Month: January 2020

I was born a lefty, or southpaw. From what I could glean off the internet, southpaw originated with left-handed baseball pitchers as pitchers typically faced West, (baseball diamonds were arranged so the batter would face East and not into the sun) so a left handed pitcher was throwing with the hand that was on the South side of his body. Hence, Southpaw. Internet history lesson for the day. You are welcome.

My mother was right-handed, dark haired, brown eyes. My father was ambidextrous, used his right hand the most, dark haired, green eyes. I took after my father in most ways including being born with green eyes (the only one out of us six kids) and left-handed. Which hand of yours is dominant is genetically linked. I want to say that one of my brothers is also a lefty, but I can’t remember anymore.

Being a left-handed person back in the mid-fifties, early sixties when I was growing up was not considered the "norm" in those days, and they tried their best to make you conform to the right way. There was apparently something “odd” about you and the world during that time period and long before, thought right-handed people were the only acceptable ones.

Going back to ancient history left-handers were considered to be evil. The word sinister derives from the word for left or left hand. History lesson two per the internet for the day.

I was one of those people that the world tried to conform to fit into what they thought I should be. While in kindergarten and throughout elementary school, I was not allowed to use my left hand as my dominant hand. I was taught to use scissors with my right hand. I was taught to write with my right hand.

My brain was geared to be a left-hander, so my body was thoroughly confused by this. I still blame my poor showing in most sports due to my brain’s confusion over my eye/hand coordination, which is hardwired into whichever hand your DNA made you. As I said, it’s genetics, Google it. Internet history lesson number three.

In elementary school I would often play baseball with the boys during recess and I was always the pitcher because I would naturally pitch with my left hand, making me a hard pitcher to hit against. I did not follow up that sport later on with softball as I found early on that neither one really appealed to me and still don’t to this day. My apologies to all you baseball fans. I may have been an awesome pitcher, the world will never know.

Growing up I would always naturally do things with my left hand and not even realize it. I would deal cards left-handed, open jars left-handed, throw balls left-handed. But I write right-handed, although it has a left-handed slant, or so I’ve often been told. It’s hard to fight genetics.

Out of my four children that I have produced (that sounds like such a manufacturing way to state that) two have green eyes like me, two have blue eyes like their father and one is a left-hander like me, although he has blue eyes. I can’t be perfect.

I did however split both, one son and one daughter with green eyes (oldest son, youngest daughter) and one daughter and one son with blue eyes (the two middle kids) so top that. And I had boy, girl, boy, girl exactly as I had wanted when I first dreamed about being a wife and a mother. Today I believe I may even have a grandchild or two that may prove to be left-handed. In my case God and genetics were very kind to me in my children and grandchildren. I’m very thankful.

Ok, enough about my children, this blog was, after all, about me. Over my teenage years I would make myself write left-handed until I got pretty good at it, although I didn’t like the way it looked. When you are a teenage girl the way your writing looks can be very important, at least it was in the seventies. Come to think of it, do children even put pencil to paper and actually write much now days? I worked hard on my penmanship in those days until I had this large loopy, curly writing that I deemed good enough to represent my style. Today I still write pretty similar to my teen years, so basically I have a teenagers handwriting.

When older age (is sixty really the new forty?) sets in, you begin to develop aches and pains that don’t go away and tend to make your life miserable. I like many my age, have some arthritis, mainly in my left knee, and my hands are not as strong as they once were, especially my left hand, which has always been my "go to" or dominant hand, despite them trying to "break me" as a child.

I also have a wonderful holdover injury from a previous crummy job I had in Parkersburg as an office manager where I had to also hand scan in the one owners family photos into the computer due to his supreme laziness. Because of all of the repetitive left-hand wrist motion (dominant hand thing again) I have since been plagued with what is called:

“De Quervain’s tendinosis or tendonitis – occurs when the tendons around the base of the thumb are irritated or constricted. The word "tendinosis" refers to a swelling of the tendons. Swelling of the tendons, and the tendon sheath, can cause pain and tenderness along the thumb side of the wrist. he most common cause of de Quervain’s tendinosis is chronic overuse of the wrist. Repetitive movements day after day cause irritation and pain.” (Source – Internet searches.)

