Happy Birthday Grandma!!!!!!!

Now we can't say you're "nearly ninety," because you are ninety!! And you're amazing.

Carver continued

Joe commented on the previous blog. Said he would read some of his Carver books. And asked, had I read any of his books. I read all the ones I managed to buy. His next question was, how did I like his writing. He was a skillful artist. I why asked Ray why he wrote about such losers. My question hurt his feelings. He claimed they were not losers. After having read most of Sklenicka's 500 page book I understand why he was hurt. It seems he wrote about his own family and his own life.

What I admire most about him is his stubborn and difficult pursuit of education. He may not have reached his dream of degrees but he certainly was well educated.

Ray Carver's Funeral

Sam and I were invited to the celebration of Rays life. It consisted of two dramatic happenings. Or actually three. The first part was at 11AM. We arrived in a timely fashion and were asked to be seated in the part of of their house which normally functioned as the dining room. Chairs were lined up in rows and after we sat down we glanced in the direction of the living room. There in front of the fireplace was a four poster bed with Ray sitting, leaning on pillows, in what looked like a comfortable posture. A young man was sitting next to the bed, holding Ray's hand, and conversing with him in an, to us, inaudible voice. It was an emotional scene.

Ray's friends, his fellow writers, all stood up and read a short poem or story that was authored by Ray or by the reader. Richard Ford, who was a professor in Ames Iowa, was especially remembered. He looked like one of the charachters in the comic strips in the New Yorker. I asked him if anyone in Ames Iowa had told him of this and he said 'I do not think people in Iowa read the New Yorker.'

Ray's first wife was there and spoke of hers and Ray's love affair as being the one that would go down in history as the one and only. The young man holding Ray's hand when we arrived was Ray's and Maryann's son.

We left as soon as it was comfortable and were told that we were expected at the graveyard at 2PM. And to come back to the house afterwards. Sam had been told that he was having walking pneumonia and chose not to go to the graveyard were the cold wind was blowing. I asked our daughter nr3 to come with me and the same people who had spoken at the house spoke again. The site was unforgettable. The drama heart wrenching. The wind from the Pacific Ocean was icy. We left early. Jane who is a librarian knew all the dignitaries there.

We dropped in on the get together at Tess' house but by this time Tess looked so exhausted that we felt the nicest thing we could do for her was leave early, hoping some of the other people there would leave early too.

We did say good-by to Ray. Some time later I asked Tess if the whole funeral was something Ray and she had designed before he died, she said 'Ray never spoke of his dying. He always felt he would make it.'

Continued

In the spring that year I had the opportunity to go to Russia with an art group from Seattle. It was the beginning of Glasnost. A person whose name was Walsh had organized the friendship games in Seattle and he and the Russian premier who had the birthmark on his forehead, worked out all the sticky details and in so doing became friends. And so he helped iron out all the difficulties that arose around our art tour.

We had an interpreter\docent who had to take us everywhere but we had more freedom than the time before we visited Russia. In a previous blog I told you about my difficulty when I wanted to go to the theatre that showed Eugene O'Neill's play 'Desire under the Elms'. I knew the play by heart and the language did not bother me. I enjoyed the emotions that were stimulated by the superb acting. We visited many painters in their studios and we even got to go down to see the art that was in storage at the museums. We visited Moscow, St Petersburg, and Tiblisi, Georga. And as a dividend we visited Chekov's home and a couple of other writer's houses. It was a wonderful trip.

This was all told you as a preview of what happened with Ray Carver. The same year when the 4th of July came about, we had a party on the beach and Tess and Ray were invited. Ray was not well. Ray asked about my trip to Russia. I told him that I felt that the trip had affected my painting. He said he would like to see in what way. I said that he could see it when they were on their way back home, for the walk back up to our house seemed like waisted energy on his part. He said No, I want to do it now. And so we struggled up to my studio and I showed him what I had accomplished since my return. He was very complimentary and agreed there was a new strength in my paintings. And then we went back down to the beach.

