Wisconsin

Today is a typical Wisconsin Spring day. I hesitate to call this spring as it in the last week in May and one would normally think of this as being a part of summer but it isn't. We have all our windows opened and yesterday I took my forty house plants outside to "sink or swim" as they may. I will be checking the nightly weather report to see if they need to be covered and I do have to water them today as I was expecting rain last night to no avail.

Years ago when I moved back from California, I had to purchase warmer clothes for. Even today I put on a heavy sweat suit because the damp cool air is everywhere. I believe I only own a couple pairs of shorts now and in California my wardrobe was full of them. I have found very few days that need cool clothes but I do have a few. One gets acclimated to the different areas, I guess I still like it a bit warmer but I also like it a bit greener. I found that on the west side of the Mississippi River, the green under goes a change and starts to take on more yellow as it goes west.

When we were growing up along the lake, the first time that we opened up a building in the spring, one could always smell the damp that went through everything. After living in California, I call it Wisconsin musk.

My sister, who grew up in Wisconsin but now lives in California, had to be reminded to close the crackers or cookies so that they stay crisp. It is the little things that one forgets from place to place.

How about hair dryers? In California, I could wash my hair and leave for work, by the time I got there my hair would be dry, not so in Wisconsin.

My California sister went to Florida to help take care of our Mother in the '90s and she told me that she felt like she was drowning because of the high humidity.

When I first moved back everyone wanted to know either "Why?" or "Which did I like best?" One of the things that I found interesting is that everywhere one lives has its good points and its bad points.

In California, we went from an air-conditioned house to an air-conditioned car to an air-conditioned work place. In Wisconsin it is similar. Here we go from heat to heat to heat.

The only thing that makes a place different is the people. I have always thought of myself as a nester. That means that I can create a home wherever I find myself.

Wisconsin has so much to offer but then any place that you find yourself does. It is just different. The world around you can change to a greater or lesser degree but the ME of me still stays the same.

I remember the first time I took my Daughter to Canada. She was so disappointed. She wanted it to be like the movies with the red uniforms on the police, etc. When she saw a McDonalds and other familiar businesses, it looked just like what we had left, she wasn't sure that we had really gone into Canada. We spent the night but it was never the same for her.

Basically where you are and how you look at something has to do with your version of reality. Wisconsin is different from California only from my view point.

One of the things that I liked about California was the fact that everyone was from someplace else. They didn't have your history on file, so to speak. I had a friend tell me that was what he liked about living in Florida. He was judged by what he did and what he said, not based on his family history.

My daughter had a problem with that when we moved to Wisconsin. She would have a friend with her and my Aunt would ask the friend her last name. Kathy didn't like that. She felt that each person should be judged by how she acted or what she did while there, not by the fact that her father was always in trouble or her mother's family lived on the wrong side of town. Kathy wanted to be known by who she was. She disliked the fact that people connected her with her Grandfather who had a business and had done well in town. "Why can't they just see me as Kathy?" Small towns are that way.

One of the kids that Kathy hung around with when she first moved here asked her if it wasn't hard cutting the grass with all those gold nuggets on the lawn. People have strange ideas of what is out there.

My advice is to enjoy where you find yourself and find out all the things that you can about that area. Whenever I move to a new location, I make it one of my special things to do, going out in one direction and finding out all I can about that area. I save another directions for different time.

By doing this I have been amazed at all the interesting things that I come across, like the old model T that had a tree growing through it in a woods just north of me. (Oh, it isn't there now but it was the first time I explored that woods.)

How about the quarry that is full of cool deep water and no one swims in because it is hidden from everyone? I found that on a bike ride down a path that I even ran into some teens once. I bet they swim in that quarry.

The world around us is an adventure. One of the television stations has a new program called A TRIP ON A TANK. That is because of the high gas prices and they are trying to encourage people to take day trips and see things that aren't a long way off. Wisconsin has more adventures than we could do in lifetimes.

We have a new paved bike trail in our county that is about 3 blocks from my house. It goes from the southernmost part of our county to the northern most part. I haven't biked on all of it yet but a couple of weeks ago I did go on a 10 mile round trip.

Because I am an herbalist, I love to find out what is growing and where. Each time that I venture out, different things are in blossom or in a different stage of growth. That in is self is an adventure for me.

Explore your world and find an adventure .

