Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

So glad it has “cooled” off somewhat here the last day or two. (Of course cool/heat are relative terms… depending on where you live in this country during the summer time…the low country is not just hot…it is humid…which truly ” exponentiates” the misery.)

*When Pam Stewart found this visual message (title image) she said she thought of me immediately and forwarded it on….(Thanks Pam) !!!

If I stayed outside in the garden…during all the news on the regular channels (not even counting cable news) I would be completely sunburned every day! Why do the networks think we need to be undulated with information that we can do little or nothing about…but worry more than we already do? It is a lesson in futility.

But yet…we keep getting more of it….sometimes I think the news channels must think all Americans are slow learners…that we just can’t understand it well enough following the early morning news (6-9) or later between (11:30 to 1) when the noon news comes on various channels…but we have to be subjugated again from (4- 7) every afternoon and evening? Really…we need almost 10 showings per day to “get the news.” (And then there is the 11 o’clock news…I won’t even go there…too exhausted!)

And of course…television is just one medium…we get the news via our smart phones, Google, computers…ETC… ad nauseam. And if the news is too much for us adults…think what it must be like for children…none of my grandchildren like to hear it or be around it…they think it’s scary…they’re right…it is. Young children need to be away from the news these days…it can rob one’s childhood quickly.

This is not to say that I would ever want to curb the First Amendment…the Freedom of Speech…(quickest way to achieve a dictatorship) but we must be vigilant of the amount of news necessary to be informed citizens and set time limits on repetitive news shows… like we do our children on computers.

The transformation really is amazing…when we pull ourselves off the sofa or recliner…go outside and cut the grass, or weed in the garden…especially plant new life or check on the progress of seed plants climbing trellises. A calmness enters one’s soul and peace finds its way into our hearts. We are One again with the Universe…the soil, the seeds, our hands.

I turn on my fountain each evening…turn off my iPhone (except to take a photo) watch the sun set and the moon rise…God’s two most precious gifts to His children…water the plants…be surprised and delighted by new blooms and sit and rock in the garden swing…listening to neighborhood children play and laugh…remembering my own childhood carefree long summer days and feel that  all is right with the world …when I’m surrounded by love and life.

Secret places in nature help us distinguish between the feeling of captivity these days or the feeling of being completely captivated and in love with every precious breath of life within us. The choice is ours. Getting out in large, open spaces…pastures, fields, valleys, beaches, and mountains…open up our respiratory systems and we feel like we can finally breathe in clean air again.

So until tomorrow…Take time daily to turn off the world and concentrate on personal moments and memories….surrounded by the beauty of nature…wherever your special hiding place is!

This is what Walsh, Mollie, Rutledge, Lachlan and even Eloise (piggy back riding) are doing this week in the mountains…hiking with nature…hiking with family…hiking with life. (Keeping as far away from the news as possible to clear the ole’ cobwebs out!)

Linville Falls- July 2020

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Here are my latest garden “Delights” to release my heart from a troubled world in my garden sanctuary…It brings about a cleansing of mind and finding what is still good and honest in it..Things like dignity, compassion and kindness…we must all be the “charming gardeners who make our souls  and others blossom.” 

Dear Reader:

I think I remember telling you about my Ya friend, Libby, who has given the rest of us Ya’s the gift of music to help us through this pandemic. She selects a song and then surprises us with it…sending a video of her playing the selection on her piano.

It is uncanny how the selection and timing are always perfect…the right song for the right moment. July 4th she selected ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth.’ (Since I was celebrating this important holiday with family…I didn’t see the video or hear the personal heartfelt message she gave before her performance until yesterday afternoon… As I finished unpacking and finally catching up on correspondence.)

Libby started out her message by mentioning how much she loved this country’s birthday of freedom celebration and how she was raised to hold patriotism near and dear to her heart. It was a time to remember those who sacrificed so much for us to have this day of family unity and appreciation of country.

But this year she felt that the holiday meant even more…it was a “different July 4.”  This holiday we are all facing the pandemic coronavirus together… along with civil unrest together. So there were several “P’s’ to remember beside just patriotism…”We need more prayer… we need peace.…individual peace, family peace, community peace, national and global peace.

***Libby, dear friend, you should be the “pin-up” gal to represent July 4, 2020…a picture tells the whole story! 🙂 You and your children and grandchildren will always remember this holiday with this photo.Perfect attire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we tend to associate the song “Let There Be Peace on Earth” with Christmas… but if you read any of the lyrics…this song was created to be played and sung any day of the year.