Next morning the phone rang and it was Ray. He wanted to know who arranged the trip to Russia. I gave him the details and also gave him the travel agent who had been in charge. Unfortunately, these bodies of business only worked with tours and did not work for just a couple. August second Ray died.

Lois Sizoo

Lois and a few of her friends managed to make Eugene O'Neill's, Tao House, into a National Monument. It is located in Danville, Ca, and it is the place where he wrote five of his most famous plays. There may be four or five errors in the previous sentence. The spelling of Eugene's name might be one, calling the Tao House a national monument another. So take it with a dose of salts.
But Lois and her husband Wesley were coming for a visit. And I knew we would have fun.

I called Tess Gallagher and asked if she and Ray could come for dinner the following night and they were happy to come. Dinner conversation was mostly about the availability of finding Ray's books in the two bookstores in town. We had already searched, finding only one of his. We told him we would go to Canada the following morning to see what we could find there. I knew Lois would fall in love with Munro's Bookstore in Victoria. And then the conversation centered about Ray and Tess and the teaching jobs they both had during the school year.

Next day we visited the Butchart Gardens, the bookstores. and a wonderful place for a Japanese lunch. Tired but happy we returned on the afternoon Ferry. We had enough leftovers that we did not have to cook supper. Sam and Wes were pouring their drinks when the phone rang. It was Ray who wanted to know how our day had been. I told him that Lois had found three of is books. He said 'I would like to drive down the hill and sign the books for her. This generocity was typical of Ray. He was a lovely man.

There will be more about Raymond Carver later. One month before he died he come to our 4th of July party on the beach.

Raymond Carver

A friend from California sent me pages from the NY Times about this 'new writer' who lived in Port Angeles. This was a year or two after we moved there in 1983. It was exciting news. He was compared with great giants in literature. I thought, how smart he was, to see the benefits of living in this area of the world. As I was driving around town I wondered occasionally what part of town he had chosen to live in.

An old lumber train that ran between Port Angeles and Port Townsend came through our area about once a day. When we heard it coming around the bend, with wheels complaining that the curve was hard on it's aged under structure, we would gather up any grandchild visiting, making sure some one had a penny in a pocket. We would run up the hill and wait for the train. One child could put a penny on the rails. And then we waited. There were a couple of curves before the train arrived and the noise made the waiting into high drama. The locomotive looked old fashioned but the engineer leaning out his window was as welcome as Santa Claus at Christmas. His friendly smile as he waved to us, made us feel happy for the rest of the day. And then the lucky child whose penny had been squashed had a concrete memory of how much fun it was to visit Grandpa and Grandma.

Why should this little tid-bit of history come at this time. One time when we were waiting, a neighbor whose property edged the railroad property was waiting with his pre-school-aged son and we introduced ourselves and as we returned to our houses he informed us that in this house lived a famous writer. He was away teaching on the east coast at the moment, he said. I could see the house from our kitchen window and I would often look up to see if there were signs of life yet. And so began our friend ship with Ray Carver. More about this as I get into Carol Sklenicka's book.

A new year

I think my maternal grandmother died in 1910. If she did she was about 70 years old. All I know is that she died from Struma.
Anna and I both were operated on for the same kind of thing way back. Anna who used to sing in church, had a lovely voice before the operation. I lost nothing but aquired a lovely scar on my neck. Struma is the German word for Thyroid.


Happy New Year for all who may read this. And I hope your Holidays were happy too. Two granddaughters were here in Port Angeles and all of us had several happy get-togethers. And I received many beautiful, and many practical, and many tasty Christmas gifts. It was a wonderful season.

I have three new books to read. And if I read them now I will never have time to write blogs. I will try to use some control and only read at pre-ordained times. I cannot read in bed for I fall asleep after the first page.

