Beaufort, was probably the best three years of my life.  Maybe the best three years ever.  Ken's promotions now gave us enough to live on.  We were able to buy me a piano.  And some much needed furniture that didn't fall apart every time we moved.  We had a real church.  I finally made friends.  Real friends.  We felt settled.  But it wasn't always a bed of roses.

Although I didn't have to formally work, as the CO's wife there were responsibilities that I had never had before.  Hosting parties.  Greeting dignitaries.  ETC.  One of the worst things was accompanying the Chaplain to inform the widow when someone was killed. But thank God I never had to do that.  It came close once.  They were all at Roosevelt Roads, deployed--with all the aircraft--when I got a call.  "There is a crash on the runway.  The plane is destroyed, burned up.  Stand by."

I asked if he could see the number on the plane.  He said, "It's number one...OH, NO!!   He realized what he had told me.  Ken's plane.  It was a terrible hour before I heard what happened.  Ken's nose strut had collapsed as he was ready to lift off, and the front of the plane sank.  The fuel tanks hit the ground, sheared off, and  caught fire.  The whole plane was engulfed  in flames.  But he was going fast enough that the cockpit was ahead of the flames--which burned out before he came to a stop, and he got out.  There is a God who watches over us.  Ken should had been dead.  The plane was toast.

At home, there was constant chaos as well.  Scott broke his collar bone and took his first ambulance ride--one of many that occurred in his chaos-filled life.  And he got lost repeatedly.  I couldn't let him out of my sight.  Once he got on the school bus (he was two),  went to school and sat down at a desk.  He was so tall that no one noticed him.  Military kids come and go, so it wasn't unusual for a teacher not to know who was who.  Becky found him when she went to the cafeteria.   He was probably blowing bubbles in his milk.  I was frantic.  Raising Scott was different than raising the two girls.  He was a wild-child.  I never knew what he was going to do.  Always in action.  Always looking for the next adventure.  He was a handful.  And eternally cheerful.

To be fair, Becky added to the chaos.  She was four years older, and thought things up for Scott to do and helped him do them.  They were inseparable.  Pat and I were the only normal people in the family.  Everyone else was always on the edge of disaster.  Pat and I were readers.  Calm.  Sensible.

While Ken was agonizing over JP fuel, I was living the life I had never had before and it was wonderful.  I was twenty-five years old, the same age as most of the Lieutenant's wives.  Finally I had people my own age to be around.  Problem was, I was the Commanding Officer's wife and they treated me with reserved respect.  It was weird.  I hadn't bought into the whole "Senior Officer" thing, but they had.  It took a while for them to learn that I was just an Oklahoma girl, and that I wasn't a Lt. Colonel just because my husband was.  I was just me trying to be me.  The system made it difficult.

I remember once I fried chicken for the entire squadron and their children.  Gravy, home made bread and all the fixins'.  One of the women who was there whispered to another one, "Look at her!  She tore her bread up and put gravy on it.  She must be okay."  I wasn't putting on any airs for anyone.  I didn't have any airs to put on.  I always tore my bread up and put gravy on it.  Didn't everyone???

It was easier at church.  Officers and enlisted were all mixed up together.  Up until the time we moved to Beaufort, I hadn't realized there was a difference.  I hadn't realized that the enlisted personal were not supposed to fraternize with the officers--and that got extended to their wives.  Which was stupid.  It didn't take me very long to fraternize with everyone, and them with me. I  finally fit in.

I made some wonderful friends there that are still a part of my life.  I had not had friends like that in seven years.  It was wonderful.  Deloris Woody was one.  She was Scott's babysitter when I had some social event I was "required" to attend.  I spoke to her a week or so ago.  Her husband was a Staff Sargent who had been a DI.  Tough, but not when he came home--or to church.   Rozaland Wilkey was another.  I flew out to see her a number of times after Ken retired and we moved back to Pryor.

But all good things have to end.  After three years in Beaufort, Ken got orders to Viet Nam.  Pat was 8, Becky was 7 and Scott was 3.  I was going to be a single parent again for thirteen months.  Ten years of my life had been with the Marines.  I had learned what they did.  What Ken did.  And I was just starting to understand it all when it seemed to be over.  I couldn't help but wonder if Ken would come home again.  This was his second thirteen month deployment in ten years.  Not counting the three month, two month, etc. deployments he had been on.  It seemed normal.  But it wasn't.  Not at all.  This time they were shooting at my husband.  How could anyone survive that for 395 days??

Six weeks later, we moved.  Again.  Nine moves in seven years.  From Quantico, Virginia, to Beaufort, South Carolina.  Once again, Ken was happy.  Ecstatic.  He was going back to a Squadron.  And this time as the Commanding Officer.  He had been in the Marine Corps for seventeen years, and finally he was going to get to put into practice all that he had learned--from both types of Commanding officers he had had in the past.  Excellent, and mediocre.

It turned out to be the best years of our lives.  We got to stay in Beaufort for three years.  Three.  We had a church that we didn't have to leave just when we were getting to know people.  I made friends.  Ken had friends from all the years he had been in the Corps--the air wing of the USMC is small.  Pilots knew each other, and knew "of" each other even though they may not have served together.  In all the years we had been married, I had never seen Ken so happy.

