Dancing in the Graveyard

Maybe you don't think about a cemetery being a joyful place. But when I see the joy in these two little girls' faces, I can't help but think that the ancestors whose graves we were visiting had to be smiling.

Was their blonde hair from a distant grandparent? Were their blue eyes from a great-grandfather? If you compared their hands to those in an old photograph, would the shape of their fingers be echoed in the image?

Paige & Jill - 1988

For some families, Memorial Day may mean the first chance to get the boat out on the lake. It may mean a cookout with hamburgers and hotdogs and the summer's first s'mores.

For our family, Memorial Day has always included the annual cemetery tour.

For my Dad, Memorial Day holds special significance. Both his father and little brother died when he was still in elementary school. Memorial Day was a time to remember them, as well as others in the family who had passed on. It was a time to pay respects to the family members who homesteaded in South Central Kansas and established the farm where my Dad and brother still farm today.

Our annual trek always includes stops at four different cemeteries in Stafford and Pratt Counties. We may reverse the order, but we always visit Pratt's Greenlawn Cemetery, the Iuka Cemetery, Pleasant Plains Cemetery and Macksville. This afternoon is the 2010 version.

(New life in an old cemetery at Pleasant Plains: Brent's first Memorial Day, May 1988)

The trip involves a trunk load of fresh flowers - never silk.

My Grandma's flowers were usually from her own garden and carefully arranged in cans which my Grandpa had spray-painted a dark green.

(There she is in the background with my Grandpa in 1989. Brent, 1, is with my Dad, and the young-looking guy in the middle is Randy.)

Blake & Brent - 1989

When Jill was little, she noticed a marker with a little lamb in the Peace Creek Cemetery just a mile north of Randy's folks' house. There were never any flowers on this grave. So Randy's mom, Marie, would always have an extra flower so Jill could decorate this little girl's grave, a girl who was born and died in 1946.

Though Jill won't be home for Memorial Day, I decorated it in her honor this year.

The little girl's name was Jewell, so I know her parents wanted and cherished her. I always figured that her parents had already passed away or had moved away and that's why no flowers ever marked her grave. I think it made all of us glad that we could, in some small way, help remember her short life.

Families are a lot more transient these days. Unlike my Dad who lives on the same land where he was born, families are spread across the country.

Many don't live where they can drive down after church and make the cemetery rounds.


Will Memorial Day change as the older generations pass on? Even we die-hard cemetery visitors often don't go to all the out-of-the-way cemeteries our grandparents visited. As our children and our children's children move further from home, will there be anyone but flower shops visiting cemeteries on Memorial Day weekend?

As we went to Stafford yesterday morning to meet Randy's sister Kathy and family, I asked Randy if he thought it would bother his grandparents that we no longer visit a cemetery north of Stafford. Randy doesn't remember those relatives, and Kathy's not sure she could even find the cemetery without a guide. Her girls have never even been there.

Emily, Kathy, Amanda, Randy & Dave - 2010

While his Grandma might raise her eyebrows about Randy's perch on the gravestone, I think she'd be happy he's visiting. And, when you think about it, he can probably blame some ancestor for the pain in his hips.


So I guess she'd be OK with it.

We even have purchased "real estate" nearby. We might as well make it as easy as we can on future generations.

Our real estate is somewhere around here at the Stafford Cemetery.

With life's fast pace and a world in which it seems we'd rather text than talk to our neighbor, will there still be flowers and flags and families dotting the cemeteries on a late May weekend in 30 years?

I hope so.

Bridal Bouquet

I guess I'm still going through withdrawal.

Last summer, I was afflicted with Wedding Brain.

It's a malady that strikes only Mothers of the Bride.

I had a bad case. When my Sunday paper came, the first thing I turned to was the full-page Hobby Lobby ad.

What was on sale this week at Wedding World? Was there a 40 percent off coupon?

If I drove by a Hobby Lobby, there seemed to be a magnetic draw pulling my car toward the doors. There might be an unadvertised special. There might be something just perfect in the discount aisle.

Were candles on sale? Watch out, world! Mother of the Bride coming through!

Yes, I fully admit, I was a Hobby Lobby addict.

