Some Things Never Change - Guest Post

Last week I introduced you to my Grandpa Taylor and told you a bit about his quiet influence on my life. This week I’ve invited him to guest-blog on To Be Determined…No, he never heard the term, blog, and he passed away over half a century ago, but I found this “little story” as he called his jottings, from the early 1940’s, and thought it fitting to share with you, just as he wrote it.

THE SPRING TIME

By Clarence E. Taylor

There is standing by my window a large cherry tree and since it dropped its leaves last fall it has looked just like a dead tree. The winter storms beat and thrashed the branches till I wondered if it ever would show life again. But the days are getting longer and more sunshine, so I decided to examine the tree to see if it were really dead.

Well there seemed to be a tiny dark little lump on the branches. I will go again in about five days, so I did.  The dark little lump seemed to be a bit larger and not quite so dark. 

I will wait another five days before I visit the tree. Well of all things believe it or not my dark lump on the branch has bursted (sic), and there before my eyes was the tiniest little leaf, perfect in form, and a bright green, surely smiling down at me. 

Well was that a happen! 

My history tells me that thing has been going on for thousands of years, and if I ask the scientist he will say, yes and even for millions of years.

Well then, some power has done this and if it has really been doing this for so long that power is infinite, eternal and unchangeable and the Bible calls that God. So as I look at the little leaf smiling at me, I know surely God is close by. God in his nature.

Then I turn about and there is my little friend, Doc Robin, close by me. We are great friends. He does not want me to pick him up, no, just too busy to be that friendly.

He comes along every spring, I named him last spring. I see him make a little run, stop and listen, then again a run and he plunges his sharp bill into the soft ground and pulls out a worm.

Off he goes to the tall elm tree to Annie Robin who is keeping the eggs warm and dry. Doc has her breakfast with him for her. These robins are living the life that was intended for them since the first Robin. 

We read not even the sparrow falls to the ground but what God knows all about it.  Again I see God in the bird nature, so if we look about us carefully we will see God in many things.

Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will….Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.  Matthew 10:29, 31

Dominoes of Heritage

            This week marks the 150^th anniversary of my Grandpa Taylor’s birth. He was born before the Civil War started, and he lived halfway into the Twentieth Century. He saw the birth of many technological and scientific changes, of course. And he saw wars begin and end. Because of circumstances in his life he lived in a dozen or more towns in seven states. He was no stranger to change. I don’t know if he welcomed it or not, but he “went with the flow” as we say today, with a good attitude.      

            There were challenges in his personal life. In Kansas, he sought out a healthier climate for his wife, the love of his life. But she died of tuberculosis, leaving him with a son and daughter to raise. Their son was twelve and their daughter was only seven. His wife’s unmarried sister came to help raise the children. He moved them to Colorado to form a home with his widowed mother—an interesting household of three generations, related, but not the typical nuclear family. Again, I think his attitude influenced the atmosphere of the home. His children grew to be fascinating adults with wonderful personalities. His daughter became my mother. He was in his 70s by the time I was born, the youngest of five children in our family.

            My family, too, saw lots of change. Our dad was a small-town minister who moved often, five times before I was born and six times after that. We confused the border guards at the Canadian border one vacation when the seven of us in the car reported we were born in seven different states.

            Eventually Grandpa Taylor came to live with us. He was a strong, quiet influence on my childhood years. His hobby, begun in middle age, to ward off the effects of arthritis in his hands, was decorative wood carving. In the early years he created many pieces of furniture. He wasn’t a fine cabinetmaker; much of his work was rather primitive, but the carving on the pieces was exquisite. I spent many hours watching him wield chisels to create floral wall plaques, bookends, bead necklaces, chess sets and tiny animals on a work table created from a large trunk that contained all sorts of mysterious memorabilia—a kaleidoscope of bits and pieces of his heritage.

            Sometimes we sat together under a cherry tree in the back yard, doing food preparation like shelling peas, shucking corn, or pitting cherries. We played games: Chinese checkers, caroms, even chess. He always won, but he was never condescending. After a win he’d set the pieces back a few moves, and say, “Let’s see what might have happened if you’d moved this way.” He let us learn by example how to play better.

            One of my enduring memories is the image of him sitting in a high-backed green velvet rocking chair in his room, spending most of Sunday afternoon reading his Bible.  A newspaper reporter sent to interview him about his woodcarving asked him for comments about growing older.  “I have more time to spend with the Psalms, especially Psalm 23.”  He pronounced it, as some did in those days, Sams.

