front of the building, very interesting.  And, this building is adjacent to some of the current day school buildings.

Some more searching and I had the correct identification.  This is the T & P Hospital and it served all employees of the Texas & Pacific Railroad.

 

 This isn't a very good picture, it actually came from a post card on the T&P Railway site, but it gives an idea of the size of the hospital and a (somewhat) before picture.  Knowing that it was hospital explains the building to the side; that was the emergency room where the ambulances or emergency transports could pull under the carport covering.

As usual I found myself picturing this building as it was when new and in use, although I had envisioned students coming and going and not patients and ambulances.   There was a roof fire about a year ago and the owner commented that he would love to sell the building.  The article in the Marshall paper stated that the building was inspected after the fire and was deteriorating.  It also has asbestos so it will probably continue to decline until it is torn down and a little piece of history is lost.

The Clothesline

I put my pillow out on the glider today, in the extremely hot sun.  I do this from time to time and always love the way it smells when I go to bed. The fresh clean smell of sun on the fabric will envelope me as I drift off to sleep. As I brought the pillow in I took a quick smell, just to check.  Yes, it has that heavenly fresh air clean fragrance.  I wish I could have that fragrance on my pillow every night! 

When I took that quick sniff I remembered hanging sheets, towels and family laundry on a clothesline and how sweet the sheets would smell after hanging in the sun to dry.  At one house I had an old-fashioned clothesline with two "T" shaped poles and several lines strung between them.  Another house had a modern clothesline; it was square in shape and would spin around.  But my initial training with a clothesline goes back to my maternal grandmother.

My Mamaw had the old-fashioned clothesline, strung between the "T" shaped poles.  Hers actually had several poles in between that would be used to raise the lines after the wash was hung up.  Sometime during my teenage years she got an electric dryer, but I don't recall her using it (my mother did when we visited in the winters).  During the summers I stayed with her, and even on visits in later years, hanging out the wash was a ritual that I always enjoyed.  As a child she taught me how to hang the clothes, and I worked right along side her with no restrictions on what I could hang up. She would hang all the socks together, all the underwear together, all the shirts together, everything was hung up in orderly fashion. I also remember that just like while we washed the dishes we talked while we were hanging out the day's wash.   I also washed my doll clothes and would hang them right along the human clothes.  In the late afternoon we took the wash off the line (sometimes sooner if it looked like rain) and would fold the clothes and put them away. 

Hanging out the clothes was one of those simple things, a necessity that had to be done over and over again.  I never tired of standing at the clothesline, as a child or an adult. It was a chore, but it was an organized routine and when the job was done there was a sense of satisfaction that the chore had been done in an orderly fashion.  Today I dry my clothes in an electric dryer, but my pillow goes outside to bring the laundry day scent into my dreams. 

Shapes

One of the reasons I love quilts and quilting is the colors.  I love colors and the effects you can achieve by combining different combinations; I'm fascinated with color.  But I realized that it is also the shapes that intrigue me.  It doesn't matter if the shapes are by themselves or in combinations.  I find myself looking at shapes and then mentally arranging them together; the same thing with colors.  Sometimes I see a pattern somewhere and think, that would make a great quilt design (if I only had the time to take my thoughts and put them into fabric!).

On my weekend trip I made several pictures that aren't really appealing or anything special.  But they have shapes in them and I know that is what led my hand to the camera.  So I share these shapes here:

 

The octagonal window and spokes caught my eye first.  After I looked at the picture I also saw the lines of the fence, building, and roof.  Plus the two small square windows.  Lots of shapes here!

This is part of the dam that forms Lake 'O the Pines. The lake is so low that it gave me a good view of this feature of the dam and these shapes formed by the opening. As I was leaving I saw the road to get down behind the dam but didn't take time to explore it. Next time I will as I am now wondering how this thing works. I'm sure it would be interesting to see the water flowing through this opening from the other side; however, I think there has to be a gate mechanism somewhere that closes the opening when the lake rises otherwise there would be thrill seekers trying to "ride the falls". I was reminded of the Ross Barnet Reservoir in Jackson as I drove across the spillway.

These circle hoops were scattered all around the entrance drive into the convention center in Longview. I'm not sure what they represent but I thought they were interesting and fun to look at!