It was the middle of the Viet Nam war.  1963.  Every pilot Ken trained to fly maneuvers was going to end up in Viet Nam.  They were so young.  So inexperienced.  But very eager to prove themselves.  And they adored my husband.  They called him "The Old Man."  (He was 35.) They respected his knowledge of war--Korea, over 100 direct fire missions and 7 direct hits on the planes he flew.  And his two distinguished flying crosses that he earned in that war.  And air medals up the kazoo.  Those are awarded (as I recall) for so many direct combat missions.  (He quit turning his missions in when he was in Vietnam--he said, "I didn't turn my Cheerio box-tops in--twenty one years in the Corps, and too many lost lives.  What's the point of more medals?")

After he had been in his squadron for a couple of years, he became discouraged with the lack of support from "The higher ups."  Not enough JP fuel to train the young Lieutenants properly.  Ken would come home and say, "If I just had enough fuel to give them 10 more hops maybe they could make it.  I need to teach them more things that they need to know.  I don't have the fuel to do it."  Those young Marines were like his sons, and he knew that many of them were going to die.

I don't think 10  more hops would have helped much.  In Viet Nam, death from "ground to air fire" was random and even if you survived a direct hit and ejected, you had a good chance of landing up in the Hanoi Hilton as a POW.   From 1963 to1966--when Ken left for Viet Nam--the war raged.

Life is a journey.  There are stops along the way--where you don't know which way to go.  Sometimes you don't even know where you are going or why.  I reached the end of a road when my third child died.  I had been alone without friends and family for so long I felt like I was in a desert.  But my nature is to keep plugging away even though I don't know how to do what I'm doing.  I just keep doing it, or try something else.  I never quit.  I don't know why I am that way.  I just am.

Ken and I never spoke to each other about what we were going through.  I didn't understand his world, he didn't understand mine.  But we respected and loved each other--and it was the glue that held us together.  We each suffered in our own way.

After a year, I told Ken that I felt that we should have another child.  One that we "planned" to have.  He said, "No."  Emphatically.  He had been crushed when Amy died.  He kept saying, "It should have been me.  I  always thought I would be killed doing what I do.  It should have been me."  He didn't understand what had happened either.  We were both muddling along.  I reminded him that when we got married, we wanted to have three children--just not so quickly.  And eventually, he agreed.

Nine months later, he dropped me off at the hospital (in labor) and took the girls to the sitter--promising to be back in thirty minutes.  He didn't make it.  Twenty six minutes after I walked in I delivered.  The attending nurse called Ken and said, "Sir, your wife wants to speak to you," and handed me the phone.

He kept asking if the baby was all right.  If I was all right.  Over and over.  He didn't ask if it was a boy or a girl.  He didn't care.  I finally told him, "It's a boy."  After a moment or two he said, "Are you sure?"  (After three girls, he probably thought we would always have girls.) I told the doctor what Ken had said. The doctor held the baby upside down by the feet and jiggled him up and down and said, "Tell him I'm sure it's a boy, he is fully equipped."  It's funny now, but at that moment, I was just thankful that we had a healthy baby--whatever it was.  And so was Ken.  We knew the value of a new life.  We would never question God's plans for us, or our children again.

So, there I was--in the hospital with pneumonia.  Ken was trying to manage two little girls that didn't have a clue who he was--he'd been gone 13 months.  And then the nurse told me I was pregnant.

I got well physically from the pneumonia, but not emotionally--I was emotionally shot.

I had spent the previous year with my parents, and on top of everything else, my mom had given birth to my sister--unexpected, to say the least. My sister and Becky were born 7 days apart.  Which meant that I was 21 years older than the only sister I ever had.   It was a year to be remembered.  At least we had a washing machine.  Three babies in diapers.  Still no Pampers.  Not invented yet.  The washing machine never stopped and there were always diapers drying on the line. And stacks of dry ones ready to be folded.  (There is an art to folding a diaper.)

I was pregnant again.  Emotionally drained.  Nothing left.  And once again in a town where I didn't know a soul.  It didn't matter.  I didn't have time for friends anyway.

Eight months later, we moved again.  From Woodbridge to Triangle, Va.  Closer to base which was good.  It was easier to take Ken to work the closer we were to base.  Two weeks later, I had Amy.

When God creates a human boy, or girl, he sends that child to parents whom he plans to raise them.  God entrusts you with His children!  During the nine months I was pregnant, I should have been thankful that He was giving me a third child. (In four years.)  Once she arrived, I didn't know what my problem had been.  She was perfect in every way.  I loved her.  I knew that I would make it with three babies.  I was strong--and God doesn't give us things we can't handle.

 But when she died, it was devastating.  It was like God was saying, "You didn't want who I was sending you, so I am taking her back."  I know that isn't true.  But my attitude had been so terrible when I first got pregnant, that I felt it was my fault.  Even though I had adjusted to the fact that I was going to have another child, I beat myself up.  Truth was, Amy lived a full life in 9 days.  She changed Ken and me completely and forever.  We became better people.  We became better parents to the two daughters we had.   We were never again the same people.

I accidentally posted Wednesday's and Thursday's posts yesterday.  Out of order.   So today is my day off.  I got bit by a tick and am going to the doc to see if I need to do anything special or just wait it out to see if I get Lyme disease.

