Over the river and thru the woods

Mark Hoff and I Are in Nashville on the way home!  Mark And Tina brought me to Knoxville'. It was a wonderful holiday and special!

But it will be good to get home also.  I'm very thankful for both!

More thanksgiving at Durham

And the party went on!

Wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving

So happy to have had 14 of us around the table yesterday!   Rosie and I sang "sisters" without rehearsal and the food was to die for!   Bailey brought Mac and cheese, the best Brussels sprouts casserole dish u have ever eaten and Beth brought mama Cooper's chocolate pie to add to Tina's feast. 

What a time and what a meal!

Thanksgiving Day

Can't sleep for the excitement of anticipation.  Bailey and Beth and their families will soon be here!  Have had a wonderful time'

Headed to Knoxville

I am being relayed to Durham today! MArk Hoffmeister is taking me to Knoxville where Tina is picking me up!  Hallelujah. No planes and no airports,

Can't wait to see everyone!

No words for the day !

Just trying to find something in my life that is meaningful and been worth the effort of the experience!  I'm checking them off!  Sounds like a Christmas song!

Bryan Stacy's birthday

Can't believe that Bryan is getting so old! What does that make me?  Proud that I have the privilege of seeing him grow up! He has art in his soul like Mama Cooper and Carol Estrada.   He has my laughter and when we see each other, he grins and I fall apart with love!  That is my gift to him!

And my birthday wish to him:  the words are taken from Oscar Wilde "be yourself, everyone else is already taken!"

Yourself will meet your needs!

And my favorite pic!

Thanksgiving is coming if it doesn't get knocked down by Christmas!

I said I wouldn't do it but I have.   At my house, the florist has been here and we are ready for Christmas.  No outside lights yet.  I have my pride!

Kennedy Assassination

Where were you today?   I can't remember where but I will never forget what happened!  Jackie, you may have been a prima Donna but you held a wounded nation together!

Wiped out today!

I would send you a "selfie" but it could be labeled "indecent exposure" since I look gaunt and haggard but what the heck..deal with it!

Went to Sikeston for luncheon with 16 friends, came home a boarded a bus to go to St Louis to see "sister Act" at the Fox!  Great show!  Got home at one and hummed music to myself until four!   When I say I look bad, I mean bad!

Getting ready to hit it slowly today!  Going to lunch with barb Kinsey and Bev Hickam,  picture is of Steve McPheeters and me!  I taught him in third grade in Malden!

Full and full day

I have an over-filled day today!  Going to Sikeston for a Thanksgiving lunch with 16 of my best friends in Sikeston including Harryette Campbell and Steve McPheeters!   Then coming back to Cape, getting on a bus with 14 friends to go to st Louis to the Fox!

My bones will be weary when I finally get home but my spirits will be buoyant!

Harryette at homecoming with me this year!  She adores Carole Jane!  

Drill a little deeper! Not!

I love my dentist and his nurse wife, John and Martha Freeze and sit with them at parties.  But I hate to see them up close and personal when he has a white coat on!  That's where I am headed today!  Yuck!

Waiting for the gas to take me away!

Tornados come and go...

Yesterday was a tornado day for most of us in the Midwest.   You stay glued to the television and Bob Reeves on KFVS and you watch the tornado pictures come in.   They say that Morley is hit and the grain elevator and seed store are gone and that Washington, Illinois is gone  and on and on.  Then when the storm is past, you walk out into the sunlight and wonder why you have gone through an afternoon of hell.

It is like the storms of life.   You just go through it, get through it, and forget to tell about it unless you were in a town that is destroyed.   Tornados are freaks.   Where they stop, nobody knows.  Not even Bob Reeves of KFVS.

Dealing in percentages.....

 It's Sunday and theology time....I was reading the newspaper this morning and I read a column  by Joe Scarborough entitled :  "My fix for what ails the GOP".  It intrigued me so I read on and he said that President Reagan lived by the belief, "just because I'm your friend 80 percent of the time doesn't make me your enemy 20% of the time."  And that will preach, brothers and sisters!