 

Sunset in the rear view mirror

Bentley and I are on a little dog show road trip.  We left town on time but traffic delays put us over an  hour behind schedule, ugh! I opted to stay on the interstate rather than take my usual route through some rural areas and small towns; not sure why but the afternoon had already turned into evening and I was ready to just get where I was going.  We were on the road at sunset, still an hour or so away from our hotel.  I-20 is a fairly enjoyable drive, for an interstate any way, and I was just trying not to think about the delay and still enjoy the drive.

Imagine my pleasure when I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the big, red sun slipping down through some clouds.  I realized that the delay had given me an opportunity I would have missed if we had been on time.  I watched the sun set in the rear view mirror (yes, I was watching the traffic and the road ahead, too!).  

As the sun set and the colors of the sky changed I thought about how many times I've tried to photograph a sunrise or sunset.  I never can get the camera set up quick enough, and the colors are always gone.  They change quickly and then vanish.  Trying to photograph a sunset is like trying to catch the wind, you just can't.  It seems that the lense of the camera never catches all the brillance of the colors.  Even so, there's always another sunset to watch on another day.  I wonder if you could capture the essence of the sunset in a picture would you enjoy the next one as much?

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of sight to see the sunset.  And for the promise of sunrise to come and another day tomorrow.

P.S. to the Nandina Berries post

As I was doing the last post I kept thinking that I had a third picture of the nandina berries' progression.  After searching through files and checking both camera cards I finally decided that I did not and published the post.  Tonight the picture just jumped out at me, so here it is:

This was in early July, don't they look good?

Nandina Berries

Last year there were no nandina berries, none.  It wasn't due to birds munching on them or little fingers pulling them off; it was the heat and the drought of last year's dreadful summer.  This year, thankfully, is different.  We have had rain and only a few days of excessive heat although it is hot enough now. 

In April the nandina bushes put forth quite a few berry stalks.

 

By mid-May the crop was looking good. 

So far I think we will have berries for Thanksgiving this year.  The birds had a few; however, Jaydon is old enough to understand that if he pulls the little green berries (they are so tempting, I know) we will not have red berries at Thanksgiving so quite a few have stayed on the stalks.

So, why do I write about green nandina berries?  This morning while I sat outside with the dogs enjoying that first wake-up cup of coffee I could see the berries in the pre-dawn light.  I realized that it is already almost the end of July.  Soon football camps start, followed by pre-season games.  Ah, the wonderful sound of a football game on the television!  Then comes cooler weather, pumpkins on the porch after a trip to the pumpkin patch, the Quilt Festival, and then family gathered around the Thanksgiving table.  By then the little green berries will be red and beautiful as we start the Holiday Season. Seeing the little green berries reminds me of the season to come and that I look forward to the fall season even though it is only July!

How did that happen

I'm fairly tech smart; not as smart as some but way ahead of many!  I don't have a fancy phone, just one that goes ring ring and text text.  As much as I would love to have a new phone I know that if I did I would spend way too much time messing around with it because that is what I do with the computer.  I spend way too much time piddling around, wasting time and I love it!  I also have a Zune and a Kindle and an aging laptop.  You know, gadgets and gizmos! I finally gave in to temptation; however, and bought a netbook.  My justification for the purchase was that I could take it to school or when I traveled and have access to my e-mail and the internet.  I ordered it off Amazon and it was quickly delivered to my door (magic, huh) and my credit card charged, too!

But when it arrived I realized that if I wasn't careful I would get way too wrapped up in getting it set up and spend too many hours messing with it. I managed to not spend too much time working on it but realized last week that if I was going to take it to the Reliant Show I needed to buy Microsoft Office and get my e-mail set up.  

But before I did that I tackled another project.  I had set up a g-mail address to use just for dog stuff and for the steward's club correspondence.  But honestly, the g-mail format was driving me crazy and I just did not want to mess with it.  So I printed up instructions on how to bring the g-mail through Outlook.  The instructions were great and in just a minute or two it was done.  I felt like the Queen of Internet!  Feeling real good about that I tackled getting Microsoft onto the new netbook and in sync with my addresses.

I used Amazon again (cheapest deal I could find) but first mistake was that I chose to download instead of getting the key.  I knew full well that the netbook was preloaded and all I needed was the key.  As soon as I clicked "download" I realized what I had done.  What was I thinking?  Three hours to download and it was already after 9:30 p.m.  I was afraid to try to stop it so, I stayed up late that night.  

