When I was growing up Saturday was a very big deal. My brothers and I arose at what seemed like the crack of dawn and we watched cartoons and kid programs while our mother slept late. Once she woke up and had her morning coffee it was time to begin our house cleaning tasks. We were all quite busy during the school week with lessons and activities so we generally let the house go to seed from Monday through Friday. We didn’t worry a great deal about mounds of clothes on the floor or dust covering the furniture. We knew that come Saturday we would get things back in tip top order. Continue reading “Happy Days at the Dime Store”
My grandfather was essentially an orphan. His mother died when he was only days old and his father left him in the care of an elderly lady that he called “Grandma.” When he was thirteen his adoptive mother died and he became a ward of the court under the guardianship of an uncle. Somehow in spite of growing up in a most unusual situation he became a great man whose integrity and love were legendary. My father-in-law was raised by an uncle and then later by a group of unmarried aunts. He too is an incredible man who has never had any problems adjusting to life and forming healthy relationships with people. Then there are my brothers and I who grew up in a single parent home plagued by sporadic poverty and mental illness. Somehow we all turned out to be just fine, actually even better than fine. What was the key to all us navigating through life without major problems? I suspect that it was just plain and simple love.
Remember those Saturdays as a teenager when it was so wonderful to sleep in after a hard week at school? There were times when I didn’t lift my head until noon or even one
ck when I was in high school my mother encountered a man who had once lived across the street from her family home. He and his brother had rented rooms there. Mama said that she had developed a crush on this man’s brother mostly because he was a student at Rice University and she always had a thing for highly intelligent men. Nothing ever came of her fantasies and she moved on into adulthood only to one day have a chance meeting with the old neighbor. She learned that the man was a widower, having lost his wife to cancer. He was lonely and raising children much like Mama. I suppose it was inevitable that he would eventually ask her out on a date. It seemed as though they had much in common but nothing might have been further from the truth.
The annual frenzy known as March Madness is now over and a new national championship team wears the crown. The tournament comes by its frenetic name quite naturally because year after year virtually anything might happen as one college battles another. Unlike football that has become somewhat predictable and mostly the domain of universities with large amounts of money to spend, basketball is a sport that is still open to even small somewhat unknown schools. Whether public or private, it doesn’t seem to matter because as the minutes on the clock tick down nothing about the ending is ever certain. More than one Cinderella team has scored a victory in the final seconds making the game
All It Takes Is A Little Love 