GREENBRIER
written in 2000

In honor of my mother on the 1st day of June. She continues the tradition, because she made a promise.


Our purpose on that blustery day in May---to refresh the flowers on my grandmother and grandfather’s graves at the Greenbrier Cemetery, before the all-crucial-date….the first Sunday in June, better known as “Decoration Day”. For those of us in the south, “Decoration Day” is the day for acknowledging our ancestors and those who have gone on, by paying special homage to their grave sites, with the addition of fresh, or in this case, silk flowers. My prim and proper grandmother, would have been mortified if her gravesite wasn’t at least as pretty as Aunt Gladys’.

My mother, my 8 year old daughter and I set forth on our adventure, a 2 hour drive that would take us on the back-roads of Williamson County, Tennessee, under canopied, tree-lined lanes and down the road of childhood memories. Names of roads like, Bending Chestnut, Lick Creek and Pinewood Road blazed like green beacons along our way. Greenbrier is one of those tiny little communities in the heart of Tennessee, that has almost died out. All that's left -- a church and a cemetery.

Of course, this was not my first trip to Greenbrier. I had been for the
occasions of the burials of my grandparents. But as I walked around the tombstones, softened by generations of wind and rain, I recalled the day 20 years ago, when I came here with my mother, my grandmother and two great aunts with the task of locating crucial dates for my high school history project – “My Ancestry.” Of course, those were the days before computerization of records and easy accessible genealogies on the internet. I could hear voices from the past … Aunt Ila, and Aunt Gladys, instructed me on the fine art of charcoal rubbings. The engravings even then had nearly been obliterated by lichens and the cool Tennessee winds. Odd names like Oggie, Missouri Enora, Wiley and Berry peered out from the rubbings. Family…although hundreds of years old…they were mine.

Today, we women of the next three generations, put the final touches on the new flower arrangements and decided to continue our exploration of Greenbrier. We traveled down a hill and around the curve, to "the old home-place." Surprisingly enough, the house was much the same as my mother remembered it from her childhood--- several rock chimneys, graying wood siding and porches galore on the two-story farmhouse. My mother never lived here, but this was the place her fond memories of childhood began…Weekends with her Grandma, romping with her cousins, riding the old sway-backed horse, and of course swinging on the sideporch swing. Nearby…Lick Creek-- the creek my mother played in and her father before her. It was a pretty little creek with a limestone base, which made the creek run crisp and clear.

As the three of us continued our wanderings, the smell of a light rain and
fresh cut hay wafted through our car. The gravel lane meandered beside the creek. My daughter squealed with glee when she discovered that in order to cross Lick Creek, we must drive our car down into the creek and back up again. (We city-folk rarely have the opportunity for such marvelous adventures.) We made four crossings in this manner before our trip was completed.

As we finally made our way homeward I thought to myself… This is our family history along these roads and buried in this earth. The people who once inhabited these hollows and ridges, I am sure, had their own traditions which are now long forgotten. For every year that passes, a family's history changes as well as their traditions. However, it occurred to me that we women of this family now have a new tradition which we will long cherish; the annual trek to Greenbrier before the first Sunday in June.

Old Timers…Sissies, Need Not Apply

I had the opportunity today to treat a sweet and dear, but demented older lady at a new residence center today. This particular facility caters to individuals with that much-mispronounced diagnosis of Alzheimers. It’s Alzheimers…not Old Timers, not Altimers….Alzzzzzheimers. Much to my surprise I noticed several familiar faces. There was Mrs. Sunshine over there who just last week was cavorting with her friends at the Non-Demented Facility in our fair city.

I have of course changed the names to protect the innocent and to keep myself out of jail for violating HIPAA regulations. For you non-medical people HIPAA is the federal law that requires that everyone fills out massive amounts of paper- work to say that everyone from your dentist to your chiropractor will not violate your civil rights and inadvertently leave a message on the telephone that tells you that your grandmother’s pregnancy test was positive. AHHHEMM.