Life's Plan

Recently a friend asked me if I thought that my life turned out the way I thought it would when I was younger. I found that a double-edged question because it implied that my life was almost over and perhaps it is in a sense. From the other stand point it implies that perhaps he isn't happy with what is going on in his life?

I don’t think that I planned anything. Not even a career for my life. I suppose that I just thought I would get married and have a family. Along the way, I would do the best at what ever happened. Isn't that what was expected of me?

I have often talked to my sisters about this. Had I married my high school sweetheart, I could have been a big person in a small pond. Moving to California was very good for me. I got to be a little fish in a big pond. This was necessary for my spiritual growth. Isn't it wonderful the way the whole system works?

By moving to a different place on this planet, I bumped into many ideas and philosophies that I would never have explored had I stayed near where I grew up.

The box that I was raised in kept getting smaller and smaller as I learned about Tao, or Reincarnation, or how different cultures think. We are lead to believe that all people think the same but they don't. They think according to the history and patterns that have been a part of in their cultures.

What I learned was that until you have experienced something, it usually isn't real to you so how does one go about getting new experiences? Well, I think an actress said it well she when said, "You have to go out on a limb to get the best fruit." When we step out of our comfort zones, then we really learn. The universe will open to us. That can't be accomplished while living in fear. Most people live there. They don't think that they do but they do.

I remember driving to Green Bay one night with a minister and his wife. This was a second marriage for them. He asked me if I was angry toward men. I didn't have to think because the answer is "NO." I have no animosity toward men. Hey, half of the people in the world are men. He didn't expect me to answer that quickly. He said that most divorced women are angry with men. Isn't that just another fear box? "I don't want that again in my life" type of thinking.

By being open and not really caring one way or the other, experiences come to us. They are for our learning.

As for the way my life has turned out, I guess I don't think of it as being finished. There have been two times in my life that I thought I might be dying. Both times I told God that it was OK because I am ready for another experience and knowing me, I will probably just look around and say, "So this is what this is all about?" Hey, according to everything I have read on my contract, no one really dies. What, you haven't heard of this? That is strange because all the Avatars talk about it.

I guess I don't look at dying the way other people do. To them it is an ending but to me it is the beginning of a whole new adventure.

I try not to leave things undone. When one had a lot of unfinished things in their lives, they are attached to life. Sure I have projects but if I can't get it done within a certain period of time, then it is time to sell it, give it away, or dump it out.

Some of you know about my relationship with time. So now I will tell you about my relationship with attention. Let's say that I have 100 attention units. I put 5 of them on a clock that I want to fix and 5 of them on a pattern that I just made for Christmas presents for my friends. There is nothing in the world that I can do now, where I can give 100% of my attention. I have only 90 attention units left. So how do I get a project done well? I have a drawer that I keep notes in. I check it about 4 times a year and in this drawer are notes with the projects that I would like to finish or start.

I know of people who have many attention units stuck in so many areas that they never seem to get it together. They are always going to…. But they never do. They can't understand why their life is so chaotic. Now these are people who are not going to be happy when they leave this lifetime. Think of all the attachments that they have, like strings going every which way.

Am I please with how my life turned out? Yes! No I didn't plan it this way but I am right on schedule. Things are the way they are supposed to be. Whatever I decide to do, is just what I am supposed to do. Life is great!

Control

When I lived in California, my husband and two of his friends, Doug and Joe decided to start a business. They leased an AVIS franchise. Joe had a filling station where the business was going to be set up. So along with all of the other things that he had to do, Joe also rented cars for this business.

After doing this for a while, Joe felt that he was doing all the work and the other partners weren't doing their share. At the time, Doug was going to school and his wife was working full time. My husband was working in real estate and I was the only other person that wasn't working outside the house. I agreed to help the business. The first thing that the AVIS Representive suggested was that Joe and I go to a training session in San Francisco.

Off we went. The main office for Western AVIS was near the San Francisco Airport. All the AVIS students stayed in a hotel nearby. Every morning a van would pick up a group of us and take us to the office where we would spend the day learning how to manage a franchise. There were people from all over. All in all, I think that there were about 10 to 15 people in this class from various places. I remember one lady came all the way from Phoenix.

Most of the instructions were math related with percentages for this or that. I didn't think it was very hard but some people did.

After we got back to the hotel at night, we went to dinner and then a few of us went to the bar for drinks. They even had dancing in the bar, so we got to unwind.

