ALREADY TIRED OF SUMMER

It didn't take long to get tired of summer. Here in SC, June is fine, but by the time you get to July, it is miserable outside and even August can be a sweaty , hot month. The bugs get bad, the no-see-ums bite the heck out of your legs and the gnats drive you crazy, hummin in your ears, not to mention the mosquitos! You get bites in places you can't scratch in public and at night you try to keep your ankles from itching so bad you finally reach down and rip them apart , to relieve the itch! All the flowers are heat stressed and the little darlin' squrrels are throwing out the flowers and spending time in the cooler soil of the hanging baskets! aaaaa for just a few cooler days, when the air cond. doesn't have to run full tilt and makes you dread the SCEG bill!! Being a person who loves to be outside, its tough finding a time of day to get in a walk or a little bike ride without sweating so much it drips off your nose. Looks like the pool is the cool way to exercise!! Stay cool little buddies!!

SPOILED KID?

Since i was the only child of a group of 7, my mom being the only one productive and that was after 13 years of marriage....hummm....you would have thought...oh great, another spoiled little rotten kid. But as a fact, i was so not spoiled. I got new clothes twice a year..in fall and in spring, two pair of shoes..shool shoes and summer sandals and we kept them up with polish and new soles too. When i was little and they tried their best to put me in cute little dresses, i usualy wound up outside in a mud pile or under or up in a tree. I climbed trees until i was 13 or 14. My mom use to worry because i didn't like boys yet............believe me, that changed later. I learned how to fish , clean up a car, cut grass, clean out a basement or a garage, polish shoes, from my DAD.

My mom wouldn't let me near the kitchen. That was her domain. It was a good thing too because when my DAd had a heart attack when i was 13, mom and I did everything and we did without a lot too. It took him out when i was 17, and I don't remember my Mom ever hiring a handyman to do anything. Neighbors helped out when you needed one. When i was 3 or so, my Dad asked some of his commanding officers to have a real southern cooked dinner. My mom had some help and they cooked up fried chicken, rice, gravy, green beans, squash, apple pie and some great biscuits. About half way during the dinner, i slipped down under the table(remember all these army officers were sitting around that table) and stayed and stayed. My mom finally asked me what i was doing under there? So, i answered" I'm trying to get my biscuit." " Well, hurry up" my mom said. " I can't hurry, this mans got his foot on it"! I so

loudly replied! I bet i got my biscuit right quick after that. We had pet dogs, pet cats, a couple rabbits and a big ol box turtle in our lives and a duck. that duck i got for easter and he grew up to be a big duck. I loved that duck ...he was Donald. I carried the duck by his neck and because i was so small and he grew and grew, he had a bent place in his neck where i had carried him all the time. he was a guard duck and he use to run around front of the house, quacking and nipping at all the strangers that came in the yard...well, he had to go to my Nanas house in the country for doing that and then he intimidated the chickens and the other ducks (after all he thought he was human) so much they took him further way out in the country to a man that had geese and ducks and a big pond for him to play in and defend. I didn't want him to go but he had to. So, I had the important things in my life, I always had love and family and everything i needed and not everything i wanted. I remember crying and crying when my best friend in high school got a brand new 57 Chevy convertiable and I couldn't have a car. That was one of the last real talks my Dad and i every had. He came and held me and told me how, it was not because they couldn't afford to get me a car, it was because i didn't need a car. That when the time came, and I needed one to get back and forth to college, then we would talk about it but they loved me and they knew what I needed and the difference in stuff i just wanted. Don't you wish kids today, understood the difference.???

LIFE LESSON

My first husband and also my second husband and i were in a small family business together. A little clothing store called Bums Factory Outlet here in Columbia. We had it for almost 30 years.

I had some crazy wonderful employees at that store . From the college kids, earning their 200 hours in retail business, to my wonderful seamstresses who make all the clothes fit to wear.

All of them characters..some excellent and some really out there...like the guy from Mt. Pleasant who dressed in a ladies bathing suit and posed in the window of the store one night to the beautiful young lady who had an abortion one week end and still showed up for work on Monday. To the dedicated ladies in the back, me almost being the oldest, they all became family, an extended family that I would have done anything for and they would have me also. On birthdays and special days, we had cakes, ice cream, KFC dinners and presents for all. At Thanksgiving we gave out Turkeys and Christmas hams and bonus and gifts. Because some of them had a hard life. One friend was a single mom who had raised her daughter all by herself and worked 2 jobs to make ends meet. Another had 10 children and worked beside her husband in a ditch digging business until he died and she still stayed up nights and sewed clothes for her kids to wear to school so they would have something new. And she never missed a day of work. She retired from the store and she had seen the deaths of 3 of her grown children. We laughed, fussed and cried together and each Mothers Day they all got a special flower and little gift. I did this, not because I had to, not because anyone expected it BUT because i wanted to, I wanted to for the simple reason that everyone , at some time in their life, no matter how young or how old just needs, REALLY NEEDS, to feel special. And everyone is in their own unique way, is special.