One book is called February House by Sherill Tippins. It looks fascinating and is about theatre people and singers and free thinkers. Leafing thru I saw a man called Lee and I hope it might be about Canada Lee who was the star of Native Son on Broadway and in the movie Life Boat with Tulula Bankhead. He never got his just rewards for being a great actor. The second book is about Raymond Carver by Carol Sklenicka. It is a huge book and I am looking forward to reading that too.And then I borrowed City of Thieves by David Benioff. It deals with the Leningrad siege during WW11. If my blogs are shorter than usual remember I warned you.

Polsbo

Yesterday a friend called and said 'Come with me. I am going to Polsbo to buy my Christmas bread. My family loves the braided cardamon loaves of bread that you can buy only there. I quickly agreed to go for I needed lingon berries and marzipan. We had a good time in spite of the rain. My friend, Bea, whom I know from bridge is an excellent driver. We had a hot cup of Rainy Day Chicken Soup before heading home.

I got home in time to watch Oprah for her second day of interviewing Whitney Houston. What a talent! So glad she is returning to her public life. I will never forget when she sang the National Anthem during the final celebration of the Los Angeles Olympics. Nothing has affected me so deeply except for the time our ship sailed by The Statue of Liberty in 1938. I get tears in my eyes when I think of it. We bought the tape of Whitney 's and in my move a couple of years ago, the tape was misplaced and I hope to find it soon.

Today is Bridge Day and this blog will be short. It is short. Must feed my animals.

Advent

One year I decided that it would be fun to make the month of December more fun for our four children. Late in November I went to the lumber yard and bought a piece of plywood which I covered with a gray material on which had sewn Santas and snowmen. Then I attached twenty four hooks. On these hooks I tied four small presents, all wrapped in four different colors. Each child got to draw the color they wanted.

The gifts were insignificant but something they either needed or something they liked to snack on. Sometimes the present was something that could not be a surprise for them. (Such as a pencil) I remember their cries of delight when they got something meaningful or something tasty. Toward the end of the period they got a small box of thank you cards to be used after Christmas and then there was a small envelop with postage stamps and on the twenty fifth I remember trying hard to find a 'diamond ring' from the dime store for each of the girls and something equally ridiculous for Gilbert.

After a year or so each of them had their own calendar. Four times twenty four is ninety six. It was a chore wrapping these ninety six items, it was a bigger chore amassing all these items and I sometimes wondered why I had begun this tremendous chore. But the girls enjoyed it and so it went on into their college years. I now see Anna, my number one daughter( I don't know if it is correct to say oldest or eldest) fix one of these for her younger daughter. (who is about to try for her Masters)

I think Anna also made an advent calendar for her Mother'in'Law. It gave me a good feeling that that old ritual might go on and spread far.

Happy Day After Lucia.

Santa Lucia

December 13. When I was young, that date meant Christmas was coming soon. When I was old enough to carry a tray with a coffee cup and little lucia breads with cardamon aroma I became the Lucia in our house, for I was blonde and my sister had black hair. I had never been more important than my sister before, and the feeling that filled me was ecstasy. I think it was my first feeling of some kind of importance. Our celebration was strictly homebound and after people got out of bed my role returned to normal and I slouched back to my place.

When I was married and had children that old feeling was aroused in me again and we really celebrated. We invited five or six families for breakfast at 6 AM. (Only one person said nothankyou but sent her husband, five boys and one daughter) We had our blondest daughter carrying the tray with the Lucia rolls and with candles on her head. Then we all sat down to eat and when eight o'clock came around all fathers went to work and most of the children had to run for the school bus. We had between thirty five and forty people around our tables. Before we left the bay area I would often meet some parent of a friend of one of our children's friends who had come for a Lucia party who still remembered the fun.

We would of course tell everyone about the origin of the ritual. In the pre Christian days the people of the North felt they had been forsaken by their Gods and they thought the Dark had lasted too long when suddenly they discovered that the night just passed had been a minute shorter than the night before and they knew their Gods had not forsaken them and they celebrated the return of the Sun.

