FIVE YEARS AGO

My daughter-in-law, Frances, might as well have a PhD in Organization......she's that good at it. She offered to be helpful in sorting through what's in my Assisted Living room, so yesterday, we started the task. Two hours later I was in tears at the need to dump so much of what I had thought to be important. Letters from authors and illustrators, lots of little notebooks with tidbits of information, important to no one but myself, articles about places I'd hoped to visit, restaurant possibilities. Goodbye to all of it.

One thing I happened across was the draft of the speech I gave at Chris and Frances's wedding banquet five years ago. It was one of the happiest occasions I'd ever attended. Wait.......it was THE most jubilant gathering of my life (tied, perhaps, by Mr. Bob's memorial service.....more on that tomorrow).

Here's what I had to say:

I can't tell you how happy I am to be here at this celebration. Most of you are probably aware that Chris and Frances have known each other for 20 years and have been "an item" for the last twelve years. Tonight I have a few words to say about patience.

Christopher, from birth, has always done things in his own good time and in his own way. When he was two years old we enrolled in a Mommy & Me class and on the first day of the session he refused the offer of bells and wouldn't march with the other children in a circle. He stood close by my side and watched. This went on for week after week until finally one day he accepted the bells and joined in the march.........never mind that he went in the opposite direction of his classmates.  I felt that my patience had paid off.

Several years ago Frances related an interesting story about something that had happened with a friend and I said, "Frances, we should have a party so I could meet all of your interesting friends." and Frances's answer surprised me when she said, "That would be called a wedding." At that time there were no upcoming plans for a marriage between our son and his beloved Frances, but patience was called into practice......and here we are tonight, celebrating with family and friends that wedding which took place yesterday.

Along with wishing this perfectly matched couple a long and happy marriage, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Hui family for the patience you've displayed and to assure you that when a Humphrey male finally commits with his heart and soul, it's forever.

                                                                                                                            Next, Mr. Bob said a few words during which his emotions rose to the surface. It was an evening of happy tears, laughter, and tremendous good cheer as the occupants of the head table worked their way through the room to give each guest the opportunity to toast the newlyweds.

 
I'm not at all sure that I didn't blog about this five years ago. I hope your memory of reading about it is as foggy as my own.

Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.Saadi

THE SHIRT AND THE CELLO

I'VE BLOGGED for years now, but the bulk of the early entries were lost through corruption. I usually didn't bother to print out and my back-up technician, although much loved, wasn't always dependable (wink, wink). 

       A very few entries survived and I'm using one today. The stories actually date back to 1998 even though that was before I discovered the world of keeping a web log.

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There I was, winding down my day. I had bought a new shirt that day. Periwinkle blue. Linen. On arriving home, I tried it on over what I was wearing and it was so comfortable that I just left it on. When it came time for bed, the shirt was the first article of clothing I removed. Typically female, I checked the care tag, just to see what lay in store and noticed a twin tag sewed in next to the one I was inspecting. The second tag had two lines of tiny print on it:

    I am abundance.

    I am supplied.

What do you think about that? I want all my clothes to have little tags like that sewn into them. It made me feel happy, and abundant and well supplied.

I was  reminded of something else. Last night our Alaskan, 13 year old grandson played in an all schools orchestra program. He has cerebral palsy and is developmentally delayed and is being mainstreamed. Last year his teacher was eager for him to take up an instrument. Somehow a cello was  chosen. But in the middle of the winter, the teacher moved, leaving no one in her place who  had the slightest idea of how to carry on with Justin's musical training. But at this point, Justin would not be talked into discontinuing the "playing" of the cello. 

Our daughter said that he kept perfect time with the bow; his ability to finger the cello strings was questionable, but she obviously felt a huge pride that he had been able to perform with high school, middle school and elementary students in a combined effort. We sent our congratulations to Justin who was tickled to hear how proud his Granny & Papa were, and he said to his mom, "Let's not tell them about the disability, okay?" Okay, Justin, dear heart.........may you always feel abundant, supplied and very happy.


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"The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story."
                                                                                          Ursula K. Le Guin

A HAPPY MEMORY

I WISH I COULD REMEMBER if I've already told you about Mr. Bob's fiftieth birthday surprise party. Somewhere there are photos that could be scanned but I don't know how to lay my hands on them.

We rarely entertained in our own home. I envied hostesses who knew how to do it, but alas, I was not one of them. But that year, I got it into my head that a grand celebration was called for and I arranged to stage it in Glendale's Civic Auditorium.

I planned for it to be a month after his Christmas Eve birthday, the better to fool him and Christopher designed the invitation and then the flyer that we sent through the mail, announcing that a Square Dancing class was starting. We mailed it only to ourselves and to my mother's address, just down the street. She had died the October before, but her mail was forwarded to our house. Sometimes I think it's shameful to be so good at deception. It took a little doing, but I talked Mr. Bob into attending.