And then I saw the man, Mr. Corn, that just last month was a volunteer at our hospital pushing other people up and down the halls to various departments for their appointments with Radiology and Cardiology. What was he doing in here???? Oh…I remember now… he tried to walk the 24 miles to his wife’s grave one night. It apparently scared his son and daughter-in-law to death. The County Deputies were called out in-mass and were able to practice their search and rescue skills. Lucky for Mr. Corn we live in the South and that particular April night was not that cold. But 45-50 degree temperatures can certainly take a toil on a 71 year-old body and apparently his mind as well.

The next blast from the past was a former Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Crownover …Wow…I think she taught me the books of the Bible. Now she goes around and sweeps the spotless floors, dusts imaginary cobwebs and remakes her bed a dozen times a day.

It’s a pleasant life, I suppose. Not knowing or caring about consequences or where the next meal is coming from, or paying taxes or bills, or who is going to clean up everything, or who is going to maintain your home. All of the millions of decisions we make every day simply gone… poof. I suppose…it might be pleasant … as long as you have loving family members to provide a safe place for you…as long as you have kind and patient caregivers who don’t mind changing your Depends diaper for the 6th time that day….as long as you don’t turn violent and disruptive and become a behavior problem that has to be restrained…as long as you have enough balance and stability that when you go wandering (for you surely will) that you don’t fall a break and hip…as long as you like the company of others for whom these other hideous things are a problem…

Alzheimer’s…Not a disease for sissies.

So, it made me really nervous today when I actually couldn’t remember if I had left the iron on or not. So…I came home in the middle of my extremely busy day to check it out. It was turned off and unplugged. Maybe Mrs Crownover turned it off for me.

Safe, for one more night. I think I need to work more crossword puzzles.

One padded cell, please. Hold the straight jacket…


I have just realized what hell must be like…It is over-stimulation of all the senses at once. I have just returned from a frightfully fast 6-day whirlwind trip to The Big Apple with 176 other people (the majority of which were 18-15 years old). And I must say I had a ball. There is nothing like chaperoning a bunch of teenagers to make you feel alive. We saw all the sights. The Empire State Building, Ellis Island, Liberty Island, Ground Zero, St Patrick’s Cathedral, St Paul’s Church, Grand Central Station, Little Italy. Chinatown, Central Park, the financial district, shopping on 5th Avenue. We went to Lincoln Center to hear the New York Philharmonic. We saw the Lion King on Broadway. It was GREAT. I loved it!

However…

The 18 hour bus ride back home just about sent me over the edge. The vibration of the bus, the bright sun and chrome, the deafening sound of the 14th action-packed thriller DVD plugged into the bus’ sound system, and the feel of my derriere widening as I sat and sat and sat, sent me into sensory overload. We were an hour away from home and I was begging for a solid white padded room with an extensive sound barrier system. I tried to sleep. I tried ear plugs. I tried ear phones with sounds of my own choosing. No good. Will Smith’s Independence Day and Tobey Maguire’s Spider Man won the contest for custody of my hearing, while the Gray Line Bus won ownership of my vestibular system.

Don’t get me wrong. The kids were OK. There were no particularly rowdy individuals. No obnoxious behavior…but the bus trip was a little like being on a ride at Universal Studios in a bad B rated horror flick, where the ride just went on and on and on. And you can’t get off…You have to scream to be heard and you just know that someone is going to die in the end.

I know I’m being a wimp, but I think I will fly to the next destination and meet the bus of unchaperoned kids….Hey they are all “plugged into” something anyway. Teenagers these days are either texting, listening to their I-pods, playing their gaming-utensil-of- choice or watching TV. They are completely entertained and if they are entertained, they are usually staying out of trouble. So maybe I’ll just save myself some trouble….

Save me a seat on Southwest!!!!

Can You Spell Multitasking? …mul•ti•task•ing

This new hip word has made the big times. Not only is multitasking an entry in
the dictionary, it is being studied by the brightest psychologists of our times. By definition multitasking is “the concurrent operation by one central processing unit of two or more processes.” In this context it can either mean the computer sitting on most of our desks or the most complicated hard drive of all – our big beautiful brain.

