To every thing there is a season!

And the long season of writing this blog has come to an end!  I'm not giving up the writing;  I'm just changing sites!

Keep your eye on the ball!

I was never an athlete but I was a wife of a coach.  I would hear that coach tell his team that very direction.  Now that I am 76 I remind myself to keep my eye on the ball also-- meaning to not let any thing else divert me from living each day with joy and meaning!

So each day,  I put away the aches and pain and the problems and drama which come with living and I get dressed up and get out in this world and I always find love and hugs and kindness and a personal sense of joy!

I got an overdose yesterday!  I went to Zonta Club Women of Achievement banquet and in that crowd of 450 I saw old friends I had not seen in years and many reminded me of stories and adventures I had forgotten!  It was a needed blessing from God!  Big time!

A thanksgiving with new eyes

Last night International Student Office and Baptist Center combined forces to host an authentic Xmas Dinner for our international students at our center!  Over 100 students ate and it was fun!

Suzanne Orman, the director, welcomed the students and the place was hopping..in the spirit!  See for yourself!

Lazy days - where have they gone!

I started the day running!  Already sent a resume reference for John Hensel and running to get dressed for the day:  Debbie is coming early to do my hair, coffee with Jeff Long about going on board at Chateau.  Then lunch downtown with retired faculty women and dinner tonight with all of Semo international students, which BSC is sponsoring.

It makes me long for, a little, those porch-swinging days!

The past and the future!

Yesterday I went to Chateau Girardot, at the invitation of John Shelton, and he said he wanted to talk about Chateau!  I have known John since early Semo Days when he was on the music faculty and our kids were in Campus School together!  And we chatted about those past days with animation!

And then I asked him the purpose of the meeting!  (It's fun to relive the past but I'm not planning to take up residence there!). And he asked me to come onto the Foundation Board!  Then I really got interested in learning more!  The future is still relevant and challenging to me!

I'm lucky at 76!

Me and my sister

Funny , the things you remember!  Other people live with you in the growing up years and they remember what is important from their perspective!  

My sister, Rose Marie, is 17 months older than I and she and I and my brother, Jim, played together and performed!  Of course, he took all the solos in the Cooper Ballet Company and he was the impresario!   Rose Marie played the piano so I was the only member of the dance troupe!   I loved her memories because they reminded me of who we were and are!

Coincidence!

Last night we were at the Baptist Student Center and I was knocked over by a coincident!  Sandy Moore and I help with the cooking for international students on Sunday nights and last night she baked eggnog cookies!

I introduced her to Cheryl Reinagel who had come to help us stuff boxes for Operation Christchild!  Sandy yelled:  "Cheryl, the eggnog cookie recipe is yours!  You won a prize for it a few years ago""

Festival of Trees

Wonderful festive evening last night at Cancer Center!  Went with Joan Gohn and Judy Brown and saw so many friends like John Thompson (pictured) and Dave Crader!   The trees were outstanding but I did not buy one!

It did put me in a festive spirit!  So did the two glasses of wine!

We must say goodbye!

It is wonderful for my children to come home to visit!  It is enchanting to watch so many lessons bud out in visual ways!  And you want the time to never end!  But life goes on and work schedules have to be met and cats have to be fed!

We went to Bella Italia last night to celebrate an early Thanksgiving and had a wonderful time with drinks and dinner and we brough the chocolate cake home for a later night snack!

And they left with me yelling, "don't forget to get your flu shot!  I wanted to remind him that some things never change!

Having a Christmas/thanksgiving Day

We are running around doing Christmas shopping and eating at Crackerbarrell!  My son, Jim, and his wife, Laurie, are here from Madison, Wisconsin  and this is a treat!

Anticipation!

I can hardly wait for my son, Jim, to drive in today with his wife, Laurie!  I have not seen him in so long that I am counting the hours!  I will have to keep myself busy and occupied!  Need to go to store and get a roast and potatoes since he can lap that up!  

It is a kind of a sweet rest when any of my children come in.  Floods of happy memories take my heart by storm!  I keep a picture of Jim and Sparkle on the wall where the first thing I see when I awaken is that picture!  I hope all three of my children realize that they are the core of my heart!

What you give lives on!

Yesterday I went to Malden with one expressed purpose:  I intended to find a picture and write up of Claude Layne who left a bequest for the Baptist Student Center which is still crucial to us today!  Unfortunately, it has become only a name to most everyone but me up here!

But I knew Mr Layne personally and remember when he sat in our front yard and Daddy asked him about making the gift!  So I was hellbent on finding a picture of Mr. Layne to put in our BSC exhibit for our world to remember by both name and face!

So I hired a driver and spent the day with his wonderful niece, Lucille Pinckley, going through her pictures. She was so thrilled that he would be remembered in such a special way!  What a little thing we do when you think of what this 6'7" giant of a man did for us and continues to do!

Veteran's Day

People are remembering today!  During World War II three of Uncle Ollie and Aunt Minnie Lawrence sons were drafted:  James, Bill, Don.  We ran out in the yard every time a plane went over so we could wave at the troops!  Hitler was hated!

Then my brother, Jim, served in Vietnam and I thought we would bury Mama and his sisters before he got home safely.  This morning I had Harriett Small go out and be sure there was a flag on his grave!  She called back to say there was not a flag in the cemetery!

Terry Kay Florist, get ready for a call!

