Ann picked me up for breakfast.  We went to a new place where the lady who owns the store does all the cooking.  Homemade cinnamon rolls.  Homemade blackberry cobbler, etc. etc.  Delicious.

I usually take the paper with me and do the puzzles while Ann goes into the sales.  She has something she looks for.  I don’t--so I usually just wait on her in the car and read the paper and do crosswords.  I like it because she drives--and once a week, I have somewhere to go!

Ann gives piano lessons (OU music major who is super talented) and keeps a basket by the piano--if the student does what they were supposed to do that week and does it well, they get to pick something out of the basket to keep.  So she is always looking for trinkets at the garage sales.  

It is amazing how many things she finds that are brand new with the tags still on them.  And usually for fifty cents, or even a quarter.  The students get all excited about everything in the basket.  It’s a big basket and she keeps it full. 

The important part is that it is a motivator.  Students learn how to play if they practice, and the gift basket always has some new thing in it that wasn’t there the week before.  She is not only a brilliant musician, she knows how to keep students interested.  Win-win.

It has been a fun day.  Tate beat me at Scrabble twice.  I hope I never see another Scrabble tile again!!!  He is better at it than I am.  I am truly worn out, but in a good way.  There is a reason God gives children to young parents.

I am so thankful he came to stay the night with me.  We had a wonderful time.  His dad is going to come get him in the morning.  They start school next week.  Unlike the other boys in the family, Tate is calm.

We put a puzzle together which was a lot of fun.  He told God that we needed rain...and stood out in the yard waving his arms in the air as the rain came down.  I should have had him come sooner.  We needed the rain and he seemed to think that having God answering his prayer wasn’t unusual.  He even yelled into the sky that if someone else needed it more than we did,  that they should get it, but could we have a little of it.

The faith of a Child.  Awesome. 

Today will be exciting.  Jon is going to bring Tate (first grader) over around noon to stay all night.  Tate’s personality is very much like Ken’s was.  Quiet, thoughtful, vocabulary out of this world.  He is the one who came up to me in Bible school and asked me if I knew what a compound word was--that it was made up of two words. Which I thought was a little bit advanced for his age.

I told him that I did know--and he asked, “Well, then...what do you call a word that is made up of three words?”  Which I had never even thought of considering.

We had memorized a verse from Ephesians 2:10 that says, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus...” and of course he had never heard the word work-man-ship, and was trying to figure the word out!  I told him I had never heard of a question about three-word words.  “Let’s give them a name,” I said.  We decided on Tri-pound, which Tate liked.

I have taken his brother Brady to Bible School 6 years, since he was in kindergarten, but this summer was Tate’s first time to stay all night with me.  I called Jon last week and asked if Tate could come.  I would like for him to remember me a little bit after he is grown--my grandmother meant so much to me.   Perhaps he will remember something.  I hope it is good.

Yes, I have been watching the Jan. 6 hearings.  Interesting.  Almost all of the people who have testified are Republicans--they were the only ones in the white house at the time.  They were also the ones at the “rally.”  So it has been their reports and testimony as to what They saw and heard.  

The thing I have found to be the most interesting about it all, is everyday people denying what the witnesses are reporting.  I wonder where Walter Cronkite is when we need him.  Demos and Repubs are at war.  

I’ve just found the reactions to it all to be the thing that is concerning.  Without taking sides, listening to the people who were there has been interesting to say the least.  I hope someone figures out how to keep such a thing from ever happening again.  From either angle.

I’d like to hear Reagan say, “Tear down this wall.”  Or Truman say, “The buck stops here.”  I remember those two standing up to say something that was meaningful.  But I’ve been through so many presidents and Senate members by my age, I doubt there are very many statesmen left in the world.  I think it is “Follow the Money.”  

We just have to never forget that God is in control.  Even though R and D politicians are positive they have God in their pocket.

   

Jeanette brought me 24 sliders yesterday.  I wrapped them in Saran and froze them individually--Breakfast for a month or two.  She does a mushroom broccoli quiche for me occasionally as well.  I freeze those slices also.  

Breakfast is a problem for me--since I don’t like milk or eggs. Jeanette’s gift is taking food to others.  She is a fabulous cook and loves to do it.  

She has finally given up after I have refused to take the food, and let me pay for the ingredients.  We argued over that for months and she finally gave in.  That way I don’t feel like such a leech.  It is such a blessing.  Breakfast doesn’t have to be a surprise-a-meal...like lunch is from all the unidentifiable left overs in the freezer.