So why, now that I have beaten the affliction, am I seeing bridal bouquets in my backyard?

Do others see it, I wonder? Do you see it?

In truth, it looks nothing like Jill's bouquet. But the spill of delicate flowers on the backyard shrub just says wedding to me.

It's been 9 1/2 months since Jill's wedding. But I guess I'm having a recurrence since I'm seeing things.


I know some moms who are helping to plan weddings this summer. I have offered reference materials from my 3-inch-thick, three-ring notebook of information. (Yes, I really have one!)

One stressed mom has a daughter getting married in June and the other in September. And the kicker? Both weddings are outside.

Outside, I say!?What are you trying to do to your poor Wedding Brain-afflicted mother?

Once upon a time, I probably gave Wedding Brain to my mother, too. Randy & I were married just 10 months after my younger sister.

But as I watched our beautiful daughter walk down the aisle toward a young man we were pleased to welcome to our family, all the planning and worrying and stewing were worth it.

What a fun, beautiful, meaningful day! It was definitely worth my Wedding Brain symptoms.

But watch out, any of you Mothers of the Bride. There may be hallucinations involved, even months after your big event. Case in point? Seeing a bridal bouquet in your backyard.

Wedding Photos by Gina Dreher at Gingeroot Studios, Wichita, KS
http://www.gingerootphoto.com

Spring Snowstorm

The skies in recent days have been overcast. It's been rain, not snow, that's fallen here on the County Line.

But as I walked earlier in the week, I did feel like I was caught in a spring snowstorm of sorts. Little wisps from a cottonwood tree south of the house floated on the breeze and carried me back to my childhood.


We had a big old cottonwood tree in our front yard. Every spring, the cotton from the tree covered the ground surrounding that tree. And my sisters and I used both the cotton and the green unopened pods to decorate mud pies.


I'm not sure whether we were actually making mud pies in this photo, but we sure could have been. The photo was dated April 1963, so the cotton could have been flying. I was 5, Lisa was 4 and Darci was 1 1/2.

I have fond memories of adding just the right amount of water to dirt and then pouring it into pie tins. The fluffy white cotton and the green pods were just the right finishing touch. It was all about presentation, even back before knowing anything about garnishing via the Food Network chefs.

The cottonwood tree still stands at my childhood home, where it has sunk deep roots into the Kansas soil for the past 66 years or so.

(Dad - Age 10)

My dad was born at that Pratt County farmstead. When he was about 10, he helped his mom plant six or eight cottonwood trees. They went to the Rattlesnake Creek somewhere south of Dillwyn and picked out some trees growing volunteer along the creek banks.

My grandma was a young widow, and the trees were free. A few of the trees didn't survive the transplanting. Others were removed when my folks built the new house. (It's kind of ironic that we still call it the new house when we moved in when I was 6!)


The surviving cottonwood tree has been one of the first things visitors see as they approach the farmstead and one of the last things you see silhouetted by a sunset sky at night.

So it's no wonder that the cotton floating in the air on the County Line made me just a little nostalgic.

I tried to capture the ephemeral wisps floating through the air. No such luck. But I did think they mimicked the fluffy white clouds in the springtime sky.

While there wasn't enough for "drifts" along our road, it did provide a border of white on the dirt road.

And just like the real snow I'd photographed this winter, the "flakes" of cotton decorated tree branches below.

If you remember your Kansas trivia, you'll recall that the cottonwood is our state tree.

When people plant cottonwoods these days, I know they more commonly use the cottonless variety. I suppose it's less of a mess for those doing yard work in people's carefully manicured yards (not that I would know about THAT!)

But I say that's too bad for all the little girls who could use the white fluffiness for mud pies!

Mother's Day, Part II

I got my best Mother's Day gift of all time 22 years ago today. No, it wasn't actually on Mother's Day but the Tuesday after it in 1988.

He's the one who made our family complete. He made Jill a big sister and gave his Dad and me a son.

For the past 22 years, Mother's Day has always played second fiddle to a very special birthday. And that's OK because that's part of being a Mom.

My Peter Pan is all grown up now ...

but on this special day, the memories flood back and I remember the days from the time he was a tiny baby and all the steps in between that made him the man he is today.