That's what I need.  One more physical disaster.

Bless you today.

I'll finish the story tomorrow.  Obviously I didn't blow my brains out.

Eventually, a few months later, Ken got transferred.  He was through with his job at Camp Pendleton with ground troops, and was finally going to join a squadron.  He was ecstatic.  (I had no idea why.  Looking back from now, I understand.  Then I didn't get it at all.)  Which was: he had spent three years in Pensacola teaching cadets to fly and land on a carrier, and then, a year at Pendleton with the ground troops.  He hadn't been in a squadron since he was in Korea, and that was flying Corsairs and F-9's.  He was so very anxious to get back to flying.  Flying the kinds of airplanes that had "come down the pike" since he left the war.  He was ready to get back in a real airplane, and not a cadet trainer like the SN-J or the T-28.  He wanted to see what the air wing had come up with in the last five years.  And fly it.  He just wanted to fly.  Fly real supersonic airplanes.

None of that was in my mind at all.  I wasn't mature enough to have thoughts about his life and what he wanted or what he was doing.  I really wasn't interested in what he was doing at all.  I was immersed in learning about being a mother and a wife.  Trying to cope.  Learning to cook--I couldn't boil water when we got married.  That's the truth.  I didn't know how to wash clothes.  I had been sending them to the dry cleaners.  Underwear and all.  (Like I said yesterday, I learned to stomp on things in a soapy water bathtub.  Hanging them on a line to dry.)  But Ken had put me in charge of all of our finances and I was forced to find cheaper ways to do things--like the washing our clothes--because there wasn't enough money to really make it month to month.

I had the car once every two weeks.  (Ken had nobody to pool with since he was in a specialty air position, on a station that was designed for the ground troops.)  Everything I needed to do, I had to plan to do on those days.  I would go to the commissary and then freeze milk, and anything else I had room for.  Enough food, (that I didn't yet know how to prepare) to last for two weeks.  I had to drive Ken way into the desert to get to have the car, and then go back and get him that evening.  Lib watched the baby.  She trusted me with her son on occasions when she had to go to the commissary.  She trusted me with her child!  It was the first time I had been trusted to do anything for anyone.

The month Ken was transferred,  Lib's husband was transferred to somewhere else as well.  I was devastated.  I depended on her for everything.  She answered all my questions.  She taught me how to do things.  I had no friends once again.  And once again, I was moving to another strange place.

Ken knew everyone in every place we moved.  He had been to war with most of them, or in flight school, or when they came in and out of the other places he had served.  (Except Pendleton--it was all ground.)  They were his friends--Band of Brothers.  I didn't know anybody.  I didn't have a clue what was going on where he worked.  I didn't have a clue what he did.  He never said much about it.

I, on the other hand, didn't know anybody when we moved.  I was drifting from one house to another across America.  We had been married two and a half years and I had moved four times.  I had no home, no washing machine, no car, no education, no friends and was surrounded by people who had already "Seen the elephant."  Whatever that meant.  It was almost unbearable.  Lonely squared.

It was an enormous struggle for me.  Looking back, I really don't know how I did it.  The divorce rate in the services is astronomical.  People just can't juggle all that is expected from them.  I understand why.  The thing that held it all together was that we loved each other.  That was all we had in common.  That, and parents that expected us to make it.  That, and a Christian background.  Ken was doing his thing.  I was trying desperately to learn how to do mine.  He was flying a sound-breaker called the F-4D and ecstatic.  He came home happy every day.  I was trying very hard to be happy.

And I was pregnant again.  Pat was 18 months old when Becky was born.  And four months later Ken was transferred overseas.  I went back to Oklahoma, moved in with my folks and I didn't have to fail at cooking any more.  My mom did the cooking.  It was like being in heaven.  Wonderful food.  No responsibilities, all my old friends, no juggling money--I finally got to rest.  I couldn't believe how little I had appreciated all my folks did for me as a child growing up.  Being an adult was killing me.

Ken was gone thirteen months.  Thirteen months raising two babies by myself.  When he came home, I met him at the airport with these first words:  "I am not getting pregnant again--do you understand what I'm telling you?"  Four months later I was hospitalized with pneumonia and after tests, the nurse asked, "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

I could literally have blown my brains out.

Lib coached me through pregnancy.  Her baby boy was going through all the stages of babydom, so I got a look at what was going to happen once my baby came along.  I had only held a baby once--and that was when I was five and my mom put my new brother in my lap for a minute or two.  That's it.

I knew nothing about childbirth.  No "Birthing for Dummies," to read, and my family was1600 miles away.  Lib was all I had.  Ken would leave for work each morning, and after I did the little bit of work I had to do, I would walk to Lib's house and watch her play with her little one.  She taught me everything there was to know about babies.  She was like a mother to me.  Such a great friend.

When I went into labor, it was Lib who drove me to the hospital.  Ken was 30,000 feet in the air doing what he did each day.  Back then, once you reached the hospital, you were on your own.  Nobody could come past the lobby.  Ken couldn't be there anyway,  he was doing a job where you couldn't take time off.  Nobody held my hand.  Nobody waited in the lobby.  I was alone.