            Grandpa was a man of quiet wisdom, gentle humility, and adaptability developed, I believe, from his love of and proper fear of the Lord.

     Just as many people influence our lives, our lives, in turn, touch others in ways we may never know. I am now grandmother to two of Grandpa Taylor’s great-great-grandsons. One is 21 years old, a senior in university, almost ready to launch out on his own. We’ve had twenty-one years of sharing our lives. I treasure those years. I won’t have as long with the second; he’s less than a year old. But I pray that whatever and whoever has made me who I am will be of positive influence on that little boy as he grows “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”

“The fear of the Lord teaches a man wisdom,

and humility comes before honor.”

Proverbs 15:33

Enough With the Address Labels, Already...

It’s difficult for me to throw stuff away. I admit it. I’m not a hoarder by any stretch of the imagination, but I do empathize with the hoarders’ mantra: “But I might need/use it someday.” Or if I can bring myself to put it in the donation box: “Someone with imagination will be able to use this (fill in the blank) and be glad to have it.”

Anything that was a gift is automatically sacred, never mind that it is twelve years old and ratty, and the person who gave it to me lives in another state and will never know of its disappearance.

I psyched myself to be ruthless when I prepared for our move to a new state just over a year ago. I knew the goal date a year ahead of time, so I took all year to purge and pack. The “handle an object only once” didn’t hold up for me, though. Some things were in and back out of the give-away boxes more than once.

Then I came to the drawer with the return address labels. I delayed that drawer right up to the last month. I wanted to be sure I had enough to cover our last days at the old address. Now, I’m a bit particular about the designs of things I use—my desk calendar, my schedule planners, my journals, and yes, even my return address labels. So, here I had a huge pile of labels I’d saved, but seldom used. From three patriotic organizations, two veterans groups, several disease advocates, a couple of children’s homes and hospitals—enough labels to last for thirteen more years at the old address. I rarely sent donations for them, and yet they kept coming. At least they didn’t have to be packed. And maybe with the move, they’d lose track of where I am.

Wrong!  

Within a month of the move here they came, like migrating birds, nesting and reproducing in the mailbox. Please, folks, it’s only January, and I have enough new labels to hold me through 2057.

What’s a body to do?

Eating Sarah Sundin's great plum jam, I am carried back many years to a manse kitchen in central Illinois. My dad, a gregarious small town Presbyterian preacher, was a thrifty man who couldnl't resist a bargain. Often in his daily travels around the rural roads surrounding town, he would stop for a visit with various church members, and sometimes purchase fruit on the verge of overripeness, that could be 'put up' as jams or preserves. The prices were exceptionally good on Saturday afternoons, when the fruit wouldn't keep until after Sunday. (It was in the days when business wasn't conducted on Sunday, nor the work to preserve the fruit.)

One Saturday afternoon he came into the kitchen beaming with pride at his latest acquisition - a huge basket of 'on the verge' damson plums. I'm sure my mother's heart dropped when she recognized the work necessary to salvage the fruit, but trouper that she was, she donned a long white apron and swathed her hair in one of Daddy's big white hankerchiefs, and attacked the pile of soft plums. Hours later, after sterilizing and filling the glass jars with the product of her labor, the kitchen table boasted many jars of beautiful red jam, still hot from the processing.

Here's where the story gets sticky. (Forgive me.) I don't know how much later it happened. Much of the story remains live, although not enhanced, from the retelling. Suddenly there began a series of loud pops emanating from the kitchen. One...two...three-four-five... Investigation revealed kitchen walls and ceiling newly redecorated with bright red polka dots dribbling down the walls. Some had even reached the hallway of the back staircase. Something had gone wrong in the sealing procedure.

I never heard my gentle, soft-spoken mother ever utter anything that even slightly resembled
a curse word, but her famous last words on that Saturday night:
"Oh, those damson plums!"

(I don't think my dad brought home much Saturday night work after that.)

We're Still Here, Mother...

That's what my oldest sister, Margery, would write home in letters from nurses' training when there wasn't much other news. That's what I have to say today while we are still waiting for some movement on the sale of our house.