For Southern women and families, that is a way of life you have grown up with. Your friends and family are there to make you feel special. You are all up in everyones life and happenings and things bad and good. You go in a out of each others houses and no one cares. If there is a bed to be changed, clothes to be washed, food to be cooked or a kid to be looked after , watched or fussed at, you just do it. And you do it because you want to, not because you have to but you really and truly don't mind doing it and it gives you a good feeling to do it. So you young people out there who have grandparents or parents who come to you and ask to help, let them. it makes them feel good and makes them feel needed and most of all makes them feel special but mainly its because they love you. And someday, sooner or later, they will have to call on you to do for them. So don't fuss when they wash a pot, or take out the garbage, just be thankful they are around for now and healthy enough to do it.

Lord, I wish the days of leaving doors open, and keys under the mat were still here. When you could walk in your house and see a basket of vegetables and know who brought it. One time, when I lived in the country, someone came and left a great pot of wonderful catfish stew on my stove, all warm and ready to eat. Just know that to me, you all are special.

A HORSE IS A HORSE, RIGHT?

Ok, so the first critter i had to ride, wasn't ahorse at all but a goat! It fit me right good at the time.

However, that darn goat got me good, he came up and took my moon pie, wrapper and all out of my hand and ate it! Then I graduated to a pony. I have loved horses since and had some really great ones. i never minded cleaning, washing, picking out their feet, feeding them and the way they smell is great! Plus their noses and faces are so soft and gentle. Its true the outside of a horse is great for the inside of a person.

SMALL FAMILY

These are the most important peeps in my whole life. My son,

my grandaughter, my daughter in law and my older grandaughter.

Aren't they just beautiful!!!

WHY ALONE

I am always asked why I don't search for a man to spend my time with. I figure if one is in the future for me, he will find me. I am alone, not lonely.
I read a lot and love watching TV movies and specials and seeing the Travel Channel of places I would love to see. I have out lived two husbands.
The first one left me early in life and I was not so prepared for that. It scared me and it made it hard for me and my little boy. The second one, who I thought was soooooooooooooperfect (ha)
decided he liked a 20 year old better than a 45 year old who was starting menopause. Grrrrrr
That MADE me crazy mad. I was a nut case for about a year and then realized it was the best thing he did for me. I became myself for the first time since college. I could fly without carrying another on my back. I took art, photography, did trips to places a man hates to go (Disney World!)
wore micky mouse ears and acted like a fool.
We never seperated the business we had built up. It was a small family clothing store and we did not want the Lawyers to wind up with everything. Sooooooooooo we kept working together...
Oh yes, it was like walking through hell each and every day. But we did and we had a successful business that did super some years and fell to to bottom some years...those 7 day a week, 12 hour took its toll. I never got to see my son, his varous wives and kids and holidays were short because a retail store is open all the time. It wore me out. But in 2001, he was diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer that had gone to his bones. I asked him to come home because i knew that the chemo, radiation and reduction of his male hormones were going to mess him up bad.
It did, we had an agonizing 2 years of treatment and without the wonderful help from his son and his first wife and some from my son, we would have failed but they were there and we were backup for each other. It took a whole lifetime out of his sons life, he was so dedicated to his dad and to the store where he worked . Without his help , it would have been impossible. Some days he would look at me as i was putting on his socks after bathing and changing the catather bag for him, and he would say that i was just like Jesus, washing the disiples (?) feet at the last supper. With tears in my eyes, I would reply that i was not, that I was more like The prostitute mary who washed Jesus' feet with her hair. He lasted 2 years. So Ladies get your men to take the psa test..earlier than then recommend...please. I would do it all over again, I felt honored to be able to care for him. It really takes a toll on your faith tho; I questioned God every day and got mad with Him too.
It took me a while to realize he gave me the strength I needed to get through this part of my life, that he always had given me strength that I never knew I had.

REAL SIMPLE LIFE

Thats my mom and me at the beach. When i was about 12 or so. We had such great times with so little to play with.

when i was smaller, i would spend time pushing little cars around in the dirt, playing with a box of toothpicks and some maypops and making them into people, bathtubs, animals, etc...(look for those maypop pods in the edges of fields and we got mine along the railroad tracks in front of my grandmothers house), I had cornsilk dolls..corn pulled out of the field, the silks were the hair and we drew faces on them.

they had different hair (silks) some red, some yellow, some brown..when they got dried up, we fed them to the hogs.

We had a "burn Pile" at the edge of the yard and anything broken got thrown on it, so I had chipped dishes, some spoons, some cups and that was a real treasure to play with.