What does it say to me?   I'm so guilty of this!  We make exhorbitant demands on those around us and jump off the bandwagon in a minute's notice when we think that someone has failed us.   I spend so much time thinking about who has failed me and how that I forget how I have failed them in the process.   We don't owe people 100% loyalty at all times;   those people have lives to lead and places to go and see that have no connection to us.   And they make decisions based on who they see and need "to fix" the most!

So about that enemies' camp  -- why don't I think about deactivating throwing people in there to die permanently in my mental processes!   Some of those people don't even know or care that I have thrown them into my personal Guantanamo
and they are now on life support systems and being force-fed through the nose.  They are out living their lives, doing their thing, and I am letting it eat on me in a non-productive mental manner.  Jane, take the 80% or even the 40% and forget about figuring out what is going on in the 20%.  They are living their lives---nothing to do with you. 

They may be living in their own personal prison  --one you know nothing about!

Preserving One's past

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Flag House with the Kellerman Foundation for Historic Preservation.  They brought up the Louis Lorimier book I wrote to keep Cape Girardeau's lst museum afloat and Frank Nickell said that teachers still use the book.  Steve Limbaugh said he wanted two copies and I told him that they were $ 4,000 apiece and he said he would pay it.  

I love history--I was a history major in college and I think that preservation is perfect for the times.  So I am eager to participate in the Governor's Mansion work and the downtown work and the Hearnes Museum and the University museum.   We go to the meetings to work and then we get down to it and make some decisions.

Five things about me that you wish you didn't know!

My niece, Brianna, assigned the number five to me on FB and I will take her up on it --but use it on blog, not FB.   I don't even read the lists that people are putting out there.   If I really knew that person, I wouldn't have to read 142 excerpts on their life. 

But here's mine:

l.   I am the poorest, most uncomfortable driver in the world and haven't driven a car in three years.   Now I hire a driver if I want to go anywhere or people pick me up.  I didn't get a license until I moved to Cape and I drove the kids around when I was desperate, and I drove myself to work and back.   I realize it is a selfish act and I wish that I had forced myself to drive but I did not.  Regrets, yes.   Do I spend a lot of time regretting.  No.

2. I dread airplanes and traveling alone.  I have gone around the world but I had Joan with me who knows that I don't hear half of the things that people say and that I have a terrible time with anyone who has a dialect.   I have tried to tell Sara that time and time again before we make the trip to Durham but she does not have the same fears I have, is not 75 and has no problems being alone and making things happen.   I wish I could get in the car with a driver and go without the hassle of airplanes and relying on people that I am not used to relying on for daily needs and coping with what they think are irrational fears.

3.  I like to live and plan in my own daily world.   Some days I want to do all kinds of things; some days I am content to watch the news and get my hair done.   I like to retreat into my world and come out at my own choosing.

4.   I need the interplay of people in my life.  I draw life from them.   Occasionally someone will come by or call and say something that spurs me to continue in my quest for living.   I like positive people.  I detest family conflicts and those who thrive on stirring a pot of people who are tired and worn out and have gone through sad times.  

5.   I want to live out my life without being cynical or unkind.  I hate it when I fall into that kind of trap --My siblings played that game  --why, I will never know.   Our family had more breaks than any family I ever knew and why they played with the fire of cynacism and anger is more than I can ever know.   I will not dwell on that point --I ignore it when it happens ...most of the time!

OK, Brianna, that is it for me!   I took your number and ran with it!

Get rid of the clutter!

I am not a hoarder by any means!  My ex-husband used to say if you didn't read the paper in the morning, it was in the trash by the afternoon!   But I accumulate office junk, books and clothes!  This week I have been on a tear of getting rid of these coveted items!  I am proud!

First I loaded up stuff for Safehouse.  Then I called Matt Porter of Baptist Student Center to come get books for their library and then I called Cathy at Reruns to come get clothes!  What a pile!  Boy Scouts are coming Saturday to pick up food!

I keep telling myself what a break I am giving my children!   Mainly, what a break I am sharing!

Dr. Bruce Gentry - 10 Years at Baptist Student Center

This weekend we will celebrate the anniversary of Dr. Bruce Gentry on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University.   He has been here for ten years and has served faithfully in his responsibilities.  I have watched the changes that have been made in Baptist Student Center work since I was there as a student many years ago when I went to chapel there every day, took Bible classes from Dr. Tom Messer and Dr. Andy Pratt and met and married my college sweetheart, Bill Stacy, who was also a member there.   We had our first date singing together at a Baptist Student dinner!   So I've seen changes.   And I have had to realize that changes come with the territory and are a part of living!

