Sounds of Hope

Cromwell CT is a “bedroom” community adjacent to Middletown and 15 miles south of Hartford.  It’s a wonderful place to live.  The people are community minded.  It has great schools.  There is plenty of shopping in town and you are a hop skip and jump from the interstate taking you within two hours to New York City, three hours to Boston and multitude of interesting stops in between. Cromwell also had Nooks Hill Road.  Parts of the “Nooks” fit the profile of Cromwell.  Other parts do not fit this profile.  We bought our first house near the corner of Nooks and Field.  A cluster of five houses was a colony of people who didn’t quite fit the more affluent profile.  We fit right in. We shared our driveway with two of the other houses.  Actually, we didn’t own our driveway, the owner of the other two houses did.  His name was Rev. Hodges.  Driving a big old station wagon, he was a familiar site around Cromwell.  However, his ...

I’ve already mentioned Nike, Smooth Chocolate, and Kisses.   Nike and Smooth Chocolate were brothers.   They were brought home by our then teenage daughters.   It had been quite a while since we had cats.   I wasn’t thrilled. It was 1997.   It was the kick-off of our year from hell.   It was December 10.   Nike and Smooth Chocolate were loved and cared for and were adolescent kittens.   My husband and I were shopping for his emergency trip to Pakistan.   His father was sick.   I was trying to be helpful as he bought gifts and necessities.   I was bracing for a Christmas without three of my children. As the cart grew with our purchases, my pager kept going off.   911 was the signal for a family emergency.   Using a pay phone (remember those?)   I kept calling and got no answer.   My husband kept ignoring my pleas to go home.   I knew something was wrong. As we approached our house, we were stopped by the F...

There is hardly anything as irresistible as a little beautiful little girl with that begging look in her eyes.  Almost as irresistible is a cute ball of fur, a tiny kitten.  Put the two together and only the toughest of individuals can withstand the pleading look from both the kitten and the girl.  They seem so natural together.  They seem to belong together.  If you can resist the kitten, you certainly can’t resist this duo of persuasion. Having had five daughters, I’ve melted away all resistance to yet another kitten by those warm pleading brown eyes looking at me so hopefully.  They plead with promises of cleaning the litter box themselves.  You weaken.  They hug you and tell you they’ll love you forever.  You now own yet another kitten. It was the mid-80’s.  The movie Gremlins and the toys were popular.  I wasn’t crazy about my children seeing this movie, but like the kitten, I gave in to their pleadings.  Soon we had o...

I promised I’d tell you some more cat-tales.   I thought of some other perhaps more meaty topics for this blog yesterday on my way to class.   I’m learning to write things down when I get an inspiration.   Perhaps that will mean more blogs.   But a promise is a promise.   If you know me, I will die trying to keep my word.   Not sure where I got that from but it is a huge thing for me.   I will do what I say I will do.   And if I use the word promise – that’s sacred. It’s a Sunday when I am writing this so it seems most important to write about the cat we had for a very short time, named Angel.   She appeared on the farm seemingly out of nowhere.   Now if you knew all the strange things that happened on that farm, you might not think she came out of nowhere.   Ultimately, I didn’t think so either. She was a black and white long haired cat.   She had been treed by our dogs when I first saw her.   We already had three cats...

Over the years we’ve had a lot of cats.   I thought I’d share some of our cat-tales for your amusement.   I am not a big cat lover.   I think there are cat lovers and dog lovers.   Although a bit afraid of dogs I don’t know, I would definite by a dog lover.   I’ve written before about our little dog Pebbles .   Maybe someday I’ll tell you more about some other notable dogs like Gilligan and Wolfie, Daisy, Canine, and the assortment of puppies we’ve had over the years.   Or my first experience with a dog, Duke.   But those tales are for another day, today we’ll talk about our cat Golden. Golden is a cat of notoriety in our family.   He looked like Morris the Cat.   I have no idea how we came to have Golden.   It was during a time where we had a lot of cats in and out.   Unfortunately, most were part inside and part outside cats.   While outside, they often would meet their maker on Nooks Hill Road.   If the time ever...

I've shared that I was once an optimist now turned pessimist .  I've lamented in my previous blog, Storehouses of Snow .  I've wanted to scream when people have told me to be patient.  Or worse, when they use  cliché   such, good things come to those who wait or all in God's time, His timing is perfect. The older I get the more impatient I get. I suppose our view of aging is that we become more settled and more accepting of life.  Maybe I am just not accepting that I'm getting older but I'm still ready to conquer the world.  Since the clock is ticking and my body is telling me the truth about aging, I'm getting very impatient. There was a time I felt successful.  I have some certificates and newspaper clippings to prove it.  If you google my name, you'll find I even made the pages of the NYTimes.  It was during the time I was a director of the a very large Senior and Disabled Center in CT.  I remember the thrill of getting ...