Let there be peace on earth, and let it be-gin with me.
Let there be peace on earth, the peace that was meant to be.
With God as Cre-a-tor, fam-ily all are we,
Let us walk with each o-ther, in per-fect har-mo-ny.
Let peace be-gin with me, let this be the mo-ment now.
With eve-ry step I take, let this be my joy-ous vow:
To take each mo-ment, and live each mo-ment in peace e-ter-nal-ly.
Let there be peace on earth, and let it be-gin with me.

This song became somewhat of  a peace movement melody sung by famous musical artists of the 60’s and 70’s folk music/ ballad age. During a radio interview the original writer, Jill Jackson (Miller) told her emotional story of how the song came to be.

“When I attempted suicide [in 1944] and I didn’t succeed,” she said, “I knew for the first time unconditional love—which God is. You are totally loved, totally accepted, just the way you are. In that moment I was not allowed to die, and something happened to me, which is very difficult to explain. I had an eternal moment of truth, in which I knew I was loved, and I knew I was here for a purpose.”

This realization was followed by years of exploring her spiritual nature and her relationship with God. Jackson discovered her love for writing, and began writing songs with Sy Miller after they married in 1949.

In 1955, she wrote the lyrics for “Let There Be Peace on Earth” while her husband wrote the melody. The song was introduced at a California retreat to a group of young people who were from a wide variety of religious, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The young people had come together for a week long experience devoted to developing friendship and understanding through education, discussion and working together. The song’s focus on peace and God made it easy to cross many boundaries.

Sy Miller wrote about the effect of the song:

“One summer evening in 1955, a group of 180 teenagers of all races and religions, meeting at a workshop high in the California mountains locked arms, formed a circle and sang a song of peace. They felt that singing the song, with its simple basic sentiment—‘Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me’—helped to create a climate for world peace and understanding.

 “When they came down from the mountain, these inspired young people brought the song with them and started sharing it. And, as though on wings, ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth’ began an amazing journey around the globe. It traveled first, of course, with the young campers back to their homes and schools, churches and clubs.”

The song was taped, copied, printed in songbooks and passed by word of mouth. Eventually it spread overseas, sung by Maoris in New Zealand and Zulus in Africa.

The song has been recorded by a host of vocal artists including Tennessee Ernie Ford, Pat Boone, Mahalia Jackson, Johnny Mathis and Vincent Gill…among others.

It received the George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for “Outstanding achievement in helping to bring about a better understanding of the American Way of Life.”

***Random House published a children’s book based on the lyrics and illustrations in 2009

So until tomorrow…“Let There be peace on earth…and let it begin with ME!” Amen.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

u-tube: Vincent Gill….Let There Be Peace on Earth

Look at my moon flowers climb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Surprise…the Fourth keeps on going…Luke and Chelsey dropped off more barbecue fixin’s yesterday…..Loving  life…and loving Luke and Chelsey….thank you both…miss you both terribly!

The mountains always are so appealing in the summer….This scene was taken from a cabin in Elk Banner- just outside Boone, NC where Appalachian State is…Walsh and Mollie both attended this college but never met until Mollie decided to make Charleston her home when visiting here with her roommate from Charleston.

Now they have returned with family in tow…elusive time comes full circle!

And here’s our “family in tow.” 🙂

Dear Reader:

I hope everyone had a marvelous Fourth! Mine was just like Vickie, my neighbor, expressed when she texted me a message from a friend of hers that she loved and forwarded it on to me. It was perfectly true!

“Hanging out with your adult children is like visiting with the most beautiful and precious parts of your life.”

Dee Lesko, my wonderful zany “church friend” shared a funny anecdote with me right before I left…and I thought it was too cute not to share…so here it is!

If you remember on the July 1 date I had the usual reminder (at the end of the post) to say “Rabbit Rabbit”  as a good luck charm to have a great month….Dee got it halfway right. 🙂

Have a Happy 4th with your beautiful children and precious grandchildren!  You’re going to LOVE this!  Yesterday, July 1st, NOTHING was going right for me–nothing bad, Becky.  Just one of those kind of days… I was chatting with Susan Johnson.  I was grinding, “griping,” and moaning about my day and…Susan asked me:  “Dee, did you remember to start the month with Becky’s advice?  Did you say:  “Rabbit, Rabbit?”

