Our Precious Benjie

When our younger brother, Leonard, was about 12 years old, our mother called him from where she worked and asked if he wanted a dog. Of course he did. Mom worked about ½ a mile from where we lived so Leonard left at once to get the dog. When he arrived, he saw a group of women standing around this dog that was no longer a puppy but not quite an adult. He was told the dog is his if he continues to call him Benjie. Agreed. They found a length of rope and he walked Benjie home. Benjie's adventures would soon start.

Benjie was a real dog. Leonard and his friends loved to go hunting and Benjie went along with them. When they went rabbit hunting, Benjie would drag a rabbit back to place it at Leonard’s feet. The rabbit just happened to be missing his head.

Shortly after becoming Leonard’s dog, Benjie was resting out in the backyard when the dog next door, a boxer, leapt through the back window. Unfortunately, pieces of glass flew into Benjie’s eye. Leonard took him to the local vet who picked out the shards, treated the eye, and said the dog would probably be blind in that eye. He was but that didn’t stop him from having more accidents.

One afternoon, we got a call from a neighbor who told us that Benjie was lying on the other side of our fence and didn’t seem to be moving. Leonard rushed out to the yard and hopped over the fence. Benjie was lying in a pool of blood and it appeared he had split himself from stem to stern. Back to the vet he went. He was one sick dog for about a month after the vet stitched him back up, but he never did try to jump that fence again.

Another time, Benjie had an accident that severely injured his footpad---almost ripping it off. Leonard put some salve on it, bandaged it, and took the dog back to the vet. By this time the vet realized the close relationship the boy and the dog had. The vet asked who had bandaged the foot and when Leonard said he did it, the vet offered him a job. The vet only had to sprinkle some antibiotic powder on the wound to dry it up and sent them home. Leonard said, to the best of his knowledge, he never paid the vet any money for these visits.

Sadly, when Leonard was about 18, he received a call from the SPCA asking him if he owned a dog-named Benjie. Apparently, a car had hit Benjie and the whole side of his face was smashed, including the eye. Unfortunately, it was his good eye. They said his injuries were quite extensive and there were no guarantees he would live. They asked if Leonard wanted him put down. He said yes because since he was already blind in one eye, that would mean he wouldn’t be able to see at all. Plus, the injuries were so bad, he was suffering and Leonard didn’t want that. Benjie died in Leonard’s arms.

I have more stories of Benjie and our family but writing this is a start to more short stories about this adventurous dog.

My Most Precious Item

For my 30th birthday, my whole family chipped in to gave me a hot air balloon ride. This was something I had dreamed of doing ever since I was a little girl and had watched a balloon pass over our house. As a momentum, my husband gave me this glass balloon to keep the memory alive. Here is how it happened…

The morning of my 30th birthday started out as a normal day but by afternoon that changed. My husband suggested we take a ride and shortly thereafter we arrived at a local airport used for small planes. This is something we often did just to watch the planes take off and land. After parking, we noticed a commotion on the runway and walked over to see what was going on. Upon seeing us, the balloon pilot came over and introduced himself and asked if I was the birthday girl. I looked over at my grinning husband and saw he was barely able to contain himself. Soon after the balloon was upright and ready for lift off. We climbed into it along with the pilot, and his first mate and drifted off into the sky.

The ride was everything I thought it would be. The air was so still I could hear chickens clucking below me. We leaned over to grab leaves off of treetops, and heard people shouting up and waving at us. It was like gliding on air—well actually, that’s what we were doing and it was wonderful. This was the most thrilling time I’d ever had.

Too soon it became dusky and the pilot said it was time to head home. We never did land back at the airport because darkness came faster than he expected. We had to make a bumpy landing in a farmer’s field just missing overhead high tension wires. After landing he popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and toasted me for my birthday.

We got into a van and were driven back to the airport leaving the crew, who had been following us, to deal with packing up the balloon. When we arrived at the airport, I got out of the car and heard clapping behind me. I turned around to see my entire family! They had been hiding while watching me take off in the balloon and waited there until we got back just to see the look on my face when they surprised me.

It was the best birthday present I could have imagined, and that’s why the glass hot air balloon means so much to me. By the way, when the sun shines on the glass balloon, it acts as a prism and sends rainbows all around the room.

