TALK ABOUT CRYING

there is good crying and not so good crying. writing this blog always makes me cry. It takes me down
memory lane,, thinking of things gone by, never to be captured again, makes me think of loved ones
already gone and, the ones that are here, and the ones that will be coming soon.

BUT Sunday was something else. Maybe being Memorial Day weekend had something to do
with it, maybe being in touch with people I haven't heard from in a long time--who knows and does
it really matter--it just happened.

I really was trying to come up with some excuse to stay home from church, but I had missed the
week before and I really didn't have a good excuse, except I was tired and achy from being on
my feet for a couple of hours on Saturday, serving cake and Irish Coffee at the Emerald Island
Casino, celebrating their 5th anniversary. I have come to the conclusion I am getting too old for
some of this stuff, so I will have to come up with something else to help the people I love.

Anyway, the good Lord kept nudging me one way and the devil the other and the good Lord won
this round. I went to church, very small attendance and horror of all horrors Pastor Diane was
preaching. Now, don't get me wrong, I love her, but her sermons usually end with me not knowing
what she was talking about. She gets sidetracked so easily and then forgets where she is. She does
a wonderful funeral and is really great ministering to the sick, but sermons are not her big thing.
This too is not only my opinion, but the feelings of many..

This Sunday was different. We started out singing PRAISE TO THE LORD, THE ALMIGHTY THE
KING OF CREATION. OH MY SOUL PRAISE HIM FOR HE IS MY HELP AND SALVATION. Off to
a good uplifting start. I can do this. The theme for the morning was "worry", ie, we shouldn't
as we should cast all our cares on Him. Yeah, sure, easier said than done. I don't consider myself
a chronic worrier, but I do worry about lots of things sometimes. Pastor Diane started out by
telling us about 18 years ago that very day she gave birth to her first child. Paul. Everything
seemed fine at first, but then he was dx'd with Downs Syndrome and the usual health problems
that come with that. Not only was this a worry, but her mother had just been diagnosed with
cancer. It's hard not to worry about these "little things" I know, I know, let go and let God.
The past 18 years had produced many "worries" kidney failure, pneumonia, her mother passed
away, but thanks be to God, today was Paul's 18th birthday. I don't believe there was a dry
eye in the house. Oh, let me back up a moment. The reason she was preaching that day was
because the flu had run rampant thru their house the previous week, one person at a time,
and Sat. night Pastor David had woke her up in the middle of the night and said You have to
do Sunday, I have the bug. Another worry is Pastor David's parents have moved in with them
and his mother is very fragile, and they worried she would catch whatever everyone else had.

Well, seems the organist/pianist also got the bug, so we had a substitute. He sang during the
Offering and guess what - you know it - HOW GREAT THOU ART. Ohmygosh, is every ganging
up on me.

The closing Hymn was DAY BE DAY. I knew the melody, but the words were new to me. It
said that day by day we should give our concerns to our Heavenly Father and just live each
day preparing for that final day when He will gather us to Him. Sorry, that did it.

I am not a pretty crier. My nose runs, my eyes get red--you get the picture, so I fumbled in
my purse for my keys etc, until everyone had cleared out of the sanctuary (as I said small
attendance, finally one thing in my favor) and Pastor Diane was greeting people, and she
took one look at me and gave me a big hug (she is not normally a hugger) and Bonnie our
secretary pulled me on the side and said "You can tell me"

Talk about crying--well trust me it was a soul cleansing cry, which touched more than me.
So enjoy your cries and then get on with the business of daily living. Worrying doesn't
change anything. love you all.

SPECIAL MOMENTS.......................

I am sure most marriages have their special moments, but even though we had lots of them, these two are really special
and seemed to mark the beginning and the end--the Alpha and Omega

As I mentioned before, we arrived back in Milwaukee after leaving Fort Lee and stealing an extra night of our very own in
Chicago, saying our luggage didn't make the connection. I guess we will never really know whether it did or not. We stayed
at the Palmer House in Chicago and had dinner and then a movie I can't remember the name of it but it was with Judy
Holiday and really funny. We knew once we got back home our time would be shared with family and friends and then
Wayne would go overseas to we don't know what nor for how long. Can you blame us? This was in June and we had been
married just over 2 months.

Moving on, it was chaos and total running around, and time was short. At one point, tho we were the only ones in my parent's
house and I walked into the living room and Wayne was on the telephone. Not that this was unusual, but the conversation
was different. He said We will meet you in an hour, will that work? I stuck around waiting to hear where we would be in
and hour and who we would meet up with. Wayne said "get ready, we are going to church and I am going to be baptized."
This was his (His) plan and I was so thankful. An answer to prayers. We arrived at Immanuel about 2 in the afternoon.
Just the three of us. Wayne, Pastor Meyer, and myself in that huge cathedral like church with the stained glass windows.
For added effect, the Children's Choir was in the balconey practising . We waited until they finished and Pastor Meyer
baptized my husband. What a beautiful moment. Special, I'd say so.