YIKES, BECKY, THAT WAS THE PROBLEM!!!  I forgot that it was the “oneth” of the month and when I awoke, I was confused and I said:  “Bunny, Bunny” instead of “Rabbit, Rabbit.” Shame on me!  Hugs and Love, Dee

I reminded Dee that “bunnies” had not built up enough magical power yet to pull off the best good luck months…they still needed more training…so remember, learn from Dee’s experience….Don’t yell “Bunny Bunny” on the first…yell Rabbit Rabbit! ” 🙂 

A glimpse at the family Fourth!

“On your mark, get set, GO Rutledge and Eva Cate!”

My patriotic contribution to this Fourth was watching HAMILTON…mind-blowing talent. It made an ole’ history teacher proud!

So until tomorrow….Remember…every day we make history…our choices determine the outcome. For the sake of generations to come who must try to live in what we pass on today…the right choices lie heavily on us…

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

The setting sun last night brought its own red, white, and blue.

Dear Reader:

I wish I could say I remember my Granddaddy Wilson…You have heard me refer to Grandmother Wilson many times with her wits of wisdom and common sense approach to life…She was the one who also helped raise me for almost a year following my father’s death.

What is even more remarkable about grandmother’s grit is the fact that  Grandaddy died within months of my father and then daddy’s father died just weeks before he did. (So within a small scale of months I lost my father and both grandfathers.)

My only memories of Granddaddy Wilson come from the stories grandmother told me as a child. The one thing that stands out above all else (one small remnant of a memory) is that he loved grandmother’s biscuits. He liked them plain, with gravy but most of all he loved homemade biscuits with molasses! For him…this was dessert!

Grandmother always put either sausage gravy, bacon gravy, or ham gravy on Granddaddy’s breakfast biscuits…it was his favorite part of breakfast. It certainly kept him fortified until lunch when dinner was served…the biggest meal of the day.

The mid-day meal had to give granddaddy the strength to work those cotton fields until supper. Supper was the smallest meal…usually some left-overs from dinner and some evenings granddaddy would say he was just too tired to eat…but he would appreciate it…if Mary Ellen would fix him a couple of biscuits and molasses for a little “dessert” and then wink at her.

Granddaddy Wilson’s heart gave out on him and he suffered during his last days but one day he was feeling a little better and probably more to please grandmother than anything else…he said he thought he could eat a small biscuit with molasses for his “dessert.”

Grandmother asked if he didn’t want a plain biscuit, or a  biscuit with gravy but he shook his head and with a tired smile said…“No Mary Ellen…it takes longer to pour the molasses on that biscuit and I want to spend it all with you.” He died later that night.

Jo sent a “Biscuit Prayer” to me, recently, which I vaguely remembered hearing a long time ago… but it felt like it was meant to be read this July the Fourth. It, also, got me remembering Granddaddy Wilson. I sense he would have loved this prayer, especially on this patriotic day. I hope you, too, enjoy it.

“The Biscuit Prayer”

A while back I read a story of a visiting pastor who attended a men’s breakfast in the middle of a rural farming area of the country.

Have a safe holiday and let’s say a special prayer for God’s guidance through this difficult days! We need Him to shine the lantern to lead us out of the darkness.

Dear Reader:

Just before I headed over to Vickie’s beautiful back garden to feed Sweet Fuzz (the cat I am babysitting) her breakfast and pour some clean cool water in her bowl…something caught my eye in my own back yard garden…It was a turtle…slowly making its way across the yard from the fence to the garden path.

I was in the middle of tying up the sunflower stems…they are so tall and thin…they just collapsed under the weight of the torrential rains a few nights ago. (looking like a deflated giant yellow and green mushroom spiral.)

I got some cord…the sunflower stems were sticky and scratchy…not fun to work with…by any stretch of the imagination…but I finally got it done! (It was like tying up a Christmas tree to lug to the car)

When I finally turned round the turtle was missing…no way it could have made it across the big back yard into the garden…but it had…I actually found it on the other side of the garden…this turtle’s name should be “Speedy Gonzales!”

Right after seeing the turtle in the garden…I came across two other turtle symbols (within an hour)…a school teacher/student t-shirt (on-line) and a turtle garden design from a  high school friend on Facebook…

Very strange…Somebody was sending turtle vibes my way…and I finally decided I was being cautioned to slow down in this extreme heat and just cool it inside.

