IMAGINATION. So the other night we sit down to eat supper when Ben takes a swig of his drink and proclaims that he loves Mountain Dew (a rare treat as he usually wants water at supper). Vicki looks at him and says, "You're drinking Diet Dr. Pepper." To which Ben indignantly replies, "I know. I'm pretending!"
WALNUTS. The kids catch the school bus in the mornings in front of Kenny and Lori's house. While waiting for the bus the boys have had a lot of fun lining walnuts across one lane the road so cars will hit them. They've put so many out there that there's a dark line of walnut stain on the pavement. Each time a car hits a walnut they jump up and down and cheer. Mrs. Alice makes their day when she takes special aim to take out as many walnuts as she can with the bus. I'll have to say that the bus makes a pretty impressive crunch when this happens.
GOODBYE SYLVESTER. Back in the summer we found three stray cats in the corn field behind Aunt Mar's house -- two kittens and a momma cat which, on closer inspection turned out to be a tomcat.
Over the months we've all come to enjoy the cats, especially Aunt Mar. She loves watching them from her chair and gets upset if Mom doesn't move fast enough to feed them. Almost every day we talked to them they were telling us some cute thing the kittens had done.
The most outgoing and tamest kitten we named Sylvester since it was white with black spots. Sadly, I found his body in the ditch as I was mowing the side of the road today. The other kitten is still around, but it's not the same since it rarely let's any one get near it.
INSPIRATION. When we found Aunt Mar's poems we knew we hadn't found all of them because we remembered most were in a couple of 6x9 writing tablets. So, we looked around a little more and finally turned them up. There's 60 or so poems dating from the mid 1980s on into the early 1990s. I don't think she wrote much, if any, outside of this time.
I asked Aunt Mar what inspired her to write her poems. She said that was about the time Aunt Myrtle's health began the fail and she could no longer live at home. Aunt Mar said she would get so sad when she went to visit Aunt Myrtle that writing the poems helped her deal with her feelings when she was up late at night. I was also away at college during this time and after Mom had gone to bed Aunt Mar had plenty of time to think, write, read the Bible, and pray.
(I've mentioned Aunt Myrtle a time or two before. She was actually my cousin. In this case "aunt" is an affectionate title. She was the one who taught me to jump rope. I was 7 at the time and she was 77.)
I plan to share more of Aunt Mar's poems in the future, but this time I want to share one that Jenna wrote last Sunday as she's been inspired by Aunt Mar's writings. She came in, went straight to her room, and 10 minutes later came out with her poem.
O Father, where are thee?Joe
Behind the door or behind the tree?
O Father, I need thee.
Don't you hear my cries and pleas?
O Father, be near me.
Please don't turn away from me.
O Father, I thank thee.
Thank you for finally answering me.