Happy Mother's Day

It's been quite a while since I've posted so today I am going to share a story with you about my mother.

My mother has been dead for nine years, and I still miss her. I wonder if they will ever be a time when I don't feel as though she is waiting for me. Waiting for me to call her, waiting for me to take her food shopping, waiting for me to take her to the library, but especially waiting for me to visit her in the nursing home.

We were fortunate to have our mother for 86 years. Mom became a widow at the age of 49, and never remarried. Oh, she had boyfriends but never felt the need to get married again. The stories I could tell about her one boyfriend would fry your hair, but that's for another time. Basically, our mother had a healthy life. She did have quite a few mini-strokes along the way, but no major ones until later. Only the last few years did she develop vascular dementia from all the mini-strokes that ate at her brain cells. Even after the vascular dementia there were times when she was completely lucid and still silly.

I can truthfully tell you that most of the time my mother was a pleasure to be around. She was funny, silly, and told great big lies. I think she even believed them! She was also a shoplifter. Not a kleptomaniac because she was quite aware of what she was doing. She was very lucky never to be caught--that I know of!

One time I was an innocent partner in her crime. We had been food shopping and, while placing the bags in the trunk, something fell out of my blazer pocket. On the ground lay a tube of toothpaste. I asked Mom where that came from, and she told me that she had put it in my pocket at the check-out counter. No way would I go back in the store and admit my mother had stolen it, but I wanted to know why she did it. Apparently, she thought the price was too high and felt the store was taking advantage of people. Then, in her pocket I saw a magazine--also stolen. I told her if she did that anymore I wouldn't take her food shopping again. To my knowledge, she was good from there on. My older brother used to take her food shopping but refused to do it anymore. He never told me why (I thought he was too busy) but now I bet she did the same thing with him.

Those are are just a few memories of my mother. I am chuckling as I type about the shoplifting because it is so her.

For all those who still have a mother, hug her for me. For those whose mothers are gone, write down a story you remember about her and share it with your family. Hopefully, it will bring a smile to their faces while remembering.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom, wherever you are – and I hope you have wings.

Learn Something New Every Day

I'm doing a bit of catch up in  my Learn Something New Every Day class.  I'll be posting them soon.

REMEMBERING JOAN

I'm sad because my dear, sweet, ex-SIL passed away on September 20.  We were away for most of September in South Carolina helping her husband deal with the emotional strain of caring for someone in the last stages of life.  Even though she was very sick, I never expected her to die that soon.

Joan was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2007.  She had surgery and seemed to be doing OK after chemo.  Then more cancers were discovered in her peritoneal  area.  She had more surgery and was in remission for a year or so.  Tumors then started growing at an amazing rate and she was not strong enough to survive more surgeries.  She was given two to four months to live.   Although she weighed under a hundred pounds when she died, her lower body was bloated and filled with tumors.  It hurts me just to type that.

I have never seen anyone so courageous in fighting for her life.  At the end, Hospice was there with her and they notified her two daughters so they could talk on the phone with their mother before she died.  They told her how much they loved her and, knowing that, they were able to accept her death a bit easier.

I hope the Angels took Joan straight away to heaven and she's waiting there for me with her scrapbook tools in hand. 

What are the odds?

I'm not a Las Vegas bookmaker but I think the odds of staying married for 50 years are probably pretty slim.  Therefore, I am happy to report that on August 6, 2010, we celebrated 50 years of wedded bliss.
Oh, I'm not saying life has always been calm and serene.  We have had our ups and downs but neither one of us wanted out of the marriage enough to do anything about it. 
Our worst time was during our daughter's teen-aged years.  I don't think we are alone in feeling that when a child turns 13, they should be locked in a compound and only allowed to leave when they turn 21.   We alternated blaming her behavior on my upbringing and then on his.  Eventually she grew out of her teen years and became a normal person we got to know and even like quite a bit.
So here's to all those out there who wonder if they can or even if they should stay married for a long time.   All I can say is that somehow, over the years, we became friends.  Things are nice now in our later years.  We don't worry about money as much as when we were younger.  There isn't much we want or even need.  I have become too lazy to go shopping for clothes as often as I did.  My husband probably has all the tools he will even need to do any project he sets his mind to. 
Now for the ahhh moment.  This is a photo of us sitting in the back seat of the car after the ceremony but before going to the wedding reception.

