Memories From Childhood

 NATIONAL GRANDPARENTS' DAY !!! September 7:
I was so blessed to know a great-grandmother and a great-grandfather growing up. Both were a real "hoot".
 
> Great-grandfather would take me to the local grocery, set me on the counter to show everyone his great-grandchild BUT . . . only if I was clean and dressed up. This big nosed, bald man loved any old western on television. He went dancing every Saturday night in his pin-stripe suit with watch chain dangling and chewing Black Jack gum. He swallowed a teaspoon of Vicks Vapo Rub every night at bed time. The man lived into his 90's with one kidney.

> Great-grandmother worked as a tailor at a men's store, would take us to the circus and eat cotton candy. She took us to the fair and rode the roller coaster with my brother and the ferris wheel with me. She bought tickets and took us to TV wrestling matches where she would sit on the front row and yell, "Git him, git him!, pin him down!" She was an old lady who never grew old. I will never forget the way she washed our hands - not with a cloth but with her hands. I remember the way she washed my eyes open with a warm cloth, when I had whooping cough.

> Paternal grandmother was a "vamp" singer in the style of Kate Smith and Sophie Tucker was a professed Catholic who never went to church. I remember watching her get ready for an appearance by putting on false nails and lashes, shaving and repainting her eyebrows and using those long metal waving combs to set her hair. She baked the best sugar cookies in the world and always made amazing cakes for our birthdays: dolls in cake dresses, a merry-go-round with animals that carried candles, cars and clowns. At Easter, she turned eggs into dolls. She loved to braid my hair and tie big bows on the ends. Her kitchen drawers were toy chests full of wooden spoons and cookie cutters.

> My mother's mother (my American Indian grandmother) was up at dawn to prime her well pump and hoe the corn before the sun got hot, in a large straw bonnet. She canned the best bread and butter pickles and let me eat all I wanted. There was a metal bucket of water in the kitchen with a rusty ladel that everyone use. She always had a black cat around - said they were lucky. Her outhouse had a wasp nest at the door and - two seats - ? I climbed her apple tree with a salt shaker and ate until I was sick. I sat in the limbs of the mulberry tree, overhanging the road, and flicked little green spiders off the berries to eat them as cars passed below. (Mother would have whipped me if she knew.) I ran her corn fields until dark, playing with kids across the road. I remember warm baths in a galvanized tub beside her pot belly stove while she poured baking soda water over my chicken pocks. And, she had the gentlest stroke when brushing my hair and relating Indian folktales. We ate diabetic ice cream and she always let me run free. She was my favorite.

> Grandfather said she didn't know how to boil water when he married her. They separated before I remember. He was a house painter and when my father left, grandfather moved in to be chief cook and babysitter while mother worked. He practiced tough love and taught me to cipher, cook, look people in the eye, shake a firm hand, stand up straight, color mixing and how to run a chalk line. He played the harmonica and spoons and we danced with abandon. We cleaned wallpaper with putty, painted the walls every two years and I listened in awe to his childhood stories of a one room school house he walked to in his bare feet in 12 inches of snow - up hill both ways. No one messed with his grandkids and we adored him to pieces.

I do not remember any of them ever going to church on Sundays. The Indian grandmother is the only one I know of who read the Bible. God provided a rich heritage and some great memories.

Chapter One, EPILOGUE

The memory of a moment stays with us for a lifetime - Unknown
 
We need not destroy the past, it is gone - John Cage
 
> It was the dawn of color television and the Howdy Doody show, Ed Sullivan, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, drive-in theaters, the jitterbug, jukeboxes and candy buttons on paper. The milkman delivered to your door and the family doctor still made house calls. Women stayed home, wore aprons and cooked Maypo for breakfast. It was convertible cars, the polio vaccine, home perms and Alaska became a state. It was Elvis, Mickey, Uncle Milty and American Bandstand. We caught pollywogs and fireflies, played hopscotch and jumped rope to Double Dutch. It was the magical time of childhood wonder and innocent discovery.
 