But in the meantime, life keeps happening with its challenging opportunities and neat little surprises along the way. A fellow writer, Sarah Sundin, has a great blog relating to the World War II era (during which I was a little girl, so I remember many of the things she writes about in her historical novels of the time. The blog is UNDER HIS WINGS (Explore History and Faith with Author Sarah Sundin). http://www.sarahsundin.blogspot.com/. Her website: http://www.sarahsundin.com/ is full of WWII nostalgia and B-17 bomber facts, as well as her publishing accomplishments. Go visit her!



In one post, Sarah, who lives in northern California, mentioned that her plum trees were heavy with fruit, and that it was time for making jam. What a memory-jogger. My brother, Clarence, and his family used to live in northern California. They had plum trees too, and making jam when the fruit was ready was high on their priority list.



On a recent solo visit to his former home, he was offered some ripe plums from the new owner. They weren't to be resisted - their persimmony color promising jam of the same jeweltone red. The only snag was that my brother was scheduled to fly to southern California that afternoon to visit my family. He arrived, carefully guarding a big bag of fruit in his carry-on satchel, saying we were going to make jam. New experience for me. I had never made jam. There were several calls to his wife, at home in Virginia for advice. While the cauldron was bubbling I scraped the contents of a number of glass jars - peanut butter, pickles, jelly - anything I could find, into plastic containers and prepped the empty jars to receive the luscious jam.



The venture was a success, proven by the sparkling row of mismatched jars marching across the counter at the end of the day, glowing with promise. But the story didn't end there. The next day Clarence was to fly home to Virginia, and he was determined to take his treasure along. So it was another scramble to find a bag small enough to carry on, but sturdy enough to protect the jars. We swathed them in tissue and bubble wrap and a few prayers that they wouldn't break. I think Clarence held them possessively on his lap the entire flight home. It's a wonder that didn't draw the attention of security. (And yes, he left a jar for me! My first taste of northern California plum jam.)



I mentioned a neat little surprise. When I commented on Sarah's post about her plums, I won a jar of her freshly processed jam. It arrived in the mail the other day. Thank you, Sarah. Guess what I had for breakfast the next morning on a toasted bagel! Ah, heaven. Northern Californians like to think of their end of the state as Paradise; although some of us are territorial about our own southern end of the state. But northern California plum jam ranks right up there.

***

Two of Sarah's Wings of Glory series, A Distant Melody and A Memory Between Us, published by Revell, are now available. These stories put the reader into life on the "home front" as it really was, then take us into the skies over England and Germany with the B-17 bomber crews.

I recommend them.

***

I do have another plum jam story - next time. In the meantime, we're still here, Mother...

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting...

Does anyone remember the theme song for the old television western, Rawhide? (That's dating me, I know.) "Roll'em, Roll'em, Roll'em..." That melody circles around my brain like the wagons circled around for protection during the night stops.



Why is it so difficult to wait? Remember waiting for Christmas when you were a kid? Or for your birthday? Agonizing...then suddenly it was here...and then it was over! Even as adults we prepare for a special event like an anniversary or Christmas, and then realize, suddenly it seems,
it's over.



Or a pregnant woman waiting for the delivery of her child. Talk about waiting! Then, suddenly,
the pangs begin and the waiting is over. Years ago, when a friend was seriously overdue, I stumbled onto a great "waiting" verse that describes it well:



"This vision-message is a witness
pointing to what's coming.
It aches for the coming--it can hardly wait!
And it doesn't lie.
If it seems slow in coming, wait.
It's on its way. It will come right on time"
(Habakkuk 2:3, The Message).



I've been playing the waiting game lately.



I'm waiting with the rest of my family, for the sale of our house, so we can get on with the excitement of choosing a new house in a new town in a new state. There have been some
lookers but no offers yet. Roller-coaster time. We get the call. The realtor wants to bring clients through. Grab up the laundry; stuff it in the washing machine. Check the table tops;
look under the edge of the bed. Turn on all the lights for that warm ambience (but turn on
the A/C because it's pushing 90 outside). Ready, set, get out of the way...



I'm waiting for the release of a revised edition my book: ENDING ELDER ABUSE: A Family Guide, promised for months, scheduled momentarily. Each rumble of the UPS truck sends me running to the door to peek for a large carton on the doorstep...



And just this morning, following a chronological Bible reading plan, I came to the now-familiar
Habakkuk passage and thrilled with recognition. Prophetic for me? Maybe today? Not really, but the concept is surely applicable. Wait for it...wait for it...it will surely come, and suddenly
the waiting will be over and we'll be into the next step, whether it is promoting a book, or committing to a new house purchase and finalizing the logistics of relocating...