The week before I went on this training, I had been taking classes in Fresno at the Scientology Center. One of the classes was about control,learning the anatomy of control and how to use it in our lives. I decided to use this week away from everything to control my Pepsi habit. I was going to find all the other things that I could drink and put a stop to this habit.

About the third night after classes, a group of us were in the bar, I decided that I was going to leave and go to bed. The other girls kept trying to get me to stay but I told them that I really wanted to turn in. As I was leaving, Joe decided to leave too. We had rooms on the same floor so we went up together. We chatted in the elevator about the group that we had just left. I didn't expect him to leave this early because he had been flirting with some of the girls in the group.

I told him that I would see him at breakfast and went into my room as he walked down the hallway.

I turned on the TV and thought about his flirting in the bar with the other girls and then how he just left when I did. It seemed strange for him? So I decided to see if I could get him to come to my room.

"OK, now how do I do this? Let's see?" I started talking to myself. "Picture his room in your head. It is the reverse layout of yours. He is there sitting on the edge of the bed in front of the TV. Get that picture very clearly in your head. See the whole room.

He wants to come and knock on your door. Think about him wanting to come and knock on your door. Get inside of his head and think this. OK, he is thinking about this.

Hey, he needs a reason to do this. Let's see, what reason could he have. He just can't come down and knock on your door. We have to think of a reason.

I've got it. He wants me to explain some of the formulas that we went over today. OK. That’s good. He will come down and ask you if you will go over the formulas with him in your room.

Good. You have given him a reason. Now see him cognite on that reason and go to the door.

See him turn the door knob.

Hey, I really don't need this," and with that I flipped off lights, the TV and went to bed.

The next morning I took my shower, got dressed and headed down to breakfast. I had gotten my order when Joe came into the restaurant. He slid into the bench across from me like he did every morning before classes. The waitress came as soon as she saw him. He ordered and then he told me, "I almost came down to your room last night. I got as far as your door but then didn't want to disturb you so I went back down to the bar. I was going to have to help me with one of the formulas."

Don't move a muscle! Don't smile or laugh or react in any way! Just keep eating and nod like you heard him.

This stuff works.

So if I can do this, what does that mean? It means that it is possible to control other people but if you do, you are completely responsible for everything in their lives. When you shift people from self determination to being controlled, you change everything that they would have done. You are responsible for all the things that they do from that point on, all of their relationships, all of the rest of their life because you have shifted their reality. This is not a good game to play.

I have never done this again but I do understand control a lot better than I did. We are living on a planet of free choice. We need to keep this in mind even when we make our own decisions.

It did show me just how easily it is for an outside force to influence the decisions that we make. If your Mother told you something and you put that into your head as fact, you will make decisions based on that for the rest of your life or until you discover that it isn't true. Let's say that she mentioned more than once that "those people" are not nice. Think about all the decisions one makes and how many of them are influenced by what is stored in our memories as facts.

This is why the TV and the News is so hurtful. We buy into all of this as fact and base our decisions on what we have heard.

At our house we always said, "Cancel, Cancel" when we do not want to be programmed by false information. There is a lot of that out there.

Make some good decisions for yourself today.

Becoming a Mother

Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt…beautiful? I remember vividly feeling so beautiful and it wasn't when I was all dressed up at a prom or even at my wedding but it was when I was pregnant. It really didn't matter how others felt about me or even what they said, I just felt.. beautiful.

My husband was very upset when I was pregnant with our first child. It seems that we made an agreement that I would work for the first five years of our marriage. Now, only two years into this marriage, I was expecting our first child. At first he was so very angry I imagined that I must have had an immaculate conception. I knew this wasn't so but he took no responsibility until I started to show. (Now that meant months of feeling beautiful in spite of everything around me.)

I liked knowing that I was "with child". Sometimes I would imagine this cute little boy and what he might look like. This was in the olden days before they did Sonograms on everyone as a routine. I liked not knowing and having to wait for the outcome.

I have often wondered about that test. I looked up what an Ultrasound is. "Ultrasound is a popular diagnostic medical procedure that used HIGH FREQUENCY SOUND WAVES to produce dynamic images called sonograms." We are experiencing a lot of autism and yet they continue to bombard the unformed fetus with sound waves similar to the kind that they use to break up kidney stones? (Progress?)