Becky Bacon brought packets of oatmeal with freeze dried peaches that you fix with a tiny bit of boiling water.  She got me started on that. If you buy Quaker, it is almost four dollars.  House brand is a dollar sixty eight.  They are exactly the same thing.

Ann and Jeanette both brought me peaches last week, which I cut up on the oatmeal.  Breakfast has gotten easier.  I am so blessed by friends who take care of me.  My surprise-a-meal lunch yesterday was stroganoff that Jeannine brought me a couple of weeks ago.  Delicious.

I have my computer back!!!!  Yea.  I don’t know how I got a bug; I’m very careful about not clicking on stuff.

Pat is talking about getting rid of her chickens.  I am begging her not to do it.  I love the fresh eggs. I like the chickens as well, they aren’t afraid of me.  One of them let me pick her up and stroke her feathers.

But Pat has to let them out of the cage every day, and the coyotes pick them off--even if she is standing there with them.  They run in a pack and never stop as they go through the yard and snatch a chicken.  They aren’t afraid of Pat.  There are so many chickens she can’t protect all of them.

“A coyote got Bess,” she said.  “And Barbara.”  She names all of her chickens after the president’s wives.  Every chicken has a name--which makes it personal when a coyote grabs one of them.  

I hesitate to let Squig out in the yard when I go to her farm.  He only weighs 12 pounds.  And Squig thinks everyone--including coyotes--love him.  I’m sure coyotes would love him.  So I go out with him and stand right by him when he has to go.  All I need is something to swing at anything that tries to hurt him.  I can guard one dog.  But nobody can guard a flock of chickens except God himself.  

I’ve been without a computer since yesterday.  Craig took it home with hime to get rid of a bug that had shut me down.  I’ll post tomorrow.

My freezer side of the refrigerator is starting to look normal.  I never label anything I put in there (Lots of single serving leftovers) so...I never know what I’m going to eat when I take something out.  That’s why I call it surprize-a-meal.  

But not too long ago when Ann and I were garage hopping, I found a huge package of fifty small single-serving commercial see-through plastic containers.  Now I only use those.  Slowly, I’ve thrown out all the cottage cheese, etc. plastic things you can’t see through.  My freezer is starting to look like someone who is neat lives in the house.  Before, it looked like a “tater-shed” fridge. Throwing those old containers out was hard.  It went against my raising--don’t throw anything out that you can “make-do” with.

My gramma fed and let people stay out back in the potato shed in the 20’s depression.  They were hopping the trains going West and every one knew the place to hop off--in Wilburton, Oklahoma.  Georgia Wilson’s farm. They could stay in the “tater shed”, and eat Gran’s cooking for a few days before they started hopping trains west again--throwing their kids on board.

Their children were ragged.  Gran reclothed them and burned their rags.  So we were raised to be sure we didn’t act or look like “tater-shed kids.”  That’s why I said my fridge looked tater-shed.  It was really ragged.

I pull five weeds every day.  Not four.  Not six.  Five.  That was the rule I had when the kids were growing up.  If you wanted to come in the house, pull five weeds from the flower beds.  There were six of us, so it kept it under control and nobody ever had a big chore of weeding flowerbeds.

I still do that.  Five.  However, I may--in the future--allow my self to only do four.  Three could be on the horizon.  Leaning over is the problem.  And if I get on my knees, I can’t get back up without some strange gyrations.  That I hope the neighbors aren’t watching.

I’ve found that if my handyman Ron mulches the beds in November, the weed seeds don’t sprout in the spring--very much.  I used to mulch in March, but no more.  There is better control with deep mulch before Thanksgiving.

My neighbor Jeannine brought pecan hulls over for a yew I planted.  (Yes, I got the Yew in the ground myself in the spring.)  The thing hasn’t been doing very well.  She said I didn’t get it deep enough.  So I got a shovel and lowered it a couple of inches.  (I dig better than I bend.) It still isn’t looking happy.  It’s the heat.  Even the astilbe’s leaves are brown and crunchy.  Everything in the garden is dead.  It is supposed to be 104 here this week.  And Tulsa--in the heart of “Green Country” is going to be 106.  

 Scott came to see me yesterday. He and Pat and Becky took their spouses and kids to Outback that night.  They call themselves the “first family.”  Before Jon.  I was too weary to join them--but enjoyed all of their reports of their get-together. 

Jonathan came along so much later.  And Ken had been retired from the USMC for four years (when Jon was born) so he wasn’t a military kid.  Pat was 15, Becky 13, and Scott was 9.  Jon grew up in one town.  The other three were born and raised coast to coast.  Fending for themselves.  