It didn't matter.  You can't really prepare someone for labor and delivery.  You have to do it by yourself--even if the room is full of people.  Nothing went as it should have, the doctor made a critical mistake, and I ended up in shock and spent 7 days in the hospital.  Come to find out, the doctor had never delivered a baby before--it was his first day on duty.  He came very close to killing me.  Two first timers in the delivery room.  Me, and him.  It wasn't a good combination.

When I finally got home,  I was so weak, I couldn't function--and the baby cried constantly.  Lib stepped in, declared it was colic and took over.  I thought it was me.  That my new daughter didn't like me.  "Some babies just cry," she said.  "She will stop in a week or two.  It's not you!"

Lib taught me how to wash diapers in the bathtub--we couldn't afford a washing machine. (No such thing as Pampers back then."  I filled the tub with soapy water and stomped like Lucy and Ethel stomping on grapes.  Slowly I learned what to do.  Eventually I became a mother.  It took time.

Lib was there to answer every question I had.  I was totally dependent on her.  I now wonder what she got out of our relationship.  I was 19, she was 29.  She just simply chose to love and help me.

When I married Ken, I was 18.  He was nearly twenty-seven.  I left a town that I had spent my entire life in, and moved to Pensacola, Florida,where he was a flight instructor--teaching cadets to land on the carrier.  I was so young, and totally lost.  I had no family, no friends.  Everyone in the squadron was older, with kids--and I truly didn't fit in anywhere.  I went to work at the church.  But everyone there was much older as well.  I had no experience in making friends--in Pryor everyone was my friend.  We had all grown up together.  The loneliness for family and friends was acute.

Just when I was finally finding a routine that I was semi-comfortable with, Ken got orders to California.  Camp Pendleton.  He was the Air Officer for the 7th regiment.  Teaching ground personal how to use the air component efficiently.  Teaching the ground troops how to guide air strikes.  Teaching them what a plane could do, and what it couldn't.  And I finally made my first friend  Elizabeth--Lib.  She was 10 years older as well, but she had just had her first child.  I was three months pregnant.  She took me under her wing.  She was my friend.

Then everyone got transferred, and I didn't see Lib again for five years.  Ken was in Junior School at Quantico when Lib's husband got transferred in as well--I didn't know she was there--she had only been there a few days getting moved in, finding out who else was at Quantico.

I had just had our third daughter, who died unexpectedly at nine days.  Lib dropped everything, came to the house and told me to get out of the bed--where I was curled up, grieving.  She said, "You aren't sick, and your two daughters need you.  Get up.  I'm going to bind your breasts so your milk doesn't come in."  She began to tear strips from the sheet, bound me and said: "We're going shopping.  You're life isn't over.  You are still a mother.  Get your girls and let's go."  She pushed me into starting over.

Years later, Ken had retired, Lib had gotten a divorce, changed her name and I lost her.  Nobody knew what had happened to her.  I finally found her in a nursing home on the East Coast. Ken and I left Pryor and drove to Virginia, to go be with her.  It broke my heart.  She was dying.  I loved her.  She loved me.  Where do such friends come from?  I was nineteen.  I was so alone when she rescued me.  And taught me that no matter what happens, you can't stop living.  You never, never give in.  You never, never give up.  Your family needs you and you must, you have to go on.

Yesterday was unusual.  I had put the black car in the shop because it kept disengaging the steering wheel when I turned a corner.  Come to find out, I needed new bearings in the "drive something or other," so the black car was in the shop.  I was driving the white car.

I had an appointment to play my marimba at a retirement community, and was on my way, when I realized that my marimba was in pieces in the trunk of the black car--in the shop.  So I hurried to the Lincoln Service Center, and by the grace of God they had finished replacing the drive shaft.  So I traded cars and hurried to the appointment.  But I got lost on the other side of town--where I had never been.  Thank God for Seri--is that how you spell it?   Barely got set up in time to play.

And did a very poor job of it.  I was totally flustered. (I hate it when it's not perfect.) I told the director, "Thats it. I'm done with this. I can't even remember which car my marimba is in."  He cooled me down, told me I did fine.  And that he really, really, really didn't want me to quit.   And he sincerely meant it.  So I took a breath.  Or two.

It's been 24 hours and I am calm again.  I did therapy.  I went to Lowe's and bought some Peonies, and Gardenia bushes.  I'll get my shovel, dig some holes in the ground and all will be well.

Buying Gardenias is taking a big risk.  I've killed a zillion of them.  They rank #2 in my "Plant Murder Annals" to Pink Dogwoods--which I have planted many, many times and have never successfully been able to grow.  You would think that eventually one of them would make it.  But no.  They don't.  And no.  I don't give up.

So with a heart full of faith, I am going to plant all my Therapy bushes--and leave it up to God to do the rest.  Maybe He will take pity on me.

And maybe I need to take more time practicing my marimba.  They say practice makes perfect.  And my goal is to be perfect--at least at playing the marimba.  Everything else is in doubt.

I have written to you 1,392 times.  That is an unbelievable number of things I have said.  It is well over four books.  Mercy!!  I guess I had a lot to say.  I think I've said it all.  It all started over two verses.  Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.

1.  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
2.  "And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the   Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

I had been teaching seniors, and their questions about evolution theory had stumped me.  So I began to dissect Genesis.  It immediately occurred to me that "created works" couldn't be 1. Without form,
2. void, and 3. Dark.  Something had happened between verse one and verse two!!