> Sorting through old photos and stirring memories reveals nothing especially noteworthy about my first eight years on this earth. My childhood seemed, then and now, not to be unlike any other child's.
 
> Adults have little understanding of the influence they possess on the lives of young children. In many ways, we become imprinted by those who are the strongest personalities in our young lives. It is said from birth to four are the years that set us on the course of who we will become. I am sure Mother, Pop and Mother Carmichael left their mark on me, in one way or another. Our development through early life is part nature but also part nurture.
 

I looked like a little boy without my bonnet.

> There were a few struggles for, and within, our little family. All families struggle with internal and external relationships. We learned give and take. Jerry and I were very close as children but, one occasion, our tempers were so riled during a physical altercation that we threatened each other with knives. Grandfather stopped that little drama before it turned tragedy. The next day, we were trying to fight each other's battles or defend against a common enemy. We grew through all of it.
 
> Back then, God was the invisible friend I talked to and the subject at church. My life was about friends, school, fishing, parakeets and dress up. Children are truly blessed to have their own world and a direct line to the ear of God. Children are indeed on God's priority list. Need prayer? Ask a child to intervene for you.
 
> We are tested daily. The greatest trial in my first nine years was overcoming not having a father. When a parent leaves or gives up a child, that child's small world insists this is their fault. Children take these huge burdens on themselves. Until he left, I was "Daddy's Girl". After he left, I craved the comforting male attention I had grown used to. This had a huge affect on my life for many years to come and is still part (albeit smaller) of my emotional baggage. He left an unfulfilled hunger in each of his children. My sister and I yearned for the paternal presence that is the role model for a girl's choice of male relationships. My brother just wanted a father's guiding hand and approval for a "job well don, son".
 
> A large part of my character is defined by my mother's heart. It cannot be explained any other way - example is a great teacher. What do we know of giving, if not witnessed by us of those we admire? What does anyone know of compassion without suffering?
 
> I believe that God listened to this child from the first time I called on Him, wishing upon a star in the night sky at the very early age of 4 years. He hears every word from the lips of a child. Let me state right here and now, there have been a few times when I felt lonely, but I cannot remember any moment when I felt alone - ever.
 
> There are no coincidences, no accidents in God's perfectly ordered universe.. Everything in the life of a believer happens for a reason. As you continue to read my story, you will see why I have come to believe this way. Our lives come together in the end for a divine purpose.

* To be continued . . .

* This continuing story begins with the post on Dec. 30, 2024

See "Entertaining Angels Unaware"

 

More About Pop

STORY: There was a winter when Mother could not pay the gas bill for our three-story Victorian house. Pop put a door on the kitchen and turned on the electric stove to use the oven for heat. We heated water on the stove and washed in the sink. We ate, dressed and did our homework in that one room. At night, we scurried to a large bed upstairs, where the three of us kids pooled our blankets and shared the warmth.

Pop hated cards. He said that people always fight over cards and have even killed each other. Occasionally, we would get a deck of cards from the dime store to play games like fish and gin rummy. He allowed it until we started arguing over who was cheating - always my brother. Then he grabbed the cards and into the trash they went - until another deck came our way.

 

STORY: A couple boys had Jerry just outside our yard and were taunting him. He must have been nine or ten years old. Pop, Karen and I were watching from behind curtain at the kitchen window as they placed a stick on my Brother's shoulder and knocked it off. He was confused and humiliated and I felt so bad for him, but Pop would not intervene. When they were finished bullying, Jerry came in the house and Pop made it clear to him that if that ever happened again Jerry would get the whipping of his young life. Pop never made idle threats and Jerry knew it. A few months later, my brother came in holding one hand in the other. Grandfather stopped him in the kitchen and wanted to know what was going on. That's when my brother fearfully revealed his hand with two knuckles out of place. Pop pulled on his fingers to reset them while asking how it happened. Jerry had a disagreement with his best friend and had punched him. Pop was so proud, and my brother did not let anyone bully him from that day on. Oh yeah, he and Charlie remained best friends through the Vietnam war.