Scott declared my garden dead.  I agree.  I got two tomatoes before it dried up.  The ones I planted against the house in the flower garden did much better.  Raised beds in the yard let the plants dry out too quick.  And my garden gets sun all day--which with the weather right now means they are being cooked at high heat sunup to sundown.

Everyone has been really good lately to bring me food.  Jeanette brought me Chinese (Yum!) yesterday.  Jeannine brought me a meatball wrapped in Bacon.  Scott brought me steak and sweet potato last night from their dinner.  I’ve been cleaning the freezer out of the “Surprise a meals.”  I never label anything so I never know what I’m going to get.  I just eat it.  I’ll eat anything at this point.  But it is really nice when I get something I like!

I had no idea who I had married.  I look back and wonder if I ever figured out what he actually did for a living?  We were happy.  Well suited for each other.  Both Christians.  Both of us had good families.  He went to work.  I raised kids--and held everything together because.....  

He was gone most of the time.  Japan, Spain, Roosevelt Roads, Okinawa,  Vietnam, cross-country--getting night time, or instrument time, or just somewhere up in the stratosphere doing what he did.  I got myself to the hospital by myself for the birth of our first child.  Out of five kids, he was there for two.  I guess I thought it was normal?

When he retired from the Marines, I turned the bank, books, bills and everything over to him--and then, I told him I had had it.  It was his turn.  After two months, he asked me, “How did you do this?”  I said, “Pretty well, considering there was never enough money.”

He had asked me how much I needed to run the house and kids--and put it in a separate account.  I had told him a number.  So when he asked me how I had done it, I said that what he had asked me was “how much I needed”--which was the wrong question.  What he had put in the account was what was needed, not how much I usually got by on.  He said, “You did good.”  I said, “I know.”

 Back in the fifties, jets came aboard the carrier with help from the LSO.  Landing Signal Officer.  With a deck pitching up and down, side to side, and rocking.  The pilot needed help with speed, attitude and altitude.  You didn’t want to land with a deck rising up at you.  You would end up dead.

The LSO had paddles in both hands to give signals to the pilot.  They were brightly colored.  He could tell the pilot everything they needed to know with the paddles.  Add speed, wave off--go around again, etc.  Now, they use a meatball--a light on deck.  But there is still an LSO on deck to grade the landing or take over in an emergency.

Ken said that the problem was getting the pilot to do what he was told to do.  In the air, it’s hard to trust the LSO when your gut is telling you to do something else.  It killed a few of them, actually more than a few.

I wish I had kept Ken’s paddles.  I kept his Mickey Mouse ears.  (Protection from the roar of the planes.)  But when you move every year, you throw stuff out.  And the paddles became a thing of the past.  Who knew every air affection-ado in the Navy and Marines would want paddles for their walls.  To remember “back when.”  The Marines had three LSO’s when Ken was waving.  I guess that is why they sent him to Pensacola to teach cadets how to follow signals and hook wire on the carrier.  That’s what he was doing when we got married.  It was cool to watch.

Sunday’s lesson was over the last chapter of Ephesians.  Paul was writing to the Gentiles and he ended his thoughts by telling them to be strong, and put on the full armor of God.

Having lived 57 years with a Marine, there are a zillion stories to tell and not enough years to tell them.  But concerning armor, I remember an incident when Ken was flying back and forth to Pryor giving me all of the reasons that I should marry him.

We had gone swimming at Pryor’s public pool.  I had never seen him with his shirt off, and across his back was a huge X from shoulders to waist where there was no hair.  “I asked him why he had shaved an X on his back and he said, “I didn’t shave my back--that’s where my Mae-West straps rubbed me raw.

He had been flying a Corsair for over two years, a prop plane, and the “Mae-West” pack held a parachute and survival gear strapped to his back between him and the seat of the airplane.  He wore it every day to fly.  The straps were criss-cross across his back and had left a permanent mark.  An X.

When you prepare for battle--whether it be an air war, or against the evil forces of the devil--you need armor.  Paul describes the armor of God...waist chinch of truth, breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the gospel, shield of faith, helmet of salvation and the final and only offensive armor, the sword which is the word of God.  If you don’t have the word of God in your heart and mind and behavior, the enemy will get you.  

There is a huge difference between pilots and which plane they fly.  By the nature of the thing, a fighter pilot is all alone in the plane.  There is only one seat. He can be supersonic. He is in charge of everything he does.  Those guys just think different.  Them, and the plane.

