STONE

PIC TAKEN 7-5-9

BUSY DAYS

Thursday we helped at the Food Bank at Park Plaza. Worked from 12:30 to 3:00. Helped probably 15 or 20 people with food.

Friday morning Stone came for the day. We went to McDonalds for breakfast. then we went to Hunter park on S. 91st. They have a lot of cool slides and things for the little kids to play on. They also have a splash pad with 6 or 8 water features. Stone had a blast.

After we got back home, Ellen took Stone dawn to feed the ducks and walk around outside. Doug had said that he, Shonn, Hunter and Stone were going to Branson Friday evening. Doug came to pick up Stone about 4PM. About an hour later Doug called and asked if Stone had taken a nap. We said yes, about an hour. Doug said Stone went to sleep right after they got home. Guess he got worn out with all the going and doing with us.

RYAN WALKS

MY GRANDSON, RYAN, JUST TOOK 4 STEPS UNASSISTED. COURSE STONE IS RUNNING ALL OVER THE PLACE. HE'S 2 1/2. IT'S GONNA BE KATY BAR THE DOOR NOW. I TOLD NICHOLE (RYAN'S MOTHER) TO REMINDED ME IN SIX MONTHS HOW EXCITED SHE WAS WHEN RYAN STARTED WALKING.

NOW AND THEN 7/6/9

Things are slowing down now. We got to keep Stone Friday. Saturday evening we went to Doug's in-laws house for burgers and then went to watch fireworks display near the River Walk. Sunday was nice. We picked up a lady from our congregation who doesn't have transportation who uses a walker and has numerous physical problems. Went to Qdoba's for lunch with Nichole & family. Sunday afternoon I had a bout of Montezuma's revenge and so I stayed home from evening worship. Ellen said it was very good. Today Ellen, Cole & Ryan went to the Oxley Nature Conserve by the Zoo. Ellen wasn't impressed. I stayed home just in case the Aztecs made a return visit. Little queasy but made it O K. Weather has been nice the last few days but it is forecasted to be around 100 this weekend.

THEN

That wagon became my treasured possession for many years and I had many thrilling rides down the steep hill road to the west of our property.

The wagon did cause me some discomfort once when I was six or eight years old. My father and brother had torn out the flue, a brick chimney to which you could attach a stove pipe for a wood stove, on the north side of the house between the two large juniper trees. The brick lay in a big pile in the front yard. Mother said she would give me two dollars (no small amount at a time when you could go to the movies for a dime)to move and stack the brick in the back yard.

Not being an industrious individual, I was not overly excited about the task. I did however understand that my mother's proposition was was actually "do it for two dollars or do it for nothing but you will do it!" It must have taken the better part of a month and much griping from my mother for me to earn the two dollar.

GOD BLESS AMERICA

NOW
It's the 4th of July 2009, 233 years after the establishment of "One Nation Under God". The "under God" part came almost 200 years later but the idea is in the writings of the writers of the Declaration of Independence and other papers and statements of the time.

Today we wonder how much longer we will remain a nation under God and ultimately a nation at all.

But today I will enjoy the blessings of liberty promised to "ourselves and our posterity (that's you and me) given by God for as long as it lasts.

We have been so blessed in being able to have most of our children and grandchildren close and also enjoy the blessings of being able to be retired and foot loose.

Last week we saw Nichole and her "boys" and Nic and Christa. We checked on getting involved in some work at church (food pantry & remodeling youth room) and continued our walking regimen

This afternoon we are going to Doug's in-laws for burgers and to watch the fireworks displays.

God has continually blessed our lives in amazing ways and for no justifiable reason on our part. He does it in spite of us. It's a love without end amen!

THEN
(not our house, just a picture)

As stated before, our "new" farm house can only be described as "rustic". We often called it six rooms and a path (viz: Mother & the wasp). There were no "conveniences". No electricity, gas, no in-door plumbing, and no insulation other than the linoleum on the kitchen floor and water-stained wall paper on the walls and ceilings.

When my maternal grandmother "Mama Wright" came to visit us before I started to school, she would entice me to take a nap in the afternoon by laying on the bed with me on our backs and, like children on a summer hill, and look at the multi-shaped water-stains on the ceiling wallpaper and imagine them to be people, animals, cars, ships and other things.

If I tend to repeat myself, please forgive me. I tend to wander sometime and insert memories when they come and then repeat them when they come up chronologically.

As I remember, it was a cold, grey, November day when my family and my mother's parents (Gaga & Mama Wright) went to see the new farm for the first time. I can still see the house as we approached it from the highway to Dallas, turning off at Havell's store at Corinth then on to Shady Shores Road for less than a mile, turning left at the Shiloh Cemetery and winding around to Jackson's corner, left again up the sandy road on the northeast of our land, past a grove of Blackjack oaks and Boise-De-arc (horse apple)trees that lined both sides of the road and then ... the house.
The Boise-De-Arcs and Blackjacks formed a curtain that hid the house until the last minute when it popped into view. The house was a grey, story-and-a half with two nearly twenty foot tall juniper trees flanking the windows on the front upstairs and down. In the front yard was a Chinaberry tree. The house stood a good two feet off the ground and was supported by tree stumps and stacks of large sandstone rocks. This made it possible to crawl under the house from any point and also for the yard chickens to find relief from the midday sun in the shade and cool sand under the house.

My early recollecions of the arrangement of the rooms in the house are confused in that I can't remember where the kitchen was when we first moved in. I believe it was in the southeast corner of the house. My confusion is due to the fact that the kitchen location was changed two or three times before the ultimate loss of the house.

The summer after we moved to the farm, I turned four years old. I am pretty sure the kitchen was in the southeast corner at that time with a south door leading to the back yard. On my birthday I came down for breakfast (Jimmy and I slept upstairs in the south bedroom and Sherrill had the north upstairs bedroom). Sherrill and Mother and Daddy sang "Happy Birthday" to me. Mother said they got me something for my birthday but I had to share the inside of it. About that time Jimmy came around outside to the kitchen door pulling a red wagon with a two-foot long watermelon in it. So I got the wagon and shared the watermelon with the family.




It wasn't just any old wagon. It was a bright red Radio Flyer with PNEUMATIC WHEELS! Most wagons and tricycles at that time had solid, hard rubber wheels. My wagon had wheels filled with air just like a car! It was one of my most treasured possessions in my childhood and one of my most treasured memories to this day.