After I started to have a little belly, my husband was a different man. Then he went around bragging about what he had done.

I don't remember getting morning sickness a lot but I do remember that I decided it was time for me to learn to cook. My husband and his friend were going to take a class one night a week at LACC (Los Angeles City College), so I signed up for a beginning cooking class. The classes were great. I learned a lot of short cuts and got a lot of recipes. The night that we were going to learn how to prepare fish, I got so sick that I had to sit the whole class out in the hallway until the guys were ready to go home. (This child still will not eat fish of any kind)

I was working at a motorcycle insurance and finance company with a bunch of women and they treated me like a princess. They gave a baby shower at the office for us the week that I left.

I had to leave work in my seventh month. This baby wasn't sure that she wanted to be here. The doctor decided that I had to spend the next two month in bed.

My husband's step-grandmother came to stay with me. We had great fun. She loved to sew and tell me about her growing up years in The Dakotas. She told me that she grew up in a sod house. It was about the only one that had a wood floor. Her father was a carpenter by trade and made furniture. She mentioned that in the winter he would sew. She showed me a three-foot-long baby dress that he had made for her christening and asked if I would like to use it for this baby. I was thrilled.

We hadn't lived in this house very long, so the bedroom windows were covered with the newspaper that we put up when we painted the room. She and I made drapes in those two months. She insisted that we hand sew everything. "Little stitches, Phyllis. Make them smaller." I learned to sew. Those drapes hung in many houses after that, we must have done a good job.

I gained 30 pounds with my first child and it was all in front. The doctor thought I was carrying twins so they x-rayed me to make sure that it was just one big baby.

Having the baby was a very new experience. It was like I was the observer. "So this is what it is like." (I remember saying that to a lot of experience that I have had in this lifetime.)

Because labor was so long, my husband decided to spend it at home. When I finally delivered an 8.5 pound baby girl with dark black hair and a round red face, I remember thinking, "So this is what it is all about."

I told the nurses to call my husband but not tell him what sex she was. He told her that he would be over as soon as Bonanza was over.

This baby didn't cry but had her eyes wide open looking around like she was trying to figure out where she was and why.

She was a happy/smiley baby. When we brought her home, Connie, my mother-in-law came to help out for a few days. She was very good with the baby. This was her only grandchild and she fussed over her a lot. I hadn't expected Connie to be that good but she was. Sometimes Connie was the original dingbat with things.

I decided to nurse and was glad that I did. It seems that most people didn't expect me to do that but it was just natural and my doctor encouraged it. I guess if you are poor you nurse? All my friends had their babies on bottles. There are a lot of benefits to nursing and one was to have that wonderful bonding with the baby.

These were the days before paper diapers. So that meant a lot of washing but in California, when you are hanging out a line of diapers and get to the end of the line. You can go back to the beginning and take the first ones off.

Her Daddy named her and he didn't want her to have a name that could be shortened into a nickname. So she got the name Kathy. I remember having a couple of dolls when I was little that were named Katherine and Katherleen. (My sister's teased me about that one. Kather Leaning on the fence post.)

She was such a pleasant baby. I had heard stories about babies that were always fussy but not this baby.

The day we brought her home from the hospital in Inglewood, I feed her about 11:00 pm and was expecting her to wake up in the middle of the night. Well, that is what all the books said. She didn't. So when it got to be 8:00 am and she was still sleeping, I put in a call to the doctor. He called back within a half hour. By then I was really upset because this baby was supposed to wake up and be hungry. The doctor told me to relax. He said that she was a big baby so even if she dropped some weight, it wouldn't hurt her. By 9:00 she was awake and wanting to eat.

Over the years she has been my teacher. Like, relax mother, I will get up when I am ready.

It was pleasant to be around her. She was always smiling and laughing at everyone. At the time, We had two dogs and when she was in her infant chair sitting on the floor, they would walk around her or step over her. She would laugh and thought they were there to entertain her.

Once when her grandparents came from Iowa to see her, Grandma Grayson and I went shopping in Beverly Hills. I had the baby over my shoulder in an elevator. The people behind us were talking to her as she cooed at them and smiled her famous smile. When we got out of the elevator, I turned to the ladies and found I was facing Doris Day along with two other ladies. Doris said, "She is ecstatic." I had to go home to look that word up and see what it meant. Doris Day said that about my baby. It made my day!