I can tell you that it hurts like heck on bad days and that it takes all of the strength out of that hand. The main pain is in the palm area of my left hand just under the thumb. Now when I would normally try to open a jar left-handed, I have to try right-handed which is almost totally useless for those types of things. After all, sixty some years of not using my right hand for that is hard to change.

All my right hand has been trained for is well, writing. My left hand has carried out all the heavy tasks up until now and its an odd adjustment. Probably like when I was first taught to use scissors and write with my right hand instead of my left.

Now age and work injuries have brought me full circle and no I did not get any work comp or even any unemployment from that crook. At least his business is gone, so there’s that.

I’m happy to say that in today’s more inclusive and accepting world, we (former) left-handers are no longer shunned or taught to be right-handers. Hurray for progress and supply and demand. (Companies realized they could make money catering to left-handed people. Internet history lesson number four.)

Whatever you do, don’t try to force a child to go against whatever their birth dominant hand is. When they are learning new things like eating or picking up things, I have read that placing things in the middle is the best approach and letting them choose. When they are older and learning writing or even sports activities,don’t force them to use their non dominant hand to try to make them something else, like a sports pro for example. Their DNA knows which hand is the right one for them.

Here’s to all you leftys out there.

Until next time…

Toni

We are still sitting in Denver station, now an hour past our departure time, when two policemen appear out on the platform. They board the train and follow the conductor upstairs. I have a feeling things are not going any better for the "hippie dude" on the upper level.

Another half an hour goes by and the policemen are now escorting "hippie dude" down the stairs and off the train along with his luggage. He was apparently causing more trouble in the upper level of the train because they don’t throw people off the train for no reason usually, but they also don’t hesitate to do so if you are breaking the rules or causing trouble.

I feel bad for the guy, he had told the conductor earlier he was going home for Thanksgiving. The loud woman (I’ll call her Chicago lady) is telling us all that he probably just needs his meds and how unfair it is that he was booted off the train and again how horrible children are. Wait, what? She’s defending him?

At this point I am confused, because I thought she was probably the person in our car who had complained about him that got him in trouble to begin with! After all she has been the very loud vocal person in this car since I first got on.

Apparently he had been singing out loud and someone in our car had complained to the conductor. Now the conductor came into our car and went and sat next to the woman in the back two seats with the three sick, coughing children. Aha! So she had been the one who had complained and that’s why Chicago lady has been so vocal about annoying children and their coughing.

Things were beginning to make more sense to me now. It helps to have all the facts as the Chicago lady continued to inform us again that she had been a bus driver and he probably forgot to take his medication and was confused. I was just beginning to be team Chicago lady but then she lost my empathy as she ranted on and on about the "horrible" crying, coughing children on the train spicing it up with a few choice swear words for good measure. Not cool. The kids had nothing to do with any of this.

The conductor left, not bothering to tell the rest of us anything, and everyone finally settled in.Thankfully the train started to move, we were now two hours behind schedule. Trains can make up a little time along the way, but not two hours. I had no visions of being on time to Ottumwa or home, I can’t make up two hours driving either.

The teenage boy across from me (he had mild autism his mother had told me) asked me if I had any dogs. I told him about Kutter and Jazzy and then shared some pictures of them. He was delighted. He told me all about his little dog waiting for him at home. His mother apologized for his talking my ear off and I assured her it was fine. It was much better than listening to the Chicago bus driver lady.

The kids all quieted down except for the constant coughing as they began playing their games and watching their movies. I realized that I was trapped in a train car for twelve hours with at least five strains of cold and or flu viruses, as I listened to each of them cough. One child in the back seats sounded like he had bronchitis at the very least. My immune system was really getting a workout on this train trip!

I tried to make myself comfortable and get my nap in. My brain would not settle down. It was calculating how many days it would be before I came down with one of those many cold germs I was trying not to breath in. I was also worried about "hippie dude" and if he would make it home for Thanksgiving! I had pulled the neck of my shirt up over my mouth and nose hoping it would act as some type of a germ filter, but I had my doubts. I probably looked like I had intentions of robbing the train as I tried to get snuggled in. Hopefully they wouldn’t toss me off the train next.