In our evolving society, most folks recognize multitasking simply as the art of performing myriad tasks all at once. As the writer of the article, “Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching” clearly indicates, multitasking is not all it’s cracked up to. Rubenstein, Meyer and Evans purport that our little ole frontal and parietal lobes can not shift quickly enough from one set of rules to another when dividing tasks thus instead of saving time, we actually lose time.
Journal of Experimental Psychology - Human Perception and Performance, Vol 27. No.4 http://www.apa.org/journals/xhp/press_releases/august_2001/xhp274763.html

I say, “Did you have mothers in your test group?” I think not. Name me one mother who hasn’t boiled the water for macaroni and cheese, grilled the hamburgers, all the while folding the clothes fresh out of the dryer, helping her ten-year old with her fourth grade leaf collection, while keeping an eye on Katie Couric and the evening news? Or the working mother who can check out her stock portfolio, type a business proposal, freshen up her lip gloss all the while exacting a certain amount of discipline over the phone to her thirteen-year old twins fighting over the use of the single computer at home? Or how about the chauffeuring mother who is not only driving her children to school but is able to write a check for lunch money, drill the eight-year old in the back seat on his multiplication tables, and manage to take an occasional sip of her lukewarm coffee, while waving to the school crossing guard?

And I haven’t even begun to address the young mothers with a handful of children under the age of five. Let me clue you in to the highly specialized multitasking capabilities of that woman! She can breast feed the baby, while feeding the two-year old animal crackers and maintaining a running commentary on Mr. Rogers, all the while coaching the five-year old on tying his shoes. Not to mention, she just started the fourth load of clothes for the day and is making the grocery list with her one unoccupied hand. Juggling doesn’t begin to describe her day.

Why, I would even wager that Eve (mother of us all) in her day was a multi-tasker. I can just imagine her stirring the pot of stew, while plucking the chicken, stuffing a pillow with the feathers and swatting Cain on the backside all the while holding a baby in her primitive Snuggli. Can’t you?

And lest you think mothers are alone in this multitasking society, well let’s just say, “Multitasker beget multitasker.” We are certainly rearing a generation of multitasking kids. Name me the child today who cannot, eat popcorn, drink a Coke, play Spyro on PlayStation, talk on the cell phone to his buddy and occasionally throw a nugget of information to his mother down the hall, who is asking how his day was at school. All simultaneously!

However, we mutitaskers may have raised the bar too high. I mean let’s face it. We can work circles around our parental partner (notice I’m being nice and didn’t use the word “man”). And after working at such a fevered pace all day, the productivity of a multitasker may be called into question, when we simply slow down to focus on one task. But like our computer counterpart, sometimes even the best-multitasking mother simply needs to reboot!

The Thong

Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, I am in the business where I get to see a lot of bottoms. A few weeks ago I arranged for my 15 year old daughter, Emily, to shadow a fellow co-worker of mine, Teena. Now granted, Teena works in a different setting than I do, but the take-home message for Emily was…and I quote, “I just saw way too many hind-ends today.” Teena works at our local hospital. And Emily may never work in the health care field ever… after her lovely experience. I think she suffered from too much gluteal exposure.

So…it got me to thinking…how many back-ends do I see in any given day? Five? Seven? I started to count…and then the bigger question was…how many thongs had I seen today. Anything over one is way too many. I am a woman… and I occasionally like to appear sexy, but Pleeeeeaze! Do you have to wear a thong to therapy? I do not want to move your little piece of dental floss around while I try to fix your painful condition. And I sure hope you’re not wearing it to impress me…Yuck! Save your thongs for Saturday nights and the second honeymoons. Give your healthcare provider some good old fashioned white undies. We appreciate it! Really!

What’s In a Name?

I overheard a conversation not long ago in which a woman was complaining to her companion about her name. She said, “My mother had no imagination. My sisters and I…We are Peggy, Betty, and Mary. Now, how plain is that?” Perhaps her mother came from a long line of conformists, but I will have to say that the typical Southern mother has quite an array of monikers to choose from when naming her baby.

For instance, it is the Southern Mother’s duty (I mean choice) to create a clever combination from a multi-generational pedigree - the all important family name that has been handed down for the last 50 years. Sometimes she elects to use a family surname to provide a first name for some poor unsuspecting baby. Usually it’s the girl babies who are crowned with such glorious names as Tucker, Bennett, Claiborne or Carson. Some kids can really carry off a name like that…Others…well…Bless their hearts. They just get beat up on the play ground.

