Cooling Off

One of my favorite pictures is this one of my mom and her sisters Rosa, Taty, and two friends taking a dip in Panther Creek near Panola, Illinois.  My mom is in the middle.  Taty is on the right and Rosa is on the left.  Do you see the smiles?  Can you almost imagine the sparkle in their eyes?  Kids are kids.  Water is water.  And hot days in the summer just naturally draw the two together.

I love the handkerchiefs tied in knots on four corners that they have on their heads.  I have another picture of the same crew on the same day....out of the water. It appears as if they are in their bloomers and undershirts, shaking the water out of their eyes and wringing the last drop from their clothes.  I wonder what my Grandmother did when they arrived at the back door, dripping wet and laughing?

I know how hot it is in Illinois in the summer.  And we all know the sizzling days we have here in the Ozarks as the hot and humid weather makes us yearn for cool water and soft shade.  This picture was taken in 1920.  And I do believe I could go down to the creek here at home and find a similar scene any day.  Kids in the water.  They may not have handkerchiefs on their heads or be swimming in their underwear.  But they are laughing and calling and dunking each other under that cool refreshing water.  Some things never change.

Sidelined

This is a picture from long years ago when my hair was mostly brown and I could fit into size 10 jeans.  How I love to dance.  Always have,  Always will.  It is just part of me, like breathing or walking or smiling.

Unfortunately, my dancing days may be over.  It all started last fall with a pesky ache in my right hip.  Went to the doctor.  The MRI showed a considerable amount of fluid in the joint causing pain and aggravation.  The solution was easy.  Fluid drawn off the hip.  Cortisone shot injected in the area.  Good as new.

Well, not quite.  Fast forward to January of this year.  Clearing brush I strained my lower back.  Major pain for some time but nothing I had not experienced before.  I knew it would get better in a few weeks with rest and relaxation.  

And then the hip started to hurt again.  Was it my back?  Was it my hip?  I hobbled around as if I had suddenly added several years to my life.  And as you well know, that is not me.  I tried exercising.  Painful, painful.  Not at all the thing to do, said my body.

Another visit to the doctor.  Another MRI.  More x-rays.  The news was not good.  My hip had developed more fluid.  And the worst was that actually the joint was now practically bone-on-bone.  The fluid was drawn off again.  And I decided to get a second opinion, not liking the recommendation that I needed a hip replacement.  No! my mind screamed.  No!

My appointment with another doctor is in the beginning of July.  I am anxious to see what he says.  Maybe there is an easy fix.  Maybe I won't have to have surgery.

But now the festival in West Plains is coming up.  Jig dance contest, three hours of square dancing for two nights.  Lots of friends that we only get to dance with a few times a year  will be there.

But I can't dance.  I will be sidelined.  Not my idea of a good time.  Sitting and listening to dance music is not what I want to do.  But that is what will happen.  

Tapping my toes, I will pretend that I am dancing, hearing the sound of shoes keeping time with the fiddle.  And I will be sitting there.....waiting for the day when I can dance.  Hopefully.  With fingers crossed.  Waiting to dance....again.

Bears and bees

The night before last all was well with our bees in their new hive.  They were tucking themselves in for the night, humming as they cleaned up after the busy day, making plans for the coming of daybreak, knowing there was much to be done in their constant search for food and water.  Busy bees indeed.

But sometime in the twenty-four hour period between eight p.m. Wednesday and seven p. m. last night, a black bear raided our hive and scattered it across the green grass.  Andy found it first and came to get me to help.  I don't work with the bees but I can be an extra pair of hands on occasion.  I took pictures while he assessed the damage.  Thankfully, bees were clustered on the main hive body and the frames of comb were intact.  After suiting up Andy carefully put things back together.  I stayed in the truck, with the windows rolled up and mourned, trying to get an idea of what we might need to do next.

We have had bees before, in Illinois and in the Irish Wilderness.  It had been nearly forty years since we had fooled with them but we were delighted to take on beekeeping again.  Not so much for the honey but for the pleasure of seeing them work so hard.  They are fascinating creatures.