Being pregnant was always a nice time for me. I felt beautiful but being a mother was the fulfillment of my dreams. I wanted to be a Mom since I was very little. I liked being a Mom. I still do.

Each pregnancy is different, each delivery is different and each baby is different. I have had three children and each baby got smaller. So it just got easier and easier. It is a wonderful experience and I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

Las Vegas

The first time I saw this city was in the 50s when my folks took me out to California. I have never felt comfortable in this town. It was/is a carnival of a town but in those days it was a lot smaller than it is today.

I think that everyone should go there at least once and during my life with my first husband, I went there several times. Usually when he wanted to gamble, we would go to South Shore - Tahoe. Then we would camp out and I could take the kids horseback riding or miniature golfing or even swimming while he was in the casinos. I don't gamble. Why? Perhaps because I think I have an addictive personality. When I like doing something, I have trouble stopping. (Hense these stories.) or maybe because when I spend money, I want to have something to take home?

My second husband had never been there before we got married, so the Three Hens and a Rooster went. That is what we called ourselves when Betty, Donna, Vern and I traveled together. Vern loved it and I told the girls that he would take us anywhere as long as we feed him on Milwaukee time. We went to Red Rock Canyon. We went to Boulder Damn. We even got him to stay up late and go to a show one night. I gave the usher a large tip so we ended up close to the front. This was in the 80s.

A few years ago Vern wanted to go back. For the most part I have talked him into gambling in Reno. Reno is a smaller cowboy town that really thinks it is still a town. (Vegas is a carnival.) This time we were on our way to a convention at Palm Springs in California so Vern thought we could fly into Vegas and drive down.

We arrived and took our rental car to the Flamingo Hilton on the strip. Vern is not a patience person so I told him that I would stand in line for our room. I told him to check on me every half hour as the line was very long. I would shove the suitcases along as the line moved. A little over one hour later we had a key to a room on the 11th floor. Together we took our suitcases up.

When we used the room key and opened the door, Vern went right in. I got to the doorsill and something was very wrong. I told Vern that I couldn't stay there, in that room. There was a Banana peeling on the coffee table but it wasn't that. It was something that I didn't understand. He tried to tell me how silly this was but finally called the reservation desk to see if we could change rooms or just have someone clean up the banana peeling. It was way more than that. Next he tried to reason with me. We (I) stood in line for over an hour and we had keys to this room but no matter what he said, it didn't work for me. All the logic in the world wasn't working.

I tried to listen but the heaviness was closing in on me and I just couldn't deal with it. I grabbed my purse and walked out. I left in a run and went down to the street level. It was daytime so I started to walk. I didn't walk on the strip but went behind the casinos to where the real people live with cactus and old cars in their front yards. I walked and walked and walked. I didn't really care where I was walking.

Finally I saw Debbie Reynolds Museum and went in. I looked around and then sat down and had a soda. I called Vern and told him where I was and asked him to bring my suitcase, suggesting that we could stay around here. He came but decided that I was just being hysterical and needed to be fed. He asked me why I was behaving this way? I told him that I didn't understand it either. I really don't like me when I am like this. It was a terrible feeling but I just couldn’t seem to shake it.

Finally we went to a restaurant and ate. Then we walked up the strip, we went into Caesars Palace. I think he was trying to divert my attention. He did some gambling there but I wanted to look at the facade that was created to make the Italian looking street inside the building. I walked into the little shops and looked at the feast of things to purchase. Basically I hate shopping but this was like Christmas with all the artificial lights and glitter.

I guess he thought that it worked because from there we went across the street to our hotel. When it was time to go back to our hotel room, I had seemed to settle down a bit, but as I walked in again, I ridged. Someone had gotten killed or very beat up in this room. There was evil in the air there.

Vern got into bed and I sat in the over-stuffed chair by the wall of windows facing the strip. I finally fell asleep with my clothes on in that chair but not before I was sure this building was going to tip and I was going to go flying out of the window with the chair. I just knew that something was in this room that was not good. If I were afraid of heights, I could have used that as a reason but they usually don't bother me. It wasn't looking out the window, it was being in the room.

The next morning I was up before Vern. (I am not a morning person) I didn't shower or anything. I just took my suitcase and told Vern that I would meet him on the first floor and left. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

From there we went to Palm Springs and had a wonderful time. The rest of the trip was great. Once I left Las Vegas, life was wonderful again.