Depending on the mother’s goal for the child, she might name him or her to stand out in the kindergarten roll call (Vestavia Raquel or Thaddeus Sheridan). Or perhaps she wants her child’s name to blend in with all the other Little Leaguers (Bubba, Junior, Buddy, Sissy). Honestly…there are many Bubba’s on birth certificates all over this state!

Now, some mothers-to-be might take a page from Southern Literature and recall names such as Tennessee William’s “Blanche”, or Will Faulkner’s “Dewey Dell”, or the ever-popular Rhett, Ashley and Scarlett from Margarett Mitchell. Or how about Pat Conroy’s “Ledare” or Harper Lee’s “Scout”. (You see, Demi and Bruce were not the first to use that name.)

Of course we Southerners are always a sucker for the double named child. Martha Ann, John Ross, Betty Jo, John Mark, Carl Lee, Mary Sue, Joe Dan, Anna Claire , etc. Or perhaps the family name is so outdated but is required by generational pressure that the mother opts to use initials only. A.J., J.C., A.C., J.D., C.J., B.J. The world may never know that little B.J.’s real name is Bascomb Jedidiah.

Now a trip to your local nursing home will show you just how imaginative our foremothers actually were. Why, there is quite an assortment of one-of-kind names just waiting for the forward thinking mother to choose from. Orma Rue, Alden, Alabama Lee, Eulalia (rhymes with Australia), Ulysses, Jerusala, Percival, Flora Mae, Hazel Gwinnette, Horace, and Thelberta Louise. Just how original do you want to be in 2007?

You know I’m just a little bit sorry I wasn’t named after my two grandmothers as my mother had always threatened. I’m sure I would have been the only Reba Willette in the entire state of Tennessee.

Bathroom Prisoner vs. Hermit's Cabin

As far from idyllic as our lives may seem at times, we are who we are by a product of what we have experienced. And we as Mothers have experienced a lot. Our children demand an extraordinary amount of time…Most of which we are glad to give, but at times, I admit, I do crave just 10 minutes alone in the bathroom. I have finally started locking the door to keep the wandering pre-schooler out during my daily ablutions.

I sometimes daydream of a small cabin tucked away in the Colorado Rockies… My hermit's retreat. If I actually lived there alone all the time, would I revel in my precious serenity as a cat twists and turns in ecstasy before finally lying down? Or would I be overcome in a seemingly endless boredom. Why read that book or piece that quilt or write that short story now, when I have a thousand more days just like today in which to accomplish something? Or nothing at all!
PROCRASTINATION: Constant companion of the bored or the catalyst for the productive.

As it is…my life is 180 degrees from a hermit's life in a secluded cabin. I suspect yours is too. Sometime between all of the "Mommmeee!" 's and the "Honey, where is the…" I try to find time just to shower and get my make-up on. Forget about trying to write anything, sew anything or be creative in any way. Sometimes after the homework is completed, swim practice over, supper cooked and eaten, kitchen cleaned, and laundry folded, paperwork completed and checks written… I do manage to get a few thoughts on paper. Even now as I write, I have locked myself into the bathroom and am sitting on the cold tile floor with pencil and pad.

Living within the confines of the family dynamic, I must say, there is such rich fodder for the written word. The family is such an interesting place to reside… to observe every emotion you could ever hope to conjure on paper…love, anger, jealousy, selflessness and selfishness, fights and more fights and that's just the kids…

So… cold-tiled floor withstanding, I wouldn't trade my life for the hermit's…after all, I am who I am by virtue of the stresses in my life. What does that writer-hermit write about anyway????

It Ain't Over til the Fat Lady...Whats???

Do you ever stop to ponder what is going on in their heads? I am talking about children and their sweet precious little minds. What must they be thinking when we adults are speaking rapidfire in our local colloquialisms and bouncing our idioms all over the place?

For example...
These 8 year-olds were recently overheard: My son Will and his best friend, Jace, while racing cars on the Play Station2…

Will: “I’m going to beat you!”
Jace: "No you're not."
Will: "Yes, I am."
Jace: “Well, it ain’t over til the fat lady sings.”
Will: “No. It’s ‘it ain’t over til the fat lady swings.' ”
Jace: “Uhh-Uhhh. It ain’t over til the fat lady sings.”
Will: “Swings!”
Jace: “Sings!”
Will: “Swings.”
Jace: “Sings.”