They sit around in the living room at your house with their hands in the air, palms flat, (representing the plane) moving both hands in tandem showing each other how to flip, and end up behind the enemy.  Or a million other maneuvers. And then challenging each other to a dog fight to prove who is the best--which was a normal day for them. Trying to show them exactly how  you do it with your palms--until you get the plane in the air.

They are all of them the “Greatest Fighter Pilot in the World.”  And they have all done something they shouldn’t have done.  Like Ken breaking the sound barrier down main street Pryor--trying to impress me.  “They couldn’t get the number on my plane,” he said.  “I was on the Tulsa runway in a couple minutes.”  They all have a streak of crazy.  The people in Pryor were saying, “Marry him so we can all get some peace.”

Fighter pilots are a thing of the past for the most part.  They tore up too many airplanes...drones are cheaper than planes.  Ken retired and never flew a plane again. He said that everything there was to fly outside of the Marine Corps had too many seats.  “I’m not interested in flying a bus.”  

The manuvers I saw in the movie “Top Gun” was what they did every day.  Mach 10 was just one more pull your guts out level of Mach.     

I went to see Top Gun, Maverick.  People asked if I liked it.  No-yes, it was like going back to Beaufort in 1963-66, Ken being the squadron commander of 27 pilots, trying to teach them how to keep from getting killed in Viet Nam--because that was where all of them were going.

I knew what he was doing every day.  He would walk out the door every morning, and I would raise 3 kids.  There were so many who were killed doing what they did.  Pete Olson, Bill McMann, Rhon Iverson, who were all experienced, excellent pilots.  But they died.  And left families.  Then there were the young ones that were killed in Nam.  Or ended up in the Hanoi Hilton.  Or came back “different.”

Rhon’s wife told us about their two boys giving their bunnies a bath--she heard the rabbits screeching, went out and found the boys had hung them up to dry on the clothes line--by their ears. Losing one of them, it’s personal.

Pete was killed with the Blue Angels.  Rolled an F-9 into the beach in Corpus.  Bill McMann ripped the hook out of an F4D along with the fuel tank--as Ken was waving him aboard the carrier...shouting “Eject, eject.” But all of them thought they could bring a plane back around and land it--Bill hit the water.  They all thought they were invincible. 

Rhon went TAD to the Air-Force teaching the Air Force pilots how to fly like Navy and Marines. One of them turned into him in the air--mid-Air.

Those stories are about three Marines.  There were so many others.  It’s a good movie if it isn’t personal.  

The fourth of July.  What a monumental day in our history.  The suffering, the fortitude, the determination that it took to give birth to a nation.  It is amazing the mental fortitude of our founding fathers to determine what freedom really would mean to the ordinary citizen.  We are so blessed.

Death of those in our military through the ages has been so random.  But from those ranks, heros of freedom emerged.  Those who believed in the foundation of our freedom and were willing to face loss of their lives to defend our constitution.

It is all so fragile.  We forget sometimes what they died for.  It is an idea, written on paper, and protected by those you and I elect to office.  We are Americans.  There has never been a nation such as ours.

Ken would always say, “I serve at the pleasure of the president of the United States, elected by the people of our nation.”

Our political leaders are “our” leaders.  Pray for them.  Whoever they are.  They have the power over our military--to send them into deadly fire.

We must never forget the price that has been paid for the freedoms we enjoy.

I do not particularly like Oklahoma City’s road arrangements.  The streets are haphazardly laid out.  Angles, dead ends, turnpikes, highways everywhere with every possible highway number.  It’s like an octopus.  I got spoiled by Tulsa’s rectangular grid I guess.

If Pat hadn’t driven me...if I had listened to Siri...I would have ended up twenty miles north of where I needed to be.  The nice thing was that when the procedure was over, I got to eat.  We went to Golden Corral--they always have dozens of veggies--which I love.  And their bread is to die for.  Almost as good as Kathy D’s hot yeast rolls.  But not quite.  It is not your classy with a waiter kind of place, but I like the variety.

My friend Jeanine watched Squig.  So all was well.  That’s over.  I don’t like having appointments hanging over me.  Or luncheon dates.  I like a clear slate.  Call me at the last minute if you want me to go somewhere. I don’t like the feeling of being trapped by entries on a calendar.  I have no idea where that comes from.  I didn’t used to be that way.

It’s Friday again and I haven’t even got the week started.  I’ll try to do better next week.  God bless all of you.