 

Pop told us he knew everything we said and did. He had eyes in the back of his head was how he put it. We believed it because - he did! It took me some time to realize that he spied on us at play. He would amuse himself by sitting around the corner and listening to us. He heard if we said a bad word, if we cheated at a game, what we argued about and learned all about each of us as individuals. He also used shiny surfaces to see us when his back was turned. Nothing got past that old man and we thought he was magic. 

 

Jerry, around age 12 - 13

 

STORY: About the age of eleven or twelve, my brother's friendship with Charlie had grown. Charlie had a father who smoked cigars and would drink himself to sleep on a weekend. After the household had retired for the night, my brother would climb out his bedroom window, down the drain pipe of the back porch, and go to Charlie's house where the two of them would wait for Charlie's "old man" to fall asleep (pass out). Once this was done, my brother and his friend would finish the whiskey and smoke the cigars. In the early morning hours, my brother would sneak back into the house by way of the old coal delivery door in the cellar. Pop became aware of pretty much all of this. On one of these occasions - I believe the last one - Pop waited for midnight and went to the basement to wait at the door of the coal chute. When Jerry came in, feet first, Pop grabbed his ankles and scared my brother so bad that he peed his pants and baptized Pop in the process. (It was a sprinkle baptism.) Of course, Pop let go and Jerry ran. In the morning, Pop found my brother asleep on the cold concrete of the front porch. He opened the door and Jerry came in - very sheepishly I might add. There was never a word said about the matter. My brother stopped sneaking out at night.

 

God must have blessed Pop for all he did for us, Mother and those to whom he shared the wisdom of Solomon before and after us. We became his life during that time; a kind of mission. The teachings and constant attention cannot be measured by mere love. Pop was God sent.

* This continuing story begins with the post on Dec. 30, 2024

A Two-Seater Outhouse

 

I hope for nothing, I fear nothing - I am free

 

Life is the dream from which we wake to the reality of death.

 

Summers with my maternal grandmother are some of my most treasured memories: corn fields, rabbit hutch, well water, coal heater and pickles.

 

She lived in the country in a long house covered with roofing shingles that looked like red brick, with a crawl space that set the house up on cinder blocks. Overhanging the road was a large mulberry tree, and a sour apple tree grew beside the dirt driveway.

 

So many wonderful memories retained all these years later, play like a picture album across my mind. There was the red checkered tablecloth with condiments in the center, her bed that sagged in the middle and the black cat under the coal burning, cast iron heater. This all-too-brief time in my life leaves me with wonderful food for peaceful daydreams.

 

> Her well water was a favorite drink of mine and I remember her saving enough at night for priming the pump, next morning, in the winter to get it started.

 

> There was a two-seater outhouse that I never did understand. I cannot imagine sitting in passing conversation with a fellow traveler. Under the eaves of the outhouse was a wasp nest that always gave me cause for concern. I remember my youngest uncle's rabbit hutch and the glorious cornfield that she hoed every morning at 5 a.m. in her straw sunbonnet. I was always excited to help.

 

> Inside the house, the kitchen held the galvanized metal water bucket with the rusty enamel ladle everyone shared for a quick sip. There were two cast iron heating stoves, one in the eating area, the other in the living room at the other end of the house. This one served to heat the two upstairs bedrooms in the winter because heat rises. In between was her bedroom and a makeshift pantry with a curtain that hid the shelves of canned goods.

 

Aunt, Grandmother, Mother

 

> The two bedrooms upstairs had beds heaped with blankets in the winter. One bedroom was occupied by my mother's youngest brother with the other generally reserved for visiting grandchildren. Behind the heater in the eating area was a fourth bedroom reserved for one of my older cousins who stayed more with grandmother than her own mother. In a small mud room off the back of the kitchen was the bucket used when it was not convenient to trek off to the outhouse. That was one cold metal bucket that left a ring around your butt if you sat on it. And, you better sit down squarely if you didn't want an overturned bucket.

