COUNTRY WESTERN FAIR

OLD FOLKS have often evoked emotion in my soul. And I can't tell you exactly why. And now that I'm one of them, I still can't put it into words, but it's something about the outer shell of a person, worn and calcified, stiffened and often bent into another shape. The poignant part happens when a glimpse is caught of the younger being within. Did you ever entertain the idea that the child within is forever older than the adult?


Just as zoos make me feel sad, there's something plaintive about the caging of a free soul within an inflexible frame. Some of us manage the aging process more gracefully than others.

What prompted this rumination was something I observed at yesterday's Country Fair. After enjoying a sumptuous cook-out we found seats in the lounge and settled back for entertainment. In the years we followed the Dixieland jazz circuit, we often heard derisive complaints about banjo music, but there was no such grumbling yesterday as we listened to a banjo band from Glendora. As the first chords were played, I felt a good kind of quickening in my insides and at the same time, tears welled in my eyes as I looked around the room and saw all the tapping toes. By God, maybe we can't all get up and dance, but we can tap and we can clap and we can keep time.


The band was enjoyed so much by the residents that they played for an extra half hour, not just banjo music, but a little fiddling and some singing and a man who played the bones, a set in each hand; it set the pace for the rest of the afternoon.

We hadn't seen Jim (in the bolo tie) for three months....he'd been sequestered in his room with a severe case of shingles, but was persuaded out for the festivities. There was a feeling in the room so intense as to be almost touched; everyone seemed, felt, acted twenty years younger than their chronological age. And it continued on through the rest of the afternoon as games were played, cotton candy was eaten along with (shhh, don't tell) deep fried candy bars. The balloon artist created intricate designs, palms were read, caricatures drawn.











For the space of an afternoon, we were younger and it was wonderful.

We were urged to help ourselves to the bountiful harvest, only a third of which you see below.

The nearest lady in the video below is in her nineties.

"Will play Banjo for food,

Will stop playing Banjo for money."

YEE HAW!

MOST OF THE MANOR folks will be celebrating Country Days today with music, games, special food. The Humphrey gang will be going from hospital to hospital getting more tests. Which would I rather be doing? Even though I'm not particularly big on fairs, I'd rather be here, tapping my toe to the banjo band that's scheduled to play. I quite like banjo music, at least for a while. 








The man who draws caricatures is quite good, but I doubt that we need another one. We're supposed to be getting rid of things, not gathering more.























But I do hope we get back in time for me to get my palm read. The woman who does it is astonishingly good (how could she know that I like to write?). Her name is Geraldine Saunders and she's the one who wrote "The Love Boat" which if you didn't know it as a book, surely you paused sometime while switching channels enough to be familiar with the title. Even if we don't return before the fair closes down, there's a little comfort in observing that my life line is still good and strong. At least that's something.

TABASCO!

FOUND THIS on Saveur's facebook page this morning. That's a magazine that I'm thinking of subscribing to again. I miss it even if my cooking days are a thing of the past.

It's pepper harvesting season at the Tabasco factory on Avery Island, LA. These pepper fields have been tended and harvested for sauce-making by members of the McIllhenny family since the mid-1860s, and every family member and factory worker I met had plenty of inspiring stories about Tabasco's legacy. As I toured the fields under the hot afternoon sun last week, I learned how to find the peppers that are ready for picking: only specimens of the very brightest red shade should be pulled off the stem. Novice pickers are given "le petit bâton rouge" — a stick with the ripe red shade painted on it — to match against the growing peppers. If the stripe matches, it's time for the pepper to go into the basket. — Anna Stockwell

 It was interesting to read about something we saw with our very own eyes when we visited the Tabasco factory, the stick with a red stripe painted on it.....the exact color of a pepper ready for picking. Twice we enjoyed Elderhostel programs set in Louisiana. One was studying the music of the Mississippi River area...... blues, jazz, honky tonk, gospel, Dixieland, Civil War music. If you like that kind of thing and we do, we definitely do, it was a wonderful experience. Our mode of transportation both times was the now defunct River Barge and what splendid memories we have. It's easy to get the two trips confused, but I think the visit to Avery Island was when we were studying the Cajun culture.

