DEAR ME

 I was reading letters yesterday written by people who were writing to their younger selves and writing from a time in their lives when they had some perspective on life.  I thought that's not a bad idea I'll write to myself.

THIRTEEN YEAR OLD ME:  Sandy, you don't get pregnant from a kiss.  Respect others and you will have respect for your self.

TWENTY THREE YEAR OLD ME:  Sandy, don't constantly worry about things you can't control and if love found you once you'll find it again.
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THIRTY THREE YEAR OLD ME:  Sandy, going to work everyday and being a responsible person makes you happy but take some time for yourself.

FORTY THREE YEAR OLD ME:  Sandy, the "wisdom" is money can't buy love and the "truth' is it can make living a lot easier.

FIFTY THREE YEAR OLD ME:   Sandy, family is all.

SIXTY THREE YEAR OLD ME:  Sandy, if you don't know who or what you are by now you're just you and love is great among the ruins.
               



                   

DUCK AND COVER AND ALL

     I'm the first year of the "Baby Boom" by one month born November 30, 1946 and all of us of a certain age remember being in grade school and the sirens or bells going off and we filed out to the hallway where there were no windows and kneeled down one by one against the wall and ducked down and covered our heads till the all clear siren/bell went off.  This was what we did if Washington D.C. was being bombed....hydrogen or atomic, it didn't matter....and it didn't matter that with Fairfax County being so close to Washington D.C. we probably would not have survived anyway.  This was how it was for the children born of World War II veterans.  I think the sixth grade was the last time I ever practiced duck and cover.
     Dad thought he was going to have to go to Korea so that's when my parents bought the Muntz TV but instead of Dad my young uncle, Carroll, Momma's baby brother, went.  It was on this TV that I heard my first president, Truman, on air in the evening telling us about the Korean War.
     Then there was the Cuban Missile Crisis in the fall of 1962.  Again, being so close to Washington D.C. where the world news is the local news and half our parents worked for the Federal Government or a business that supported it... the fear of losing our lives struck again. I can remember groups of us kids standing around discussing what we would do and everyone wanted to meet back at Fairfax High School no matter where we were so we could be together for the end.  Kids.  No thought of family only ourselves.
      About a year later our President was assassinated.  I'll never forgot being in journalism class in the room upstairs next to the newspaper office that you had to get to through the library.  It was around three o'clock P.M. and I don't remember who came to our room to announce it but we were probably the first students to know in the school.  How did you find out?  We'll always remember.  School was dismissed and we were out untill after the funeral.
      None of us of my generation had ever seen such pomp and circumstance with our slain president lying in state in the capital rotunda.  I think seeing the president's casket being pulled by horse drawn caisson across the Memorial Bridge will stay in my heart  forever.  Kennedy was the last president whose reputation was protected and that only lasted until Nixon.  After his disgrace everyone was fair game.
     And a year later when we were seniors the Viet Nam conflict became prominent.  Were we hawks or were we doves?  Up until then all our guy friends couldn't wait to get their draft cards so they could prove they were eighteen to get in the clubs in D.C.  Well, we all know what happened after that.  In another year they were being burned and all my young men friends were scared to death whether you joined up or were drafted and you were only "safe" if you were in college.  We lost a lot of our friends.  I read somewhere the average age of the WWII soldier, our father's generation, was twenty-six.  The average age of the soldier who went to Viet Nam was eighteen.
     Our grandchildren are in the middle east.


   

La Di Da Di Doo

Arkansas and Annabelle Smoothsweet were a lovely couple who lived at the corner of Pigtrough and Sty and their little family was comprised of triplets Arthur and August and a beautiful daughter named Laura-lie.  Annabelle was sweet and serene and a wonderful mother who loved her kids like there were no others and kept them clean and kept them fed and when nighttime came, with a kiss and a hug, she put them to bed.  Arkansas worked hard in the yard all day pulling weeds so the crabgrass wouldn't distribute it's seeds and at the end of the day and the beginning of night he'd read to his family which was to them a delight.  Those boys will be boys were rough and tumbley and had so much fun playing chase a bumblebee but they had to be careful and on their toes so the bees with the stings wouldn't land on their nose.  Little Laura-lie was dainty and sweet and loved to swirl and twirl and leap and dance all the day in a musical way and sing songs of praise for halcyon days.  Hurrah for today!  Hurrah for tonight!  Hurrah for your children!  Hurrah for your wife!  Live and laugh and enjoy all of life and your kids will be happy and so will your wife.