 

> Grandmother had been an only child and wanted a large family. She lost three children at birth, two were twins. Nine babies survived that she and Grandfather raised through the Great Depression.

 

> I loved visiting. One summer, Mother called to ask if she would get to see me before school school resumed. "Are you ever coming home?" Every opportunity to visit Grandmother was accepted with great enthusiasm. Her country residence was always an adventure of monumental proportions. Every bit of it was adventure to this city girl and Grandmother was in her element with grandchildren around.

 

To be continued  . . . . . 

* This autobiography begins with "An Ordinary Childhood" posted Dec. 30, 2024

"You're Just a Bunch of Little Heathens"

She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family.
She speaks with wisdom and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
(Quotes from Proverbs 31)

 
> Naomi Bonnilee Radner (ficticious name) was my proud, fiercely independent mother. Since she was the greatest influence of my life, there needs to be enough about her that the reader can understand just how much of an influence. For such a woman to be my mother is evidence that God loves me.

 
> She was the middle child of nine siblings. I thought she was perfect and the most beautiful woman in the world. Raven hair and dark eyes with olive complexion that tanned to bronze in the summer along with her good proportioning, gave her the appearance of a doll. Five foot/two inches in stocking feet, she was always a lady and fiercely outspoken. A "tomboy" as a child, she could, and would, stand up to anyone. The proof was her nose; a wide flat nose that had been broken three times: first, tumbling from a tree, and twice from fighting. She frequently informed me that she once had a pretty nose - just like mine.

 
> She loved and missed my father to the day she died. After he left, with a teenage waitress, I remember nights hearing her cry herself to sleep. Their relationship caused her so much emotional pain that she made wrong choices more than once. She wore a tough shell about herself that kept her emotionally out of reach in order to protect that softest of hearts. One of Mother's proverbs: "You can't choose who your heart will love."

 
> Faithful and generous to a fault, mom was fond of telling us there was always someone worse off than we were. I remember a couple Christmases that we were required to give up a possession that was in good condition (preferably something we cared for.) This was how we were to learn sacrifice for someone else and the joy of giving. You do not give something that you yourself would not want and there was always something to replace it.

 
> Ever heard the teaching that you are to do as though you were doing it for/giving it to Jesus Himself - ? Mother was that example.

 
> She also had a lot of "proverbs" that were frequently repeated. "Tell me anything but a lie" and "You can do anything you put your mind to" are only two of the dozens that come to mind. My all-time favorite, "You're just a bunch of little heathens". When I was an adolescent, she was fond of telling me I was special. Mom was sure I was going to do something that would prove it. I needed to hear her assurances but took them as just a mother's love.

 
> Mother was a vain woman with a definite idea of how a lady should conduct herself and how she should dress. She grew up in a time when ladies wore hats and gloves to go shopping and television commercials showed housewives with hair combed, make up on and aprons over their dresses.

 
> Mom never went out of the house without makeup, hair combed and coordinated clothes. She detested jeans for women and bare legs were out of the question; stocking were required. All this from a girl who came from a large farmer's family who lived grew up climbing trees in the countryside.

 
> STORY: A particular day comes to mind when I was going to visit my grandfather in the VA hospital. I was a grown, married woman at the time. It was the 1960's, the age of "bra burning". I stopped at mother's house along the way. When I came in the door, she immediately demanded to know where I was going "like that". I responded "to see Pop". "Not like that, you're not" was her decree. She took me into the bedroom and "put" a bra on me. That was that.

 
> She was stylish and loved "layaway" for quality items. "You get what you pay for" wan another of "Naomi's proverbs". She would deny herself something if one of her children was in need but she did not deny herself. That was part of the lesson that taught us to respect her. "You have to respect yourself to get respect from others".

 
To be continued . . . .

A Small Family Unit

> The barrel chested father of my mother was a great mentor.

He taught me how to cook, "cypher" and run a chalk line. He spent many years as a professional painter and took pride in his work, often pointing out public buildings that he worked on. "Hold your head up and stick your chest out. You are as good as anyone else" was a constant part of his stern teachings; I adored him. He has been a huge influence on me. This man was undeniable evidence of God in my life.