Mr. Bob frequently tells people about the below picture. We've no idea why his nose matches the red stripe on the stick.  I longed to bring home some of the half barrels in which the Tabasco was cured, but settled for some packages of "red hots", thinking they'd be spicy. I was disappointed when I discovered they were the regular, cinnamon candies. I can't think of any other note of dismay in either trip, though.

“He chopped up peppers, mixed them with vinegar and Avery Island salt, put the mixture in wooden barrels to age and funneled the resulting sauce into secondhand cologne bottles.”

James Conaway

DIDN'T IT RAIN?

MOST YEARS the weather turns hot once school starts, but so far this fall, it's been relatively cool and today water is steadily coming down from the sky. Wet water. And on the day that I  got up at 5 to have my hair washed and blown dry ahead of taking Mr. Bob for his chemotherapy session.


Last night, in anticipation of this morning's rain, I asked him if he knew where the umbrella was. "Oh, yes," he sez, sez he. (Thornton Burgess was an author of children's books and I once read that he was paid by the word, therefore there's a lot of "he sez, sez he")


Except that this morning there was no umbrella to be found."Well, it's in the car," he sez. It's quite a walk to the parking lot, some day I'll count the steps. Giving him the bag of unforgettables, I told him I'd come around and pick him up in front. I think he had in mind coming to the car to find the umbrella, but it seemed of little use to me since by then I'd be thoroughly wet and our destination was in a covered parking structure. So I think I kind of barked the instructions as I repeated them. I splashed my way through the puddles, finally, out of breath, reaching my destination, heaved myself into the van and backed up..........but the remote control had no effect on the gate. Over and over I tried. What to do? Mr. Bob had my cell phone, no one was in sight, time was racing and I was going nowhere.


Finally I dared to honk a couple of times, hoping to be heard and Roberto, one of the maintenance crew came running toward me in his yellow slicker and did something magical that allowed me to exit. Mr. Bob doesn't tolerate tardiness, but this time we were fifteen minutes late and he knew it was best not to challenge me on the point.


He did what he had to do......it was just an hour's session this morning.....and as we prepared to head home, a search of the car turned up nothing in the way of an umbrella. I'm ashamed to admit that I drove home with tight lips and hair growing increasingly limp. This is a long-standing issue for us with umbrellas.


I let His Nibs off in front of the Manor where he was just a matter of a few steps from home and seethed my way around a couple of blocks before I decided to go in search of an umbrella. Remember I didn't have the ability to get in the gate......no doubt it was a battery issue. And Mr. Bob frowns at the idea of my parking on the street in front of the Manor. He bristled when someone once left a card, "We buy junk cars".


CVS was the closest place I could think of and since I didn't want one of those modern, collapsible, fancy-schmancy umbrellas, I had a choice between two bumbershoots that were left over from the rush to buy them that the first rainstorm always brings.


I don't think we'll overlook this giant, redder-than-red one with
G.L.E.N.D.A.L.E  emblazoned on the side. Of course there's really nowhere either to store it or let it drip dry, but it was a perfect out-picturing of what I was feeling at the time.

And to top it off, I parked on the street.


Really, he shouldn't have commented on how prematurely I step on the brake in wet weather. He's a better driver than I, but one without  a license, more's the pity. And besides that, he's not the only one with cancer.

BEWARE! MAD WOMAN AT LARGE!

"When angry, count four; 

when very angry, swear."  

                                                             ~Mark Twain

PROBLEM SOLVING

Very interesting concept.........