Andy worked hard last night, moving the hive to a new location and then he was up early this morning getting them settled in.  They are mad.  They are fighting mad.  Andy has been stung many times, but he is used to it.  Fingers crossed that they decide to stay where they are now.  I would be very unhappy if they swarmed and left us.  

But there is one thing we have learned.  Bees make honey.  Bears like honey.  And right there is one of those sad facts of life.  Bears and bees don't mix.  

Taking the back road home.

Today I took the back road home. I had finished all my town chores and was feeling in a mellow mood. On the radio Dolly Parton was singing one of my favorite songs.  So when I came to the junction I turned right instead of traveling straight ahead.

We take the back road when the creek is up.  It is very handy to have an alternate way out when the weather isn't co-operative.  But sometimes we opt to just take a little different way either home or to town.

What is so special about this back road detour?  For one, I enjoy seeing the birds perched on the telephone wires because they are different from our hilltop birds.  Scissor-tailed flycatchers, hawks, and other open grassland birds are always waiting for a meal to dart or crawl by.

I love to see my neighbor's fields full of rich green grass and sleek well-fed cows.  I love his straight fence rows and sturdy gates.  I appreciate all the hard work he does making his farm a pleasure to drive by.

I always look for another friend's home place, now long abandoned but full of memories.  Sometimes the road narrows and crosses close in front of a house or two.  I know most of these people and they know me.  Makes you feel good to be near people who care about you.

But the best thing about taking the back road home is that I can poke along just as slow as I please.  Perhaps I see a flower that I can't identify without pausing a minute and getting a closer look.  Sometimes I just glory in the waving grass and far-off purple shadowed hills.  Sometimes I just like to see the wind turn the leaves in the oak tree this way and that.

Down the road further it narrows into a special spot where you can see the view of Caney Mountain through the trees.  The way is rougher here but taking my time is not a problem.  I can drive and look at the same time.

What a joy it is to have a choice of how to go home.  And sometimes the back road is the best.

38

Thirty-eight.  A nice round number.  Not an extraordinary number, but of sufficient importance in our life to make note of this month of May.  Why?  Because 38 years ago we drove our red pickup into this small Missouri town,unpacked our worldly goods and set up housekeeping.  Andy,  Me.  And little Nina.

We bought the Grandma Harlin house, up on the hill, from Harve and Cora Blisard.  While we were remodeling  we lived across the street, in the old Jim Hale house.  Skeeter and Faye were our neighbors to the west.  Pete and Virginia Klineline lived down from us to the east.  All in all, a nice place to put down roots.

Erna Johnson came down the hill that day and introduced herself.  Said she had heard that a new family with a little girl had moved into town.  Just wanted to say hi and invite us to come and see her sometime.  And we did...many times.  Loved visiting and talking to Erna.  Arles and Ivy Walker lived across the street and up one house.  Arles came over, welcomed us to town, and said that his grandson's family attended church at Center Point, out in the country and he would be sure and tell Sandy, Gerald's wife, that there was a new family needing an invitation to church.  And invite us she did.  We loved that little church, on that windy country road, and all the people who went there.

One warm morning we hiked down to Skeeters for breakfast.  And there sat Pattie Strong in a booster chair, eating pancakes.  Nina and Pattie hit it off right away.  And they are still friends.  Nina was a shy child.  She stayed attached to my knee for at least the first two years we lived in Gainesville.  Try as they might, grownups couldn't get her to talk to them.  But, kids, now that was a different matter.  She would watch them playing for awhile and then walk up and start in with whatever was going on.  For part of the time before she went to school she attended Mother Goose Daycare and made many lifelong friends there.

My first order of business was finding a teaching job.  We had been camping and I didn't have anything close to good interview clothes that were clean or ironed.  Clad in jeans and a  T-shirt, I went to ask Benton Breeding if he might have a job for me.  Sure he did.  And he needed me right away since Joe Cissna was moving up to teach high school special education, taking Mr. Beach's place after his retirement that spring.  Signed a contract that day.

And bingo.  Everyone in town knew us.  But, as usual, we didn't have idea one who they were.  People would come up to me in the the grocery store and introduce themselves.  They were anxious to make us feel at home.

I guess it took.  Here we are 38 years later.  Of course, we no longer live IN Gainesville.  But it is still our town.  Wouldn't change it for the world.