Three of my three daughters have called this morning and said:Happy Lucia Day. And so, Happy Lucia Day to all of you who may happen to read this. Next blog will be about our Advent Calendars.

This time I mean Robert

The title last time I wrote was certainly misleading. I will try to be more correct this time, but I have a few words I have to say about Richard. He was one of the signers of the Declaration of independence. And so we come to story of Robert Stockton. Sam and I had a suitcase full of things we had discovered about him. And so we sat with all this knowledge and didn't know what to do with it.

Martha, our number two daughter had become a Speech Pathologist. She owned a clinic in Los Gatos California where she was employing five or more therapists. One day her husband said that he had been hired to run an office in the Denver area and they were going to relocate. She sold her clinic and off they went. They stayed in Colorado about a year and returned to their house in Los Gatos. Martha asked if she could have our research on the Stocktons for she did not want to get back into the speech area again. We were happy to give it to her for we certainly had found out we were not writers. She has worked on and off for twenty years on the Commodore and I don't think she has given up on the project yet. She found out that a writer had to have a plot before starting to write, so she studied the subject, wrote a book on the subject and lo and behold she was so successful with her new work that Robert and Richard were put in a waiting line to be dealt with later. She now has a page, an URL for people to learn about Robert, which you can reach by writing Commodore Stockton

Richard abolished flogging in the USA Navy. He was sent by President Polk to make California the next State. President Polk did not tell him that he had sent someone else overland to make California our next State The two met in Los Angeles after Stockton had secured the State for the USA. He was Governor for one day of California. Stockton was well known in Northern California where he had spent time in Monteray. The city of Stockton was named for him and the land where the San Jose Airport is located once belonged to him. I remember so well going with Martha to Princeton where we spent a lot of time at the University and at Morven and at the graveyard. We had much fun and we gleaned a few more facts about him. He was instrumental in the building of waterways and canals and and there was talk about him running for political office.

Commodore Robert Stockton

After our nest was empty, Sam and I had fun doing research on his ancestor, Robert Stockton. Sam was very interested in an older version, Richard Stockton. He, Richard had com from England or Scotland and settled in Princeton New Jersey. There are a few things I remember from his days there. He built a beautiful home called Morven. Then he built a school and sent to Scotland for a man to be the first president of the place that later became Princeton University. His name floats in my brain and refuses to come out, but it may emerge before the end of this blog. George Washington visited the Stocktons and he and Richard's wife formed a close connection. I think there was a poem she wrote in honor of George Washington. And I remember the story of her burrying the family silver among her rosebushes.

One time I was traveling alone to the East Coast to see a cousin of Sam's who lived in a tiny town named White House, NJ. On my way to their place I walked by a bookstore and I have never ever walked by a bookstore, I went in. Lo and behold there was an author talking about a book he had just written, a textbook on the history of New Jersey. We chatted for a while and he hoped I would buy one of his books. I said, only if there is much talk about the Stocktons. We looked in the index and there was page after page about my namesakes. He was interested in the fact that that was my name and I quickly informed him that it was by marriage only.

This was when we had at least two children who were in high school. Our son was working for the Summer at Jane and Stan Friden's farm in Northern California. This will be relevant later.

The author , after he saw I was buying one of his books, took me aside and told me to get in touch with the interior department of New jersey and request to borrow a film that he had been involved with, showing Morven, which now had become the Governors Mansion. The first half of the movie dealt with the Governor and his family. I think he and his wife had eight or nine children. They were democrats. The second part of the movie dealt with the history of Morven.

I was excited about this movie and wrote at once to New Jersey to ask to borrow it. It came and after we saw it Sam and I said we have to show this to Gilbert who was a real non achiever in high School. It took us more than twelve hours to get from Southern California to the Frieden Ranch which was near the Oregon border. We checked into a motel and called Jane and Stan to see if we could borrow Gilbert for tomorrow evening. She said come over and have dinner. We are having froglegs .