I made one trip out to drop off some start-up supplies for my niece, Bekah and her daughter, Ady in their new apartment…They weren’t home so I left the goodies and gift cards in a bag by their door. Glad they had a happy surprise when they returned! Have fun ordering off Amazon girls! I sure do! 🙂

I got back, fixed a banana sandwich for lunch and fell asleep until I heard Jeff outside…he had returned to cut my bushes out front down, down, down!

They only have been trimmed but never really cut in all the years I have lived here…so  I was ready to get them cut down to my window ledge level…and not have the “giant” azalea bushes and others bushes dominating the front facade of the house.

The azaleas will have to go through an “ugly” wood stage… but not for long with this hot, wet summer we are having…the green foliage will cover it in a blink…in the meantime I am so happy to finally get the front bushes in a more manageable and organized condition.

Now when I look out my window..I don’t see a wall of green any more…but I get to see life in the neighborhood.

Isn’t it hard to believe we are already at the Fourth of July? What is the old adage about time…”The days are long but the years fly by?”

Even deliberately slowing down my personal day yesterday…the sun kept rising, then climbing, then sinking…while the moon took over its cycle of time. No matter what we do or don’t do…stay busy or not…nothing changes the daily natural cycle of life. Thank you God for that one constant comfort of reliability…of dependability!

Even when we ignore time (or try to) life keeps growing in spite of it.

So until tomorrow…While we sometimes (during these pandemic days) seem”stuck” in the waiting room of life…this, too, will pass. In the meantime….Give yourself a “slow” moving day as needed! 🙂 and remember: “Be gentle on yourself.”

Dear Reader:

I had two green mountain apples the other day and was just about to place them in a hanging fruit basket in the kitchen…when suddenly I remembered how pretty the shadows were on the side garden fence with the outdoor hanging flower baskets.

I gathered and placed them on the ledge running along the faded wooden fence and loved the results! The beauty and charm of summer flowers, green apples, and a weathered-beaten fence just made me happy. (As simple as that!)

I have become conscious in the past few weeks… that I am drawn more and more to discovering beauty from the mundane, ordinary “art” scenes in my daily life. With a little research I have located many European and American artists who are feeling the same way…they have developed a new art form called “Quarantinart.”

Social media today is filled with our friends’ photos of old family recipes including stews, soups, casseroles,  homemade breads, and makeshift masks crafted while staying home due to the coronavirus. But if we keep looking… it is easy to find another layer of at-home concoctions: “Scenes reenacting famous paintings and photographs in creative ways.”

For many viewers these creative reenactments from the Masters paintings are soothing feelings of claustophobia and, instead, anchoring “comfort and joy.” Here is an example from one artist.

  (Vermeer “The Milkmaid.”)

Meet Italian artist, Chiara Grilli, a teacher at the Università di Bari in Macerata, Italy. Grilli, like many in Italy, has been working remotely.

“This gives me plenty of time — too much, actually,” she told TIME. She lives in a two-room apartment with her boyfriend — “no balcony, no garden” — and after two weeks, she says she felt “asphyxiated.”

But then she got several ideas from just scenes of shadows and sunshine falling differently in their small apartment…and watching pictures of people making bread again and performing simple tasks to make basic meals on Facebook.

The idea was born for re-creating Vermeer’s  ” The Milk Maid.” It caught on rapidly and now several famous museums are displaying the creative re-enactments of the famous Masters artisans of old.

For those of you who have followed the blog for awhile…you know I am always taking photos of shadows and light in my home and outside in the garden or neighborhood. Here are just a few from the past and present….

What got me pondering all the beauty of art around us…was when I opened the shutters the other morning…the window screens were dotted with raindrops from another powerful thunderstorm.

As the rising sun hit my bushes in front of the window…it looked like a bright, beautiful abstract “lime” painting to me…It was just something about those rain droplets, stuck to the screen, sparkling in the morning light…What a way to start a day!

So until tomorrow…Isn’t life always about finding beauty and peace in wherever we are with what we have…not what we don’t? For whatever is lacking in reality can be made up quickly with our imagination and creativity!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

What a way now to “end the day!”

Dear Reader:

If you are like me doesn’t this period of coronavirus time feel like we are suspended in space and time just waiting to settle…but not sure where?