That leads me to my main point!   It's a quote that I have used and used, "If you don't tell your story, soon people will think that you don't have a story to tell!"   I have had it on my heart for weeks that the story of what the BSC is doing, under the auspices of Bruce Gentry, should be told!   It is worth the doing and the telling!   I tried my best to get someone else to write this story but it fell on deaf ears so I took up the computer keys this morning and began to write.

First, I interviewed Bruce Gentry and I asked him this question:  "In your ten years here, of what are you most proud?"   He did not hesitate, "I have tried to navigate the changes to meet the current needs of the people who come to our doors.   That includes cementing relationships with people who want to take Bible courses, from whatever denomination and I have tried to show hospitality to those who seek a bulwark in the storm or a friendly face, such as international students.   Our ministry is built on teaching, cementing relationships and showing hospitality."   I thought to myself instantly --the focus has not changed one iota.  It was always built on these three foci.

So Bruce, I salute you on your anniversary and I sing your praises.  You have taken the BSC on new paths.  I have watched you fill the Rev. A. B. Cooper Hospitality Room with international students cooking on Sunday nights (hot pots are delicious) and bringing a touch of home to those far-away from home!   I have been there to witness to your enlisting people like Steve and Julie Southard and Kay Story from other faiths into the arms of the BSC by expanding the mission of Christian love.   I have been a part of welcoming groups from Costa Rica and to your strength in ministering to BSC students who plan to continue in ministry and I applaud you.  Congratulations on your ten years here!   You have served with distinction!

Slow Day at the OK Corral

Taking care of business -- not getting too busy at one time --working on calendar and laundry and making calls.  I consider it a good day!

Veterans Day and LeRoy Tarver

It's Veteran's Day!   I remember the years that my brother, Jim, served in Viet Nam and re-reading the letters he sent to Mama.   Those also serve who sit and clench their hands and wait for their loved one to come home and they can start to breathe again.   My grandson, Landon Cheben, just returned from Afghanistan, so I have a recent reminder.   I also had a reminder last week when I attended a visitation for Casey McCausland in St. Louis who came home five years ago with PTS and has spent these year struggling daily with the after-effects.

But my earliest scary Veteran's Day event was when Leroy Tarver was the first person killed in Mississippi County in World War II and his parents, Sam Henderson and Essie Tarver, lived behind our big house on the highway and farmed on the halves with Daddy on garden acreage.   Sam and Essie came to see Daddy and asked him if he would do the service.  He said he would be honored.   Did I say that Sam and Essie and LeRoy were black!   White preachers preached in white churches and black preachers preached in black churches in that time and in Mississippi County!   Some people thought that Daddy should not do this --"Let them get their own people to do this!   Some people around here will not take kindly to this and they are making comments about you doing this and stirring others up."    I was scared to death and I tried to tell my Dad not to go.   He said to me, "When someone fired that gun, they did not ask what color the man was!  I consider this an honor that the family came to me.   There is nothing left to say!"

So, "Cotton Ears", as we all called Leroy, I could say that Daddy did that for you.  But he did it for himself and what he considered to be right.  We all have our mission in life!  

I remember Daddy and Landon and all the other Veteran's today...and their families who sat and waited...

on Veteran's Day!

It's Sunday - theology time!

Yes, I am reading theology this Sunday morning.  I do it every Sunday morning.  I am reading "Everything Belongs" by Richard Rohr on the gift of contemplative prayer.   He has given two quotes that I am pondering  --stripping them mentally into smaller, more digestible parts.  His basic premise is that we all live on the perimeters of what could be more fulfilling lives but we never really step into the circumference of the real life we could lead.  He says:  "We do not think ourselves into new ways of living.  We live ourselves into new ways of thinking."   Or as the vernacular of the day says:  we settle.   Sometimes we settle because we don't think we have options and sometimes we settle because the options are scary and it is easier to do what we have always done.  Do we miss living at its fullness?   Who knows?   We won't ever know what it would have entailed or meant!. 