 

 

 

As far back as I can remember (age 4 or 5), I talked to God. Before Mother sent me to Sunday school, I talked to God. Memories are clear of looking up at stars and talking to Him. I have no recollection of why other than it must have come from my mother. There have been times in my life when I felt lonely but never have I felt alone; there is a constant presence.

 

I often wonder if it wasn't because I was first born. The Bible defines special blessings for first born children. God says, "The first born of every womb is mine", "they belong to me". Parents are to dedicate their children to God (for His particular care throughout their lives) with special emphasis on first born. It's like offering the first of the flock for sacrifice, or tithe. With all God provides for us, this is all He asks - a small part. Jesus was "first born among many" and the supreme sacrifice. Samuel's mother, Hannah, gave her first born to become one of the greatest prophets to anoint the first God ordained king of Israel, David. I believe God has special work for "His" first born. I am not talking about favoritism, just singled out with a special purpose. Just a thought.

 

My brother, Jerry, was only eighteen months younger and we were as close as twins. I am ashamed to admit we left my poor sister, Karen, five years my junior, on her own other than torment from us. She did rebel with jealousy and "tattling" on our mischief. It is a wonder she survived the two of us or that she even grew up liking us. This serves as a testimony to her beautiful nature.

 

 

We were not to wander beyond our own yard after school unless on an errand to the corner grocery, so we became a tight family unit. Gradually, Mother distanced herself from her siblings - all but her favorite brother, who lived next door with his wife and six children. There were frequent visits from a sister who would come to cry on Mother's shoulder about her abusive husband. Early on, I do remember Thanksgiving and Christmas at our house with meals conducted in shifts so everyone got fed. There were lots of cousins, food, conversation and football games on the television. This stopped when it became too much for a single working mom to provide.

Childhood Memories

 

There were warm summer days, laying in the yard and watching tiny ants busy at their business. When I learned there were no two snowflakes or blades of grass alike, I took time to search them out. Reeds of grass were examined with great caution and snowflakes were caught on the tips of mittens to compare before melting into droplets.

 

> Among Native Americans, there are two times in life that a woman is considered a "changing woman". The first from child to woman, the second from woman to "silver hair". Mother entered the second change early in her life, her mid 30's, with great difficulty. There were terrible mood swings, depression and adjusting to her body's inner radiance. She often said she could understand why women used to be admitted to asylums during this time of their life. We thanked God those days were in the past.

 

> During one of her many moments of depression, she sat on the back stoop surrounded by her three adoring children, my brother's arm around her, as she sobbed uncontrollably. She was apologizing to us for not doing a better job as a mother. We had no idea what she was talking about.

 

> We were happy kids. We had no idea our lives might be different from others our age. We had food and clothes, went to school, argued with each other, played games, ran outside and managed to, occasionally, get into mischief. 

 

> Meanwhile, my paternal grandmother was a constant thorn in the side of Mother. From the day my parents were married, she never accepted mom as a suitable mother for "her" grandchildren. She always knew what was best for everyone. Never mind she made a shambles of her own life. An unhappy "know-it-all" with nothing better to do, she created a project for herself. 

 

> Unknown to us, she spent weeks taking us kids for "interviews" to meet various people she had chosen to adopt us. When Mother found out what she was doing, Grandmother was out of our lives. Devastated, she reluctantly accepted who was really in charge and was gradually allowed to visit with us, in her car, in the driveway. It was years before she entered the house again.

 

> In later years, I was in my teens, we had a particular falling out and I dismissed her to a minor role in my life. She eventually took her retired living to Florida where, we were told, she later died of cancer.

 

 

> "Flossy" (stage name) spent a career as a "vamp" singer (also called "torch") in night clubs. I remember watching her, at a very young age of four or five, dress and create her make-up with false nails, lashes, metal hair clips, shaved brows and sequened gowns. I used to listen to a vinyl record she made, over and over. Her voice was described as a cross between the great Sophie Tucker and Kate Smith. She once taught me a stage routine that I used in a school variety show, which made me the talk of the school year.