MY FATHER'S COMPANY PICNICS

I know it's been a while since I made a blog entry so here is one I enjoyed remembering.  My brother Buck contributed some of his memories, too.

My father worked for a company that had several annual events:  a Christmas party for kids with Santa handing out gifts, and a company picnic.  The picnic is what I remember most.
The morning of the picnic, a large stake body truck would pull up to the house.  It was loaded with huge sacks of peanuts, kegs of birch beer, door prizes, and other things that I cannot quite remember.  All of us kids would pile onto the truck for the ride to picnic park.  I think it was in Andalusia, Bucks County, but it may have been in different parks throughout the years.  It's not something a kid would remember.  The trip to the picnic park was always a lot of  fun.  I remember picking up several other men's kids and by the time we got to the park, the back of truck was really crowded.
My brother's, Buck, memories are somewhat the same as mine, but since he was a year and a half older, he remembers more I do.  For instance, the men were always in a good mood on the morning of the picnic.  They would holler back and forth to each other while loading the truck with food items, paper plates, wooden spoons and forks, mustard, sauerkraut, and all the other things needed for the picnic.  Everyone on our street knew something important was going on.  If a woman walked up the street, one of the men would shout to my father, "hey, Howard, get  off the sidewalk, you're taking up too much room."  Or, another man would shout, "Magee, you're ugly."  It was all great fun and the boys especially loved it.
Once we got to the park, we all separated and met up with friends from years past.  The day's events included hundred yard dashes, peanut sack racks, three-legged races, pie eating contests with smaller sized pies, and boys against men races.  My one brother, who was 10 or 12 at the time, ran against one of Dad's friends and was determined to beat him.  He was running so fast, he almost tripped but he did beat him.  Everyone cheered him on to beat the older man.  The pie eating contests were always great fun.  The pies were mostly blueberry and they had to be eaten without spoons or forks.  That meant your mouth did all the work and your face got smeared all over with blueberry juice.  Fun to do and even more fun to watch!
One year, I hung around with this girl about my age, (I cannot remember her name now) and we entered all the races and contests together.  After eating everything we wanted, we were just walking around.  Eventually, we came to the area in the park where all the women were sitting at picnic tables chatting.  The girl looked straight ahead and noticed a group of women talking, she said, "I cannot stand that woman."   I asked her what woman was that, and she pointed to my mother.  I was shocked because my mother was always gregarious, outgoing, and friendly with most everyone.  I turned to her and said, "that's my mother."  She was so embarrassed that I didn't see her for the rest of the day.  That's the first person I met that didn't like my mother.  It's also the first time I cared about someone else's opinion.
Once the dancing started, we would sit on the edge of the stage, or lean against the walls if there was no longer any room on the stage, and watch the adults dance.  As my sister got older, she longed to dance but there weren't any boys her age there.  The music was really different in those days compared to what we have now.   Lots of music made for slow dancing,  and fast tunes for jitterbugging.   This was in the days before the mashed potato, the twist, and other dances where you didn't have to hold on to each other.   I also remember the polka music.  Kids would always join in on the polka dances because it didn't matter if you knew the steps, we just skipped around and had so much fun doing it.
After the dancing, it was time for the door prize drawings.  All the adults were given a ticket when they entered the park for the door prize drawing held at the end of the day. The look on our mother's face was priceless as she waited for her number to be called out.  She always hoped to get called early enough to get a good prize, but the most she ever won was a can opener.  We all knew she was disappointed but she never said anything.
Too soon, the picnic ended and there was no truck to ride home.  We'd all walk down to the bus stop tired, dirty, but mostly happy, and ready for the long ride home.  Unfortunately, most of the men were drunk by that time from the free-flowing beer provided at the picnic.  They also probably supplemented that with other brews they personally brought.
I enjoyed the company picnics each year but I have can't remember when or why I stopped going.  Perhaps the company could no longer afford them or maybe I just grew out of them.  My memories are of having lots of fun and that feeling of being pleasantly tired.