Do You Love Route 66?

This a commemorative plate celebrating Buffalo Ranch on Route 66 near Afton, Oklahoma. Did you ever visit Buffalo Ranch? I did and I rode my first pony there. And here was where I fell in love with my first buffalo!
                                 

Route 66, the Mother Road, takes a turn or two through our town.  What Route 66 means to me is that old TV show with one Corvette and two handsome, well-groomed young men and their escapades while they traveled the highway. Recently the old Boots Motel here in town was purchased with the idea that it would be restored so people could really stay overnight in one of the old courts that lined the highway. Supposedly, Clark Gable passed through town and slept in the Boots Motel formerly known as the Boots Courts. Hum, now that is one ghost I might like to meet!

East of here in Lebanon, Missouri, there are still a couple of landmark travel courts and grocery stores from the 66 era. Now there is also a very small museum housed in the same building as the local library. I have always wanted to stop when we zoomed through town, but never made it until coming back from Verses and Voices in Jefferson City.

      Doesn't this look like a great place for a journalist or writer of Route 66 years?

It is a small museum, but is a feast for the eyes if you can remember the "olden days". A reconstructed motel room shows you what you would have found on the Route in the earlier era. Also a juke joint...a filling station...all interesting to see and so well done. There is also a collection of salt and pepper shakers that were mementos of the period...some could be bought as souvenirs on the Mother Road.   

So do you have any special Route 66 memories?

Yesterday....

Here is the house that DH grew up in, a typical farm house about one hundred years old. The picture was taken in better days. Now the shutters are gone, the paint peels, thanks to a recent storm the roof shingles on the south side are missing, and the blue front door is no longer such a vibrant hue. The trees still linger and are greening up right now as spring stretches over the Kansas prairie.

My in-laws are in assisted living and have accepted that after two years they will not be able to return to this home. Over six decades of living must be dismantled, divided, sold, or burned. It is a big job, made larger by the fact that my mother-in-law was an artist alongside of being a farm wife. Along with canning jars, cooking pots, quilted blankets, and a lifetime of notebooks and pictures are canvases, sketch books, frames, drawings and paintings.

She was an everywoman who struggled to rear her children, feed her family, make ends meet on a Kansas farm that fought her daily with wind, drought, or too much rain at the wrong times ruining crops and undermining her livelihood. Yet she struggled and fought the land back to do more than merely survive; she wanted to see her creative side of writing and painting flourish just as she wanted to cultivate wheat, corn, and a truck garden.

Her children grew up on the farm, influenced by both parent and land, but so did I in a sense. I was a mere 16 years old when I first appeared at the farm. I was not what she wanted to see the only son bring home, but to be fair, any outsider is often just that, an outsider to family and clan. But like the Osage orange in the hedge rows, I sank my roots deep and stayed. Now when DH needs me, I am there for him and my in-laws to help. The dismantling of this farm household hurts me too.

I found so many small things that I gave my mother-in-law like journals, letter openers, candle holders, a purse, a scarf, even a quote from my favorite book that I typed out for her 25 years ago. I took down the colored glass that sat in her windows for years filtering in sunlight through greens, ambers, and her all-time favorite cobalt blue. When the window sills stood empty, it was like the room had darkened. I boxed up the Gladys Taber books that I had bought her; we both loved the Taber books, rereading them in the winter and then discussing the old scenes over the phone. As I boxed up things for an auction, I shuddered thinking of people pawing through her things.

When the dirt and dust and memories became too much, I stepped out on the deck for a minute. The day was balmy and warm, and the trees out near the chicken house fluttered their faintly pink and white spring flowers. The hyacinths and jonquils she had patiently set deep into the earth were up like flags to greet the season….soon redbud would burst forth. I remembered when a mimosa, now long gone, leaned over the deck sprinkling pink gauzy flowers along the wooden bench seats. The garden spot that normally this time of year would already be tilled and planted now lay silent waiting for, maybe longing for, the forked spade of my mother-in-law turning over the earth. The frogs, probably lined up on the fallen tree trunk in the south pond, chirped like it was any farm day. They did not know there was change in the wind.