Formless, void and dark.  Why would a perfect God create a mess like that?  Thus began my journey over fifty years ago into the science of the world we live in.  And the written words in Genesis.

It led to a degree in Zoology.  An interest in carbon dating and strata.  And the realization that God didn't tell us about the years before Adam.  I couldn't help but wonder if those years fit between verse one and two, and the destruction of the created work in verse one led to the mess in verse two.

You have to have an unmovable faith that the Bible is true from cover to cover.  I did.  And slowly the pieces of the dinosauric ages began to fit into God's word like fingers in a glove.

The seven days spoken about in Genesis emerged in perfect order for a repopulated earth full of new kinds of creatures who were very different from animals in former times.  Biblically validated.

It was a journey.  I emerged totally amazed that the writer of Genesis got it so perfectly in order.  A writer who knew nothing of what we now know.  But God created it, then he inspired someone to write some words about what he had done.  Not all of what He had done.  Just enough to whet my appetite.  (I've written in length about it.  Go back to the first things I wrote if you're interested.)

Well, I got the final opinion on my back.  No surgery.  I just have to suck it up.  Which I can do.  And if the pain gets unbearable, I'll just do less.  I do a lot of that anyway.

My cardiologist explained the dilemma I am in.  Old bones are like chalk, and pinning them is an invitation to break.  Shaving them makes them more prone to break.  And then he explained the situation with my heart isn't very optimistic.

"You had a myxoma--a tumor in your heart.  Your heart walls are dacron.  You have an arrhythmia.  You've had cardiac ablations.  7 of them.  You are on your third pacemaker--shall I go on," he asked.

I'm a medical mess.  Getting old is the pits.  You keep trying to fix stuff, until you finally you realize that you are mending a quilt full of holes.  But I have a personality quality that will stand me well: I've always been brave in the face of adversity.  I don't intend to change.  The Bible says we get four score and ten.  So I've got ten coming.

I can make it.  I have the will power of an ox.  What do doctors know anyway.  So I don't fix my back.  So what?  God's not done with me yet.  And I don't feel old.  (Until I am halfway down the block walking the dog and have to sit down on the curb.) I'm up to 30 minutes a day on my bike.  When I started three weeks ago, I could only do 3.  I'm good.

Youth is wasted on the young.  They have no way under God's good heaven to know what they have.  You almost have to lose something to find out what it's value was to you.

But I wouldn't go back for a million dollars.  What a wonderful life I've had.  I take joy in every day.  People still ask my opinion--so I must still have a brain.  People still ask me to go places with them--so I must still be fun to be with.  People still want to listen to me teach--so I must still be interesting.  People still like to do things with me--so I'm easy to be around.  (Except for my children.  They think I'm bossy.)  I'm not bossy, I just have strong opinions.

God loves me.   What more could I ask for?!!

Ann's husband asked me about all the planes Ken flew.  What were they?  I have no idea, but there were a bunch of them.  SN-J, T28, Corsiar, F-9, F-4D (Skyray), A-4, F-8, are all that I remember.  But I know he flew every plane that the Navy or Marine Corps had from 1947 to 1969.

He flew them all because he was a Landing Signal Officer.  LSO.  He brought the planes on board the carriers with his paddles.  Flags.  And as a result, before he could wave somebody aboard, he had to land that plane on the carrier himself--that was the reason he flew everything they had.  So that he would be familiar with the characteristics of any particular plane that the Navy or Marines flew.

Now, carriers have lighted mirrors to tell the pilot if he is in the slot, or too high or low.  Too fast or too slow.  But back then, they depended on the LSO.  Fighter pilots are cocky and sometimes felt the LSO didn't know what he was doing, and they would end up hitting the carrier as it was coming up in the water.  It is dangerous.  You have to trust the LSO or you won't get on board, or you might come on board in a fireball.  Which is not pretty.

It all depends on where you are in the groove if you are going to get a landing.  If you need to add power, the LSO gives a signal with the paddle.  If you need to wave off and go around, the LSO signals you.  It all depends on a million factors because the front of the ship is always coming up or going down.  And your plane is either in the groove, or too low or too high.  It has to be perfect.


The LSO stood on the very edge of the ship next to a net that he would fall into, backwards, when someone didn't do what he told them to and crashed.  The net was like a shoot that took him to the bottom of the ship. But there came a day when carriers shifted to mirrors and the LSO was phased out.  I kept his Micky Mouse ears, (sound buffers) and the glo-stripes from his suit. But I didn't keep his paddles, which I sorely regret.  Being an LSO wasn't his first job.  His first job was being a fighter pilot.  Single seat, supersonic.  He had such an interesting life.

I spoke yesterday of the people I had lost; however Ken is still with me.  He lives in my mind.  He lives in my heart.  He is the love of my life.  I was honored to be his wife for 57 years.

There were seven of us.  Me, Betsy, Peggy, Barbara, Mary Ann, Carol, and later Chrystal.  We were friends.  We grew up together.  We went to Sunday School, GA's, Training Union and every movie that came to town.  (R rated didn't exist.  Our movies were mostly westerns.)  We traded clothes, shoes, and everything else we had.  We slept over at each other's houses in twos and threes or all seven of us--when it was a slumber party.