 

> To give her the credit she deserves, there were many years that would have been even more meager had it not been for her loving generosity. Those Christmas holidays would have been all but nonexistent, and she attended every one of our birthdays with a novelty cake she created and gifts of clothes and toys in an atmosphere of family celebration. The fly in this ointment is that she never let us forget who gave it and was always reminding us to thank her - again.

 

> During my grade school years, Grandma plied me with icons and literature of her Catholic religion. When I confided this to Mother, she advised,"Listen politely, then do what you want." She always said, "If you want Linda to do something, tell her not to." This was a truth that can not be denied. Grandma's pushing turned me away from following the religion of her choice, but was a great learning experience.

*  This "Book Blog" begins with my first posting on Dec. 30, if you would like to follow this story from it's beginning.  This biography is on going until the finish of the book.

Mother Struggled

Mother struggled:

to raise three children on tips and her less-than-minimum wage. At that time, a waitress salary was not required to be up to minimum pay standards because of monetary tips that came with the job. Unlike today when the gratuity is figured into your bill to assure you pay for services rendered - or not, which can encourage laziness and a disregard on the part of your "server". Mother took pride in hard work and a job well done. I am certain she was excellent at her profession.

> As a child, I frequently wrote to my father with never an answer. I would literally beg him to attend dance recitals and school functions. He never came. Memories flood back to mind of standing behind a stage curtain and peering out at the audience to scan the crowd for his face. I just swallowed the disappointment of a little girl seeking the attention of her adoring "daddy". That undefinable bond that develops between a father and daughter that can not be duplicated with any other man in her life time; that relationship that sets the standard for men for the rest of a woman's life. A certain yearning has remained with me for most of my adult life; a small empty place inside never filled. That special indescribable relationship between father and daughter never happened for me.

> Fathers everywhere should be made to understand the affect they have on their children. I never shared my deepest disappointments with anyone; just swallowed them down deep and struggled with controlling my growing need. 

 

Father

> Dance lessons and my first dream of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" (answer: a prima ballerina), died when my skills advanced beyond mother's income. Any advancement was out of the question. Mother couldn't drive, we did not have a car, no money for travel, costumes or advance training. This was another disappointment to be swallowed that God would replace with an obsession in a few years.

> A prominent childhood memory is searching the sofa many times to find hidden coins for a loaf of bread and some milk. There was always something to eat even if it was just soup beans and fatback. There was a time when Mother had surgery, then months recuperating and searching for a new job. She applied to the state for Aid To Dependent Children. This was before food stamps. Once each month, she would walk with a neighbor friend, pulling a little red wagon to the fairgrounds to pick up her commodities. She was so embarrassed that she would try to hide under a head scarf. That winter, the heat bill did not get paid and I don't know what we would have done without the ingenuity of Grandfather.

> Lest this story take on a morbid twist, let me state here we were never given to self-pity. Mother often explained that no matter how bad off it got, there was always someone in lesser circumstances. Besides, Grandfather always had a childhood story available of how he had it worse: trudging through three feet of snow, barefoot, for five miles uphill - both ways, into forty-mile-an-hour winds and drifts as high as barns, to the one-room schoolhouse with a coal stove for heat. When Grandfather finished talking, we thought we were rich.

 

*  This "Book Blog" begins with my first posting on Dec. 30, if you would like to follow this story from it's beginning.  This biography is on going until the finish of the book.

An Ordinary Childhood

Rays of sun burst upon the horizon to proclaim a new spring day.

> Lying on my bed, in the flutter of a blanket used for a curtain, the wind enters borne on the breeze of a new spring day, bringing with it the promise of warmer than seasonal weather. So much joy can be found in the small corners of life, if we just seize the opportunity to stop there. The day calls; with it, the promise of life in all it's activity.