Watch what a group of engineers did, using fun to get people
to use a long staircase with a moving escalator right next
To it...At first no one took the stairs, almost 97% of the
People took the escalator...Notice how engineers changed how
People reacted to climbing a long stair case as first
Choice...66% more people took the stairs...

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I'm not terribly good at problem solving, but
I fully appreciate it when people think
creatively to accomplish a goal.

/

ALL IN A DAY

OKAY, here's what really happened last Friday. When I fill in with a story from the past, it means one of two things. Either I'm sick and tired of reporting sick-and-tired Humphrey news or I can't figure out the right words for what's happening. My appointment for the bone scan/chest x-ray/blood test was on Thursday and I thought I had it all figured out. Drive to the hospital for the dye injection, giving it three hours to get to my bones and return for the actual scan plus the other procedures.

Time got away from me and I was about six blocks from home when I looked at the clock and realized that in ten minutes I was to be at a committee meeting to choose the next series of films. See Sept. 3's entry, "MOVIE CRITICS"........the Director of Smut couldn't miss a meeting.

I called the hospital, rearranged my schedule, changing it from Thursday to Friday and with three other residents, chose 29 films for the next 7 months. Hopefully, none with foul language or hanky-panky.


Friday dawned and I went first for a CEA test. Three technicians were on hand. I asked which one was going to be drawing blood. They pointed to the girl who looked about eleven years old. "Are you new at this?", I asked. "Yes." "How many times have you done this?" "Five times". Said I, "Well, I really don't want to hurt your feelings, but I'd rather have a more experienced person do this."

So, with that out of the way, off I went to the radiation department, Tim trailing behind, carrying the bag that held everything I might need. What a good sport he is!






I didn't get the x-ray man's name. It seems a very unusual thing for a patient to be documenting a medical experience. Once in a while a person will decline being photographed, but most are cooperative.




Bone scan time........Mr. Tom looked familiar and sure enough he was the one that put me through a machine a year ago for something not related to cancer.

2010

2011

Next came the feeling of "There! That's all finished." I do love that feeling of accomplishment when something dreaded is over.

Tim named me obsessive when I felt the need to tell the admission clerk that there was something under a chair in the waiting area that might be an M&M, but then again it could be a pill. What if a child ingested it?

We left the hospital to find that it had rained in our absence. Tim was so excited that he came close to splashing in the puddles on the way to the car.

When we arrived at the Manor, Mr. Bob greeted us with the news that the surgeon had called to report that the MRI showed more lesions..... this time in both breasts. So much for my feeling of achievement.

Remember the saying that my friend's mother utters during times of stress? "We'll get through this, but we won't ever look the same." I'm afraid that in my case that's all too true. When I was thinking about new clothes, I didn't mean a prosthesis. Be careful what you wish for.

FROM "DANDELION WINE"

I THINK I should buy myself a copy of Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine". In my raggedy  book in which I write quotations when I'm reading, there are several words I've written down from that volume and yet I don't own the book. Years ago, when the state of California put together a basic reading list for the public schools, they listed "Dandelion Wine" as science fiction which I would contest. I'd consider it a memoir, but then I only had a year and a half of higher learning.

From time to time I'm going to share with you some of what's in that coming-apart red book of mine.

"When you meet a dragon that has eaten a swan, do you guess by the few feathers left around the mouth? That's what it is.......a body like this is a dragon, all scales and folds. So the dragon ate the white swan.

 I haven't seen her for years. I can't even remember what she looks like. I feel her, though. She's safe inside, still alive; the essential swan hasn't changed a feather. Do you know, there are some mornings in spring or fall, when I wake and think, I'll run across the fields into the woods and pick wild strawberries!


 Or I'll swim in the lake or I'll dance all night tonight until dawn! And then, in a rage, discover I'm in this old and ruined dragon. I'm the princess in the crumbled tower, no way out, waiting for her Prince Charming."
                                                                Ray Bradbury
                                                          "Dandelion Wine"

P.S. The words echo some of the things I'm feeling these days.