Marigolds

On my patio Marigolds grow without being planted. I love them as they are such a happy flower. Each year the patio has lots of weeds but after the weeds are killed the Marigolds are still there. I have tomatoes, zinnias and thanks to Mother's Day I have some great red flowers. I do like red flowers and when I could go out on my patio and not be in a wheel chair I could actually take care of my nice wooden barrels full of flowers. Now I just admire them from the patio door and watch the chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits and birds. My new one is blooming nice and very brave. I do hope some more come and join it but my barrels are getting old like myself and parts are following off them, but not me. I can't walk but my parts have not fallen off and I can look at them each day along with the apples growing on my apple tree. Life is good. I hope my tomato plants are doing well. At least they are trying. I don't always get them but I have healthy squirrels.

Another Memorial Day

One of the best was when our daughter Susan married Lee Thompson on Memorial Day weekend. After Susan graduated from KU she went to work in Washington DC where she met her future husband and she came home to be married. We had a married son but you do not really plan a wedding until you have a daughter. She came in and picked her wedding dress and asked her sisters Sally and Cindy to be her attendants. Her brothers were ushers .She picked out her flowers at our local florist and we found out how she wanted things. She and her husband to be had been both working for a Kansas Senator who attended the wedding. She and Sally had worked at weddings at the church while they were in high school although Sally says she was mostly washing dishes. Lee's brother was his best man and I think it was Lee's nephew that decided to kick Senator Pearson for no reason we ever knew. It was a great wedding as all our children's weddings have been and has produced wonderful grandchildren and great grand children.

Memorial Day thru the years

When I was growing up I went to the Topeka Cemetery with my mother to lay flowers on my relative's graves and after I got older we laid plastic flowers which did not already looked wilted. I learned that her father was the second person to be buried there. The first had a little island but my grandfather just had a normal tomstone. Later he was joined by his wife, two sons, the wives of his sons and the wife of each son and I think a child but my memory is not that good. It is the cemetery that my mother taught me to drive and the graves of my husband's parents although somehow I am thinking they are buried in Valley Falls with his sister. Sometimes my dad took us to Scranton (south of Topeka) where his parents were buried. It was on one such occasions that we found that she was buried beside the wrong Burkhardt and he had her removed to the correct one. The drug stores especially use to be filled with the plastic flowers. I cannot put flowers on my husband's grave as he was cremated and ashes scattered in a garden beside our church that he loved so well.

My Mother's birthday

Today my mother has a birthday, She was born in the 19th century and saw many changes in the world. Dhr had a twin sister who lived a short time and after the twins were born her parents left Parkerville, Ks and moved to Topeka on Polk Street. The twin, Ethel Bessie was buried in the Topeks cemetery where Vice President Curtis waa buried. Her parents beleved all the children should get all the schooling they could and all but one daughter did. That is where my father met her at Washburn College. She wanted to live to be a hundred so the US President would send her a lett but died 6 months before, We always thought one reason she lived so long she was living for her twin sister also. Her mind was always good and even went to Europe with us when we took our group. Happy Birthday Mom

Graduation

We are having two graduations this week. Two of my grandaughters will walk down the hill at ten thirty Sunday morning at KU. I graduated from a smaller college so we just walked across a stage but big school like more excitement and also a larger amount of seating. Four of our five walked down the hill at KU but Susan had a tornado alert which put us in the gym. When they moved all of us we were lucky enough to get there in time to see her cross the stage. She always thought the weather had no right to ruin her important day. I hope the weather is good Sunday. There is a great lunch to celebrate afterwards.

philtrum

I have a neat thing Cindy give me called a word a day and I am going to quote the word philtrum. The writer got sleepy driving and learned that if a driver who rests an elbow on a armrest and places the associated index finger in the philtrum (nose) he cannot fall asleep at the wheel(thus precariously balancing ones nose on the septum) can't fall asleep. It works on airplanes also. You can see the end of TV shows also and I have tried it there.

Every one has a role in the school play

When my Wichita grandchildren were in kindergarden their teacher put a play every year called "The Thing in the Forest". When my grandaughter Holly was in Middle school there was a teacher there with the same idea. She put on a production of "Annie" and everyone who tried out got a part. They were orphans or servants but they were on stage. The kids who really had talent had the speaking parts but even if they were too fat or too tall or too short they were on stage. When I was in high school I had a teacher who when we put on the Prom skit everyone got a part. The talented ones got speaking parts or solos but everyone was on stage. My aunt was on the school board so even though I was not talented I got to be one of the leads. I think it is wonderful when teenagers get to be a part of an important thing like that

Electric cars

About six months after Ray and I were married his 1928 Cheverolet called the "Green Hornet" and my car I had driven back and forth to the country school I taught in both got tired, Ray saw an ad for a new Electric car for $900.00. He needed a car to do his job writing for the paper. Every night we plugged it in. Where he worked the printers thought it was great fun to move his car. Four of them would pick it up and put it on the sidewalk. One night they put it in the lobby of the theater that was right by the newspaper. Driving it was easy put it was like driving in a sewing machine. My mother was sure we would hit a dog and it would turn us over so at the end of a month we advertised it and sold it for the same amount we paid for it. I bet the new electric cars are an improvement.

More birthday parties

When our son Steve was in the fifth grade he could not decide who to have to his birthday party and since it was only about 15 boys I thought we could invite them all and serve it in the front room minus the furniture and they could sit on the floor. I think we said no gifts so it would include everyone and not be a hardship on any. There were 16 boys but I counted only 15 were there and we saw one walking by on his way home so I went out and got him and brought him in to join the others and he told me he did think I really mean't to include him. I hope Steve enjoyed the party but he was polite and did not tell me he did not,

Wake me up

Sitting in my wheelchair watching Tv it is easy to fall asleep in the daytime. I have great care givers and neighbors that do not like to awaken me and I wish they would as then I do not sleep good at night which makes them very long. A neighbor that brings in my mail never awakens me and I would like to talk to him and find out what is going on outside. In the evenings when I am actually watching a show that is not a rerun I miss the ending. That is my complaint for the day. Thank You.

Birthdays

I have written about my birthday --the 60th that is, but this was Ray's 60th. He planned it himself. He invited his children, spouses,grandchildren, cousins and had a wonderful time. He ordered the food he wanted or made it himself and I think even though it was June shot off some fireworks. He even allerted the police so our noise would not get anyone arrested. I think on the day before his birthday hr took the grandchildren to World's of Fun but I may have the occasions mixed up with our 50th wedding anniversary. He rode one of the rides and was in a car with Hayden and it went around a curve and he broke a rib.

May Day

When I was growing up you made a kind of basket filled it full of flowers, rang the doorbell and ran. I think that during World War two it mean't your plane was in trouble. Now when I was in kindergarten I went to a school across the street from my parent's house that had been changed into a Junior High and the had added a gym west of thte school. My kindergarten class had a MayPole dance on the roof of the gym. I think the center of the pole must have been a basketball item but they had added crepe paper strips. We wore lovely crepe paper outfits and danced in and out of each other. I was gorgeous and have a picture someplace in my scrapbook wherever that is. We were about eight feet over their heads. Later when one of our daughters was ill a Brownie group brought her a May basket with candy in and some of my granddaughters have made me a few since and giggled a lot. That was more fun they having your airplane go down or a message you were in trouble. I notice in the news that one of Kansas City's private schools was having one so maybe it still exsisted.