 

> God entered my life as an infant when Mother dedicated her first born in a church when still wearing booties knitted by my father's mother. Soon as I could talk, she taught me "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep". Mother made sure I had party dresses to wear and put me on the Sunday school bus every week, because my little legs could not reach the expanse between steps. She never went with me and only sent my brother and sister when they were older. She insisted they experience it once to see if they liked it.  When they were older, they did attend a couple times. They found no attraction to return to Sunday school.

 

> I accepted the teachings and existence of God in a matter-of-fact way. Talking to God became a common activity for me at an early age. I can remember some of the childlike conversations after wishing upon the first star of the night in the northern sky.

 

 

> There was nothing particularly special about myself or my childhood. I didn't think about it one way or another. Just a child growing up like all others, learning to talk, tie my shoes and cut new teeth. There was the common awareness of my small world and the sense of everything existing around me. The major difference from kids I went to school with was the single parent household and less income after my father left. In 1955, the single parent home was still uncommon. I was eight years old when "Daddy" left his wife and three children for a teenage girl.

 

> Before he left, we had a nice two-bedroom house in a suburb - a new concept back then. We played with neighborhood kids and attended a new brick schoolhouse. We caught pollywogs from a local pond, played "dress up" with our mother's clothes, and hide and seek with our friends. My memory still plays images of them across the broad screen of my mind.

"Children see magic because they look for it." - Christopher Moore

Children and God

 

It was the dawn of color television and the Howdy Doody show, Ed Sullivan, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, drive in theaters, the jitterbug, jukeboxes and candy buttons on paper. The milkman delivered to your door and the family doctor still made house calls. Women stayed at home, wore aprons and cooked Maypo for breakfast. It was convertible cars, the polio vaccine, home perms and Alaska became a state. It was Elvis, Mickey, Uncle Milty and American Bandstand. We caught pollywogs and fireflies, played hopscotch and jumped to Double Dutch. It was the magical time of childhood wonder and innocent discovery.

> Childhood seemed, then and now, not to be unlike any other child's.

 

> Adults have little understanding of the influence they have on the lives of young children. In many ways, we become imprinted by those who are the strongest personalities in our young lives. It is said from birth to four are the years that set us on the course of who we will become. I am sure my mother, grandfather, Mother Carmichael were strong influences in my life. 

 

> There were a few struggles for our family and within our family. All families struggle with internal and external relationships. We learned give and take. My brother and I were close as children, but on one occasion, our tempers were so riled that we threatened each other with knives. Grandfather stopped that little drama before it turned tragedy. The next day, we were trying to defend each other against a common enemy. We grew through all of it.

 

> Back then, God was the invisible friend I talked to and the subject of Bible stories at church. My life was about friends, school, fishing, parakeets and dress up. Children are truly blessed to have their own world and a direct line to the ear of God. Children are on God's priority list. Need prayer? Ask a child to intervene for you.

 

 

 

> We are tested daily. The greatest trial in my first ten years was overcoming not having a father. When a parent leaves or gives up a child, that child's small world insists that this is their fault. Children take these huge burdens on themselves and create guilt and blame. Until he left, I was Daddy's girl. After he left, I craved male attention. This had a huge affect on my life for many years to come and is still a small part of my emotional baggage. He left an unfulfilled hunger inn each of us. My sister and I yearned for the paternal presence that is the role model for a girl's choice of male relationships. My brother just wanted a father's guiding hand and approval for a "Job well done, son."

 

> A huge part of my character is defined by my mother's heart. It cannot be explained any other way - example is a great teacher. What do we know of giving, if not witnessed by us of those we admire? What does anyone know of compassion without suffering?

 

> I believe that God listened to me from the first time I called on Him; wishing upon a star in the night sky. He hears every word from the lips of a child. Let me say here, there have been a few times when I felt lonely, but I cannot remember any moment when I felt alone - not ever.

 

> There are no coincidences, no accidents in God's perfectly ordered universe. Everything in the life of a believer happens for a reason. As you continue through the reflections of my life, you will see why I have come to believe this way. Our lives come together in the end for a purpose.

* God is on His thrown and all is right.