My plan was to invite every person we knew........friends, relatives, bookshop customers who had evolved into friends, everyone with whom Mr. Bob worked at the Times Mirror Press, where he helped to print telephone books and Auto Club maps.  At the time we were very active at church and all of those people received invitations with the request to bring a favorite dish. I supplied an enormous ham, a mountainous green salad and a king-sized chocolate birthday cake. That was the first time I became aware that people want to be told what to bring to a potluck or in school, students want to be given a more specific assignment than being told to write about anything they wish.



If memory serves me correctly, I had to arrange for a bartender or two, a security guard, a square dance caller who specialized in helping people who had never indulged in that particular amusement.. 150 people came. I arranged for them all to be given kazoos.

On the night of the "class", Mr. Bob stopped at the service station across from the auditorium and for the first time ever, decided to figure out his gas mileage before we left the gas pump. I was ready to jump out of my skin. When at last we drove into the parking lot, Mr. Bob made the observation that square dancing certainly didn't draw as many participants as the ballroom dance lessons we'd attended.

As we entered the auditorium, "Happy Birthday" greeted us on all those kazoos. I remember how overwhelming it was to me, the planner, to see all those beloved, familiar faces. I can't imagine what Mr. Bob's reaction was; he's not now and never has been one to talk about his feelings. His hairdresser sister from up north grabbed him, put a beautician's cape on him and sprayed his hair silver for the occasion.




It was a splendid evening with a wonderful cross section of people. I remember wondering how it would seem for Jesus to square dance with a vice president of Lockheed Aircraft, but it worked beautifully as an ice breaker.

All too soon it was over. And now it's just a memory; for me at least, a happy one.

“Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.”  
                                                                 ~ Don Marquis

RIDGE ROUTE

Oh, dear, after yesterday's post about a Herculean effort, now you're expecting something of equal import and my story is about a little bitty glimpse I had one travel day. We've given you some idea of the landscape one traverses to go from the Los Angeles Basin to the San Joaquin Valley. The elevation is such that often when it rains, the Tejon Pass gets snow and ice and people can get stranded for hours. It's happened to me twice, once long ago when I was riding with my father and again with Mr. Bob when we had to wait for a while until we were directed to follow an escort car to a safer part of the highway.

When we've gone through that area in the spring there are always patches of wildflowers to see in the distance as though Mother Nature had brushed the hillsides with color. It's magical.

At the beginning of the climb, one can see a portion of the
California Aqueduct System. Sometimes no water is apparent, other times it's a river of bubbling foam as the water tumbles down its pathway. If you have time on your hands and any interest at all look here at some of California's water history of the precious commodity.

As one nears the end of the Ridge Route, the mountains tower hugely, probably because the drop into the valley is so sudden. As many times as we've traveled it, I am always impressed at the size of the hills as we exit. The next picture gives a feeling of relativity.

Well, the minor story I want to share with you is of one winter when we crossed the divide and were near this location. Rain had been falling, the clouds were low, but they parted briefly and I caught a glimpse of the powdered sugar snow scene at the top. It was a miniature landscape, another countryside altogether.........almost reminding me of a glimpse into a fairytale. I snapped a picture before the clouds closed, but the impression was lasting. You have to look hard, and I'll admit that  the event couldn't begin to rival the 1,760 yellow umbrellas, but in its way it was every bit as memorable.

YELLOW UMBRELLAS

Christo & Jeanne-Claude

The Umbrellas - Japan-USA, 1984-91

"Christo and Jeanne-Claude prepared for their next project, "The Umbrellas". The plan was to have yellow umbrellas set up in California and blue umbrellas in Japan at the same time. In December 1990, after much preparation, the first steel bases for the umbrellas were installed. At the bases 80 cm long anchors were fastened to the ground to withstand tensions of 1,500 kgf (15 kN). In September 1991 the umbrellas were brought to their places by 2,000 workers. In California, some of the bases were transported to the site by helicopter. The final cost of the project totaled $26 US million. By 7 September, 1,340 blue umbrellas in Ibaraki and 1,760 yellow umbrellas at the Tejon Ranch in southern California had been set up; the exhibition opened on 9 October 1991. In total, 3 million people saw the umbrellas, each measuring 6 meters in height and 8.66 meters in diameter. The umbrellas became a huge tourist attraction, finding use as everything from picnic spots to wedding altars. Two people died: A woman, Lori Mathews, was killed when one of the umbrellas hit her because of a wind gust, and a man, Masaaki Nakamura, was electrocuted while removing umbrellas when he came under a high voltage power line."^[

Today's entry is my way of introducing the locale about which I'll write tomorrow. I'm borrowing Google images, having long ago lost the pictures we took when we visited during the short time Christo and Jeanne-Claude's exhibit was in place before it was dismantled prematurely after a visitor lost her life.