My best friend was Betsy.  She died a few years ago with Parkinson's disease.  I got to be with her that night she left for heaven.  I got to tell her how much I loved her and what she had meant to me.
I never got to see Mary Ann again after we graduated.  She died of cancer at a way too young age. Chrystal died from some disease that wasted her body away.  Peggy died with a rare lung disease that finally suffocated her.  I saw Carol a few years ago at the high school reunion.  She wasn't well.  I haven't heard from her since.

Barbara killed herself.  Why?  Nobody knows why.  We were all in shock.  Did we miss something?  Was there something we could have done?  Didn't she know how much she meant to all of us?  What kind of pain did she suffer that we didn't know?  Why did she do such a tragic thing?

They were my friends.  I am the one who is left.  It's like being the last leaf on the tree.  And in the same way that all my close friends from my childhood are gone, the same thing has happened to my family.  Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins.  And Ken.  Ken...all gone.  It is so sad.  And entire era of people and their experiences just vanished.

I thank God for the people I had in my life who are gone--and thank him now for the dozens and dozens of other friends I have now.  New friends.  And family younger than me.  Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren.  But sometimes, I would like to see my old friends and talk about the things that only we would remember.  I miss them.  I miss those times we had together.  I wonder why God has let me outlive them all.  Maybe He thinks I'm not done yet?  I'm writing.  You are reading.  Is that the reason?

Pat made a very interesting comment about my lost ID card:  "Mom, you remember the story of Abraham answering God's request for the sacrifice of his son Isaac.  Abraham rose up early in the morning, saddled up and headed to the land of Moriah.  He rounded up the flint to strike and start the fire.  He built the altar.  The Bible says he "clave the wood" to place on the altar.  I'm sure he laid twigs and straw to start the fire.  He took a torch in one hand and the knife in the other."

"He had done everything he could in obedience to God, and at the last second--when Isaac asked his father where the sacrifice was--God provided a ram for the offering."

Pat continued, "Well think about it.  You did everything you could. For a week, you looked everywhere you had been.  You went through all your purses and your car.  You searched the house and turned it upside down, all the while praying for God's help.  Only then did you look for both your and dad's birth certificates.  You found dad's discharge papers.  You found his retirement papers.  You found your marriage certificate.  Everything you needed to prove who you were.  You drove to Tinker, were stopped by detours and had to come home.  It was only when you took your car into be serviced, then got in a car you hadn't driven in a month that God answered your prayer.  Sometimes we have to do all we can do before we get an answer.  Abraham did all he could do before God answered his need."

I thought that was a pretty insightful observation because I kept praying that I would find my ID card right up to the last moment when I did.  I was shocked to find it in a car I almost never drive.  I have no idea how it got there.  I wouldn't have looked in Ken's car, or even got into it, if my car hadn't had an emergency and had to go into the shop.

I wonder if God sent the emergency?  Whatever, it was worth it.  The emergency I took my car in for was nothing, but while it was in there, they found something horrible that could have killed me.

Praise God for the way he works things out and intervenes in our lives.  He cares for our every need.  "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."  Romans 8:28  He has a purpose for your life.

I have spent the last week in a panic.  I felt like the woman in the Bible who lost a coin.  You remember the parable that Jesus taught:  "...what woman, if she lost one drachma coin wouldn't light a lamp, sweep the house, and diligently seek until she found it?  When she had found it (her coin) she called her friends and neighbors and said, 'Rejoice with me for I have found the coin which I had lost'."  Luke 15:8-10.

I lost my military ID card.  I keep it in my purse and only take it out when I go to the doctor, or pharmacy.  Everything else was still in my purse--only the ID card was missing.  I went through every purse I had used in the last few months.  No ID.  I cleaned out the car I use.  No ID.  My next door neighbor (Dean Bryant) came over thinking that maybe he could find it in my car.  Nope.

I called every pharmacy and doctor I had seen.  No luck.  I prayed about it every day--over and over again.  Finally, I gave up and  went to Tinker Air Force Base to get a new one.  Only to find the roads were blocked for resurfacing.  I spent an hour driving around detours trying to get close enough, so that I could walk to the building I needed to get to.  No luck--and after the Sunday fiasco of trying to walk to Brady's track meet--I gave up and came home.  I've had to admit that there are some things I can't do anymore.  I prepared myself for the fact that I would have to go back to Tinker next week.

Last night, I took my car in to be oiled, brake stuff, overhaul, etc., and left it at the dealer.  My niece was going to take me back to Tinker today.  I got in Ken's car--which is spotless because I rarely use it--to go meet my niece.  I thought, "What have I got to lose, I'll look under the seats, etc. even though I don't ever use this car."  Sure enough, there it was.  I began to rejoice, praise God, call my family and my neighbors who had helped me look for the card--just like the woman in the parable who was looking for her coin.  I thanked God a zillion times.  I was overjoyed.

To understand my dilemma, you would have to wait in a government office to know what reissuing an ID card would entail.  Birth certificates, retirement orders, etc., etc.  Oh!! how I dreaded filing for re-issue.  Plus, that wasn't all that was in the ID folder.  My SSN was in there too.  Plus ten or so other cards I need.  Luke ends that passage of finding the coin, (and my ID) this way:  "Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting."  That is so true.