Do you remember perhaps, as a child, making a craft ocean bottle at the beach? We would first gather water from the ocean…some pebbles, perhaps some colorful beads…finally sprinkling in sand. Then we would shake it, and like a snow globe, watch in fascination as the sand slowly settled on the bottom (perhaps with minute salt crystals)…the “suspended” particles leisurely floating downward.

I don’t think I “got” that there was a scientific lesson on “suspension” and the weight of particles… squeezed in the project at the time…but we loved playing with it while on vacation and later back home. It is still one of those memories that return quickly upon seeing an “ocean” bottle on display.

Some days, these days, I feel like those sand particles…like my world has suddenly been shaken up and I am slowly settling down but without direction as to where, when, or how? Anybody else out there feeling a little “suspended” too?

Some moments I feel a little “homesick” for the “old normal” life….like a sand particle that knows exactly where its place belongs on the bottom of the ocean. Still, I suppose, particles are like people…one never knows when the bottom of the ocean will be disturbed by man or mother nature…sending sand and salt particles flying out in all directions…until life calms down, the storm or interruption passes,  and a new setting becomes the new familiar.

So until tomorrow… “The new unknown to us lies not beyond the coronavirus…but within each of us…our new personal “frontiers.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I purposefully plant new flowers each year… thus deliberately changing my garden world… so why shouldn’t I expect to do the same thing to my personal world… to make it bloom even more beautifully with yearly changes.

 And what about photos…aren’t they modern man’s way of suspending time for memories?

Mandy                              Walsh                              Tommy

***And today…All of our feet firmly planted on the ground (At least long enough for the time it took to take a photo 🙂

Guess What? “Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit“! It’s the first day of July! Hard to believe! Let’s make it a spectacular one!

Dear Reader:

We have all heard the expression “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” but I am of the belief that the round red fruit (and vegetable) we need to eat for our health is tomatoes…juicy red tomatoes!

Yesterday was my monthly oncology visit…and unfortunately I had a “bad” night before it…I had stomach issues and cramps. I tossed and turned most of the night. Verzenio, the oral chemo drug I am on, causes a variety of stomach side effects and I am pretty used to them by now…but the timing was “bad” Sunday night.

I had an early appointment yesterday morning and I felt like a drugged rag doll getting ready. Then I prayed I wasn’t running a fever..didn’t feel like it…but again…everything just seemed a little “off.”

I lined my prayers up in chronological order…first I had to “pass” the temperature test in order to be seen, secondly I had to get blood work done and third- gets all my vital signs checked… before I could go over the results with my doctor…and I needed everything from the temperature check, to all the vital signs like (blood pressure and heart rhythm) to be in the normal range…hopefully.

I have to laugh at the first entry test…my temperature. All the way from Summerville to N. Charleston I had the air conditioning on high hoping it would perk me up from my sleepless night. I had it blowing directly on my face.

The medical examiner took my temperature with the latest forehead thermometer and then shook her head…”It says 94.7…this thermometer must be broken” she held it up to my forehead again and got the same results… I told her it was usually 97.4… which it really is just about every time.

“Oh well” she shook her head and said...I must be seeing things backwards this morning…but at least we certainly know you are not running a temperature” and motioned me on to the next stop- checking in and filling out paperwork.

Then on to the lab for my blood work, followed by weight and vital signs and lastly my appointment to go over the blood work results. One of the “Physician Assistants” whom I adore came in and said she would be checking my vitals and  go over the blood test results with me for my appointment.

Weight-good (one nice thing about having “little c” is weight stability or  even gain is considered good…losing weight continuously…not so good.)  My blood pressure came back better than usual…think I was so tired I couldn’t get up enough energy to send it skyrocketing like usual.

And for once my blood work results were better than normal-nothing was even discussed concerning the low white cell count. I tried not to grin…here I was feeling wasted and getting my best overall blood work  report in the last few months. Life is an enigma.

So my P.A. and I just talked about our gardens and how beautiful and/or bountiful they were this year. She was growing vegetables and organic tomatoes…she told me she had started bringing tomatoes in for lunch each day and was having to stand over one of the sinks to eat her tomato sandwich because the tomatoes were so juicy they ran down her chin.

She must have seen my mouth literally watering…because as we walked out together…she called me over and handed me one of her beautiful, red organic tomatoes. “Have a great lunch today” she whispered.