A little time passes.

Will: “The fat lady does too, swing.”

This from children who will probably never even know why a fat lady should sing, much less actually see an opera. Now, fat ladies swinging...this is the south...they see that every day.

Or how about the time Will at age 4 declares that he will be the "Ring Bear" at my brother's wedding.
Here is my recollection of that Happy Event from 2003

The Ring Bear

My thirty-three year old brother became engaged this winter. The entire family was teetering with excitement. We hadn’t had a wedding in the family for a very long time. My three offspring were thrilled to be asked to be in the wedding as various participants. My older son(14) a groomsman, my younger daughter(11) a Junior bridesmaid and the youngest son(4), the “ring bear” as he proudly announced to friends and family. You see, he had recently watched an episode of Little Bill and was of course well versed in the “ring bear’s” duties…namely to growl at the audience??? Thank-you, public television.

Just so we are clear…remember, a four year-old is an unpredictable force of nature. As the big day approached much had been said to the four year-old in preparation for the part he would play in the wedding. “Now, son, you will have an important job. You will get to wear a tuxedo. You will walk down the aisle with the flower girls. You will be carrying the pillow with the rings on it. You will stand, not sit during the ceremony. And you will behave like a fine young gentleman.” Etc, etc. And man, had we practiced. The hallway in our house was an aisle. The fireplace hearth was the altar. And his most prized possession, his Batman car, was the pillow. You get the picture.

Of course at the actual rehearsal, on the grounds of the upscale golf club, the little “bear” refused to walk down the sidewalk, refused to be nice to the flower girls, refused to stand up front, and had the audacity to throw the ring pillow that I, his mother had painstakingly hand sewn, on to the ground. I about lost it.

At that point my husband and I are racking our brains. What works better… bribes or threats. Time-outs? Or a new gameboy? A politically-incorrect, old-fashioned spanking? Or how about your very own camera, hon? I must confess I was doing a little of both, bribing and threatening. The morning of the wedding dawned gray and dismal. It not only rained… it thundered and lightening for the first half of the day. Not a good omen for an outdoor wedding. The ceremony was to begin at 5:00 p.m. We all gathered at the club at 2:00, in full attire for the pre-wedding photo op. And miraculously the sun did come out and the poor father of the bride began the task of hand-drying 300 chairs. At some point, after only a fraction of the pictures had been shot, the ring bearer fell asleep in the warm May sun on the front row of chairs. Now as every experienced Mother knows, naps do not necessarily make a happy child. As the child reaches a more mature toddler status of say three and a half, the NAP might work for you, but most often works against you. For some reason, known only to the cosmic forces above, many children after the NAP wake up in a worse mood than before the NAP, for which the only cure is either another NAP or the dawning of a new day, whichever comes first.

So with some trepidation, I allowed the ring bearer to sleep for about an hour. He awoke in the arms of my husband for one last photo op. I must say, that shot will not end up on the front of anyone’s photo album. Sour Puss. And then the guests began arriving. Up until the first strains of the wedding march, it was still a toss up as to whether the ring bearer was a “Go” or not.

Thank goodness for his older sister who gently prodded him down the aisle in front of her. And my, oh my, never in my wildest dreams from the fretful night before, did I suspect that he would not only walk down the aisle, properly, but hold the pillow in a horizontal fashion, and stand quietly (regally, if I might add) at the altar next to his big brother for the entire ceremony. The little whipper-snapper even had the audacity to not even once glance backwards at the crowd or me sitting on the front row. Never a prouder mother…A true Kodak moment.

Now where is that camera I bought him?

I've been shopping for a family vacation for next year and with fondness remembered our trip on the Maasdam...in 2002

(5 Course Dining Divided by a 3-year old Equals Disaster)


In the course of planning for our family cruise vacation, I neglected to pack the Amy Vanderbilt's New Rules for Etiquette, which I now know to be indispensable. Had I packed it, there would have undoubtedly been many opportunities to consult it and avoid the faux pas that inevitably happened.