What are you waiting for? Wait for it...It will come...suddenly...

I knew there would be more thoughts of life on this street...how could there not be?

Last week we went to a memorial service for... Let me back up...

When we moved into this house our older son, Jim, was nine months old, and for several more years he was the only little child on the street. Then came a family with a son just older than he. Greg. Instant best friends. A couple of years later another family next door with a son a year older - Kipp. When that lad started school, people down the street called him Jim because they looked so much alike; he didn't appreciate it. "I'm NOT Jim!" Then several more years and a family moved into the house on the corner. They had three sons ranging around the ages of the boys already on the street. Gary, Tim, and Brian. Instant "street gang." We parents were all thrilled that these kids didn't have to go away from the street to have friends. We always knew where they were; much of the time in my own yard.

They played together, probably fussed with each other but seemed to settle it together, went through school together, went to their separate churches, played Little League together, even drew an elongated baseball diamond on the street for the almost daily games, complete with caps off and hands on hearts for singing the National Anthem (yes, we had a flagpole).

The boys grew up and went off to college and jobs, but remained friends. One Thanksgiving school break I overheard the almost adults say, "How about a game of street ball for 'old times sake'?" They remarked the bases on the newly paved street and had at it, the balls flying much farther down the street than in the 'old times.'

One by one there were weddings and eventually kids. All the parents moved away (some passed away) except me. Still the guys remained friends.

Then--last week--the memorial service for the father of the three boys from the corner house. Each of the three now middle-aged sons spoke eloquently of the impact this quiet, gentle father had on their lives, and the lives of their children. It reminded me of the influence all fathers have, whether outgoing or reserved, and of the heritage the fathers of our street have left for their sons to hand on to those in their sphere of influence.

I didn't post on Memorial Day. I intended to. I didn't post on Father's Day. I intended to. I didn't even post of Independence Day. I intended to.

But these memories, and many more, will accompany me into the upcoming and ongoing changes in my little sphere.

If Walls Could Talk...

The For-Sale sign is up. Now the waiting begins as various people troop through the house passing judgments on its desirability. How could anyone not find it irresistible?

Lots of history in these rooms.

Falling in love with the sprawling avocado tree, visible from the entry hall the first day we came through the front door...

Our first son's firsts: words, steps, birthday. I was out of flour on the day of his first birthday and improvised a cake made with Bisquick. A bit lop-sided, but the toddler seemed thrilled...

Our second son's birth, and all his firsts, including trying to swallow a cabinet doorknob, followed by a ride in a police car to the ER...

Oh, yes, the first haircuts...at home...we didn't take kids to salons in those days...

The choice to bring my husband's elderly mother into our home in her waning years...that extended to fourteen years, during the last eight of which she was semi-comatose and bedbound...

The years of school, church, Little League, golf, music, college...first son's marriage...a miracle grandson...

Saying goodbye to my husband of 43 years after two years of aneurysm problems...

Launching second son in a new career, new town...

Merging of households with first son's family...

The Thanksgiving dinner we cooked on hotplates and crockpots with the kitchen all sealed off during extensive remodel...

Marriage of second son...on the hottest day of August in Inland Empire California...

Watching the grandson go through all the same schools as his dad and uncle had...seeing him graduate in the same colors...same school logo...sending him off to university...

And those are just the minimum highlights...I'll think of a zillion more, but to adapt a quote from a far better book than mine: "If every one of [the events] were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written" (John 21:25).

Choices? Changes? Challenges? Yes to all three. But isn't that life? Bring'em on. I prefer to make them, take them, and live them as they come. After all, what other choice do I have?

Alive in the Changes

As I see the beautiful tangerine walls of what I call my Sunrise room (bedroom), disappearing behind Swiss Coffee white paint, something tugs at my soul. But the real estate gurus insist that taste-specific colors are a turnoff to potential buyers. That is, unless a soul-mate walks through the door who resonates with my soul-link with tangerine walls! Yes, the house where I've lived for fifty years is going on the market any day now. And a relocation to another state looms in the not too distant future.



