My Uncle Tommy

Perhaps everyone has an uncle like my Uncle Tommy. Then again, maybe no one has an uncle like my Uncle Tommy. He was one of a kind. Who but Uncle Tommy would leave his farm in Missouri in his 70s to go prospect for gold in Nevada? Who else would come to my Daddy's funeral in 2000 wearing his only suit that he bought when Eisenhower was the president?

Okay, so you don't have my Uncle Tommy. Let me tell you about him or at least what I can remember, maybe the highlights of the times I spent with him before he died in 2004. Of all things, they cut his hair and shaved him and he wore a suit in the casket. I couldn't help but wonder who is this man? I never knew that man at all.

Uncle Tommy was one of those people who from my earliest memories I thought he was unusual or in my child's mind I thought he was really eccentric. He grew bean sprouts on the back porch; he only drank hot tea, not coffee like my mother and daddy; he often spoke in French though he was a farmer deep in the boondocks of SE Missouri. He filled the walls of my grandmother's house with classical paintings of old masters, and he always hung them at eye level to a giant. He lived with my grandparents even though he had his own farm he called "Buckhorn". As I recall it was a farm with a small shack on it, or what I would have thought a shack to be.

He often took me on walks around the farm to the papaw patch, to pick blackberries or grapes from the fence. As a little girls my mom and I lived on the farm while my dad was in Africa during World War II. I called him my big daddy, and my daddy was my "little daddy" because all I knew of him was a photograph my mom showed me frequently. He got me a goat as I was allergic to cow's milk. I was quite a little farm girl back then on the farm.

Over the years, Uncle Tommy continued to look like a prospector farming in Missouri. He had the long beard and looked like he stepped out of a 18th century novel. I never could understand how he seemed to know so much about everything. He was the one that took me into the front yard to watch Sputnik back when I was a young teenager. He was the one that later told me I needed to let my sister make her own decisions instead of telling her what crayon to use to color her picture. Always at Christmas, he would be the one to go out in the woods on the farm and chop down a tree for Christmas. It never looked like a Christmas tree, more like a branch off a tree with no leaves on it.

TO BE CONTINUED

Peace in Fifth Grade

Today we were studying about the United Nations. I was planning for them to write poems about peace as one of the activities. While I was waiting for them to come to class, I was thinking about what peace meant to me. I realized as I wrote I wasn't sure I knew. Hopefully, the fifth graders would find it easier to put in words than I did.

"Peace"

Is it a feeling or a gesture
or an idea in our mind’s eye?
I know what it is and when it’s there.
I know the absence of peace
and the struggle of opposing factions.
Describe it, not so easy.
Quiet, maybe or maybe not.
Calmness, sometimes.
A smile, a grimace, a tear!
It could be all three.
Is there a word to describe it
better than the word “peace”?
There are synonyms galore for peace.
We all know the Thesaurus:
calm, stillness, quiet, tranquility,
silence, harmony, serenity,
peace treaty, law and order,
freedom from conflict, refrain from violence.
We can all look up the word,
but do we know the word?
It may be as simple
as my dog laying in my lap
while I rub his head and occasionally
he will coo like a baby.

Swine Flu

One friend mentioned he ran a virus scan on his computer,and there was no swine flu. Another friend said he has the wine flu, which was better than the whine flu. Guess it isn't funny, but I am beginning to wonder if the swine flu has been a bit exaggerated. Let's hope so because we don't need a pandemic.

I'm just going to bed and be grateful I don't have any kind of flu and that I'm healthy, thanks to good doctors, good insurance, and good genes. Maybe it's luck that I'm 66 and healthy or maybe I take better care of myself than I think. No, I'm just very fortunate, I believe. Let's hope the swine flu doesn't knock on my door.

Things to Do instead of Writing on My Play

Today has a good distraction, The Kentucky Derby. I'm getting a little tired of the interviews with the trainers and jockeys, however. What is this parade of folks around the track. I would like to say I enjoy the ladies' hats but after a while some of them look like bird houses or Mardi Gras costumes. I like the retire principal who takes care of his own horse. I guess I should have been listening better to find out where everyone is walking.

I have always been a horse fan; even as a young girl I read all the "Black Stallion" books. I rode horse occasionally on the family farm but after my fall in the 4th grade I took a very long break from riding horses again. I rode in Macon the summer of 1974 after Thomas was born. Then when we moved to Dunwoody, and I continued riding that fall and winter. David rode with me. We were both getting pretty good riding in the ring. I learned to trot, gallop, cantor, walk, get on and off a horse. I rode English saddle rather than Western. At first I was afraid I'd fall off with English, but after a while I preferred it to Western.

After David fell off the horse and I got scared myself of jumping fences, we quit riding. I resigned my horseback riding career, except for occasionally dressing up like a jockey for Halloween with my hard hat and boots. Now when I remember, I watch the Kentucky Derby and that is about as far as my horseback riding career and love of horses go these days. Now, I'd be afraid to ride as it would be too devastating at 66 if I did fall off the horse.

The mother of a recent student rides horses. She is quite an equestrian, has her own horses that she boards and rides. I've another friend I know from the film industry who also works with horses in some sort of riding camp in the mountains. There are no longer any horses on our farm in Missouri. I do recall as I write that about the same time David was riding horses when he was five and six he drew horses everyday. They actually got better as he drew another horse everyday. I wonder why he didn't become a visual artist. I wonder if it's because I made a suggestion for his painting of Snoopy and Charlie Brown that he understood as criticism. He totally quit painting with that painting.

I hope this has been an enjoyable diversion to writing Scene 2 of my play. I did tell myself early this morning when I was barely awake that I could write this play and never produce it in my lifetime. That way, I have more freedom to write what I really want to say. If I think of it on stage anywhere I start eliminating scenes until there is no play at all.

Okay, I hereby give myself and all playwrights everywhere permission to write and not be censored. Now if I can practice what I preach with the people in my life as well as my own creative spirit.