SPECIAL MOMENT #2

TIME: November, 1987 PLACE: Inter-Community Hospital

We had not been very faithful about attending church. Things always seemed to get in the way. Jobs, kids, not liking the
church we had been attending, sickness, but our hearts were faithful and as our life together seemed to be coming to a
close I suggested to Wayne that we have Rev Box come and give us Communion. Ray Box was more than happy to do this
for us and he asked his wife to join us. The 4 of us received the Lord's Supper together. After the Box's left I said to Wayne,
"thank you for doing that for me" He grabbed my hand and said "I love you, but I did it for ME" That was close to the
last clear moment we had. It was almost 9:10 pm for the last time.

WHAT A WEEK...............................

I know, for you mommies out there, you would like my week, but for and old grandma--
well, that's another story. As you know I have been busy planning my Wisconsin vacation
in June. I really am looking forward to the train trip as well as to seeing all my family
and friends. My body may be slowing down, but my mind is going a mile a minute. I
received both my invitation to the class reunion and to my cousin's 60th wedding anniver-
sary and lo and behold, they are being held at the same place, on on Jun 22 and the other
on June29th. Fortunately the hall (?) is in Brookfield, which is really close to Lori's place.
I am really trying to work it out so I can see everyone and still have lots of time to visit.
I mentioned to my Duluth cousin about my plans and they plan to be in Milwaukee the
end of June and would tell his 3 brothers of my plans. Two of them I have not seen since
we moved to California in 1956. These are my crazy aunt Dorothy's boys. I got addresses
and phone #'s but best of all I got a phone call from my cousin Dan who lives in Texas.
He and his current wife (#5)(I know wife #4 passed away, but I don't know what happened
to #1,2, or 3) and we had such a great talk. This man has such a memory, he even
remembered working on our car before we left Milwaukee. Well, to make a long story
shorter, he too plans to be in Milwaukee and we arranging a get-to-gether on June 28
with Jim and Phred and families at the Machine Shed, which too is close to Lori's. Larry
the youngest and my God-child, is in Mexico and probably will not be there. They are
as excited as I am.

Sunday, the beginning of THE week I was sitting comfortably waiting for my mandatory
Mother's Day calls when Surprise, Surprise, my phone rang. "Is this Dorothy, yes it is
well, this is Alarmco and the alarm went off at the Mine. Happy Mother's Day, well it
was in the afternoon, so I went down there. Apparently someone had not locked the
door and kids got into the yard and tried the door. When they opened it, it was pitch
dark in the building and the alarm went off. They took off, I am sure going home to
change their underwear and when I got there the same thing happened to me, no, I
didn't get the socks scared off of me, I knew what was going to happen. I secured
everything and then locked up. Wednesday, I get a call you need to be at the mine in
1 and ahalf hours to do an interview for a power point presentation. Ok, I did say I would
do it, but thought maybe I would have gotten a call the day before or something. I was
still in my nightgown and had to shower and do my hair, it's not supposed to be a scary
presentation! With all this going on I did manage to work on some of my crafts and
I made some really cute wooden soldier ornaments. Our fund raising Gala was on
Saturdaynight and I was in charge of getting the u-haul for moving the steel drums
from the school to the Fiesta (only they forgot to tell me) So, with a lot of phone calls
we got that straightened out. Then on Friday WHAM another phone call from the
alarm co. The alarm went off. Before I had gotten ready to check it out, another
phone call, this one from the chairman of the board. He had set it off. Not only that
he set it off 3 times I finally told the alarm co to just ignore it, as it was the boss and I
never could teach him anything anyhow.

saturday morning, bright and early I met Steve at the u-haul and we picked up the
truck. From then on it was his project. I got to the Fiesta around 3 pm. Checked in
I had taken a room because 1, I dont like driving at night and 2 I intended to party.
I helped get the place set up and then went up to my room to get ready. It was a
good party. Met some of my friends who I had worked with for years. Alyson I saw
Marilyn Kreutzer, she was on pins and needles waiting for Katie to have her baby,
which I guess is due on Tues 6/20 and no one knows what the baby is going to be.
She said to say "Hi" the food was excellent and we made lots of money (I hope)

ANYWAY, that was my week, I don't know when I ever had the time hold a job!
Hmm, well I will get back to "Memory Lane" in the next day or so. In the meantime
I am going to sit back with a cool one in my hand and ignore the 109 degree temps
outside. This weekend my favorite hangout "The Emerald Island" is celebrating
its 5 anniversary and I am going to help them out a little.

Be back soon, love you all....................................