People ask if it will be difficult to leave. I answer honestly that I don't think so - but we haven't pulled out of the driveway yet. As a preacher's kid I grew up with moving, and always looked forward to what the next house, school, town would be like. It has crossed my mind that the eagerness to get around the next corner, while to me seems an adventure, could also be a form of escapism. But that's something that will have to be examined at a later time, thank you very much, Scarlett. Right now I have files to sort and boxes to pack and decisions to be made, oh my!



May I send you to: http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/transitions/ for a moving and thought-provoking commentary on life transitions that triggered many intriguing responses, including my own. You won't regret visiting Chris's blog.



Chris advises entering into and savoring each moment of any transition, large or small, which will result in a richer experience of life. And so, I have been taking pictures of befores and afters, of last special events - the last Thanksgiving, the last Christmas, the last blooming of the jacarandas. There won't be jacarandas where I'm moving.



But there may be lilacs! And I've missed lilacs for fifty years in California!

Breakthrough!

Challenges: Stuck yesterday (and for several weeks) on Chapter 12 of WIP without knowing why, and without a solution in sight. I've been wrestling with reconciling four different story lines into one in order to create a series. I printed the notes already at hand for all four stories and played "paper dolls" with the slips of plot and time lines.. The only way to resolve the challenge was to place all the stories in one town - not the original plan. Yet a picture, or more realistically, an overall story began to take shape.

Choices: But that brought about its own set of challenges! I had to determine when and where to work characters from one storyline into another without their taking over the current WIP. Still, the thought processes triggered the heat that melted the block. I realized that I needed to create an entirely new chapter, three chapters back. In progress now. But then the domino effect will need to be traced through the ensuing chapters to make sure the desired conclusion is reached. Hey, that sounds like work!

Changes: Being willing to make significant changes in what I considered a finished product, was the catalyst to
a better story line and the resultant thrill of accomplishment. Isn't being flexible to consider alternate routes to the same destination part of the fun?

My dad was a great back-roads adventurer. Sometimes it resulted in getting "a bit" lost. As a pre-teen with a better sense of direction than his, I was often impatient, as I'm sure my long sighs revealed. But to this day, I'd rather take a back road than the highway any time. Poet Robert Frost said it well: :...Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

How about you? What alternate route might you choose today to add a bit of adventure to your journey?

Breaking through the funk...

Everyday life is full of choices, changes and challenges for each of us, but so, also, is the writing life.

Challenges: As I purge and pack the accumulation of many, many years in my present residence in preparation for a move later this year, I feel a bit overwhelmed by the writing projects looming before me. Well into the current novel, WEDDING AT NEW CANA, I seem to have developed -- shhh -- writer's block. With the mess of packing around me, I just don't seem to be able to break through.

Choices: Timing! This morning's e-mail brought an invitation from Randy Ingermanson via his own writers' blog: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/blog/2010/05/24/got-a-question-get-an-answer/ Holler for help and see what kind of lifeline Randy throws me.

I sent my question: Lois Hudson Says: May 25th, 2010 at 7:22 am "I have been developing plot lines for several novels that I envisioned as stand-alones; however, current advice recommends series proposals. The only thing that might connect my stories besides the era (pre- and post-WWII) is the possibility of placing them all in one town. That was not my original intention–even had mapped out the towns in which they take place. Now I’m almost overwhelmed in planning out the way the stories might overlap if I move the characters into the one town. Then I must insert mention of the characters in the current WIP which is already 12 chapters going. Any recommendations on laying it out? I think I need a huge grid of dates, plot lines, where the characters can intersect, etc. It has me frozen. Thanks for the Q&A options."

At least it was action taken. It got me out of the frustrated funk I was in yesterday.

Changes: In the meantime I have pulled everything out of two large - very large - closets to purge and pack. I'm a saver. Everything anybody has ever given me immediately becomes sacred, never to be thrown or given away. Books, especially! But I'm learning. All the household organizational gurus insist we must cut half of what we've accumulated. I've learned that if I do my purging one day, then look at the saved pile the next day, I can usually get rid of another third. That's real change for me.

It's a bit different with the stories. Publishers are looking for series possibilities now instead of stand-alone novels. How can I merge and manage the populations of several towns, and intertwine their stories in such a way that one story emerges from the one before, seamlessly and naturally? Has anyone else dealt with this, or a similar challenge? Tell me about it.

P.S. I highly recommend Randy Ingermanson's blog as well as all the other writing help he offers at his website: http://www.ingermanson.com/. Check him out!