The Hasidic masters taught their students:  "Rake the muck this way.  Rake the muck that way.It will still be muck.  In the time you are brooding, you could be stringing pearls for the delight of heaven."   I tell myself every day, "Okay, you are seventy-five!   Life is not over for you until you draw your last breath.  No one has a guarantee.   Yesterday I attended a funeral for a soldier who was 27.  There are no guarantees.  If you get up in the morning, use the day.  Stop whining and bitching about family conflicts and old wars!  Take the love you have in your heart and spread it around...with meaning and kindness.   Make a difference -- let someone know that he/she counts in your life....and mean what you say!  Forgive the people who have wronged you and move on.  Quickly.   When you find out that someone thinks you have wronged them, tell them you are sorry and move on.  None too quickly.  Repair what you can repair and move on to other relationships and cement them. " 

You can't begin to string one pearl if you choose to brood in the muck. 

Filming the Hearnes past

I went with a delegation from Kellerman Foundation to Charleston to film Betty Hearnes talking about the past!  She did a great job of remembering and I shopped across the street and was door keeper.  Oh, did I forget to say that Betty and I are sisters and despite my white hair, she is older than I am!!!!  I will continue to keep my sister's secret about that!   Thanks to Aaron, Kathleen and especially Annie Criddle of the Foundation for making this happen!

Sass for your supper!

Last night I went to Olive Garden with John Bierk (and his diatribes) and Audrey Reynolds!  What a laughing load of crap! I piled it on a lot lighter than the other two or we would still be there harassing the waiters!  I love John but he is a pain to those who think foolishly that he is "normal" !   What fool would think that?

I don't belong in that category!  So rave on, my beloved friend!  

Up up and away!

That is me today.  I am up early --at 5:15--trying to get ready for the day.   Kathy from Re-runs is coming to pick up a bed room of clothes for resale this morning --then I am headed for the lab with my jug of urine to be tested, then to St. Louis for the visitation of Casey McCausland, then home for dinner at Olive Garden with Audrey Reynolds and John Bierk.

Then in the morning, I go with a delegation of Kellerman Foundation to Charleston to the Hearnes Museum and on Sunday, I do a fund-raiser for the Music Dept. with Vickie Boren.   Busy weekend.   Hope I get a good medical report and have safe travel.

Remembering the past

I went out to get a soda with Jane Bodenshatz yesterday at Arby's!  She was longtime secretary of president of university including Bill Stacy!  I told her about Les Cochrans book and she was stunned by the writing!  

It is a shame I was so blinded by all that was going on in that office and the women who traipsed in with goodies and their special times!  He had the power to stop it;  only he!   I thought it was important that I do my job and let him do his!  I still do!

My head is not on straight today!

Been a sad week, for people around me --two families have lost their young sons and I grieve with all of them.   I flunked my medical test and have to repent with 24 hour catching my urine;  went to dentist and he found three cavities.   I'm like my mother -- if you don't go to the doctor or dentist, they won't find anything wrong.   And if you don't reach out to God for support for those in need, then what!

Like I said,  c'mon, world, get better!

This is the picture of Mama Cooper that Daddy Cooper kept on his desk at the post office.

Sad week for young and dying...

Yesterday I went to the funeral home in Cape for the visitation of Jonathan Dinkins, son of Dr. Jim Dinkins and Mary Alice Dinkins ..now Tullis.   He was forty and I was greeted by a number of First Baptist people when I came in the mortuary.   When I saw Jim,, I told him I was sorry and he said, "He had a troubled life." And I thought about that sentence.  It says everything in summation.   If I eased a moment for him or Mary Alice, I would be happy.  That is what visitations are!  But so young!

Then I learned, in the afternoon, that Casey McCausland had died.  Parents even moved down here across the street from me after going to school here.   I watched Casey grow up.   Katie and now Casey are gone long before their time.   Four children they had; now they have two.   One of them, Julie, worked for me in the office all during her school days!

So I'm heading for Kutis Funeral in St. Louis on Friday for the visitation.  I want to say with hugs the words that I can't write on paper.   Casey never recovered from his assignment in Afghanistan.....Well done, Casey.  You gave your life!

Pick up your bearing load and walk....away!