But to begin…After thoroughly poring through the cruise-line "dress code" (Chapter 16 in the 3-set volume they sent us) I realized that my poor little family was ill prepared for such an illustrious vacation…therefore I went to work. I shopped literally for three weeks solid prior to our departure, buying all of the required neckties, suits, shirts, dress shoes, etc. And that was just for my 5' 9, thirteen-year old son. You see… he had "out-grown" everything…Ahemmm…Not that he had ever even owned a suit, unless you count that bright green thing he wore when he was 3. Next…the required dresses, hose, shoes, and hair accessories for my 10-year-old daughter. And then of course we just had to buy that cute sailor outfit for the 3-year-old for his fine dining experience. And all of this was just for 2 nights of formal dining during a 7-day cruise extravaganza.

Of course then there was, "Mom, I just have to have two more swimsuits…snorkel gear…my other denim shorts have a hole in them…Mom, I have to have a swimsuit cover up. It says so right here on page 179 of the dress code."

Another trip to Target…and $300.00 later…we think we now have all the "necessities" bought.
"Oops Mom, my suitcase is too small…and HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CARRY ALL THESE DRESSY CLOTHES??" Back to Wal-Mart…3 suitcases, a garment bag, 2 pairs of sunglasses, 2 economy sized bottles of 45 sun block, 4 rolls of film and a prescription of prozac for Mom…and we're through with the packing.

On the first night of Formal Dining, we all showered and donned our cruise- required-dressy-best. I even had a few sequins on…As we stood waiting to be seated in the dining room, we tottered on unaccustomed high heels and pulled nervously at strange neckties…I looked around and beamed proudly at my well-dressed family. We had REALLY ARRIVED. We were ushered to the back of the dining room where a group of highly sought after tables were banked against a wall of windows capturing an idyllic sunset as we sailed east. As elegant an entrance we must have made…Father, mother and three handsome children… I must say our exit was somewhat less dignified.

Five-course dining definitely has its advantages. But the fact that it takes 2 hours to do it in, does not bode well for the family with a toddler. Since our three year old generally dines in the span of time it takes for us to drive from Sonic to home, i.e. 15 minutes…that left approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes of "down time" for him.

We did try to burn some time by delaying the arrival of his Hot Dog Wellington until we were well into the salad course. I whispered to my husband…"They didn't bring any ketchup." My husband quietly waved the steward over. "Ketchup? Please." The steward meticulously poured the Heinz on the side with at little flourish. At that moment I truly wished I had a pocket copy of Amy's Etiquette. I faltered as I tried to decide which knife was the appropriate hot dog cutting utensil. Surely not the bread knife or the dinner knife. I finally decided on the salad knife. Of course by that time all of the 3-year old's utensils were dumped into a big pile in the center of the table as was his water goblet and all other stemmed-ware that was within his radius of reach.

As my entrée of lobster was arriving, the three-year-old, after 15 minutes of playing under the table and singing "Bob the Builder" choruses, decided it was time to go PEE-PEE. Believe you me… my mouth was watering for that drawn butter and lobster, but you CANNOT delay a newly potty-trained child even for 30 seconds. Because his shoes were off, I grabbed the shoes and the child and marched on high heels back to the front of the dining room…However, I inadvertently drug an empty table's table cloth, silverware and fresh flower arrangement about 20 feet as I exited. My little 'Yesssiree Bob', hooted with delight, "Mommy! You made a Boo-Boo!" Help!!! Ms Vanderbilt! Do I set the PEE-PEE squirming child down, bend over, and exposing the run in my panty hose in order to somehow right the denuded table? Decisions. Decisions.

A kind and sympathetic woman in a large lilac gown, took pity on me and grabbed the vase while two stewards whisked the soiled cloth, and silvered condiments off the floor and said, "Eees OK Maam. We get." And I must say, by the time I returned with our little prince, the whole table affair seemed just like a bad dream. Everything was again in fine cruise-line dress. Whew! Only 45 more minutes for this dinner and 6 more nights to go!