ACHROMATIC

I didn't know the word "achromatic" until a minute ago and I'm not sure how I'd use it in a sentence. As an aside, did you know that an iPad not only has a dictionary, but with a click you can get a robot to say the word for you? I'm going to check it out in a minute.

Last evening I was trying to decide on a subject for today's entry and the truth is that I'm sick nigh unto death of all my photographs. All 24,378 of them. I think it's mostly that I've been cooped up in these 2 rooms for 6 days now and my tolerance for being at home has been surpassed. The nurse came and checked my vital signs (I told her ahead of time that they were normal and I was right) and will see if the doctor prescribes an antibiotic. I seem unable to weather a cold without it settling in my sinuses and staying there until help arrives.

Here are the pictures I decided to share today.

Yours truly, as a baby. I thought it was a recent development that my right eyelid droops, but the condition appears to have been around for 75 years.

On the left......that's Mr. Bob back there, plying his trade as a telephone book compositor. For years he could read upside down and backwards, but couldn't get his fingernails clean.

A silly picture taken in the 1980s by Chris. We used it in our shop window when we lost our lease and had to move to another location.

How's this for priceless? It's Mr. Bob back in the 1960s. Now, when I ask for a pen, he rarely has one in his pocket.

The happy couple in the garden. Taken long enough ago, that big glasses were "in".

No explanation for this. Tim's roller skates, plaid pants, big glasses. Why am I even storing this photo???

Little Bobby Humphrey and his younger sister. He can still remember pinching his leg nervously when this picture was being taken.

Yes, I used to have that bad habit. We didn't know it was bad at the time. And yes, that sunbathing cost me a basal cell carcinoma. We didn't know what we do now about sunbathing, either.


P.S. For your information, it's pronounced "ack-ro-mat-ic".

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS PAST (archival)

People ask, do we miss shopkeeping? Mr. Bob's answer is a resounding, NO!" I'll temper my answer with a few good memories starting with one that is the least pleasant. It was Christmastime, in the days that we stayed open every evening for the holiday. In addition to keeping longer hours, we had been invited to do a display in the Descanso Gardens Christmas exhibit. We had used some priceless props and therefore found it necessary to have a staff member on hand to answer questions and keep an eye on things. It was the year that Mr. Bob arranged to have the house painted......every room, inside and out. My memory of that particular Christmas is arriving home at 10 pm every evening, dead tired, and having to clear the next room for the painters who would be arriving at the crack of the next day's dawn. The pace was unreal, especially for physically lazy Jane, and things went into the attic that I never saw again, not even when we made the big move and accompanying purge last year. It's not my most shining memory.

In the store, there was always a Christmas miracle, taking different forms from year to year. I should have journaled them, for I'm sure some have receded to the furthest regions of my memory bank. The year that a young man came in for a present for his brother who was being shipped to Viet Nam. He didn't have enough money for the book that was perfect for the occasion. I quickly put it "on sale" at a price he could afford. It felt good to do what I could to make the gift a reality. Nine months later, the same customer walked into the store, carrying a single rose in a vase.........a thank you for the small gesture I had made the previous September.

The first Once Upon a Time Christmas, back in 1966, we used a 3 foot tall pine tree growing in a pot, trimmed with German ornaments for sale, strung with miniature colored lights and topped with a Mexican cut tin star. As Mr. Bob and I prepared to close the shop on Christmas Eve, we noticed that a little spider was living within the star and a delicate web had been woven from point to point resulting in a surprise of loveliness.

Or the year that jolly conversation was taking place between several customers, unfamiliar to each other, resulting in one man buying another a copy of a book that was too good not to own. I don't remember the title, but the act was intensely heartwarming.

I'll not forget the year that Toi, owner of the best Thai restaurant in the area, did a little shopping at the lull before dinnertime and returned to her restaurant and sent a container of hot and sour soup to us to give strength for the busy evening ahead. 

So many more instances of spontaneous kindness occurred during our 37 holiday seasons, each one precious, every act holy. 'Tis the season and whether or not there really was a sacred birth in a stable all those years ago, what a wonderful thing it is each year to experience the generosity of spirit that springs forth. I do believe.  And my answer to the question at the beginning of this log is that yes, in many ways I miss shopkeeping at this time of year, but how lovely it is to have the time to enjoy fully the rituals of Christmas, leaving the retail detail to someone younger and more energetic than we are in our latter years. Bob Hope said it clearly when he coined the phrase, "Thanks for the memory".

Montrose Christmas quartet