I drifted off to sleep and woke just as the sun was starting to rise. The train was still an hour behind so I let Brittney know I’d be late getting home to babysit and she’d have to miss one of her college classes. I ate my other banana, a little worse for wear having been smashed in the bottom of my red snack bag, a bottle of water and some peanut butter crackers for breakfast. The woman with the teenage boy had gotten off in Nebraska during the night.

Chicago lady was back on her cell phone loudly planning her Thanksgiving meal for all of us to hear. It makes holidays extra special when you plan the event by swearing at the people you plan to spend the holiday with, or so it seemed for her. I was beginning to wonder if she could speak a full sentence without using a curse word in it? Probably not.

Soon we were pulling into Ottumwa where it was announced it was the last smoking stop before Chicago. I’m always glad to see that Amtrak cares so much about the smokers.

I hefted my three bags on my shoulder, again regretting my choice of luggage and got ready to get off the train. The smokers were all lined up ahead of me ready to pounce out of the train and light them up! Chicago lady was behind me, although I could’t picture her pouncing off anything. Just what her disposition needed was a cigarette.

I trudged back down the sidewalk and across the grass to my car still parked in the creepy parking lot. At least it was morning and you didn’t feel quite as likely to get mugged or murdered on the way to or from your car. I put my extra shoes, leggings and top I had left behind back into my bag. My salad bowl was still there where I had set it, not looking too bad for sitting in the car for two days. I had a brief moment of wondering if the salad was still good. No, I didn’t try it. I try never to tempt fate, my luck is bad enough on its own.

The trip home was a quiet, pleasant drive and I spent a lot of it taking photos of various barns and farm buildings along the way. I couldn’t help but wonder again what happened to "hippie dude" and if he made it home for Thanksgiving.

Lets hope so.

Until next time…

Toni

When we left off I was just boarding the train and had found out the "chatty" lady was going the same place I was.

As luck would have it for once, she boarded the train before me and so I was able to choose a seat behind her, which was also the very last seat in the car – my favorite. No one walks past you, ever, and you can set your bags behind the seats in the space between your seat and the wall of the train car.

When I went to settle in I noticed a coat in the seat, all kinds of luggage on the floor and a full 24 can box of pop under my seat. Shortly before the train left the station an older man came to claim his seat next to me, he must have been outside smoking as Ottumwa is a smoker stop. I guess I should have sat next to the chatty lady.

The very front seat on the left side was empty and so he decided to move all of his stuff up there, and thankfully I was left with 2 seats all to myself, although I was questioning if I looked odd and that’s why he moved. There was a person who I thought was a younger looking woman across from me in Superman PJ bottoms and a hoodie sweatshirt with her hood pulled up working on her laptop.

There is a very quiet older woman sitting across the aisle from the chatty woman who I have now learned is actually 82 because she is talking the ear off of her, the poor dear. There is a very old gentleman sitting across from smoker guy in the very front.

Behind him is a very tiny older lady and across from her is another older lady who is sleeping. Each of us has a double seat to relax in now, so we are all good. If no one else boards in the lower level it will be wonderful.

I decided to take my nap and when I woke a couple hours later, the young woman across from me turned out to be a very nice young man in Superman PJ’s. I really need to get new glasses! He was on the train to Denver and back to write some dissertation for his college doctorate or something very collegy sounding.

He was from Chicago, had twin 7 year olds and his wife had thought it was a great idea for him to take the Amtrak to Denver and back so he could work in quiet on his paper. I can’t imagine having the money just to ride Amtrak somewhere and back to work on my writing! What a great idea though.

I was not able to get a lot of sleep that night as I was exposed to about six strains of colds. It turned out all of the other passengers in our car except me and Mr Chicago were coughing all night, although one may have been a smokers cough.

The train was now running two hours behind and when I finally arrived in Denver Brad and Willie were there waiting at the curb for me, so no breakfast at the station. Oh well.

I had a great time in Denver celebrating Willie’s 9th birthday although it is always bitter sweet for me wishing that Torri was there too. Saturday flew by as I had to get back on the train Sunday evening so was only in Denver a day and a half!

