Spring, Friends & Neighbors, and Kentucky Derby Day in Eaton!!!

The year has been a bummer for me personally and there seems to be no let up to it…LOL. But in the scheme of things memories have will have to suffice to raise me up and keep me going. 

Yesterday I thought about having a Derby Party like we used to have in Eaton. When I first moved here I became acquainted with my neighbors who were wonderful people who enjoyed Soring and each other’s company…we would plan get-togethers and my favorite was “Derby Day”!

Pauline Brown would clean the fresh fish Mike and Emily Curtis would fish for (Bullhead and such)… then we would do chicken and salads with Nellie Wooten’s unbelievable Pecan Pie to finish… the Pecan Pie of which we all went into sugar shock over, and my specialty was….Mint Julep’s… both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.  Spring had sprung!

We also had Party Mutual tickets for $1… that was our wager of the day on whatever horse we would like the name of.  Sometimes my craft friends would come from Syracuse.  One year Grandpa Black won on a ticket picked for him by someone else… He laughed and laughed. 

Grandpa Black was blind and had been a postman who climbed Hamilton Hill on his route…on snowshoes sometimes in the winter.  He said he and the Hamilton postman would meet at the top of the hill.  Our personal joke was I would ask him what color ashtray he wanted…he would say “Green”… and I would hand him a different color and someone would say…”That’s not green!”...He would answer...”They are all green to me!”… And we would laugh!

One time Pauline got into the Juleps before getting the chicken ready…I can still see Judy Cramphin coming out of the kitchen accusing me of getting her mother drunk. 

One time Nellie who never drank brought “Hard Sauce” for the Pecan Pie…It was so “Hard” I decided to investigate the whiskey she had used… She turned the old bottle over to me, when I looked in the back of it… the phone number of the liquor store had only 4 or 5 digits…yikes…aged for real!

Many times people showed up with hats on…cowboy or bonnet…but always ready to eat, smile, and enjoy each other’s company for a while after a long cold winter and usually…. a cold April.

As I look at my Facebook friends today I still see a number of familiar young faces that have replaced the many older faces that have passed over the threshold…I miss them all… and our many “Good Times”!  Happy Spring to all…

Here is one of the kids that came back for a visit...this day to "Jack Ass Hill!"

The world, life today and a poem for those who have gone before!

As some of you might have noticed I was missing from blogging for a while.  Some of the reason due to illness, some of it due to not feeling like thinking about the crazy world we live in and the horror of our times.

Missing from our society is the rational day-to-day mundane parts of life.  We have media blasting us on all sides about politics, wars, fundraising, sports, supposed star personalities, new products to buy and things that really do not matter to a vast majority of the world’s people. To them, the day is made up of getting up…trying to feed, cloth, and shelter their families and themselves.

It is sort of disgusting to watch our modern entertainments such as music, videos and TV revolve around sex, nudity, absurd fashion, video games and media hype. Storage businesses are booming because we feel compelled to go out and buy items many of us cannot use or do not need,,, because we feel good to be able to buy things.

We no longer repair things we just throw them away and companies make items to be tossed or make things too cheaply or too complicated to repair.

So I settled back and tried not to think about anything…it worked for a while…but only a while.  So for this years book I decided to put history aside and gather together some of my latest poems.  They are not very good or great… but they are in a way the history of how I feel about today, the world I am in and the people I have met.

Since this week marks my birthday, a day I do not celebrate… since on that date three of the people I was closest to died … Each in different years but all within 24 hours one way or another of it…I will post this poem for them.  I miss them very much and I am sure you have those you miss as well so this is for them and you also...

I hope you enjoy!

Memories like cymbals clanging

In the empty corner of each room

Feelings left unfinished

Brushed aside to hide the pain

Of love

Time heals they say

But that is not so

It only deadens a heart grown heavy

With our life when filled

With woe

It marks the channel of the oceans current

Changed by our tides ebb and flow

So out on this sea of life we sail

Not knowing the way wind

May blow

Poems left for other lovers

Line by line written so

But memories prove unforgiving

In feelings that eyes do

Not show

Life is like a bottle

Set adrift at evening time

The ride it takes only guided

By the moon and its

Earthly tides

With no control and no clear path

We wander shores of sand and sea

Always searching for love

And in the end finding

Life’s realities