That should be the end of this story but it isn't.

At the time, I worked at a book store on the south side of Milwaukee. We had people coming in from time to time to teach seminars. One came along that looked very interesting so I invited Betty to join me.

The lady that was teaching was showing us how to find where stuck energy is stored in our bodies and how to get it out. She had a way of finding out when the energy first impinged on the body, also if the problem was mine, or someone else's that I had taken on.

Betty was working on her stuff and I was working on mine. I found 4 or 5 things that I needed to work on.
Then out the blue, Betty said, "Ask her about your ear." I had an ear that had been runny and I was trying all the things that I could think of to handle it. I used Garlic – antibiotic, antiviral. I used Black Walnut Tincture, this seemed to be the best. I could put the tincture into my ear and plug it with cotton then go to work.

So I called the teacher over and she checked it out. Then she said, "You had an entity enter your ear…….about five months ago." She explained that entities in bodies (Me) are stronger than entities without bodies. She instructed me to start writing and in the writing I was to demand that the entity leave this body and clean up anything that it disturbed.

I worked on it for the rest of this class. When I had written a page demanding that this being leave and go into the arms of God to be healed and recycled….etc, doing all of it with love and blessings. When I called her over to recheck she would say, "It isn't gone yet. Keep working on it." I did and three times she checked. On the third time, she told me that is was clean. I didn't feel any differently but the next day my ear itched like mad and the day after that, all was well.

So when I got home, I asked Vern what we had done five months ago. He thought for a moment and said, "That was when we went to Palm Springs."

Missing Data

No one has all the data that is available. So we base our decisions on what we do know. Does that make us wrong? It just gives us a partial picture of what is out there.

Recently I have witnessed people making decisions like this and I wonder if they remember their history classes. (And they thought history was a waste of time.) Our lives thrive for such a short space of time that we think this is all that there is. We don’t remember the people who were put out of their homes to make room for “Better” or for “Modern”. We think that the people we have inconvenienced are not using good judgment but perhaps they have a lot more information than we do? Their information has been handed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years.

So what am I trying to say? Have you figured it out yet? No, it isn’t about the Indian population in this country but it could be if we hadn’t beaten them into apathy as a race of people. No, what I am talking about is the Hispanic population in the United States.

People think that they are here because they came from the south and occupied OUR country illegally when in fact it is just the opposite. How about the parts of this country that were original occupied by Hispanics, and we moved in and took over. Doesn’t anyone remember the Alamo? It is located 150 miles north of the border, the line that we think of as the dividing line between the USA and Mexico. We lost that battle when we tried to take more land for the USA. They fought us like cats and dogs to keep us out of THEIR country. Like good Americans, we did it anyway!!!!

Even the name of Los Angeles was first given to that settlement by the Spanish, (A settlement that was already there even before the Spanish came) El Pueblo De La Reina De Los Angeles = “The town of the Queen of the Angeles.” It did not belonging to any Europeans. It didn’t belong to the Russians who were invading the northern territories of the west or even the British who were sailing in from the west to claim it as theirs. It belonged to the Mexican Indians, not even the Mexican Spanish and for the most part it should still be that way but it isn’t.

It is easy to see the difference between the Mexican Indians and the Spanish Mexicans. The Spanish Mexicans have history in the southwest going back to grants of land given to them by the Spanish kings. (I forget, did we fight Spain for that land too? Why do I not think so?) Their relatives live (present time) on both sides of an invisible line that has changed over the decades. The Spanish took everything away from the Mexican Indians just like we did in North America. Europeans have a history of doing what they want to do. Now the Americans are on that same program. What do I mean by now? We always do.

One of the fun things to do while living in California was to find Spanish grant lines. They were usually lined with Eucalyptus trees and roads A lot of present time roads were built along these lines. Some of these grants were rather large.

Most of the people upset with the invasion do not have any connection with the southwest or the West, much less know of its history. They are basing their judgments on the Hispanics that have made their way to Chicago or New York.

Hey, I have another fact that I found out about within the last year. The Roman Catholic Church is in the process of helping people to get to the USA through Mexico, legally or illegally. Most of these people are not Mexicans but come from Central America and when they get to Mexico, the Priests are the keepers of the secrets. (The safe houses) The law in Mexico looks the other way.