Life on the Lake


My husband and I have always loved the lake. We loved it so much we even bought a lot on the lake and then a weekend cabin on the lake and finally we added on to our cabin on the lake and made it a full-fledged livable house, year-round. During the first five years of our marriage, we boated regularly in the spring, summer and fall. We had our boat tuned, serviced and ready to go at least by Memorial Day. Skiing, swimming and teaching our young son to swim were among the highlights of owning a boat. But the top reason for owning a boat was freedom. You could swim almost anywhere. Pull into a private cove and skinny dip if you wanted to. Or if it was crowded in one place…pick up anchor and go somewhere else. The only down side to just owning a boat and not a place on the lake…Putting up the boat, transporting the boat, and coming home, famished to a cold and empty kitchen. Nothing tastes better after a heavy afternoon of sun, water, and boat activities than a good hot meal. Potato chips will not cut it. Thus the decision to actually own a place on the lake was made.
Fast forward 15 years. My husband and I have been married for 21 years now. We have a 17 year old son, a 14 year old daughter, and a 7 year old son. We have two very busy careers, church activities, teen activities, part-time jobs, school activities, band, swim team, a farm, 4-H cattle projects, a girlfriend, a cat and a dog. And…..we still live on the lake full time. Every year for the past ten years, we have been getting later and later about getting the boat in the water for the first time. Five years ago, it was July 4th before we got that sucker out of the garage and armor-alled the vinyl seats. This year it was July 16th before our 18 year-old boat made its way out of the dusty garage. So the question begs to be answered…Why do you still live on the lake? I have to confess there are several reasons. Our house is very unique and a one-of- kind house since its addition. I like the fact that I don’t live in a cookie cutter house with the house plan available at any supermarket. I like the privacy that my particular lot affords. I like waking up every morning gazing at the sun’s reflection in the water. And I like the fact that I am not a slave to my yard. We have very little sun…therefore very little grass. So…I have my reasons for “living” on the lake, that do not necessarily involve “playing” on the lake.
At any rate…on July 17 of this year we did indeed venture out onto the water. The family of five all piled into the boat for about 45 minutes of skiing and swimming before we were to meet the 17-year-old’s girlfriend at our house and my sister-in-law who was to take the 7-year-old for a cousin campout. We pulled away from the dock and dumped out my older son to start the first round of skiing. We pulled him down to Kitchen Hollow a somewhat protected waterway in hopes of catching some smooth water. By the time we reached the end of the hollow, he was tired and ready for the next skier to take over. My daughter jumps in the water and dons the skis. The boat won’t start. The boat continues to not start for the next 30 minutes.
The youngest who has always been a little anxiety-ridden when it comes to swimming or skiing in the lake has now begun to fidget and ask, “Mom…what are we going to do? When is the boat going to start? I’m hot. How long do we have to stay here? I ‘m thirsty. How are we going to get back home? I’m hungry. Are we going to have to swim for miles? I wanna go home!” I’m a little bit desperate myself, at this point…It’s scorching hot, there is one bottle of fresh water on the boat (after all… we were only going to be gone for 45 minutes), I have people due at my house any minute and I am stuck out in the middle of the lake, 2 miles from home .
“I wanna go home, too” I murmur in assent.
“OK, that’s it,” the little one says with an exasperation I’ve only seen in adults about to tackle a most unpleasant task. (You know like changing a dirty diaper or cleaning the gutters) The next thing I see out of the corner of my eye is my precious youngest child, hands folded, head bowed, eyes closed and he is praying most fervently. I see his lips moving and the earnestness in his heart.
I’m smiling, despite the unpleasant circumstances and when he was through articulating his problems and his desire to God, he looks up at me and says, “OK. I’ve prayed now.” About 15 seconds later the boat started. The story would truly be a testimony about the power of prayer if the boat had stayed running. However it died again five minutes later and would not start again. Never-the-less, we all learned some valuable lessons.
A. Never doubt the faith of a child.
B. There is power in prayer, even if it’s not exactly what you had in mind.
C. Perhaps we should teach our children to not use prayer as only a last resort.
D. Never trust the words, “It was running fine last year.”
E. Professional annual boat maintenance is not to be overlooked.
F. Always take a gallon of fresh water, even for the shortest of boat rides.
G. Never go out on a boat just before you are expecting company.

You’re wondering how we got back? Well 2 ½ hours later we were towed back to our dock by my older son. He hitched a ride with a passing boat and retrieved our wave runner and a rope. Next day…Boat is in the shop!