Yesterday, I wrote and exposed my hurt feelings of bearing load.   Yesterday afternoon, I went to Mission Fest and found people who knew what bearing loads daily were all about --finding food to feed their families and making jewelry out of cereal boxes in third world country.  It was a lesson I needed to hear and I am turned from my bearing load of what I've done for others and how they have seldom returned it in simple kindness.   So what!

Today I have a full schedule -- going to see parents who have lost a 40 year child, dentist visit, going to lunch with Jordan Lowry, meeting Matt Porter at BSC, all worth the doing.   Missions is something I strive to do every day.  Let the good times and good thoughts prevail.

Thank you Cheryl and Nancy for all your work in putting this Missions Fest together.

The Ministry of Bearing

It is Sunday.  I read theology on Sunday.  I love Dietrich Bonhoefer.  I have to read and re-read sentences and ponder but I love his thoughts.   Today I am reading on the "Ministry of Bearing".   I have borne until I have borne out with people.   It's like the old fellow who says, "I don't know why he hates me;   I've never done anything FOR him!"   And do I know something about that--It was brought out again  recently with an omission of respect and kindness.  Wonder who they would have gone to when the rubber hit the road during the last years of embattlement and doling out funds and time and effort!  O yes, most other family members  knew so little about the situation that they were not aware of the sacrifices that some of us were constantly making to be supportive!  But my children, and my closest friends, and my lawyer and my tax people and many others in the circle  knew and tried, in vain, to stop me from "bearing".

I learned in VBS and in my home that Galatians 6:2 says:  "Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ."  This is the law of Christ and means forbearing and sustaining.  (From his book Life Together, p.100).  It further states:  "The Christian..must bear the burden of a brother.  He must suffer and endure the brother.  It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated....The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by a person's nature, individuality, endowment.  It also includes his weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces frictions, conflicts, and collisions among us."

To bear this burden makes us realistic, involved, accepting and affirming and, maybe, breaking through to the point where we take joy in it.   Sorry, Dietrich, baby, I am not there yet!  Give me some more time and some space to get over the slights,  the lack of respect and appreciation and the feeling that I have been sorely treated for all of my efforts of kindness.   These are heavy burdens, mentally, to me!  It makes me want to say that this latest antic is the last antic of the bearing!  Enough is way too much!

(By the way, Dietrich knew more than I will ever know about "bearing".  He was executed by the Germans because he refused to "bear" some things;  he kept speaking out!)

Life after uninvited wedding

The wedding is over and the decisions that were made were made to be lived with!  It is done!  If any decision was made with malice a forethought, the point was lost on me!   I deal with people who love and respect me every day...these people fill any family void and then some!

Annie and the kids came by before and after the wedding so I had a small sense of scenery!  Holly is beautiful and talented and stays on track with grades!  Evelyn Boardman and I went for coffee and sat outside the church and watched people go in!  Although she visits Jennie every week, she wasn't invited!   Yuk!  I hate the unkindness of it all !

Saturday morning getting up!

It is Saturday morning and I am up early.  Have a full day of activities and need to think things thru.  Heather is coming to work and her plate is full.  I'm going to breakfast with Lucas Presson to start my day and he has some ideas to bounce off of me.

First I need to clean my brain slate of my own ideas so I can listen to his.  He merits my full attention.

Each of my friends merit my full attention when they ask for it and when I find out about their needs.  They were and are there for me.    And yes, God bless them all!

News, friends and relatives

This afternoon I learned first that Gracia Backer, who has been our political friend for many years, from New Bloomfield, had been fired by Governor Nixon.  She has been head of Employment Security in the State --same old story, perhaps.   Politics is dark and heavy at times and this seems to be a time.

Then I learned that Jamie Risner had died.  Joker's cousin.  Much decorated War hero.   Died a few days after a stroke.   What a life --good and bad--he had had --prisoner of war for three years.   He will be buried in Arlington in 2014.

Sad --and happy moments for both of them.  They did their own thing.

A possible tornado

Last night, Halloween, was a weather horror here!  We watched them track tornados all over the area all night and heard horror stories.  I have to admit that I remember getting up in the night in Charleston to move to the basement!  But I have no basement here!

Then I go out this morning and the sun is shining and I see Limbs everywhere!  I can deal with limbs on ground!  Grateful to have my limbs intact!