I saw a booklet that spoke of this, published by the Catholic Bishops. It said something like---a man has the right to fight for his family and if he can’t support his family in his country, he has every right to cross borders to do so. I saw it while sitting in on an interest lecture given by a person who went to Mexico to find out the truth. We are back to Data.

The Russians did it all over the north western part of this country. The Chinese came as freight to work for us but the Spanish owned all the area long before we decided that it was ours.

It is my belief that we can all live here. We can support each other in some form or another. A border is just an imaginary line that says you have to stay on your side of the fence but when your neighbor’s dog runs over, you don’t shoot it.

What most people dislike is that these people are getting services that the government supplies to anyone in the USA that decides it is too hard to work. Hey, I have a lot of friends who could work but have found a reason not to and are getting government support. Perhaps if the government changes some of its policies, things wouldn't be so upsetting?

Does anyone have the data on how much land in the USA is uninhabited? Do you want your grandson to grow up and pick apples in the State of Washington for a living or work on the California Delmonte farms? Someone has to do it.

The problem seems to be when they come illegally, wanting to better themselves, but they don’t have the money that it would take to do it legally. Are you going to sponsor someone so that their family can eat? Do you have any idea what it takes to get a Visa to come here legally to work? Boy, there is a lot of missing data here but a lot of judgments being made.

I have Hispanic friends. I find that they are more reliable than the car salesman that I bought my car from. They are harder workers than the people who are standing at the water cooler all the time.

We have to replace the word “They” with the words He or She. Once we go to first person, the rules change. How about the Senator who has a Hispanic person watching her children all day long? The trust is great when you can do this. This person becomes valuable.

It is time to value people of every nation, race, color and religion. Life is short as I have recently been reminded so instead of fighting back, reach out. Become a friend to one person of another race, nation, or religion. I think that you will be surprised to find out that they are just like you in a lot of ways.

The Farm

When I was in first grade, we moved to a farm near Underhill. It was during the war and if your draft tests came back saying that you were not eligible to be in the service, there were two choices; to farm or work in a factory. My Dad chose the farm. He and my Mom’s brother-in-law both had heart problems so they decided to combine their talents and work together on this project.

The farm house was the kind that you see in rural Wisconsin, a two story house build in the shape of an L with a porch across the front. My Uncle Clarence and Aunt Edna (Mom’s sister) moved in with us. Aunt Edna took over the housework. My Mom, being older and having come from a farm family where she did a lot of the outside work was happy to have Aunt Edna cooking and keep an eye on the three of us.

As I said, I was in first grade so I had to go off to school every day with my lunch pail. That left Aunt Edna with my two sisters. From the kitchen window, Aunt Edna could see the one-room schoolhouse about a half mile away. I would walk down the driveway and turn right, then go about the same distance to school.

This school reminded me of when I was too young to go to school. I was allowed to visit the school that my Aunt Ruth taught. Is was a one-room school in Sugar Bush. This was also before she got married to one of the guys that lived on the farm across the street from her school. I was too little to be in a class then but at our farm, I wasn’t.

One of the best things about a one-room school was that when the teacher was working with a class up front, the older kids would be working in the back or helping some of us with our work. Everyone worked together, except on the playground.

On the south side of my school was the playground with its merry-go-round type of swing. The bench of this swing went all the way around the tall pole that held it up. After everyone was sitting on the board seats, with their feet facing the center pole and holding on to the pipe railing in front of them, one of the older kids would push the swing in a circular fashion. It was great fun.

The playground wasn’t really big but we played dodge ball and other games that we could chased each other, like tag with the younger kids always being "it".

In the back part of the playground there were two outhouses, one for the girls and one for the boys.

In front of the school, near the road was a water fountain that always had water coming out of it, winter or summer. (I went back many years later and found that the water is still coming out of the ground at that place but the buildings and fountain are gone.)

The hard part about being in first grade was that we got picked on when we were outside. By the end of recess and lunch, I always had snow all over my snowsuit because throwing snowballs was part of the fun for all the older kids and I was one of the targets. The boys loved to throw snowballs.

One summer our cousin, Gloria came to visit. We asked if we could play on the swing at the school, and because Mom could see the school from the kitchen window, she agreed. That would keep us busy for a while. The four of us went down there and were having a really good time when we got company. For some unknown reason, our bull got loose and wandered down to the school yard. When we first noticed him, we made sure that the swing was between him and us. Then we decided to get into the outhouses. We did and we stayed for a very long time. If you have ever spent any time in an outhouse, you know that even a short time is long.