Who Took the F-U-N out of Funerals?

Well….I’m dying. Hold on before you send out the condolences. We all are. Who was it that said, “From the moment we are born, we begin the inescapable business of dying.”? I don’t remember who said it, but I’ve decided to do the smart thing in 2006 and pre-plan my funeral. I don’t know why this activity has been on my mind other than having past my 40th birthday, I’ve decided I needed to get a few things off my to-do-list. (You know, root canal, clean out the garage, bikini wax, plan funeral)
So, I did some research. I looked at the latest in trend-setting caskets. (Hey, did you know that you can buy a casket with removable fish head bookends? Apparently it’s all the rage, now. Your surviving spouse can gaze fondly at those bronze fish head bookends every time she reaches for her Barefoot Contessa Cookbook and remember you and all those weekends you left her and went fishing for the low, low price of just $4789.99)
Next, I reviewed the funeral arrangement option list, which reads like the prospectus of the foreign stock of the month your broker insisted you buy. (In Swahili of course). It was difficult at best to figure out the all-inclusives and the non-inclusives. Can’t they just make one of those vehix.com comparison pages? “I want a 6-cylinder casket in gunmetal metallic, hold the lining, and give me a squirt of music and flowers then run me through the drive-in funeral parlor and plop me in the ground. How expensive could that be? Well the Federal Trade Commission reports that “After buying a home and a car, paying for a funeral is the third biggest expense most families will have in a lifetime.”
Let me just say, “Wow!” It costs more these days for someone to die than to be born. How can that be? Well, the latest figures by the International Cemetery and Funeral Association today show that the average funeral costs $4,287. I suspect that this is actually a low ball figure, because it doesn’t cover the burial plot, the opening and closing of the grave, the vault, the clergy, the flowers, the newspaper notices or the music for the ceremony and I’m sure it doesn’t include those fish head bookends.
Of course no major social event should be planned without first consulting Amy. You know Amy Vanderbilt of Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette. Her chapter on Funerals seemed to be missing the proper etiquette for funeral alternatives. So I skipped to the Chapter dealing with Entertaining. It was quite enlightening and I think I can modify a few rules to fit the type of funeral…excuse me a “Gathering of Friends” (This is funeral-ese for non-traditional funeral) …that I had in mind.
So what do I really want in terms of a remembrance of my life? I mean who needs a sad funeral, bereavement counselors and the $4789.99 fish head casket? And personally I think the burial plot, funeral tent, marble engraved headstone are way overrated. Who needs all that expense and fuss? Certainly, not me. I’ll be dead.
So instead of the stretch limo for the dead, how about an armada on the Lake? (Besides I would rather ride in a limousine while I’m still alive and can still play with the mini-bar and sunroof.) Why, Uncle Cleve has a nice little bass boat and I am sure he won’t mind going for a little boat ride on a Saturday afternoon. He might even troll for fish while he’s at it. And I am positive that my family would rather spend their Saturday afternoon on the lake than in a syrupy-sweet smelling funeral parlor with pink lights. (Why do they use those pink lights?)
So, with Amy Vanderbilt’s blessing I have arranged my “funeral budget” to include a backyard barbeque, catered of course, and hey if they want a tent, at least get a pretty white one with windows. Amy says a formal receiving line is not always necessary so I think the line should form right before the potato salad and end right after the pecan pie.
Now as for my remains, my husband has agreed to the following:
1. Cardboard Box.
2. Cremation. Much cheaper than burial. I’m claustrophobic,
you know.
3. No urn, just a Tupperware container. Burped tight.
4. Final resting place. The Lake.
My husband will ski around the lake right after the picnic, scattering my ashes from
behind Uncle Cleve’s bass boat.
(I just hope my husband’s knees hold out.)
http://www.icfa.org/consumer.html International Cemetery and Funeral Association

Finally. I've been meaning to do this for months. A place...a space...to reach out and creatively touch you, the anonymous reader. We will just have to see where it goes. I have for years written essays or diatribes (depending on my mood) on the little things in life that struck me as funny, ridiculous or poignant. And now a format comes along to share my thoughts in a nonthreatening environment. Yeah! My very own Blog. More later.