She had also brought tomatoes for her colleagues and some of my former nurses, other P.A.’s and pharmacists gathered around as a second P.A. (who knows my daughter-in-law Mollie and had a son in the same class as Rutledge last year)…told the group about what my grandson had told her in an earlier conversation before the coronavirus hit. .

She said she introduced herself to Rutledge at school one day as being one of the cancer medical staff who knew his grandmother and was working hard to keep his Boo Boo up and going and enjoying life… being able to be a grandmother to him, his brother and sister, and cousins.

She told me  and the assembled gathering ..that first grader Rutledge replied, ” Thank you for helping Boo Boo with her cancer…but God is the One Who is really healing my Boo Boo… so she can be our grandmother forever.” (Oh the beautiful innocence of faith in children)

There wasn’t a dry eye in the group. Suddenly the long night of tossing and turning morphed into a most beautiful morning.

When I got home I got out my Captain Derst Old-Fashioned “yella” bread, mayo, my last slice of bacon, salt and pepper and fixed the best tomato sandwich I have had all season ! No stomach issues at lunch! (And of course my potato chips…can’t eat a sandwich without some!) 🙂

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

My second hibiscus opened up and another amazing surprise! Beautiful!

Dear Reader:

Life fascinates me…no matter how many pine trees are in a forest… none are exactly alike upon closer inspection. Ask any parents of multiples births…(their children might be physically “identical” twins, triplets, quads, etc.) but each one’s emotional and social personality is unique to only that one.

And even though I have certainly complained about the similar days-restricted to home- and how I have spent them..dividing each day into garden time, meals, walking, reading, watching television, and blog writing…no day has really been the same upon reflection.

*I find different floral surprises blooming every day in the garden that weren’t there the day before, preparation of different meals, finishing one book and starting another story, different shows on television, and especially different idea for blog posts.

***I just discovered what color the second hibiscus is going to be…either a cream color or a pale yellow…here’s a peek of it starting to unfold.

Saturday evening definitely broke the mold for “same old…same old.” The past few days have been in the 90’s…hot and sticky…but Saturday night the sameness changed in a quick moment…a scary quick moment!

Around 8:30 I had put the garden to sleep…giving it one last drink of water…putting up the swing and bench pillows in case of rain and had come back in the house ‘to settle in’ for the night. The television was on and I had gone back to my bedroom to get “pinkie” robe … since a strange, almost chilly air, had started blowing in the front windows. And then it happened. Godzilla Dust Storm met Terrifying Thunderstorm!

Suddenly…everything got loud! Really loud! My first thought was my refrigerator was dying…but then I realized the sound was outside…you could actually feel the tension of the loud winds building up to some great crescendo…and POW! with a gushing sound the wind blew in my open windows so furiously it knocked over my small planter tables sending dirt and plants flying…

I thought “tornado” and flew towards the bathroom…rain and wind continued to pound the roof furiously as I heard broken limbs hitting all around…I gathered my courage and returned to close all the windows before any more damage could be done inside my house.

I don’t know what the scientific term is when wind starts swirling in circles like a tornado but not a regular tornado…smaller and more numerous…perhaps a “swirling dervish.” It was over in a short period but it  left me quaking in the after-math.

At first when I woke up Sunday morning…I was shocked not to see as much debris as I thought…but then when I went to check on the computer and blog post…I glanced out the window…and there it was several large tree branches that looked more like parts of trees ripped away.

I worked most of the morning picking up tree branches that were manageable…and left the one big tree limb for Jeff who is coming Tuesday for my regular lawn maintenance. But I made the mistake of sending the big limb photo to Vickie, my neighbor.

After working all morning inside and outside cleaning up debris…I fell into a “dead” sleep Sunday afternoon. When I woke up…I went to write this post and the tree limb was gone??? How? I had dragged one part of it off the Ginger Shells ( since the thick trunk was squashing them)…and that about did me in. Who was able to move it?

It was then I saw Vickie cutting her grass and was praying hard she didn’t do anything like that by herself…she had mentioned stopping by after she finished work at the golf club…but I never heard a knock or bell ring…couldn’t imagine her being able to pull that heavy thing to the street…but she had.

When I confronted her…she just grinned and said it wasn’t her…it was a big fairy. I responded it must have been a giant fairy!…Vickie should try out for some marathon or something…just amazing.

