Category Archives: Celebrating

Congratulations, grads!

felicitaciones2Yes, I know I’m late with this but I’m going to a party for a 2014 graduate this afternoon and began to reflect on graduation.

I don’t have good memories of my graduations.   I was one of 428 in high school and sat between two guys I’d never seen before.   I graduated from college in January and didn’t return for the June ceremony.  My friends tell me the speaker was a famous physicist and they didn’t understand a word he said after, “Congratulations.”    Nor did I attend the HUGE ceremony when I received my master’s from the  University of Louisville.  However, I promised I’d attend after I earned my M.Div. in a class of thirty.    Unfortunately, because I’d taken my classes mostly in the summer to complete the degree, no one recognized me in the pictures of the class and identified me as Hilda someone.

However, I’ve attended many more.  As a high school teacher, I always into the futurefelt graduation was a celebration of attainment, meeting the goal.    Many time, I was one of many in the audience.  In Fort Bend County, TX, I always volunteered to escort the class forward.   In other schools, attendance by faculty was required but, again, I never minded that–well, except for the times it was held on the football field and we processed in over wet soil and were attacked by flying insects as well as various pollens that had us scratching and sneezing.

But with every one of those, I felt such pride, both in the completion of all those years of study and in the awareness that young people I’d taught were going out into the world, speaking fluent Spanish, I hoped, or perhaps that they’d find a use for the language.

So to all those who graduated, from Rogene and Becky to Sam and Luke and today to Jon, congratulation and Godspeed.

 

 

My Mom, the Rustler by Diane Perrine Coon

Guest blogging today is George’s favorite sister, Diane, a fabulous historian.  She’s writing about her mother, one of the finest people I’ve ever know.  Thanks for the memories, Diane.

Ollie

My mother was  the most law abiding person I ever met.  This trait went beyond any ethical positions in her beloved nursing career, it went beyond taking the AARP safe driving course every year between 55 and 90 when we took the keys to the car away because her peripheral vision was gone. And it reached beyond using both hand signals and flickers when making turns.

However, Mom was also the biggest rustler I ever met and I think I was the cause of all her lawlessness. One year after I’d moved to Petersons guidePennsylvania, I gave Mom Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern Songbirds, and she had my brother build three bird feeders and squirrel guards plus the metal cages to hold suet for the winter birds. She enjoyed the Field Guide so much, I gave her Peterson’s Field Guide to Eastern Wildflowers the very next holiday. And therein lies trouble, trouble, trouble.

You see, Mom’s property sloped downward in the back toward the creek that flowed through the subdivision. She and Dad had purchased a double lot, about an acre and a half.  She fenced the entire lot so the dogs could run freely and safely. She enjoyed planting flowers and never met a tiny tree she didn’t love, right where it planted itself. So the property was abloom all spring, summer and fall. Although she had a tendency to plant the tall flowers in front of the small flowers so from the road, it was a little strange. But she looked at her birds at the feeders and her flowers from her windows in the house, so it made sense to her.

ollies yard

Back to Peterson and his wildflower guide. Mom’s property had a steep fall away from her garden area down to the creek and it was very shady with old trees – walnuts, oaks, maples, elms. Her decades of theft began on a trip to Cumberland Gap in Kentucky. On the way home, she made Daddy stop five times so she could take a trowel and dig up wildflowers along the trowelroad. She was very well prepared with plastic bags and wet paper towels. It wasn’t until five years later that I came to Kentucky in the Spring; prior years I’d always come at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Proudly Mom showed me the delicate trillium, the snowbells, the jack in the pulpit, the dog-toothed violets, Virginia bluebells, tiny flowering grasses, coral bells, lilies of the lily of the valleyvalley, wild strawberries, and dozens of other gentle splashes of color as the sunlight cascaded through the budding trees.

Oh my God, my Mom had become a wildflower thief. “Mom, this is against the law,” I said quite self-righteously (having just received my 10th point on my New Jersey drivers license for speeding across Princeton.) “No it’s not,” she insisted. “I’m reforesting.” “What?” I said with emphasis. “I’m taking the hillside back to its original Kentucky shade lands.” And then she put her hands on her hips and tilted her head like a sparrow…subject closed.

There in the midst of a subdivision where most of the people poisoned the creek with lawn care pesticides so their lawn could gleam like a golf course, where all the house plantings were carbon copies of each other, where they hung planters of cascading annuals to brighten the flowerbox2greenery, my Mom had recreated God’s natural woodland. So I decided, since I was the one who gave her Peterson’s Field Guide, I’d simply testify to her innate goodness if she was ever arrested for wildflower rustling.

The reason this all came to mind was this week when my daughter said she was starting to look for perennials for the shady part of her property. I almost sent her Peterson’s Guide to Eastern Wildflowers….No, No, No.

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* * *  I need to add to this.  When Ollie (my mother-in-law and Diane and George’s mother) visited us in Missouri in 1968, she did the same thing.  Wherever we took her and Grandpa, she had her trowel and box in the trunk.   She’d make George stop while she leaped out to dig up a plant she’d not seen before.  She wasn’t only reforesting the hillside to its original Kentucky shade lands,  she was also reforesting is back to Missouri shade lands.

