Poem: Counting Daisies
counting daisies
in a field of daisies
is like counting
blades of grass
in a square yard
is like counting
midnight stars
with no clouds
is like counting
purple cars
in a frozen city
but not like counting
your few friends
among your many acquaintances
How ya like my hat? Forest Park Baptist Church hat
This is not a very good view of the hat, but I like the action photo of me playing slow pitch softball. Well, except for that big belly. Our team was “Forest Park Baptist Church” and it was part of the “Southern Maryland All Faith League”. Lot’s of fun to be had all around, winning or losing.
I can tell, that I was the coach that year, because of the color of the hat and jersey. They used to be light blue, but I thought green would fit the name, Forest, better. So we took a vote and changed the color.
Considering the direction everyone is looking, I must have hit the ball towards left field. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a dribbler to third.
During my tenure at the church, I played every position except pitcher, first, left field and center field. I normally played third all my life, but by this time of my life my best position was second. I still had a good glove, but my arm was old.
One year when we were still in the blue jerseys, God used me to schedule and play a game against the local “Southern Maryland Pre-release Unit”. I used to deliver the Gospel Message there for several years, till there was an incident. The state shut down all incoming volunteer outreaches to that facility. The game was before that happened.
Some of the guys were apprehensive about going into the intitution, but again we took a vote and everyone on our team stepped up and played for Jesus. There was no sermon, no preaching just the good ole American past time. Can’t remember who won, but it was a great game and day.
It wasn’t this game, but I do remember hitting one to short and the fighter in me wanted to run it out. My mind and the top part of my body were going faster than the bottom part of my body, so half way to first I fell flat on my face. I gave the safe sign, which got a good laugh from everyone. Thank God there was no camera that day.
I think I would like to lose the weight and play some more, if my lungs and back would allow it.
Guest blog: The Playhouse by Gwyn Warren
Grandma and Dad were deeply religious people with very strict rules about what was and was not acceptable. He was far stricter than she was. We were to remain as quiet as possible on Sundays. We could spend the day reading our Bible story books Daddy had given us the Christmas before he died; but, we could not laugh or play noisy games on Sunday. If we wanted to play like normal children, we had to get far enough away from the house that Dad couldn’t hear us. So we usually went to our cousins’ house to play about 3/10 mile from our grandparents.
Jo and I were convinced that Dad didn’t like us very much. Grandma was always teasing us, laughing with us, etc., while he rarely ever smiled. We usually went to church with our cousins on Sunday morning, came back to Grandma’s to eat dinner, and then went to our cousins’ house to play in the afternoon.
North Carolina
Church was another big shock for us. We had gone to “town” churches all our lives where ministers spoke in a soft even voice, and you could understand every word of the sermon. Country churches were just the opposite. When the preacher (a new word for us) delivered his sermon, he got so carried away, and so loud, it was hard to decipher anything he said. His face also got really red like we used to see Daddy’s become right before he had a heart attack. Country preachers scared us.
One weekend, Mother, Jo and I went to Uncle Jim’s house for the weekend. Uncle Jim was Mother’s brother and they had a son, Richard, who was a year older than I with whom we played. When we got back to our grandparent’s house on Sunday night, it was already dark, so we just went in and went to bed.
Monday morning, while we ate breakfast, Dad told us to come outside after we finished with the dishes because he had something to show us. I doubt we had ever finished the dishes as fast as we did that morning.
When we went outside, Dad showed us a playhouse he had built for us while we were gone. He was a master wood craftsman and our playhouse was a dream. From the outside it looked just like a real house complete with front porch, sized just for two little girls. There was room inside for our doll beds, table and chairs and anything else we could round up to “furnish” our little house. Our cousins, Sue and Edmond, would come up and play with us in our little house.
Toward the end of summer, we had grown tired of playing “house” and wanted to play something different. After much discussion, we decided to play “church”. I was “elected” to be the preacher and Jo, Sue and Edmond were the congregation. We started out by singing songs we had learned in their church. Then came time for the sermon.
I first led my parishioners in prayer. So far, so good. Then I opened my Bible story book to one of my favorite stories. I started out reading in a normal tone, then raised my voice for a few sentences. I repeated this procedure several times while my “congregation” shouted “Amen!” and I even heard one “Preach it, Sister!”, which would never have been said in a country church because women weren’t allowed to speak in the church. If they had something that needed to be said, they conveyed it to their husband, and if he felt it had merit, he would speak to the congregation. I even pounded my pulpit and used a washcloth to “wipe sweat from my brow”.
Just as I was really getting “into the spirit” as they called it, a shadow covered the door. Dad looked at me with as stern a face as I had ever seen and said, “That will be enough, little lady.” With that, he left, no doubt to tell Grandma what a fine sermon I had been delivering. Wrong.
Apparently he walked around to the back of the playhouse where there was no window. After some discussion, we decided to resume our “church service”. Again, I gave it my all. And again, that shadow covered the doorway. This time, he told Sue and Edmond to go home, and for Jo and me to go in the house. When we told Grandma what had happened, she laughed till tears were streaming down her cheeks. Dad didn’t think it was a bit funny.