My okra is coming up!!!  We've had rain--which hadn't happened in months to any extent.  I am so very thankful.  The settlers depended entirely on rain--or if they were lucky, a well.  But with a well or a cistern, they still had to carry water to the plants.  Here I am with hoses, and a wonderful sprinkling system.  We are so blessed in America.  Half (or more) of the world is still carrying water.

You don't know or think about what you have here in America until you lose it.  When they turn the water off to do a repair on the street, I am totally unhinged.  At least you know ahead of time so that you can fill the bathtubs--unless it is an unexpected broken main.  Notice the "s"-- I have three bathtubs and I have never been in two of them.  Guests have, however.  I "downsized" when I left Pryor from two bathrooms to three. (?)  It wasn't my plan, there just wasn't anything small close to the girls.  I certainly don't need three bathrooms, that's for sure.

Like I said, God blesses us and we forget about what it was he blessed us with.  Running water--that's what.  Turn a tap and water comes out.  Even hot water.  Praise God.  If you've ever been camping where all you had was spring water, you know the ritual.  You go get the water in a bucket, round up twigs and logs--and if you remembered a match--you start a fire to boil the water.

That's what my Gran had to do.  Everybody took a bath on Saturday.  First the babies and toddlers, then children from the least to the oldest.  And if the bath water wasn't too dirty, next came Gran and Pops.  Otherwise, you had to go fetch more water, and heat it up on the fire.  You can see why people in the 1800's didn't take a bath but once a week.  (Or less.)

And of course there were the outhouses.  Way out back of the house.  If you had to go in the night, you had to light a lantern to see where you were going.  So everyone kept "Thunder jugs" under the bed.  Which someone had to empty each morning.  And toilet paper hadn't been invented.  It was the Sears Roebuck catalog or a corn cob.  I don't know which was worse.  You haven't really lived until you have used a corn cob.

Praise God for running hot water, flushing toilets, toilet paper, and sprinkling systems.

I edited and sent my blog this morning but my Mac said I had made an error.  I lost the entire thing.  I have no idea what I wrote.  Probably God's way of telling me to write something different.  It was frustrating to say the least.  I write at night, edit and publish in the morning.

My friend Carolyn called to tell me that a frog doesn't have double vision.  (From yesterday's post.)  She is so good to edit my editing.  I changed it, so if you didn't read it yesterday you will no longer be able to see what I wrote.  I said, "I drove to Tulsa in a frog strangling rain with double vision."  I corrected to say, "I drove to Tulsa in a frog strangling rain, and I had double vision."  Good friend.  She wants to make me look good.

Sunday, I taught my class, ran home to change clothes and went to a track meet.  I had to park a block from the gate.  Where I was supposed to sit was a block east of the gate.  I didn't make it.  I was taking a step, stopping (and in trouble) when Jon saw me and came to get me.  I couldn't go forward, and I couldn't go back.  He half carried me to the stands and got me settled.  He is huge.  All muscle.  I am small, and all spindly bones.  I got to see Brady run (He's six), then Jon went to get my car and helped me get across the field to the gate.  I hate this.  I want my old body back--the one that worked and let me do what I want to do.

I went to see the spine guy a couple of weeks ago and he said, "Janie, your back is shot."  And I said, "Tell me something I don't already know."  Physical Therapy for eighteen months didn't help.  So now they are giving me Lyrica which just makes me sleepy and hasn't helped.  I can't do injections because they have steroids in them which lowers your immune system.  And that puts me back in the hospital with my arm all infected.   So......next step surgery.  Bummer.  Maybe Jesus will come back soon.  Yes, I'm whining.  I'm frustrated.  I'm sure you have been there, too.

Otherwise, I'm great.  It doesn't hurt for the first fifteen minutes I am on my feet.  So I can still garden.  Thank God.  I'm going to get the shovel right now.  I'm living fifteen minutes on, then fifteen minutes off.  It's working.  And I can pedal my new recumbent bike for 30 minutes with no pain.

God is good.

I was driving the turnpike to Tulsa in a frog-strangling rain when I got double vision.  Couldn't tell which stripe I was seeing--that was the side stripe of the road.  Geeze Louise!!  It wasn't pretty.  Finally realized that if I closed one eye, I didn't see double.  Drove all the way to Tulsa through the rain and construction--Huge construction for twenty miles--with one eye closed.  I've seen worse, but not with one eye.  I don't know how veterans who lose an eye do it.  God bless them.

Found out it was just a different kind of migraine.  I always get sparkles with colors and zigzags that narrow to tunnel vision.  But the ophthalmologist said it was a compound something or other type of migraine.  But strangely, since I had heart surgery, they don't go to the pain stage anymore.  Praise God.  Enough of that.

 Sunday, I taught a lesson on enduring suffering, and using your experiences to help others.  Everyone in the class participated.  It was a great group and a great lesson.  We had a new person.  She loved it, said she wanted to join us and join the church as well.  She was excited--I have to admit, this group of women are awesome.  I might add, in my church--and most every church I know--you don't have to be a member of the church to join a connection group.  So if you are in Edmond, come on down to the 1st Baptist at 33rd and Bryant and come to room 114 at 11AM.