Also, by the time she’d lived in that house for forty years, the double lot was covered with live Christmas trees she’d planted every spring.  They’d reached enormous heights .  Other trees filled in.  This meant the interior of the house was very dark and mowing the lawn was like going down a slalom slope, but she was happy and that, really, is what counts.

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An Old-fashioned Love Story

salvation army bandHow my grandparents met is a true love story.    In the early years of the twentieth century, my grandmother Jennie Dunn was a member of the Salvation Army.    One afternoon while she played in the band to bring sinners to the service, a gang of young toughs decided to harass them.  My grandfather John Myers was  part of that group, but when John saw Jennie,  his life that changed.  Love at first sight for both.  She left the Salvation Army to marry him.  He found faith and wrote religious pamphlets that were very popular in Wichita, KS.  They had seven children, one of whom was my father.   I’m named for my grandmother whose name was Jane.  Jennie was a popular nickname for Jane back then.

I only knew my grandmother when she was much older, nearly seventy.  Completely deaf at that time, she looked a great deal like Whistler’s mother in Arrangment in Black and Gray.   She sat straight and unsmiling and never said a word.  I knew her children adored her but I knew her not at all.old fashion love story

But she had experienced a love strong enough to steer her life in a different direction, to leave what she knew and begin life with a man so different from her.

How often we judge people on how we see them not who they are or who they were before we entered their lives.   How much we miss out on!

Do you know an unexpected  love story you’d like to share?  I’d love to read it.

 

 

Basketball kept my marriage together

basketballGeorge always took a week of vacation to watch the opening rounds  of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.  He loved every second.  What could be better than watching basketball for hours and hours?  Even teams he did care about, if they were dancing, he watched.   All week.  Iona, Butler, Little Sisters of the Poor–he didn’t care if they were playing Florida or Louisville.  He just wanted to watch every moment.charlie tyra

For that reason and in honor of George, I’ve filled out my brackets.  I’m recording all games this week on four different channels PLUS the women’s games.   At the end of this week, he’d hope that University of Louisville would go on to the sweet sixteen because, Houston v Louisvilleas much as he loved basketball in general, he loved Louisville most.  He’d bring up Charley Tyra  (in picture on right) or Butch Beard or Wes Unseld or Junior Bridgeman and tell incredible stories of positioning and rebounding.

I heard the same stories every year.  I know them well.  Thoughts of the rebounding prowess of Tyra always reminds me that spring has arrived.

These weeks go so fast.  In no time, we’ll be down to the final four–then basketball will be over with nothing to look ahead to but college football.basketball in heaven 2

During these days, I think of George.  Ihope he’s dropped his feet over the edge of heaven so he can get a good view in Dallas or wherever any team is playing.   Eternal basketball would be part of George’s idea of heaven.     And–this makes me smile and cry at the same time–I think of George settling down with his Kindle and his chewing gun and a short rope of red licorice to cheer for his Cardinals.  He’s wearing his favorite UofL shirts, easy to find inside the pearly gates.  Then the game starts and I can almost hear him shout,   “C-A-R-D-S”.

 

Magical Thinking, Basketball, and Louisville, Kentucky

doomWe sports fans are superstitious.  I’m absolutely certain if I wear my OCTAGON OF DOOM T-shirt Kansas State will win all home basketball games.   I didn’t wear it Saturday and we lost.

My husband believed that if he held our buff cocker spaniel in a certain way, the University of Louisville Cardinals would win.  That was in 1980 when we DID win our first national championship. buff cocker Guess it did work all.

But what this is really is called “magical thinking”, the idea that if I do things exactly this way, I have control over the situation.  It’s magic!

I’m guilty of this which is why, when my sister-in-law Diane called last Wednesday  and said “I’m afraid if I don’t go to the Ash Wednesday services tonight, Uof L will lose the game,”  I believed her.  Yes, the Cards were playing SMU on Ash Wednesday and she feared God would punish her team if she didn’t go to the service.    I didn’t go to services because I don’t drive at night so this was ALL up to Diane.   She hadn’t decided yet if she’d leave as soon as she got the ash cross on her forehead–the Episcopalians have a name for that act but I belong to a far less liturgical church and don’t know what the word is–or stay for the entire service.

Neither of us believe God cares  who wins a basketball game.   We know a final score is is a petty concern in a world filled with hunger and disease,  earthquakes and tsunamis.  And, yet, maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t tempt fate.  That’s superstition not faith.

So, yes, I know God doesn’t guide a basketball through a hoop or cause a turnover.  But when SMU went up 26-12, I leaped to my feet, grabbed a phone, and called to tell her that I blamed her for the lopsided score if she hadn’t gone to the service.

Connecticut v LouisvilleShe wasn’t home.   I left a message.  As I hung up, UofL went on a run and never looked back.  We won easily.   She called me after the game was over and took credit for the win because she’d gone to the entire service   Thank you, Diane!