HMMMMmmmm where was I

Oh yeah, in Virginia. No Melanie, grandpa wasn't ready to kill our neighbor. We just didn't make an
issue of it. At that time people were exploring open marriages, and some did and some didn't. We
didn't. Grandpa wasn't worried at all, after all I had held out for marriage (but then he hadn't offered
me a car). This was the beginning of an era where open marriages and wife swapping parties were
becoming a way of life. That happened a lot on Shipman in La Puente. We didn't believe in that style
of life and no one suggested we should. Anyway, back to life in the Army. In those days you either
enlisted (4 yr stint) or were drafted (2 yr stint) There was no choice when you were drafted, the
service would either make or break you. Grandpa always said, I didn't choose this, but I intend to
make the most of it. The strict rules and regulations surely were not his thing. He liked staying up
all night and sleeping all morning, the army changed that. The bugle blew at 5 am and you better
be ready. Living in town meant we had to get up around 3:30 am and drive Dick and grandpa to the
base which was about 10 miles away. Carol and I often went in our nightgowns and prayed we wouldn't
get a flat tire on the way. A funny service related story: these guys were not military minded or
regimented (you know the type) and it was politically wrong to call your rifle a gun. If you did this
you had to run laps on the parade field with no pants on shouting "this is my rifle; this is my gun;
one is for fighting and one is for fun!" Grandpa said he never had to do this, but Bob Linder admitted
he had to.

I told you earlier about the pillars at our apartment. Well, one Saturday, grandpa was CQ (in charge
of quarters) so he had to stay on the base for a 24 hour period. I wasn't sure what I was going to do
as there was a carnival in town, or we (other service wives) thought we might take in a day at the
beach or a movie, anyway plans were up in the air. Grandpa said, call me when you get home. OK
Well, the only phone in the house was downstairs. We were free to use it, so when I got home, I
put a call into the base, but they said that was a secured number and they couldn't put me thru. I
said OK just give Pvt Webb the message so he knows I am home safe and he wont worry. He said OK.
Iwent upstairs and got ready for bed, read a while and went to sleep. Next thing I know there is a
knock on my window. Mind you, I am on the 2nd floor. I got up walked to the window, lifted up the
shade and saw a face looking at me. I said Just a minute, went and got my robe and then went and
opened the window. It was Dick. He said Wayne is worried about you. I told Dick I tried to call
him, but I couldn't get thru and Dick said he had been calling me, but no one answered. As I said
the phone was downstairs and I couldn't hear it upstairs and the landlords were old and deaf. I
said I would go down and sit on the steps and wait for the phone to ring. Carol said to me, Why
did you make Dick go down the way he came up. You could have let him out the front door. I
never thought of it. He had to slide down the pillar to the ground level. Well, anyway, Grandpa
called and all's well that ends well.

As I said our kitchen was very small and whenever we had company for dinner (usually hot dogs,
couldn't afford much else) two people ended up sitting in the hallway. the table was long and
narrow and could fit thru the door, so two chairs in and two chairs out. Worked for us. The ice
box was our nemesis tho. We were not used to emptying the drip pan and the landlord would
yell up, Mr webb you are watering our plants again. Well, one night we decided to wrap up our
hotdogs and take them to the drive-in-movie. I told Wayne he'd better dump the ice box water
before we left. That meant carrying the almost full dishpan all the way down the hall to the bathroom.
It was at least two room lengths long and then a turn at the stairs, well he got to the stairs when our
good friend Dick shot off a firecracker. Our landlord (remember he can't hear too well) comes
running out to the steps and yells, who got shot, who got shot. Of course Wayne got spooked and
dropped the full dishpan and said "it's ok I just dropped the pan" We were laughing so hard, we
cried.

We did go to the movies tho and all 4 of us fell asleep and when we woke up we were the only ones
there.

Yes, we had fun in the army,j but we knew our time was running out and then the guys would be
sent overseas somewhere, facing who knows what for who knows how long.

Wayne got his orders a couple of weeks before Dick did. He was to report the end of June in
San Francisco. The Army paid his transportation (train) to SF via Chicago, where he had a 10
day delay-en-route time to go home before he had to report in Calif. As long as I was willing
to sleep in the same berth as he did my fare was included. We were on a troop train with only 1
other woman on (she was 7months pregnant) and 2 sailors. the 2 sailors got most of the teasing
until I came on board, then it was my turn. Probably 90% of these guys were shipping to Korea
and really not excited, so it was my patriotic duty to keep up their spirits, and if giving me and
grandpa a bad time, so be it. We didn't know at that time that Grandpa would end up on Okinawa,
so keeping their spirits up helped us a lot too.

The guy sleeping in the berth over ours stayed in the chair car all night so in case we wanted to play
house, we didn't have to worry about him. Yeah right, have you ever slept in a berth, well you
might as well try making love on a pantry shelf.

Grandpa gave me a poem that I carried in my wallet until I lost my wallet. I've been thinking about
that poem, and cant remember all of it but it was called
G.I. BLUES
It's G.I. this
and G.I. that
G.I. Haircut
G.I. Hat
G.I stands for Government Issue
and G.I. wish that I could kiss you.

Till next time love you all and thanks for letting me share