Under the Windmill, when it over flowed, there was a great puddle to play in the sand in. I played for hours in the back yard, climbing trees, building stuff and my first sand pile wasn't a sand pile at all but a pile of gravel my Dad had ordered to make a french drain with! We loved the water and the beach and each summer we spent time there with my aunts and uncles and sometimes my grandmother (when I was little)

I remember one time when I was bout 13 getting blistered so bad, my momma put cloths drenched in vinegar all over me! I still think about that when I smell deviled eggs or easter egg dye! Pickled, I was. Got caught in sandspurs, running after my mom and my Dad had to

carry me back to the beachcottage and pull them out of both my feet. I must have been a pain!

Had no tv until the late 50's so listened to radio and played outside all the time. I can remember being glad school was out so I could go barefoot. Walked all over the place, feeling safe and secure because somebody somewhere in the neighborhoods were watching out after all the kids.

We kids use to get in the woods, find snakes, walk for miles, play cowboy and indian, cops and robbers and things like hide and seek, sling statue, red rover, hunt fireflies, free for all, and other made up stuff. One time , I was always the indian maid because ther were about 6 boys and me playing, they tied me up with a vine to a tree....and it was a poison ivy vine!!! WELL, my mom was mad and i had to stay out of school for a week, with calamine lotion all over me and wearing gloves so i wouldn"t scratch myself to death! Learned to leave the little vines alone and just to swing on the grape ones! Isn't is a shame, we can't be that free and safe now?

CHANGING TIMES

Ok, its been a wierd road since the 40's. I grew up in the South, in a segregated world, with no tv, one phone,

no car at 16, during WW11 and the Korean War. I think those of us who have done that have come a long way

baby! Right after i was born, my Dad went to the war as did all my uncles. My mom and I (baby) travelled back and forth to my grandmas house and the Aunts did too.

To help her with the crops and the house since all the men were gone and she only had one son living at home and he was at war too. She even took in borders to help pay for stuff. We had a radio, listened to soaps and news at day, I grew up about 6 or so, listening to Hoppalong Cassidy, The long Ranger, Sky King and The Shadow.

We had one phone and at my grandmas the phone was a crank one, you could crank it, talk to someone in town and ask where someone was and they could tell you right away...I could call and ask where my mom was, and she would dial where she was for me. Sweet! But, we did have an outhouse, one bath and had to tote hot water to wash in, and one bathroom cabinet that didn't have much medicine in it. I bet we had : one large bottle of asprin, alcohol, peroxide,

idodine, bandaids, gauze, paregoric, ipecac, baking soda and thats it. Everything thing else my grandma made up from stuff in the yard or kitchen. We ate cheap, grits and sliced tomatoes for supper lots of times, and only bought maybe bread and sugar..we had chickens(my gran could wring a chickens neck and have it on the table for lunch in a flash!) eggs, hogs, cow(milk), and vegatables we grew...oh, the ice man came with a block of ice for the icebox and sometimes we had a man with watermelons, cantalope and peaches come by in a mule drawn wagon. It was

soooo simple and so just family. So now here I am addicted to movies on tv, using a computer, have friends that are different races, genders and gay. Yep, we have come a long way but some of it, I wish we still had.

I GOT IT!

Phew, that took a while for me...made me

think..but now that i have a pic of me...

I can add some of some prettier people.

I'm HOT!

And not in the really cute sense! The older i get the more I can't stand the heat...man, do I
sweat....literally to the Oldies! I have a really great family.........small...but sooo great. i have a
wonderful , strong son who looks after me and the rest of us. And a daughter in law who is a
caring, strong, beautiful young lady. I feel so blessed. And some cool grandkids..well, one is older but she is still sooo cool and really beautiful. And the young one is a tween..and sometimes a handful but they are my heart. Family is so important and no matter how much you disagree or fight..you have to hold them close..there is not wrong or right , there is just different.
Different ways of doing stuff, thinking stuff and life is too short to let anything get in the way of making up and staying close. Morbid, huh? Well, when you wake up each morning, reading the obits in the paper and you see people....it kinda gives you a reality check. When I owned my store for 30 years, a small clothing store, I had extended family there and loved them too..we had some funny, fierce disagreements but in the end, we always had the store birthday party for each one. Now I am retired and diservadely so...and my extended family is the neighborhood.
I count on them to keep me sane and make sure i wake up each day on the right side of the grass. And my son lives across the street so I can really annoy him.....I think he thinks I am ready for the "put out to pasture" bit already! Later...

Here I am

Ok, this is new to the ol' lady here and I can only hope to get part of it right! Now I have to tell you that my grandaughter, who is older now, had the misfortune to name me Gome. She use to call me Granmagranma, but somehow when she first started printing, it came out Gome..so it
stuck. I have lived a few years, shed many tears, had some ups and downs and came out ok.
I think. Maybe a little crazy, but shucks, thats par for the course for a senior and after all, we
get use to our families thinking we are a little crazy, it works for us! So......lets try this for now and I can see how to add to this in a while...thanks for visiting. Come back again, ya'll.