Now that we are back home, one of our weekend rituals is a trip to the convenience center.  Now you may be thinking that maybe we go to Home Depot or Lowe's.  You can't imagine that a trip to a convenience store would be a ritual.  Are you wondering?  Are you asking what is a convenience center? We live Cheatham County, the remaining rural county adjacent to Nashville.  I hated it when we first came here.  I would say CHEATham and laugh.  Our first Tennessee home was on a farm.  Yes, the girl from Brooklyn has lived on a farm.  Although not farmers, we did have dogs and chickens. Living in the country meant a 6:25 a.m. school bus pick up to get to school.  Our daughters were greeted by Miss Stacy the driver and her daughter.  Across ponds at Little Pond Creek then winding through Sam's Creek Road a now full bus would arrive at Pegram Elementary (pronounced PEAgrum).  Some of the children would disembark. My two girls would ...

This may not be the most profound blog I’ll write.  Hopefully it will make you smile.  Smiling and joy are sometimes the most profound of things.  Having been in a place where joy was scarce, I am rediscovering it.  I hope this give you at least a smile. There was a comment to my last blog, My Roots Are Showing .  It was from an old and yet new friend.  We grew up together, sort of…  She is a several years younger than I am.  I remember her well.  I think her memories of our childhood are less.  We were Norwegian children running through the basement of Salem Gospel Tabernacle, marching in the Sunday School Parade, attending released time, navigating the world of Brooklyn, and sitting under the teaching of a tall white haired Norwegian, Pastor Dahl. Here is what she wrote: Joyce, as you know, our roots come from the same Norwegian Pentecostal church -- and I remember the ladies with the "Pentecostal roll" hairdo.  My earliest memo...

I was in Aldi’s today.  For those of you not fortunate to have an Aldi’s near you, it is a grocery store plus.  To a lot of people, Aldi’s is new.  I was shopping with food stamps at an Aldi’s near the corner of Garth and the Business Loop in Columbia MO when my kids were little.  I’d do some laundry next door at the Laundromat and go to Temple Stephens grocery store for the things I couldn’t get at Aldi’s.  The quality and choice keeps getting better at Aldi’s.  Today I was on a quest to quickly buy one of the few carpet steam cleaners they had on sale.  As I meandered through the aisles I kept intersecting with this woman.  She looked to be in her mid-60’s.  She was tall and had pure white hair.  Dressed in simple light blue pants there was nothing unusual about her except her hairdo.  Now this was a “hairdo” not necessarily a hair style.  The word “do” fits.  As a lifelong Pentecostal, I’ve seen this do many times be...

We are in Asheville NC.   As fate would have it and because of our perpetual bad luck, it snowed last night.   I discovered that tickets to the Biltmore are $39 a person.   Somehow, while I really, really want to see the Biltmore, spending $78 doesn’t seem that wise.   The waitress at Waffle House told us to come back in mid-April.   She said it might be worth the cost then. As usual we opted for a cheap hotel.   I tried to push for a mid-range one but we are at the Super 8.   I’ve stayed in worse hotels but this is certainly not that great.   Plus it is noisy.   Here we sit.   Our anniversary trip is being spent sitting on opposite ends of king size bed with laptops on our laps.   Now before you say, oh boy, she really does complain a lot, that’s not my intention this morning.   I’m just sharing the reality of our anniversary trip.   This was my consolation prize for an anniversary trip to Phoenix that didn’t materiali...

Facebook is an interesting place.   I know some people who absolutely hate it and won’t use it.   I however, am one of those that use it all the time.   It’s a part of my life.   I am working on a dissertation about Facebook.   It has saved my sanity, kept relationships, built Christian fellowship, and entertained me.   I’ve read all manner of books and articles on Facebook.   I’ve read all manner of status updates as well.   I’ve even lost a friend or two because of Facebook. Yesterday, I saw a status update from someone I have a complicated relationship with.   Their status concerned their philosophical observation about life.   Often Facebook statuses do seem to give you a window into the thoughts and soul of a person.   This person shared through cyberspace that the only thing they could control was themself.   That’s true.   Someone else responded with the wise words of Steven Covey.   Between stimulus and resp...

I’m waiting for a copy of my divorce decree.  Now, before you get upset, I’m still happily married to my husband of 33 years.  Divorce just isn’t an option for me.  It actually never has been.  Yet, I am waiting for a copy of my decree from 33 years ago. Last time I asked for a copy of it I was pursuing back child support payments from the father of my three oldest children.  I still haven’t gotten all the back child support but I’ve not let that go.  I won’t let that go.  Sooner or later justice and fairness have to prevail.  I’ve never made any bones about receiving welfare or feeding my children with food stamps.  I had no choice.  The state of Missouri has been reimbursed from the absent father for all the money they gave me when he neglected his responsibilities.  Now it is my turn to be reimbursed. At the request of someone else, I contact the Boone County court house for a copy of the divorce decree.  They said they n...