NOTHING

I know it's been awhile. From October of last year seems only a couple weeks in Glen's time. I shall make an attempt at where my mind has been a roll out any and everything that comes gushing out of my head. I made fun of my mother who is in here late eighties. I questioned here one day as we were4 sitting on here front porch on a beautiful 80 degree June afternoon. Momma I ask "what are you thinking about?" She replies "nothing, absolutely nothing." Like the pesky son that I am, I did not like "nothing" for an answer. Ya see I have been trying for a couple years now to get inside her mind, I wanted stories of her life which I intended to post her on Glenview. She would say, "I don't remember." I found that unsatisfactory, ya see she a smart woman who was dealt a bad hand in her life, stuck with a joker as a husband, she still rode the hand out as ones of her generation did. Growing up during the 30's, or "the great depression as they would say." Almost every time after trying to get her to open up she would say "you'll have to ask Marvin." Her younger brother. Well now, I did not want to hear it from Marvin! I wanted it from the horse's mouth you see. I wished to open the flood gates, hoping to have stories gushing out like the floods of springtime.

I asked her "didn't you go to school in a two room schoolhouse where children would go until the eighth grade?" "Yes" she replied. Not quite the answer I had hoped for! The only other facts I got out of her was, it had outdoor bathrooms and a hand pump for water, seems everybody carried one of them fold up metal cups for retrieving water. This is the type of facts I wished for the form the foundation of stories about yesteryear, as told through my momma's mind. Imagine a two room red brick schoolhouse which was the mainstay of the country school system back the. Many of these structures were still standing in my younger days. Few remain, a handful still stand, a vivid reminder to those who know what they was once used for. A solid structure, outhouses, a well. WELL, seems a teaching young minds were a might simpler back then! She, like her father were hard working doers not talkers. Imagination, playing, having fun, did not fit into her life per what little I know of her upbringing. She the oldest child was buried deep in chores and hard work. Being big sis to four siblings was foremost in her formative years. Her mother was a small sickly woman as little as I gathered through the years. Helping to raise her brothers and sisters, helping her mother, raising a big garden, canning the fruit provided from the earth was her task. I believe that was referred to as responsibility, so you can see why she was the person she was. The helping of family necessities were ingrained in her. Simply went from her upbringing to bringing up her offspring. Seven children later, retiring at the age of 70, another necessity required of her because of a mistake in judgment at the age of seventeen. (Hey, that's another story.) Factory work her whole life to keep a roof and food on the table for her family. Losing two children od the seven also shaped her, it has too! All I shall tell you about my father at this time, he was a flawed man his upbringing was the opposite of my mother's.

Wow! that came out quick and wrote itself. I'm trying to explain where I rather my mind has been for  six months now. My mind, apparently like my mother has been in hibernation. I know now what she was referring to when she answered "nothing" to my question on the front porch.

She has known responsibility, a beautifully fantastic trait. I reckon her mind has never been her own or so it seems to me, handling the responsibilities of whatever came her way.

I opened the computer for the first time in a long time. Why did the words in front of these spring up. "Most interesting" I might say. I hope as springtime is here my long winter's nap brings forth many more words. The last six months seems only days, no more than a few weeks. My last post about getting work done by the Dentist I shoulda known better seems so fresh. I do know what "nothing means," only I don't wish to return there!

My mother is judged by the content of her life, the responsibility she was made of. I have known many people from her generation. I admire them. The person I admire most in my life is my mother, next is her father, my grandfather. Quiet, hard working. Strong to have survived when others would have folded.

In summation, I like to type whatever comes, it's the attempt to make perfect in my words that bore me. I ask you to overlook the clumsiness of my writings. For I am but a poor clumsy man from my upbringing of a poor school system of the finest buildings money can buy. I never had the chance to go to college, never was a dream from the beginning, no one in my family did. I am a product of my environment and have many stories to tell. I have been blessed my whole life with very vivid dreams and imagination, they're back!!!