Gilbert was excited about the history of Princeton and said I am going to work hard enough to get accepted by Princeton. It was a dream soon forgotten.

Next blog I will tell you what we found out about Robert Stockton. If you would like to find out about him before then, check into Commodore Stockton

Happy Holloween

I got two messages about Halloween this morning and so I feel compelled to write about our Halloween when our four children were growing up. One family asked if they could call at dinner time so I could laugh like a witch for their two grown boys. I assured them that I need more developed abdominal muscles in order to be effective. When we moved from Diablo to Laguna Beach our good friends called on Halloween morning and told us they were coming South that afternoon, for they didn't want their four children going through a Halloween without hearing my witches laugh. (I had abdominal muscles in those days) I remember that as one of the happiest weekends in Laguna Beach.

When the children were older than toddlers I used to dress all in black, and go out and wait for their friends to arrive. I stood under our bridge and when they were directly above me, I would give forth with a thunderous laugh. Think of now being an almost ninety year old woman and hearing that that laugh made me memorable. It is wonderful. But I would rather be remembered for ending hunger in the world or something meaningful.

One year when Anna was in high school I heard two boys whose voices I recognized, coming down the street after having been at the Greer's house, saying, Let's go to Anna's house. It's right here over the bridge. When they were directly above me, I let forth with one of my best ones. They turned around and ran as fast as their little feet would carry them. Anna was told next day in school how scared they had been.

When I grew up in Sweden we had no similar holiday. We did have a spring festival called Valborg's masso afton. It was almost the opposite kind of festival. It happened on the evening before the First of May. People got dressed up but not with anything scary. We had picked little twigs of our birch trees and even though the trees had not yet turned green, our twigs had because of the warmth in the house.

There is a description of Valborg's Masso Afton in a previous blog. If you don't feel like looking it up, I will go into further details about it next time I write.

Happy Holloween

Our new wonderful world

Yesterday afternoon I received a comment on a blog I wrote sometime in 2008. The sender's name was Susan and she was doing research on her grandfather who was the last president of Robinson Reminder Co. How magical that a short mention of my having met him on a train to California could have turned up in her research. And how I wish I had more information to send her.

He was a good looking man. He was very proud of his two sons who were both pilots in the Navy. I think he mentioned that he himself had been a pilot in the navy. He didn't seem old enough to have been involved in WW1, but he could have been there during the peace time between the two wars. He spoke lovingly abut his wife who was forever interested in historical architecture. And he said that when Sam and I visited them in New England she would be happy to show us around. We did communicate by mail. And we were invited to visit. We had to decline and I am fairly sure that it was our financial situation that kept us from accepting. From then it was just Christmas cards and congratulations on new arrivals in the baby world.

Mr Robinson gave me a Robinson Reminder and he gave one to Mr.Shaw, my father-in-law, during lunch. And Susan I would like to know if both of his sons lived through the war. I may have been told about their happy re-unions in one of the letters but I do not remember.

I have been surprised several times by the life of my blogs. What surprised me the most was when a reader checked on the names of my fellow travelers on the trip from Sweden through the Panama Canal to San Francisco. Maybe that's the reason my memories paled. What if I told about something that was all wrong. Age does strange things to memories. When the Argentina pulled in to her berth in San Francisco, guess who met me. Mr, Shaw again. This time he came on board and had lunch with the Captain. I never called him anything but Mr. Shaw. For some reason he liked me, and we got along swimmingly.

Mollegarden continued

I think I have already told about Mollegarden long ago. I spoke about my paternal grandmother's unfortunate break with her family. Sorry if I repeat myself. Some of what I will tell you might be debatable. But this is what I heard while listening to my mother and her coffee friends.

