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!"

Memories "light the corner of my mind" this Easter Springtime....

I watched an old movie, something I seldom do.  The movie was “The Way We Were” and what I found most interesting was the mini documentary that went along with the movie.  The most part that interested me most was the discussion of finding the right song.   They needed a song that would transport the viewer back to memories. 

The composer chosen for job was Marvin Hamlisch and the wordsmiths… the Bergman’s.   They describe in the documentary their work to craft the perfect “vehicle” to set the mood.  They said the title, “The Way We Were” was wonderful all in itself, but that they had the first line originally “daydreams light the corners of my mind”.    When they presented the song to Barbra Streisand she changed… one note and one word, a word that became the most important change …  the word daydreams to “Memories”.

Picture of my Mothers Family..Her Father & Mother and her!

The song won the 1973 Academy Award for best song in a movie, a Golden Globe and became one of the songs of the century!   To this day I am sure many of us enter a little piece of reverie as we listen to it… since memories are a haunting part of our life; they are something that comes back to us …sometimes good, sometimes bad…sometimes happy…sometimes sad.

                                           Rare photo of my Grandfather and all my Messere Cousins

My memories seem to start in the  Spring, which is supposed to be a new beginning, a time of rebirth when the earth wakes from the sleep of winter.  The sap has started to run and the great giants on the hill have started to sprout buds that will soon bring leaves that will last until fall’s last call.  Added to this are my memories of the many summer days spent by the lake, by the glimmering water, with the brush of soft sand against my feet when I walked the shore dreaming of the future.  Never expecting it to be where I am today.

Spring for me brings both my best memories and my saddest memoires. 

My best are the many childhood weekends around Easter… since most members of my family shared April time birthdays.  Grandmother, grandfather, aunts, uncles, mom, dad, myself… these birthdays all turned into weekend parties, one after another.  Parties where everyone got together and cousins played at life.  Easter meant seeing some cousins from a long distance that came to the city to visit Grandma.  These were fun times to be sure.

Then things changed and I moved to the country where – ironically - all of the new neighbors shared April birthdays and the parties began again. 

Those times and people have all passed as well… and I am left here with only memories of them.  Lingering sad memories… as death end life.  In the past some of my best friends died on the three days around my birthday… and their memories though certainly fond ones, are wonderful… but they are sad.   They leave me with a feeling of being alone…. like sad memories all of my family who are no longer here. 

The wise man said that you can never go back… you can only go forward.  And so we must… we can only relive that past as “Memories” that light the corners of our mind.

Eaton Memories ..listen to the music and enjoy