In my mind, I heard that song...”that was yesterday and yesterday is gone”…

Saturday Centus, Buying a Treasure

It is time for Saturday Centus again. There has been no reading or writing for me in about ten days. I am up in the dark before dawn with only chirping song birds for company. Maybe I can get a shot at a few words. Jenny's prompt this morning is It was only ninety-eight cents.

For more details and to read more Centus writings, go to Jenny's blog at http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2012/03/saturday-centus-it-was-only.html.

                                            Buying a Treasure

Jenny opened the shop door as she felt the money in her pocket. Did she dare spend this wealth? Her hands were still slightly brown with broken nails where she had forced some of the pecans from dried mud. Her finger tips were sore from picking out the precious nut meats.

Times were hard and Mummy worked long hours at the laundry, but she refused to take Jenny’s money to help. She wanted Jenny to buy something for herself, some reward to enjoy from her hard work. Jenny had already set aside a few coins for the church collection basket. Now did she dare to spend the rest here?

Once inside the store, she went straight to the treasure she longed to have for her own. It was only ninety-eight cents, half of her money. She made her purchase and then opened the cover to Frost’s invitation-“You come too..”

Fairy Tale Night in Missouri

How does Cinderella begin to describe her trip to the ball? Just in from Jefferson City and once again wearing my scullery maid hat, I feel like last night was unreal. I attended the Voices and Verses program sponsored by First Lady Georgeanne Nixon in support of the arts. Six student choirs and several poet laureates sang and read in the rotunda of our state capitol. What made this particular year special was poetry from Storm Country was used.

The choirs all sang music based on work from Missouri poets such as Langston Hughes and Sara Teasdale. State Music laureate Susan LaBarr took Bill Cairns poem from Storm Country and wrote new music. Then the Joplin Choir had the honor of singing the song for the first time with all the other choirs joining in at the chorus. David Benz is the Artistic Director of the Voices and Verses project and also director of the Western Missouri State University Chorale. He had seventeen family members in the Joplin tornado.

                            Poet Laureate, David Clewell with Artistic Director, David Benz

Yours Truly was steppin’ in tall cotton as they say when I read my poem "Weather Tantrum" with these people. Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg had to cancel at the last minute due to illness, and Missouri Writing Guild president Deborah Marshall stepped in to read the poem for her.

Joplin Writers' Guild President, Claudia Mundell and Missouri Writers' Guild President, Deborah Marshall

                                                                                                                Mundell and Benz

Mrs. Nixon opened the program and then songs were sung using words penned by such Missouri Poets as Langston Hughes, Sara Teasdale, and Eugene Field. Poems published in Storm Country were read by their authors, and the program drew to a close with Bill Cairns reading his poem “My Foundation” that became the musical piece ”Storm Country”. Then Joplin Choir began to sing and by the time the remaining choirs joined in with the chorus, it was hard to hold tears back. Some students were misty-eyed, and Deb and I had trouble holding our own tears back. The combination of music, words, and voices gave a mystical quality to the rotunda as various visions of Joplin filled minds and evoked emotions in hearts. No one was left unmoved.

                       Joplin Choir sings "Storm Country" directed by Eric Eichenberger

                                            Missouri Capitol on a spring Voices and Verses Night

It was one beautiful night with a bit of a fairy tale nature. The balmy air blanketed us all with a warmth and tenderness inspired by gratitude and appreciation of both music and poetry that spread among the participants and the audience alike.

Weather Tantrum

Thick clouds and wispy air wrestle in the heavy ceiling overhead.
On the ground, men with bald spots covered by brand name ball caps
Stop work, form a cautious audience gazing upwards.
Mothers call in heedless children and become vigilant sentries,
Knotted shoulders leaning against white porch posts.

Pushing and shoving, clouds twist and entwine until

A cone, curled as a wire bed spring,
Drops down like a ballet dancer’s pointed toe
Reaching for solid ground to stand on.
Suddenly, swaying trees cease in awe struck silence
Just as sirens scream warnings of a twister.
Roofs rumble down the street turning cartwheels;
Fence posts bow down to the cruel coil.
Then after a quick assault, turmoil ceases. 
Churning clouds move on; the sky’s seizure is over.

Families, like rabbits from burrows, ease out of fraidy holes,
Scanning damage, measuring the weather’s wrath.
Slow, intermittent rain drops fall from a bruised sky
Moistening the earth in tearful apology.