Brent's May 10th birthday and Mother's Day always fall within days of each other. Mother's Day weekend usually meant a birthday party with a bunch of boys playing Xbox in the basement.

It meant a birthday cookie instead of cake for my kid who doesn't like frosting (How did that happen with my frosting-loving genes!) It meant dishing up homemade peanut butter cup ice cream after a party with family at Elroy's Pizza.

He's a dreamer of dreams ... and I pray they all come true.


He keeps me laughing ... his dry wit and potent sense of humor can pretty much always make me smile.

He's a reader, a writer, a lover of all things K-State, a college sports fanatic.

Even though he looks like a tough guy ...

He's got a tender heart.

He's the best boy a Mom could have.

Happy Birthday, Bub!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to my mom! She became a mom for the first time at age 21 when she had me.

It seems so young to me, but, by then, she was an old married lady. She married her high school sweetheart (my dad) at age 17 just after graduating from high school.

I was the first of four. Yes, I'm the oldest, as my younger siblings are eager to point out.

She did her practicing on me. And she did a good job, if I do say so myself. (No comments from you other three!)

I was really blessed to grow up with parents who loved each other and loved me. Thanks for the encouragement to do my best. Thanks for all those pages of Little House on the Prairie. Thanks for all the trips to the library. Thanks for all those piano and voice lessons. Thanks for being a 4-H leader (even if you were tougher on us than the others!) Thanks for teaching me to cook (even if it wasn't your favorite thing. Randy thanks you, too!) Thanks for a great education. Thanks for great advice (which I seem to keep asking for today).

Have you ever noticed that your parents get smarter the older you get? By now, my Mom is really smart.

So Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

For all the times you said, "Yes."
For all the times you said, "No."
All the times you said, "I'll help"
All the times you said, "Here's how."
For all the times you said, "You can do it,"
followed by "Great job!"

For all the times
And all the ways
You've said, "I love you."
Thank you -
a thousand times over!

And thanks to a couple of kids who made me a Mom. It's the best job I've ever had.


Thanks for all the memories and moments that make life special here on the County Line.

(Wedding Photos by Gina Dreher at Gingeroot Studios, Wichita)

Thanks to the guy who made me a mother-in-law!

And speaking of mothers-in-law, I had a pretty great one. I just wish I'd had her for longer.

(It looks like we caught the guys by surprise in this photo from 1989.)

Clouds

(I took this in mid-April when the Bradford pear tree blossoms
looked liked clouds attached to tree trunks.)

As I've said before, I get songs stuck in my head. It's just the way I am hard-wired. It's my own form of a streaming audio track. Depending on the song, it can get darn right annoying.

But I'm OK with the latest theme song that darts into my head during walks down the County Line or driving on spring days.

It's Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now."



My sisters and I sang that song as a trio for a Pratt County 4-H County Club Day once upon a time. I don't have a Youtube version of the Moore sisters' rendition.

The words are, in part:

Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere
I've looked at clouds that way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now.
From up and down, and still somehow,

It's clouds illusions I recall.
I really don't know clouds at all.

(This was taken in June 2008 - some of the weirdest clouds I've ever seen)

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel

(Taken at Lauritzen Gardens in Omaha, 2009)

As every fairytale comes real
I've looked at love that way.

Once upon a time, I had a cloud watcher who lived at my house. Brent would find fire-breathing dragons, frolicking puppies and cotton-tailed bunny rabbits as he gazed out the back seat car windows.


"Do you see it, Mommy?!" he'd exclaim as he kept his eyes on the skies.

It didn't surprise me that Brent was my sky watcher. As a little boy, he was enamored with Peter Pan. Imagining life in the clouds was part and parcel for this little guy who watched Mary Martin's version of "Peter Pan" so many times the VHS tape developed a glitch.

My own Peter Pan is growing up, despite his childhood role model. Brent will be 22 years old next Monday. How can that be?


Even though no one is prompting me from the back seat these days, I am still enamored with clouds. Day or evening, they paint an ever-changing picture on the County Line.

My challenge to you today: What do you see in the clouds? Enjoy!