Suffering isn't fun.  But it brings you in contact with others who are going through the same thing and allows you comfort to know that you aren't the only one.  And if your episode is behind you, you can give comfort to those going through it.  You understand.  And you also can attest to the fact that God is good--you will get through it.  It may be painful, or sad, or uncomfortable, or difficult, but you are not alone.  God knows your name.

II Corinthians 1:6-7 " We are in deep trouble (for bringing you God's comfort and salvation.)  But in our trouble, God has comforted us--and this, too, to help you; to show you from our personal experience how God will tenderly comfort you when you undergo these same sufferings.  He will give you the strength to endure."  Paul is speaking, and he ought to know.  He was beaten, left for dead, shipwrecked, jailed and tortured--all for spreading the good news.  I don't know how he did it.  It had to be the hand of God.

I messed up, went to Pryor, forgot to post this before I left.

When I work at the Antique Store, if it is easily done and not pushy, I usual ask, "Are you a Christian kind of person?  If you are, you might like to read my blog."  And I tell them my cards are on the counter.  "Get one when you leave if you are interested."

I always say, "Christian kind of person."  It doesn't put anyone on the spot.  If you say, "Are you a Christian," it sounds like you are getting ready to pounce on them.

I'd say that it is about 50/50 who say yes.  Yesterday, someone said, "Well, I was raised Christian.  But not much anymore."  I wondered what that meant.  I didn't ask.  How can you be "not much?"  I'd say you either are or you aren't.  I left that one alone.

Since it is another person's store, I don't want to say  much.  But you would be amazed at how many people want to talk about it.  Where they go, where I go, etc.  And twice, out of about 20 people who wanted to talk, they wanted to know where my class met.  One lady said, "I'm really interested in this.  Can I take you to lunch?"

I told her she didn't have to pay for my lunch!!  She said she wanted to talk some more but didn't have time right then--she would call me.  We'll see.

God puts people in your path.  You have to be in the "Reach Out" mode.  That's what we are called to do.  Invite people.  Always putting yourself out there.  Make new friends.  "Work it by putting out feelers."  That's what Christ called us to do.

One woman told me, "I'm too embarrassed to do that.  I'm afraid I'll make a fool of myself."  I told her, "So what.  What do you have to lose.  Make a fool of yourself for Jesus."

That's my motto.  I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.  There's nothing foolish about caring for people.

We have had a three night "Old Folk" revival at the church.  I really enjoyed going.  The music was fantastic, and the speaker was over the top stupendous.  He was a stand up, old-fashioned comedian.  But able to get the word of God out, along with the humor.  The entire audience gave him their rapt attention the entire time he spoke.  He was that good.  (Dr. Ernie Perkins)

It's one thing to preach.  It's another thing entirely to reach an audience.  You have to have a thing that we call "Presence."  And he had it.  He was riveting.   In spite of a speech impediment--which he used to make us laugh.  And laugh we did.  Not at him, but with him.

It is refreshing to hear a man of God that tells it like it is without looking like a sad sack.  God's news is good news.  It should make us happy.  Fill us with joy.

Yes, I agree, it is a sad condition to be without Jesus in your life.  But why would anyone want to come to Him if He is constantly presented to the world as a misery, doom and death sentence.  He is a life sentence.  A happy life sentence.  He saves us from misery, doom and death.  Forever.

I thank God for laughter.  What a wonderful gift.

I am really glad I know Him.  I hope you know Him, too.

We live in an agitated world.  People arguing, calling each other every bad name that you can possibly imagine.  I grew up in a polite society.  I never heard anyone call another person a bad name.  Hard to believe, but true.  Even at school, we were taught not to disparage others.

The closest I came to hearing anything politically antagonistic was when I was ten years old.   It was 1948. The Chicago Daily Tribune printed a large headline in the morning edition that Dewey had defeated Truman.  They were sure enough to go to print.  But it wasn't true.

Dewey was defeated.  Truman won.  And someone said, "They were really sure of themselves, weren't they."  The word "they" was the disparagement.  Everyone I knew was a Democrat back then.  And the word "they" referred to a very few people in town who had money.  I had never heard any disagreement between the people of the town, so to me, it was an unusual statement.  I didn't know there was any difference between "us" and "they."  It was my first encounter with divisiveness.  My first knowledge that there were differences of opinions in the world I lived in.

The Democrats of 1948 no longer exist.  Neither do the Republicans.  The issues they both stood for then are long gone.  Carl Albert--who was the Speaker of the U.S.House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977--was a friend of my dad.  They both grew up as kids around Wilburton, Oklahoma.  Albert was from Bugtussle.  He was 5'4" tall.  They called him the Little Giant from Little Dixie.  He was an Oklahoma Congressman for 30 years.  Just an ordinary man who worked for Oklahomans.

Those men are gone.  I don't know what I am anymore politically.  Back then, it was easy.  Now, it isn't.  Where are the statesmen of either party?  Where are men who are interested in working for us and not for themselves?  Would either party please stand up and be counted--for us.  

If you are someone who believes that government will solve our problems, rethink that.  After a multitude of presidents and government changes in my life, I can assure you that it isn't going to happen.  Ken came to the conclusion that you needed a Republican President and a Democrat Congress (or vice-versa) so that they didn't get anything done--because they always made things worse.  I'm about to agree that he might have been right.