I guess when Mom checked on us and couldn’t see anyone; she got worried so she sent Dad over to see what we were doing. He found the bull in the school yard. Then he called to us to find out if we were OK. He told us to stay put for a while. Then grabbing the nose ring on the bull, he told us that we could come out slowly and head for home. He walked the bull home.

Moral of the story, if you have a nose ring, someone else can be in control?

The people who presently own what was our farmland made three ponds in the field across the street and below where the school used to be. This field was where Dad kept sheep during the war but now the artesian well from the school feeds these ponds. The farm house has been enlarged and upgraded. A garage has been built under the house. Even the out-buildings, the machine shed looked nice. It was good to go back and know that someone was really caring for this land after all this time.

We didn’t have a tractor to work the land back then because gas was rationed Like everything else at that time, but we did have two very large horses.

Rationing was interesting. We used to get a book of coupons that would allow us to get so much of this or so much of that. As an example, when you ran out of sugar coupons, you weren't allowed to buy any more until the next book came out. It worked that way for shoes and a lot of things.

To this day, I refuse to cut coupons to get 7 cents off on some product. This practice is just an extension of what we did during the war. If some company wanted to give a certain amount off today, why not just give everyone 2 or 3 cents off the product across the board? Why play the game? How about being a preferred customer? Now that is one that I really dislike. If my Aunt Mable comes from out of town and wants to buy Ocean Spray Juice but doesn't have a card for that store…. I get livid about this one. Anyone who chooses to walk into your store is a preferred customer. End of lecture!

As you can see these are all extensions of the games started during World War Two.

Back to the memories, one that I have was with Dad up in the haymow of the barn and Uncle Clarence is by the wagon that was loaded with hay. My mother was outside of the barn working the horses. She was really good at this. When Uncle Clarence told her that he was ready (Having clamped the bulk hay into the twin forks that were on a rope coming down from the top of the barn.) Mom would grab hold of their bridle and pull them forward slowly. When the twin forks reaches the pulley at the top, Dad could pull the forks of hay over to the area that he was filling and with a jerk on a different rope, release the hay where he wanted it. Then he would pull on another rope to return the forks to the pulley and Mom would back the horses up to bring the forks back down to the hay wagon.

This always amazed me but I later learned that my Mom liked horses a lot more than my Dad did and she was good with them.

They were huge horses and not just from the perspective of a small girl. Mom had to reach up to grab them and pull them forward. They also had very thick legs. I remember riding on them but in my mind’s eye I really see myself walking along side Dad as he walked them back from the field pulling the wagon. Usually one of the other girls was on the back of the horse next to Dad and she was higher than Dad’s head.

Another time I remember that Dad took me into the silo with him when it was half full. It was an interesting place but I really didn’t like the smell. It was like smelling cut fermenting grass and having it in your face all the time, not being able to get away from the smell or even taking a deep breath.

Life on a farm in the 1940’s was interesting. We did without a lot of things. We had an outhouse. We even had a pump out in front of the house and all our water came from there. That meant that our baths were in a large metal tub and the water was heated on this large wood-fed stove. The milk from the cows was put into large cans that were set in a cold water bath in the “milk house”.

Betty had a little lamb…that sounds like the beginning of a poem or song but it was true. Donna had a goat and we tied him up so he would pull our little red wagon sometimes.

I loved the big collie that we had. He was a working collie. With sheep, one has to have a dog to work them with you. Every spring a man would come to the farm and between Dad, this man and Uncle Clarence; every sheep would get a "hair cut". Mom kept some of the dark wool and I have a couple of quilts that still have some of this in them.

We made a lot of our fun. I think this is why people have to be entertained today. They never have had to find ways to have fun, like sliding down a haystack or putting chicken feathers in everything.

On the South side of the property there was a creek. I don’t remember going there a lot but I do remember crossing it once with Mom and Dad holding on to us. The only thing crossing this was a log. I don’t think that our property was on the other side but it was interesting to balance on this log while watching the water trickle by.

Life is full of memories if you take time to look back. Most of them are good. I am told that we only want to remember the good times. I think that is right. This is why we call them the Good Ol’ Days.