Bobby Thomason

I am going to Charleston today to say goodbye to my first love, Bobby Thomason who ran a service station in front of my house when I was a child!  Every day my sister, Rosie, and I would walk to the station, split a Pepsi with him and talk about all our worries and spats!  He made the day brighter and calm for us!   These two little girls cannot grieve today;  we can only rejoice that we 

had him in our lives in such a special way!  My brother, Jim, would say the same thing if he were here!

Bob,  we remember what you did for the little Cooper girls !

A Carol from Carole Jane

I have a niece who is my namesake.  She never really lived in Charleston and when she came, she was shy and hid behind her grandparents, Mr and Mrs C. D. Wright from New Madrid!  But the fact that we did not see her often made little difference.  She was a Cooper and she had the wit to  prove it!

She called yesterday!  I had written a letter to all my family about Thanksgivingand she called!  She is going thru some medical problems and she needs family in a new way!  She said to me, "I've always been proud that I'm a Cooper".  That made me proud and lately, that is a feeling that's hard to come by! 

So I'm sending a mass of love and prayers to her today!  She carries the Cooper name and gives it a dose of integrity that strengthens the family ties.

The Sound of a Voice

I live alone!  Sometimes when I need io make a decision I argue out loud with myself taking all positions!  But hearing another's voice is heartening.  

Last night my sister, Rose Marie, called me and we talked and talked about concerns I had written in a letter!  It was obvious that she had read it carefully and cared about my concerns!  She told me that I needed to share some our family stories with the next generation!

I told her that our sister, Betty, reminded me of the winter when Mrs Roy Williams gave us a case of spinach and a case of pork and beans when the BSC could not pay Daddy during the depression!  So I got up this morning and wrote the story of these horrific days and Daddys depression at the idea of a broken dream and no money coming in and no job and how it broke our heart to see him and not know how to help him!

In seconds, after I sent the email, the phone rang and it was Andrea, my granddaughter.  She said simply, "oh Mamaw, I read your story and it was so sad!"   And we talked and she took off part of my load with her kind voice!  It was a call I will not soon forget!

What a wonderful night!

We had a service, a meal and the opening of the exhibit of directors!  I felt like I had died and had gone to heaven!   My sister,  Betty, came up with Dede Reed and we sang Daddys favorite hymns, He Leadeth Me and On Jordan Stormy Banks I stand and then we opened the exhibit!  Both of us were thrilled with the thought!

We sat at what we called the charleston table with us, Gerald and Betty Collier and Tom and Melissa Graham!  It was a wonderful and deserved tribute to a man who took an idea, risked all he had, and picked up the pieces without bitterness!

The irony is that Claude Layne, a man Daddy asked to give left legacies to the Bsc which allows it to have financial security!

Cross off one on my bucket list!

Tonight we are having our 75th anniversary dinner for Baptist Student Center!  This was Daddys dream and he was willing to give up his church for it!  But the money ran out and he went back home to build his life with what was left!  The dream went on later but his work was ignored!   Tonight Betty and I will stand as a new photography exhibit is opened with our Daddys picture leading the line!  As it should be and never was!

Daddy, it was a long time in coming...but it is here!

Don't sweat the small stuff!

I have heard this all my working career from people who were inept or lazy!  In my career you better take care of the small stuff or you would be devoured by it down the line!  The people who worked for me learned those lessons and still come back to thank me again and again!

I'm up against it today and must make a decision about a situation!  Do I just pull out entirely and let things happen that I will be embarrassed about or do I insist that people put all the other crap aside and make this thing happen without my being totally embarrassed by the end result!   

I have worked my butt off and paid dearly to have it done right in my mind!  The small stuff is not small stuff to me!

Election Day

I am swamped with work today! Mark will be here to work and Gloria is here cleaning house!  I need to go to polls to vote no on amendment 3, get my nails done, go to get thanksgiving name tags for Thursday night banquet, go to Walgrens and then going to Pie Safe at Pocahontas to see if they can do stollen for our German banquet on Sunday night at Bsc!  Oh yeah,  I need to go by Bsc and check Rowdys wall of leaders!

So, that should keep us busy!  Did I say that then we have to type the name tags?

Japanese Night at BSC

Tonight the Japanese Student Association cooked sushi for us and 75 plus students filled the dining room!  Sandy, Kay and I sat in the hallway because there was no room left in the inn!

I think of Daddy every week!  He deserves and is getting the recognition he never had in his lifetime!  Better late than never, to the best father in the world who smiled and chuckled every time we sat in the post office together eating cream horns and orangeades!

Deal with being fired!

But don't make it sound easy!  On Friday I went to lunch with Cindi!  I worked with her when I was at the University and she was summarily fired this week on one day notice!  She texted me to see if I would be a reference and I asked her to go to lunch!  Which we did!

I wanted to be some help to her but wanted to do it on her time line!  I did not want to come on as all-knowing or not acknowledging her pain or her right to have that pain.  I know what pain is and I know you walk alone thru it!  I just wanted her to know that I was there in bob Evans watching her try to eat and make a sentence!   Empathy--it's a cruel way to learn the symptoms!

Japanese ties

It is a small world!  Mark Stacy is in Japan--even sent me pic of the view outside his hotel room!  He lectures from 4-5:30 and then they have a banquet!  He leaves in the morning!

And tomorrow night I help host the Japanese Student Assiciation at the Bsc on campus!  They are cooking a Japanese meal for all of us!  Like I said, small world!