Month: October 2012

My Momma

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This is my Momma with her first husband back around 1940.

She was a looker!!  But so was he.  She was about 20 or so.  Young and naive.  Mom said he could dance!  And apparently he liked to dance with lots of women because Mom and he weren’t married very long before he started looking for new dance partners.  They had a daughter together, my older sister.

Momma didn’t like to talk too much about her life really.  And I’ve learned that a lot of people from that era don’t.  Just let it go, I guess.  They were too busy trying to live life to hang on to memories.

And this is my momma with her second husband, my dad.  Personally, I think my momma could really pick ’em… at least in looks.

This picture was in 1952.  My older sister, Tish, is sitting on the arm of the chair and Mom on the other holding the cutest baby ever lived.  I was told I had the colic, though, and was just not a happy baby for a few months.  Not until they started feeding me that Karo syrup concoction.  I think it was with Milnot.  Can’t remember now just what Mom told me it was made from, but I blame that on my desire for sweets now.

On Dad’s lap is my older brother, Benny, who just had a birthday this past week.  This is Ben at his party.

Since this has already been posted to the infamous Facebook and since he has already called me and told me no more picture-taking at his house, I assumed I must get the most out of the pics I have already taken.  Therefore, the obligatory picture post here.  Yes, life is good.  Some people say Ben looks like Dad and others say he looks like Mom.  Genes.  Hmmmm  He acts like Mom for sure!!!

The pics on the little end table are of my cousins:  Jerry on the top who died in a motorcycle accident, Uncle Clifford’s only child; my sis on the second shelf; Ronnie on the bottom, the son of Aunt Louise.  They were all three the first-born of the siblings.

I’m loving swimming around in this gene pool of pictures.  Hope you are at least enjoying it as well.

 

Pool of Genes

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Over the years I’ve done a bit of genealogy.  It’s interesting.  Kind of fun to find out where your gene pool is from and what those genes acquired or lost or survived and when and how they died and who they became throughout the eras of life.

At this point you can decide to get in the scuba gear and dive in or just sit on the edge and casually peer into the clear, murky, fun, scary, pool of genes.  They came from Scotland and England.  Some could write; others used an X for their names.  Some turned out just fine; some didn’t.  None of them made a big splash in the money pool or the going-down-in-history pool, but nevertheless their ripples continue on down the centuries.

Logsdon siblings

This is my mom and her sisters and brother.  The time period is around the early 1930s would be my guess.  My mom, the girl on the far left, was born in 1920.  She doesn’t look very old here, so I’m guessing at the year.

From the left on the front row is Amy Anita, 1920, Emma Christina, 1906,  Minnie Alleen, 1912; the back row is Mary Louise, 1914, and John Clifford, 1908.

As a child, I grew up knowing these aunts and uncles and their children.  I stayed with each of them at some point or another, maybe a day at a time or a week at a time.

And I loved them all dearly.

 

My Fairly Odd Family

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Ava as a, um, uh, well, I’m not sure

In looking through some photos I’ve taken over the year, I have come to realize that we are a bit of an odd bunch.

This is Ava with her purse and glasses and crown and baby.  She strolled Baby Baldy all over the house in that get-up.

Wes and Owen on beach

I can only say, “Please, God, do not let anyone be looking at the ghost on the beach.”  “And even more important… do not let anyone realize it belongs to us!”

Cousin Sandy can play Twister all by herself

Cousin Sandy?  Don’t even ask.

And the gypsy lady?  I can’t imagine who that is, but I know she’s definitely odd.  Ask anyone in town.

We have all kinds of personalities and all kinds of weirdness and all kinds of drama and all kinds of skeletons that refuse to stay in the closet.

But the really really odd thing is…

So does everyone else!!!

 

The gypsy lady

who is this big-nosed girl?

You talkin’ about MY nose?

 

 

 

I Dreamed I Was African-American in the 1950s

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dreaming

My dreams last night were set back in the early 1950s.   Some of the details are fuzzy… all but the one where my home was set on fire.

We knew it was coming.  We had been warned by a good white man to put the children in the attic.  I know, I know.  That doesn’t make sense to put your children in the attic when your house is about to be burned to the ground, but in the dream it was what we had to do to save our children; somehow it worked in dream world.  The opening was only big enough for the children to get through.  It wasn’t big enough for me, so I knew I would be going down with the house.

In order to keep the children from suffering smoke inhalation from the insulation, (I know if it were true life, I would have had no insulation in my home) I was furiously tearing it all out and throwing it on the ground to smoke.  Hoping that the terrormongers would be smoked out themselves.  That exposed all my children in the attic (who would still be saved somehow as long as they were in the attic) and they were crying, scared.

I was trying to comfort them as I tore out the insulation as fast as I could go.  The house was becoming consumed with fire, and I didn’t have long.

Throughout this dream there was the constant worry of being hurt or maimed, the struggle to find work and keep work, the difficult jobs I had.  And today I am just a little depressed.  I am so very sad that the human race hates with such intensity.  Oh, what if that were just the opposite and we loved with such intensity?

So why did I dream this dream?  Is it because we are being blessed with Nia, a little brown girl (instead of blue, Owen’s choice) to be adopted in the next two or three weeks?  Does God want me to experience first hand what my sisters and brothers of another color experienced?

The one thing I know is that I will never forget how it felt:  the scary, scary feeling of helplessness and anger and hate and harm.  And how sad I am today.

Picking Pumpkins and Putting them Places

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Every year when autumn rolls around, I get sad.  My favorite time of the year, Sweet Summer, is dying off, giving way to Autumn, the harbinger of Winter.  boohoo boohoo 

It’s just that I soooo love Summer: being outdoors, running around practically naked (all I can say is Avert Your Eyes), swimming, garden foods, running around practically naked (or as in Kate’s and Ava’s case: naked), vacation, the list goes on and on.

So in order to keep from getting too down in the dumps, I pick out pumpkins and either make Jack-O-Lanterns or just put them all over the place for fall decorations.  In the case of this year (so far) I have just put them all over the place.  And thought I would share.

It’s Autumn… Fall of the Year

See the leaves?  They’re falling, you know.

There is the neatest little outdoor pumpkin patch where I got all the gourds and pumpkins.  The man who runs it picks all these and puts them on a trailer with a roof, parks it, and I get to choose from the portable pumpkin patch which ones I want:  $3 for the big, big ones and 3 for $5 for the gourds or small pumpkins.  He has a money box on the end of the trailer and trusts people to pay for what they get.  Unbelievable in today’s world!