Do you have a superstition which guarantees your team wins?  Or at least makes you feel as if you have some control?

What more can one say about Christmas?

What are the hardest sermons for a minister to prepare? I have it on woman preachergood authority that the most difficult to prepare are for Christmas and Easter.

Why? . . . . . . (I’m giving you a few seconds to think why this may be)

1)    Because the scriptures are used every year.  Everyone in the congregation has heard them and has their own idea what they mean.   Miracle of ChristmasWith Christmas, the story has been read to us since we were very young.  We’ve been in and watched pageant.  We’ve sung the caroles and hymns and presented the special music, a cantata here and there.  What NEW can a preacher say that isn’t said better by a bunch of cute children dressed as angels and animals?

2)    The message of Christmas is JOY!   How many ways can one say that?   Joy is an emotion we all understand.  Joy is a fairly straightforward feeling that doesn’t have to be explained.  “I’m worried” can be explained various ways as can, “I’m afraid.” But, “I’m happy”?  We all know what that means so a Christmas sermon about joy can be boring or repetitious–try to imagine yourself preaching  twenty minutes on joy.

3)    There is little suspense.  At other times of the year, a minister may preach on a section from Judges or a minor prophet or one of the pastoral epistles and we’re surprised.  We didn’t know that was in the Bible.  But we could all recite the part about angle appearing to Mary, about Joseph taking his betrothed  to Bethlehem, and the innkeeper and the shepherds and the birth.  We know all that.

And yet, every year there is a newness to the words we have read so today in the city of Davidoften.    We experience  the amazing discovery that we are so greatly loved  the Creator of the Universe is sending a Savior to me!  Oh, to you, too. of course, to all of us.  This is both a very personal and a completely universal blessing.  Every Christmas the enormity and grandness of that love astounds me.    The words may be old but the miracle is new every year, that unto us in the city of David has been born to us a Savior who is  Christ the Lord.

How can we take such love in all at once?  That’s why that message must be preacher over and over so we can understand it a bit more every year, live it more sincerely every day.

Thanksgiving Day is over. What now?

leftoversWhat does one do the day after Thanksgiving?

Fix turkey sandwiches.  And turkey salad.  And turkey–just plain old sliced cold turkey.  And turkey tetrazini.  And turkey-noodle soup.

Put up the Christmas tree.

Brave the crowds in the shopping malls.  Come home exhausted, disheveled but with a couple of bargains.   Tell stories of the peril you faced.

Sleep after all the effort put forth to clean house, welcome guests, and prepare the dinner.

Watch everything you taped while entertaining.

Clean the kitchen

Take the dog who found the turkey carcass and ate most of it to the veterinarian.grateful heart

But, most of all and most important, we can keep giving thanks!

Do you have any other suggestions?  If so, please put them in a comment.  I’d love to know.

Release day for THE WEDDING PLANNERS!

Matchmakers cover 2The third book in the Butternut Creek series is out today!   When I signed the contract  for the series in 2010, I didn’t believe this date would arrive.

Because it’s release day, I’m blogging twice this week on other sites.   Today’s blog is over on Savvy Authors.  It’s for writers but all are invited to read it.   ttp://savvyauthors.com/blog/index.php/dont-i-know-you-writing-characters-who-come-to-life-by-jane-myers-perrine/

Tomorrow’s blog is about how are love birds kept George’s and my marriage together.  It’s a funny story for everyone.  I’ll put up that link tomorrow.

Celebrate!

NaNoWriMo

 

nanoYes, November is National Novel Writing Month (we seem to have a badge!)   We are challenged–all of us, even you–to write an ENTIRE novel during the month.  It doesn’t have to be a good novel.   It’s written but not edited–just pure writing from the beginning to the end.   I’ve challenged myself to do that.  Leaped out of bed this morning,  sat down at the computer.   I have to confess, I did eat breakfast, drank coffee while petting the kitties, and checked email first but, after that,  I started writing.  then I decided I liked the other story better and wrote a few lines on that.   Then I went to the post office and came home for a nap.   All in all, I accomlished very little but I  wrote a few sentences which makes me happy.

But, in the midst of all the excitement and challenge,  I forgot about the blog!   So, here it is.   If you want to write a novel, try NaNoWriMo.

THE WEDDING PLANNERS OF BUTTERNUT CREEK comes out Tuesday.  Release day of a novel NEVER gets old.  I’m filled with fear–what if Matchmakers cover 2everyone hates it? What if my editor tells me they are not  paying me the rest of the advance because it’s so bad?  What if my writing friends star throwing books at me?   On the other hand, what if people do like Hannah’s romance and Adam’s wedding?  Writing is a risk and a gamble.  And RT said, “”An utter delight.”  That means something, right?

I’ll be blogging several times–guess blogging–next week.  I’ll put a link  on this blog so you can visit them.

Would you please hold my hand until Tuesdady?  I would appreicat that.  A “there,there” and a soft pat-pat would also be appreciated.

Many thanks