Download worked and I got the little wizard to come up to complete the profile.   Should have been easy but after several attempts I gave up and went to bed.  Next morning I tried again, still no luck.  I kept getting an error message that said to contact my service provider.  I had to move on to other things but kept thinking about the steps that I followed and why it wasn't working.  I loaded up the netbook anyway and headed to Houston thinking that it would be an excellent project to work on in the hotel.  

Now here's what I can't figure out:  when I turned the computer on and tried to open Outlook, guess what...it opened right up.  Everything was just fine, not sure what the problem had been but somehow Outlook fixed itself.  I just had to set up the instructions to send/receive e-mail through AT&T.   I went to AT&T's support site and looked up their instructions about setting up e-mail.  Since I didn't have a printer I took notes and then went back to Outlook.  I entered everything just the way I did the times before and to my amazement, it worked!  How did that happen?

To conclude this long story I felt so confident that I set up the g-mail account on the netbook, too.  Success, well almost.  I missed dinner with some of the stewards because I was stuck in internet land and then the internet service in the hotel was intermittent so I couldn't do too much in the way of setting up other things on the netbook.  Just as well, I didn't want to miss any other dinners!

Not Just An Expression

I have a supply of sayings that I use frequently.  One is (and this is figuratively), "I'm going to pinch your head off".  This is used when I'm mad at someone I love, like children or pets.  Another is "Haste Makes Waste".  This is usually used in the context of sewing when I try to rush or take a shortcut I know I shouldn't.  

I also use the phrase "Your sins will always find you out".  Yes, you can imagine the context that is used in and yes, it is true!  Until today I just thought that was a saying.  But, it is from the Bible!  How did I find this out?  I have a little devotional book that I like to take outside and read after I get home, weather and time permitting.  This is a habit formed from having dogs and wanting to sit outside with them when I get home.  Imagine my surprise when I opened up the book and there was today's verse,

Be sure your sin will find you out 

Numbers 32:23

Iced Tea

I don't know why I haven't added this to my list of simple things that I love, but I realized that iced tea belongs way up on the list!  I love iced tea!  And, let's face it - it is a simple thing.  I don't care if it is sweet or un-sweet, flavored or un-flavored.  Just no "diet" tea, please.  I've loved tea from the time I was a baby and suspect that I was given sweet tea in a bottle (yes, parents did things like that when I was small.  They put Kool-Aid in bottles, too!). Mostly now I use the Cold Brew bags and lately have been making the decaf variety which tastes the same as the regular.  Years ago I made sun tea and it was so refreshing on a hot afternoon! 

I remember my grandmother making tea and how beautiful it would look with the morning sun shining through the glass pitcher.  Every morning as she began to wash the breakfast dishes she would boil water for that day's tea.  She did not drink tea, but everyone else did.  She would always make one pitcher but if a lot of family was present then she made another, smaller pitcher, too.  The tea was made with well water; my father always claimed that it was the best water in the world (except when the red Mississippi rust/dirt slipped into the pipes, yuk!) and I'm sure that contributed to the beauty of the tea as well as the taste.  When I was there she would let me count out the tea bags and open them.  Mamaw would put the sugar in the bottom of the pitcher and pour the boiling water over the sugar and the tea bags. To keep the pitcher from cracking she would put a long metal cooking spoon in the pitcher before she poured the water in.  I would be allowed to stir the tea with the spoon to dissolve the sugar.  The tea would darken into a beautiful reddish-golden color while it swirled gently in the pitcher. 

Ice for the tea didn't come out of ice trays when a lot of family was present.  One of the men would go to the ice house (not a convenience store as we know them today locally) and bring home a block of ice in an ice chest.  Just before we ate a meal one of the men would go to the utility room with an ice pick and chip out a chunk of ice and then put it in a large wooden bread bowl and break it into chips. A block of ice would usually last about two days. I remember going along on an ice run once or twice but the big dark ice house was scary and the big burly men working there also scared me.  I would usually decline the offer to go!

Yes, let's add ice tea to the list of small, simple joys of life!

Happy July 4th, 2012

On both of my trips to New England I couldn't help but notice that the flag was flying everywhere.  On homes, businesses, in parks and by the Atlantic ocean, everywhere you looked there was Old Glory!  Wow, that's showing patriotism right where it started!

What is about the colors of red, white, and blue that give you a stand up and cheer feeling?  Our church had a patriotic pops concert last night and the energy that came from the audience and participants was amazing!  There is just something about celebrating our Freedom and our great nation that brings people together.

Thank you God for blessing America.  Please guide us that we may serve you and honor you as a nation.