Week Ends, Another Begins

Getting ready for a spring auction at family farm this week. The sky was nice all day before the coming storms that evening.

Mercy, the days have been packed this week and the coming week looks the same. This weekend has been a bridge between the two, as I have tried to catch up from the first and prepare for the second. When I told DH last night that I had pared seven 5x7 note cards of chores down to three, he asked, “ What, do you have one line on each card?” Funny, he isn’t! Of course in a busy week the clothes don’t stay clean, DH doesn’t stop being hungry, and the bills continue to flow into the mailbox--all in addition to the other activities. Each day I had writing and some pleasure reading jotted down. That never happened!

The week was traveling to Kansas for family issues and coming home to a sleepless night with the storms. Again we sat in the middle of funnel clouds that chose to pass us over like children in a game of Button Button. No, not our turn yet. Then on Friday we got a call that the family farmhouse had lost all the shingles on one side. More wind issues. Meanwhile we worried about children and grandbabies in Kentucky tornado. All ends well there for them, but not for so many other folks. I hate the word tornado!

Thursday afternoon was book club which is always nice. We discussed Hiding in the Spotlight, the story of two sisters who escaped from Nazis in WWII. They played classical piano which might have saved their lives. The discussion was interesting and most agreed the book was decent despite the writer’s stiff and journalistic style.

Part of Friday was a play day with a birthday luncheon. After salads we went to the Nature Center. The building here is built very GREEN and one can see things growing out the roof. At this time of year, it looks more like an abandoned building suffering lack of care. Then again, the entire landscape looks barren and desolate. The birds came in for food and the cardinals were numerous. It was lovely to see their red robes this time of year.

Saturday Centus, Loving Her

  
This morning is chilly and provides a slower start to a Saturday. It is time for Centus and Ole Jenny said she is taking it easy on us today with the prompt. I liked finding Saying goodbye was harder than she thought... for the prompt. I saw lots of possibilities, but since Jenny suggests it might be too easy, it needed some sort of whammy to zip it up. I think I found it!
  For full rules to playing Centus and more 100 words story with the prompt, go to
http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2012/03/saturday-centus-saying-goodbye.html

Have a good weekend!


                                                    Loving Her

 

She never knew when she started loving KB. Maybe it was hearing the vibrating laughter that sounded like glass beads in a wind chime. Maybe the tenderness started in quiet times when silence wasn’t a dismissal but an inclusion, folding her inside a comforting solidarity like a flannel robe on a winter’s night. Whatever made her love KB felt right, fitting like a glove, until the wedding.

As the nuptials began, the murmuring crowd quieted. She glanced at Doug. Did he realize how lucky he was? As he slipped the ring on Katie Bridget’s finger, a tear trickled down Aggie’s cheek.  

Saying goodbye was harder than she thought...

Book Blurb/ A Brewing Romance

Here we at Friday again and now the days are starting to race through March. It has been a busy week that included more tornados in our area. Oh, I hate and fear this tumultous weather! The coming week has a loaded calendar also. This morning I have a birthday brunch on the calendar, but I wanted to take a few mintues to try the Book Blurb. The picture this week has all kinds of possible stories hidden in the scene of the tea table. The limit of 150 words was quite limiting this week! My own blurb falls short because oh, I see so much more story in my setting! However, the calendar calls and I will have to leave the blurb at this point, although I would love to spend some time developing the rector!

For complete rules and links to more of today's book blurbs, visit Lisa's blog at

http://www.writinginthebuff.net/2012/03/book-blurb-53-pekoe-boo-baby.html. Now on to the brunch and you all have a good Friday!

                                                          A Brewing Romance

Camray Hardisty had played at tea since she was five years old. She set out her toy china on a tea towel, filled plates with marshmallows, and hostessed doll tea parties. Now her dream came true with her grandmother’s trust fund, and she opened the Tea Spoon on the village square.

But Bingville residents did not take easily to the new. Councilmen that hindered her business license for so long, now shied away from sipping tea at her tables. The grand dames only came in to appraise her cranberry scones and tilt their noses up at her Darjeeling before turning over the china to check its mark. Her shop was struggling to stay afloat.

Then the rector began to drop in regularly, first for Wednesday quiche and then for afternoon tea. The village tongues began to wag as Camray began to ponder what was behind-or under-the clerical collar.