The next morning, when we went to our playhouse, there was a padlock on the door. Dad told us we were forbidden to play in there again. We protested that all our toys were in there and he said, “No they’re not. They are on the back porch.” Sure enough, we checked and everything that had been in our playhouse was in a big wooden crate on the back porch.
North Carolina
The following weekend, we again went to Uncle Jim’s to spend the weekend, coming home late Sunday night. After finishing the breakfast dishes on Monday morning, we went outside to ask Dad if we could play in our playhouse if we promised not to play church any more. To our total astonishment, while we were gone, he had completely dismantled our playhouse. Except for the fact the ground was bare where it had been, one would never have known a playhouse had ever been there.
In retrospect, I often wondered if Dad worried that he might have thwarted my ambitions to be a minister of the gospel. Nah. Like I told you earlier, women weren’t allowed to speak in the church. I’m sure if one had started to preach the walls would have crumbled.
DISCLAIMER: This little story is not to mock country churches and I hope I haven’t offended anyone. Jo and I were 7 and 8 years old respectively and this was a whole new world to us.
North Carolina
Marble, NC trip: day 2
We started the day out with a cup of coffee on the deck and an excellent mountain view. I was checking my email and such and Raymond was reading the local paper. He came across an article that struck us both a little funny. The next town over, Andrews, decided to remove a stop light. In our county we don’t remove anything, we keep adding and adding and adding.
Our loosely laid plans for the day were to travel north to the four lane, the high way, and head west on 28. We had been on this mountain road in the past, but we were heading to another scenic view off of it.
I mention the word “loosely”, because we never know exactly what we end up doing. That’s the beauty of a vacation, there really aren’t many plans, maybe a direction. On our way to the mountain, we stopped at several places that kept delaying our destination, but not our journey.
Our first stop was at a fishing hole owned by the Welch family. During the Indian wars John Welch would give local Indian families refuge from the marauding settlers.
Raymond at Welch’s Creek
After that we stopped for a biscuit at Hardees, this was a top of the morning destination and not to be interfered with. While there a guy walked in the restaurant without a shirt on. We asked an employee about the “No shoes, no shirt, no service policy” and she said, “He has a shirt. See it’s in his hand, so he’s good.” We grinned and finished eating.
An quaint old thrift shop ran by Hank was our next unscheduled visit. Raymond was interested in two items and neither one of them were for sale. We waited till we were in the car before we laughed about that.
We stopped at the Nantahala Outdoor Center, also known as the NOC. I didn’t know that the NOC was on the Appalachian Trail , AT for short, or I would have talked to more people about there walk on the AT. We ran into several people walking the AT and a pair of ladies took our picture next to a AT sign. They were running from the hurricane, Matthew.
Me and Raymond on the AT at the NOC
Me resting at the NOC.
We stopped by a nice little restaurant by a creek called Kelly’s, they boasted about their Bison Burger. It was very good. We also received more information about the fly remedy. Hang a water filled sandwich baggie to keep flies away. The water interacts with the flie’s eye sight, you can put a few pennies in it to keep the water clear.
Further up the road we pulled into Ruby Mines. At this little spot you can buy a bucket of sand and sift for gems. I bought some neat little rocks for my Grandson Blake, he loves Geology.
I finally ate some Boiled Peanuts at the next stopover. I don’t see the appeal. The peanut guy gave us directions to our destination, which turned out to be in the wrong direction. His directions took us further back in the hills past a Trout farm and Winery. We kept trucking and it eventually took us through the very scenic Tellico Gap. At the top of the gap was an intersection with the AT. It looked like it might have been a resting spot for many hikers.
Top of the Tellico Gap looking back where we came from
The AT heading north at the top of the Tellico Gap.
After we continued down the mountain we went home for a rest, before we went back out to watch the movie The Magnificent Seven. If you like westerns, you will probably like this movie.
It was a great day with my best friend.
Random thoughts: Boiled peanuts
I found this picture on the internet.
I’ve been traveling down to North Carolina and Georgia for years now. “Boiled Peanuts” are for sale everywhere and I finally ate one yesterday. Honesty, I wasn’t impressed.
I’m sure I eat stuff that others might not like. For instance crabs; what was going through the mind of the first person who ate a crab? Maybe he was hungry and eventually figured out how to steam them. I’m from Maryland and I’ve eaten so many crabs, that I’m tired of them. Now a days, after two crabs I want a hamburger.
The lonely crab I wrangled in that morning, off of my houseboat.
I love peanuts; all kinds of them. It’s very difficult for me to eat them with most of my teeth gone. It takes me forever to get through a small hand full.
As I said, when I tasted my first boiled peanut yesterday I did not enjoy it. It was soggy, mushy and had an odd after taste. Later, I realized that I was not picking little pieces of nuts out of the few teeth I have left and it was real easy to chew. Maybe, just maybe, the first person to boil peanuts liked them, but didn’t have any teeth.
The Houseboat Poet 