Elina was the name of my grandmother. She had several sisters. All of them were beautiful and a good catch for any swain in the neighborhood. According to her father, Magnus Lindberg, the swains had to be wealthy and well educated. He was a Danish immigrant who had settled in Viken when he was a young man. He had a boat-building business which made him wealthy, and from then on every business he touched succeeded. He built the windmill (molla) and the farmers who had seeds to be milled into flour came with their horses and wagons and seeds, paid a fee and took their flour home to be used for baking bread or for sale. Mollegarden was his homestead. It was built in the usual shape. People were afraid of raiders who came usually from the north. Four long buildings were built into a quadrangle. The northernmost building was the living quarters for family and servants. One building was the barn with one end quartering their horses and the other storage of the feed, hay and such. The other two I don't know about. One time when I was young, one of the buildings had become our post office.

As young woman or maybe as still a child, Elina fell in love with a young man who was not in great-grandfather's idea of a suitable swain for his most beautiful daughter. I do not know if they decided to marry without his blessings or if they were forced to do so. Mr. Lindberg told Elina never to darken his door again. Elina's mother was as sad as Elina. She did help Elina when the bad times came and there was need for food for a growing family. My grandfather was successful in some of his endeavors but mostly he was a fisherman. He and Elina had many children and my father was one of the younger ones. He went to sea when was 16 and worked his way from lowly seaman to Captain.

Snow

I heard today that two granddaughters had to shovel snow this morning. Karin in Montana and her sister in Wyoming. That brings forth so many memories. Growing up in Sweden, we young people loved the snow. We had so much fun and there were so many activities we could partake in by just going out the door. When our children grew up in California I felt sorry for them, for what could they do for exercise in the winter.

One or two winters it was cold enough that the straight between us and Denmark froze over completely. I was too young to venture very far out, but I remember how good the cod tasted that my older brother caught after he had made a hole in the ice. The snow ball fights between girls and boys were memorable. The girls were inside a thick stone wall encircling the garden of Mollegarden. We could go there early in the afternoon and build up a huge supply of ammo, snowballs that is. We could duck down behind the wall when the fight began, so I admit it was an unfair fight. But so much fun. And Mr and Mrs Anderson who owned the place would always make plenty of hot chocolate and cookies for the girls. ( They had no sons) And then we were lucky in that some years some adult would pour water on the tennis court and we could pretend we were playing hockey.

In the summer you could walk through the village and no boy would speak to you but in winter he still would not speak but after we passed each other he would throw a snow ball at you. No matter how much it hurt and no matter how much snow would run down the back of your neck, it did not matter. It felt good knowing that you had been noticed. If the boy was the one you had your eye on, it felt even better.

I will tell you more about Mollegarden next tim i write.

Saturday spent with relatives

Good news about Cap. He is still an old dog but he seems happy and content. Thank you for all the pleasant thoughts you sent us. I treasure all the warm comments.

Yesterday, Saturday, was a fun day. Gilbert, my son, is painting his house, and since it was in dire need of paint, there was a lot of prepping to do before the actual painting. So he invited his son and girlfriend from Montana, and a college roommate of Sam's to come to spend a week helping with the work involved. They worked hard, but there was also fishing and crabbing and golf in their lives during the visit. Saturday was finally my turn to do something to aid in the venture and I chose to take the gang to my favorite place for breakfast. Unfortunately, Gilbert took the group to his favorite place for breakfast and so almost an hour was wasted while we were waiting for each other. Finally I called Gilbert's place, and sure enough, there they were, waiting and hungry.

When eating was finished, the group split up. Heather, the girlfriend informed me that she was going to spend the rest of the day with me. We had a fun day. First I took her out on the long Hook protecting our harbor. She enjoyed the spectacular view of Port Angeles as seen from the North. It was a beautiful day. Then when we approached the Pilot Station I hung a U turn. I stopped the car and let her discover the structures that were built on the rocks protecting the Hook and in turn protecting our Harbor. She was absolutely passionate when she saw them and realized that they were fleeting and would all be gone after a heavy north wind hit them. I told her that when I last saw them they were completely different and that these had been made this summer by completely different people. The ones I saw last year seemed very delicate and very Asian. The ones we were looking at were more solid looking. Made probably by Americans who came from maybe Des Moines or from Indianapolis. They were equally beautiful. Heather was engrossed in deep thought and when we got to my place I asked her if she would like to use my water color supplies and she sat down and worked for probably three or four hours. When I saw her paintings I smiled for they were exactly like what we had seen but the paintings looked as though an Asian had painted them.