So glad “wimpy me” can at least help repay the kindness by keeping Vickie’s cat Fuzz a few days this week while she is visiting her granddaughter. When I followed her over to her rain forest (back yard  garden)…so pretty…she showed me Fuzz’s new “house” in the forest and more beautiful foliage.

Isn’t it “funny” how we get bored when things seem too much alike day after day…until something frightening happens and then we just want to return to the good old normal days with less drama?

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

While picking up debris yesterday I noticed two new blooms on the Spanish petunias and a red rose that had survived the torrential winds and rains… beauty always lives on.

Dear Reader:

It is interesting to realize… if we ever take time to research the history behind many famous children and adult board games… that there is a common core stemming from their origins. They all emerged from challenging situations historically.

One example, of course, is the game Monopoly and how it was a way to live in a fantasy world during the Great Depression with the hope of getting rich on a board game…while in reality the players had lost most of their economic jobs, hopes and dreams.

I made a personal startling observation while writing this blog and that was the fact that my mother was born in 1919 in the midst of the great Spanish Influenza and I was born thirty years later in the midst of the worst stage of the Polio epidemic. A case of history repeating itself.

Some of my earliest memories dealt with staying home in the summer and not being allowed in public pools or camps because of the spread of polio.

I remember being terrified of seeing children my age inside one of the “iron lungs” on black and white television…I had nightmares over that for a long time!

Years passed and we moved to Laurens, SC (in the sixties) when I was 14…I became a Candy Striper (volunteer) at the local hospital.

I still vividly remember helping give out sugar cubes to prevent polio one Saturday at a nearby high school in Gray Court.

The origin of the still popular children’s board game, Candy Land, was created in direct correlation of the polio epidemic. Here is the story behind it.

It was created by Eleanor Abbott, a retired schoolteacher, who contracted polio, and found herself in a polio ward during the epidemic of the 1940s and ’50s.

(The outbreak  forced children into extremely restrictive environments. Quite similar to today’s restrictions.)

In 1948,  Eleanor Abbott invented Candy Land while recovering in a San Diego hospital. Abbott had been diagnosed with polio and during her convalescence she was surrounded by children suffering from the same disease. The experience inspired her to create a game that would entertain children during a painful and lonely time in their lives.

Patients were confined by equipment, and parents kept healthy children inside their homes for fear they might catch the disease. Candy Land offered the kids in hospital wards a welcome distraction—but it also gave immobilized patients a liberating fantasy of movement.

Children of the era faced an unenviable lot, whether infected with polio or not. Gerald Shepherd provides a glimpse of the paranoiac atmosphere of the polio scare and its effects on children in his first hand account of his San Diego childhood in the late 1940s, at the height of the epidemic. Quarantine and seclusion were the most common preventative measures:

Our parents didn’t know what to do to protect us except to isolate us from other children … One time I stuck my hand through a window and badly cut myself, and despite several stitches and wads of protective bandaging, my father still grounded me that week for fear polio germs might filter in through the sutures.

Kids his age were well aware of what polio could do. “Every time one of our buddies got sick,” Shepherd recollects, “we figured he was headed for the iron lung.” If you caught polio, you would be committed to a hospital with a chance of being forever anchored to a machine. If you didn’t catch it, you would be stuck indoors for the foreseeable future (which, from a child’s perspective, might as well be forever).

On the original board game …the little boy starting out on the adventures through Candy Land wore braces to show the history behind the game….

Later the braces were removed from the boy’s legs and never seen again.

The COVID19 pandemic we are going through today is different in the sense of its widespread global effects but still history teaches us how quickly we forget our own personal history with viruses…and how few generations have escaped their impact.

We also forget how similar the “protective measures” were and still are before a vaccine is discovered to eradicate a potentially crippling or deadly virus…  quarantine, seclusion and isolation.

We forget too how early vaccines with polio did not work…in fact they made matters worse for the first groups trying them out…until a sweet cube of “sugar” cured the disease…in the end it was just a “spoonful of sugar” that made the medicine go down and eventually cure the polio virus.

Today we, too, must not jump too quickly on the first vaccine without substantial trials…or we might end up with the same initial adverse reactions. We must always learn from history.

So until tomorrow…

Won’t it be interesting to see if some creative person invents a board game for COVID19….time will tell?

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

I finally found the right place for the newest garden tin plaque…on the back door window on the deck…decorated with a ‘vine of flowers. ‘ Now the plaque will be safer from the elements and last longer!