And in comes May....

Sunrise, sunset, noontide and evening.  Green hills clothed in new garments....soft wind blowing the growing leaves.  Mist in the valley.  Bird call at break of day.  Fresh scent of some exotic flower in the air.  What is it?  I search my memory and it finds a blank.  But I enjoy it anyway.  

Full moon lights the night and makes it look like day.  Driving down the road we shut off the headlights.  Can we see the road still?  No, but it is an eerie feeling to see the sky so bright and the earth so dark.

May has come to my hilltop home.  I revel in the beauty of the season.  Spring brings out the best in the Ozarks.  It is a reward for icy winter snows and frigid winds.  If you can make it through the winter, you get to experience Mother Nature in all her glory.

Turkeys are gobbling.  Fish are biting.  Gardens are being readied for planting.  And the constant mowing of grass.....that is the challenge.  It grows overnight.

But I'll not complain.  Each precious day is a jewel to take out and show off to the world.  See what I am blessed to be a part of?  And I promise myself to enjoy each day....for May has come.

And the others....

My Grandfather Stimpert, Dave as he was called, had eleven children.  His first wife died in childbirth.  There were four children in that family, three boys and one girl.  He married his deceased wife's older sister and with her he had two girls and one boy.  And when she passed away, he met and married my grandmother.  They had two girls and two boys.  The picture above is a combination of two "batches" of Stimperts.  My mother was fond of calling them that, just as if they were cookies, or biscuits.  Quite a family.

You have already been introduced to Jenne, on the right, looking very regal in her Sunday best.  She would have been around 15 when this picture was made.  Standing to her right is lovely Rosa, one of my mother's favorite people and also her role model.  Rosa was just one year old when her mother died and she was frail and tiny until she was grown.  Her ambition was to teach.  And travel.  And she did both.  She went to France.  She taught at Kemper Hall, where I went to school, in the 1930's.  She met her husband, my Uncle Tony, and they adopted two sisters, my cousins Mary and Ann.  Their teaching career brought them to the University of Oklahoma where she was a professor of Romance Languages and he was a professor of German.  So interesting to talk to her and Uncle Tony.  They had wonderful stories to tell.

The tall boy to Rosa's right is my Uncle Alfred.  A true blue Illinois farmer.  His farm was part of my grandfather's acreage.  I always enjoyed going to visit Alfred and his family and his wife Clara.  He kept everything just so and he was very successful.  My mother always said that she felt very much at home when she visited Alfred.

Sitting on the sofa next to Jenne is Ernest, the oldest of my mother's brothers.  He ran an implement business in ElPaso until he sold out and retired.  I wasn't around him much until I grew up.  He visited us many times where ever we lived and my mom liked to travel places with him and her cousins.  A favorite place for them to vacation was Florida.  He was not a patient man.  My mom took forever to get ready to go anywhere.  One day she and Ernie were going away for the day.  He got in the station wagon and started it up before she got out the door.  He had to back up so she could get in.  She was aghast.  He explained, "When I say we're leaving, we are leaving."  She believed him then.

At the other end of the sofa is my mother's favorite brother Edward.  They were just about a year and a half apart.  And they competed in everything.  They would try to see who would beat the other one home from school in the afternoon.  Whoever was first drew their initials in the dirt in front of the gate.  My mom was first most of the time and she would draw "F.A.S" Florence Alberta Stimpert.  When Ed would get there he merely put a line under the F. and it read "E.A.S." Edward Albert Stimpert.  My mom would be furious.  And Ed would just grin.  He enlisted in the Army during WW II.  He died fighting the Germans in France in June of 1944 and he is buried there.

And this brings us to that charming little princess seated between her brothers.  The belle of the ball, my mother.  She looks so sweet.  But we all know that there was iron behind that innocent grin.  She was probably 4 when this picture was made.  Her sister Katherine wasn't born yet.  Taty, as we called her, would complete the Stimpert family.

I love learning about my family.  Some the stories I hear are new to me.  But most have been handed down over the years.  Are they true?  Who knows.  But they make a good tale.  And there are plenty of Stimpert stories out there.  With eleven children and all their kin, how could there not be?