Sam came to pick her up when it was time to go back to Gilbert's place. They were all through painting and had had a great Golf game. I said Good bye for they were leaving early this morning to go back to Montana. I feel I have a new friend. Heather is a great person and I feel she will go far.

Granddaughter

I just finished reading Shreve's twitter and found all the responses she evokes. Daily Coyote is my first touch of reality in the morning and it is so real, so filled with love and grit and beauty that it feels like 'who needs all that night time of dreaming' and I am so happy to be awake.

The reason for the lapse in my blogging is my sick dog, Cap. The vet told me his age is a problem. There are many reasons why the only treatment for him is love and care at home. And my son has promised that he will help when the time comes to love him enough to let him go.

Pray for us.

Healthcare

When I was little I had many sessions of ear-aches. Doctors removed the things that grow in the back of the throat and the adenoids. Didn't stop the ear-aches. They removed some of the bone structure in back of the ear. Some of this happened after father had died and we were very poor. But we already had Universal Healthcare in Sweden and the costs were paid by our taxes. I don't remember that we had to wait for service, and since I was the one with a painful ear, it seems I would remember.

A couple of years passed and it was discovered that I had a hernia. When I exerted myself a little part of my insides pushed on my abdominal muscles and seemed to want to pop out. I don't know how long that had been going on, but a doctor said he thought it might have been caused by the constant early crying in the baby buggy. My mother gave me a choice. I could have a truss, or I could have surgery. Since I had observed an elderly man in the autumns wearing a truss out side of his pants while he was raking the leaves in his garden I knew I did not want to be wearing a truss. I chose surgery. I had a local anesthetic, for a strange heart condition had been discovered earlier. ( I was excused from Physical Exercise because of that, so I felt it was an added asset for me. I will tell you later what else I was saved from. ) But because I was awake during the surgery I heard what one MD said to the other one there. He said, 'Shall we tell the mother?' The other said 'No she would worry.' Those words would worry me most of my life. What was in there that could worry my mother. Or were they not even speaking of me. Every time some Md was working on my insides I would ask him to check for any unusual condition. I had four c-sections and one other opening for the removal of my uterus. Nobody found anything of interest.

The other thing I was saved from was participating in Choir. Some one told me that if you ate a whole raw potato nobody would ever want to hear me sing.

Kennedy. cont.

You may have noticed that in my previous blog I said, 'in my minds eye' this was the way events occurred. Now that Senator Kennedy's memoirs are being printed, we will know more. From the few words we have heard about the contents of the book, it promises clarification and insight. I can't wait to read it. The trouble with living as long as I have, is that so many heros become heros of the past.

My paternal grandmother was the first one who died, and whose leaving really affected me. I was too young to understand what dying really meant. She had one huge fault. She owned a cat named Topsy who bore kittens several times a year. We got to see the little blind babies for only a few days and then, suddenly and tragically, they were gone. She told stories about what had happened. The trolls had come out of the forrest and they had stolen them. Or, some witch had come to town and had worked some miracle with them and had turned them into horses for her fancy conveyance. We were always sad that they were gone. Many years later rumors spread that she had drowned them all in a gunny sack. Life as a grownup is not always romantic. I wish I had never heard those rumors, for I remembered her as a sweet little tiny lady, who herself looked as though she could have been magic.

Until I moved I still owned her church hat. Seeing it used to bring her spirit closer. I have forgiven her for drowning the kittens.