Sunday Brad and Willie dropped me off at the station a few hours before the train was to arrive and later in typical Amtrak fashion, it was a half an hour late.

Willie and I always have very heartfelt and tearful goodbyes but we are both working on it and getting a little better each time, both of us trying to be brave. We really miss being with each other as we lived together for so long, its always hard to be apart. He looks just like his mom, Torri, and has her kind gentle heart. I always miss him so much and wish I could see him more often, my whole family does.

When I boarded the train I took a seat to myself in the very front and hoped no one else was getting on the lower level. For the upper deck they were assigning seats out on the platform before we boarded as the train was packed full. They rarely assign seats and its never a good sign. At least they don’t usually do that in the lower cars, as there are only four rows of double seats, sixteen passengers is the limit.

A mom and her teenage son boarded our car and wanted to sit together as she explained to the conductor, so I said I would move so they could. I took a seat behind them where there was luggage and belongings strung all over the seats and floor. I didn’t touch any of their stuff and tried to settle in.

This HUGE woman approached me and I stood up and let her into the seat next to me. I am not a small person by any means but she was at least twice my size and spilled over onto a fourth of my seat. She was grumbling and complaining from the get go and was saying how much she disliked children. Oh great. There were three young kids and their mom in the back two seats, the mother and her teenage son who I later found had a mild autism, and another mother with a young disabled child across from us.

When I got on the conductors were arguing with a white bearded "hippie" dude who looked to be about ten years older than me, telling him he had to go sit upstairs or get off the train. He had been sitting in the seat across from me and the huge woman and the woman with the disabled child had been sitting in the seat in front of him. He finally gave in and took his bag with him and went upstairs with a conductor following him. The lady with the disabled child moved their belongings into his seat across from us so she’d have a tray to set up her laptop so her little boy could watch movies. He was not happy, had been crying and the large lady next to me kept complaining about all the children. I didn’t connect the two things at the time, but this will make more sense later.

Now there was a seat available in the very front, which no one likes those seats as they don’t have any type of tray that comes down in front of them and no foot rests, but I figured it would be worth it not to have the woman next to me complaining and crushing me all night, so I grabbed my two bags and moved into it. This put me across from the lady and her teenage son who I had given up my seat for.

Almost all of the tickets above each person say CHI which means they are heading for Chicago which means I will be with them all the way to Ottumwa. Lucky me.

It looks as though no more passengers are boarding the train and yet we continue to sit still in the station. Nothing is being announced either. The large woman is now complaining about children crying as the little guy behind me is still not a happy camper and his poor mom is doing her best. I feel sorry for her and wish I could be helpful. I hear a movie start behind me and he quiets down, the large woman does not.

She pulls out her cell phone and we all get to hear her very loud conversation with someone about not buying candy for the boys and the boys drink all the milk so some little girl (her granddaughter?) never gets any and then all the things she needs that person to go buy before she gets home. Then she loudly talks about her being a city bus driver in Chicago for years and I shudder to think that she had a job around other people. Its why I don’t ride buses.

We are now over an hour late leaving the station when suddenly two policemen appear on the platform…

End of Part 2

Stay tuned for the third and final chapter coming soon!

Until next time…

Toni

It has been our family tradition of going to a Christmas tree farm and cutting down our own selected Christmas tree since the first year Jay and I were married 43 years ago.

Both of our families had artificial Christmas trees growing up (although my family may have had a few real trees growing up, my memory has faded) and I guess we both liked the idea of starting our own family tradition of a real pine tree.

Each year we would go to a tree farm, walk around the lot full of trees and choose the “perfect” Christmas tree that would hold all of our ornaments. Some years we got taller, fuller trees that sat on the floor and nearly touched the ceiling, other years we would get a shorter fatter tree that would sit on top of our coffee table. The size of the tree would also often reflect how good or bad of a financial year we were having, so every so often we would have a smaller than usual tree.

There were a few years when the tree farms would sell out early and we would have to send Jay to the local tree lots in town in front of some hardware store or flower shop to bring home an already cut tree, and I will admit those trees never seemed quite as special as the ones we picked out as a family and cut down ourselves. By "ourselves" I mean Jay laying on the ground sawing down the tree, but we were there cheering his efforts on.

There was one Christmas that we just used one of the many artificial trees that I have around the house for decorations as our main Christmas tree. It was the first Christmas after we lost our daughter Torri to cancer. We just didn’t have the heart that year to go hunting for a real tree. It was the saddest Christmas ever and the tree reflected that grief. We still miss her terribly, but in her memory we have worked hard to bring back the joys of her favorite holiday.

The weather is usually horrible on the day we pick to go tree shopping. It’s either snowing or blowing, freezing cold, or all three, but not this year. This year there was no snow on the ground and the temps were mild and getting warmer each day.

Most years when I walk around the tree farm, I have this uncanny knack for tripping over the little tree stumps left by other trees that were cut down, or tripping over a dirt clod in the path. My fall is usually very slow and apparently hilarious to my children because it is always followed by me bouncing on the ground and all of them breaking into laughter. It has almost become as much of a family tradition as cutting down the tree.

We had to switch the tree farm we were first going to go to this year as they had closed already, no more trees left. We didn’t have everyone with us either, it’s hard to do now days with some living out of state and then there is the whole “whose weekend is it to have the kids” thing that seems to haunt our family.

Our youngest daughter Brittney and her two children were going to go with us, son Josh wasn’t able to and son Jason is in Missouri. I piled in the van with my daughter and kids and Jay drove his truck to use to haul our tree home. Off we went! We had a minor stop to coordinate the GPS’s and make sure we were indeed on the correct road, that confirmed, we continued on our quest for the perfect Christmas tree.

We got to the tree farm about an hour before they were to close. It was a cold clear late afternoon and we parked the vehicles at the sales shed and started walking down the dirt road and onto the paths in search of the “perfect” tree. Each of us pointing out the good qualities of this tree or that tree, but each tree falling just short of the perfect tree. We walked on and on going further and further back into the tree farm.

I carefully stepped over each little tree stump and focused on not falling down this year. We made it all the way to the back where the trees ended that were for sale. We had been told we could cut down any tree bearing a white tag on it, not any with bright pink reserved tags on them, nothing was said about no tag but we assumed those were the little ones that were not ready to go.

As we turned and headed back we noticed this beautiful almost 7 foot tall tree standing there like a shining beacon. It was almost perfectly rounded, no big bald spots, no wonky tree top – was this the perfect tree! My grandson ran up to it and declared it so and we all agreed! We had found the perfect tree!

We looked all over the tree to spot the white tag showing it was one of the trees for sale and was not a reserved tree. It was standing next to several others it’s height, although each were a bit flawed, but we could not find any white tag on it. There was no reserved tags either and nothing on the tree at all that said not to cut it. The tree had no tags that we could find.

Now we were faced with a real dilemma! We had found the perfect tree but there was no white tag on it. Being the critical thinkers that we are, we solved the problem by carefully removing the white tag from the tall tree next to it, so that we would be paying the correct price for the tree as they charge by the height of it, and placed it ever so carefully on our tree, the perfect tree. Problem solved.

Jay crawled under the tree and sawed it off and then hefted it over his shoulder, the tree saw in the other hand and we marched our way back down the path to the tree shed to pay for our perfect tree. We were singing praises to our tree along the way and the grand-kids were giddy with excitement to go home and decorate such a wonderful tree.

Tree paid for, hot chocolates all around, petting of the big yellow lab that was laying in the shed by the fireplace done. Time to get back into the vehicles and drive home and decorate the tree and cut out sugar cookies.

Jay had to make a stop in town first on his way home. The tree was laying in the back of his pickup and we were nervous some villain would snatch our perfect tree out of his truck while he was in the store, but I’m here to report both made it home safely.

I must say that our little bit of “larceny” has not taken away from the beauty and pleasure of this years Christmas tree at all! It stands tall and gracious in the living room, the ornaments hung and then re-hung after the grand-kids left (my OCD working overtime). It is another beautiful tree in a long line of traditional trees at our family

Christmas. Our dream has always been to buy a live tree that we could then plant on our farm after Christmas, but so far our dream of owning our own place is yet to be realized. Maybe someday. For now, I am enjoying the perfect tree.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanza, Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Until next time…

Toni