What if...: There are still people in the world with heart.

What if...: There are still people in the world with heart.: "Not too long ago, I took a friend of mine, Pat, to a cat show in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was looking forward to the trip so I could go sta..."

There are still people in the world with heart.

Not too long ago, I took a friend of mine, Pat, to a cat show in Corpus Christi, Texas. I was looking forward to the trip so I could go stand in the gulf beach ocean and sit by the water. We went down on Friday Night and were suppose to return home on Sunday night. The cat show started at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, the next day. We got everything set up and had a lovely day and then dinner with friends. On Sunday morning, I woke up with a migraine headache and my eyes had literally swollen up. I did not think I could make it to the cat sow and arranged for someone to drive her since she is in a wheelcair. We were suppose to leave, but I could not make the drive at night with my head hurting that bad. We would have been home around 5 a.m if we had left Sunday night.

The next morning I got everything packed up and we got the wheelchair loaded and off we set for home. We got about half an hour into a town called Mathis when the handicap van I was driving stalled right in the middle of a busy intersection for 18 wheelers. There were two gentlemen that went to the convenience store and bought us a strap to tow us. While they were tying up the van to pull us, a lady and her daughter stopped to see if we needed help. She topped because she saw the handicap signs on the van where the lift was. She said she would call someone to come help us get the van running again.

About an hour later, a Hispanic gentleman drove up. He looked at the van and seemed to be working very mythodically. He jumped in the van and it started right up. After a few minutes it was dying on him. He asked if we would mind going to his house were he had some tools to help us. So off we went. After replacing the fuel filter and working on that system, the van started and we thought we were home free. Juan said he would drive the car around and make sure everything was okay. My friend Pat was in the car with him and I waited on the sidewalk for them to come home. An elderly gentleman walked up to me and asked me if Juan was working on my car. I told him yes, he said that is son was a good mechanic and he would take good care of us. While I was trying to listen to his father, I heard the vans exhaust system surge, but I had no idea where they were. We were looking at about 3:30 p.m. at this point. Because of the wheelchair my friend has, we cannot just go to any bathroom. She has to be able to turn around in the stall to manuver herself and the chair to a proper position. Juan had driven the car up to his sister in laws so he could make sure the care would not die. He came to get me in his sisters car saying he was going to have to tow us back to his house. He did not have but a 15ft peice of rope to pull us. His last words to me as we were moving forward was, "Don't hit my new truck!" I was a nervous wreck we were right on his bumper all of the way home. By this time it is almost 4:45p.m.

Clouds were starting to form overhead and there was a hotel about 2 - 3 miles away. That was the closest. Problem was none of those hotels were handicap accessible. They all had a 4 inch step up to get in the room. The clerks, who barely spoke English said she could leave the chair on the walk way and she could step up into the room. I had told her that Pat was not ambulaory what so ever, hence the wheelchair. I was becoming frustrated because I had to be at work at 8 a.m. the next morning and it did not look like we were going to get home that evening. Juan and his parents offered to let us stay with them, but we had two cats and they had dogs, and we still could not get Pat's chair in the door.

Juan went back to working on the car. He thought that we might have a short in the wiring. He started going through each wire and found where they had melted together in the heat and were causing a short in the ignition charger. Once we got the new charger and the wired competed we waited. I continued to pray and try and think of something that would get us home safely. At about 6 p.m. it was getting dark. Juan's mother came out and said that she had made us all dinner and we could start again in the morning. She had also called the one and only nursing facility in the town to put us up for the night. Her parents were both residents in that facility.

We had a beautiful dinner and Juan came out and said he thought he had the van fixed. We all went outside, said a prayer and started the van. It started first time and I new God had been kind to us. We went to pay Juan and he said that he could not take our money, we finally insisted that he take at least 100.00. We called our family and friends and told them were coming in tonight All of them said, please don't stay another night and come in tomorrow when it was light outside. I told Pat I would like to drive until I became tired, I would at least like to make it into Houston. The van was running great so we kept going. We pulled into Hillsboro County line an I-35 when the van started shaking uncontrollably. I did not think I could keep it under control. We had in fact had a major blow out on the highway of 18 wheelers. I remembered that on the back of your license is a number to call. When I told the officers were I was He said, "Do not get out of the car. Lock the doors and we will be there in a minute." About an hour later the Hillsboro Police pull up. The officer was going to change the tire, but then noticed that because the van was handicapped it had a dropped floor with a skirt around the bottom. There was nothing to do but call a tow truck.

The police called us a truck, problem was, they will not tow the car with a person inside. We could not get the ramp down because we had pulled off to the rails on the side of the road. the police officer said and we cannot have tow truck lift the car with someone inside, if I had the tow truck do that I would get a hefty ticket. I explained the money situation and Pat's situation. Finally, the police officer told me to do what I had to do, he went back to sit in hi car. The ow truck driver lifted the van and changed the tire right then The temperature had fallen to seventeen degrees and raining. I was totally soaked and shivering. The tow truck driver wanted us to drive to the convenient store so that we could take care of the financials in the light. When I got back in the car it would not start. He came over, jumped us and said he could not charge us a dime because this was truly a situation were he just needed to be a christian. Again, God please let us just get home safely tonight and the van started. We finally arrived and unpacked the car about 5a.m.

This whole story was told because at the beginning of this adventure our friend Cheryl prayed for us and got a group of people praying for us as well as all of my family. The pray prayed for us to
''...be safe and to get home as quickly as possible. Also please let Virginia and Pats true light shine forth today so that every Christan they run into will see the light of Christ. Please pray for Virginia to maintain her calm and gentile affect and not become angry or start too worry.

That day several things happen, not only did we touch the lives of others but they showed us many blessings. The person they sent was an ex husband of the lady driving the car. I found out that Juan had recently lost his job and was going through a divorce. He seemed to need to show his parents the kind of good work he could do and his parents needed to see that he does a wonderful job and is a good person. Maybe he needed to feel confident about something. maybe his parents needed to tell their son they ere proud of him. Maybe the police officer was sent to avoid a wreck or something else in his life. Maybe the tow truck driver need something to feel good about. All I know is that there were a lot of miracles that fell into place that day. I was very lucky to have received the blessings of all of those good people.
Most of all it showed me that there are truly good people in the world and they too carry the light of Christ with them everyday. Everything happens for a reason.

Job Hunting

I was sitting at my computer filling out job applications, I remembered a story from my younger days and thought I would just share. Maybe it will help encourage another.

Jump to the sky

There were a group of frogs that were hopping along when three of them fell into a fairly deep hole. They jumped and jumped and jumped, but they could not get out. The frogs surrounding the hole were yelling down to the them, " Just lay down and die, just lay down and die." Well the first one did lay down and die. The other two took a break and then started to try and jump out of the hole again. The frogs up above started yelling , "Quit jumping and just lay down and die, Just lay down and die." The second frog laid down and died. Well the third jumped and jumped and jumped. The frogs above were yelling. "the hole is too deep, quit jumping and lay down and die, just lay down and died." About two hours later, the frog was still jumping. The other frogs were still yelling, " lay down and die". All of a sudden the frog found a surge of energy and with all his might jumped. He jumped so high that he not only cleared the hole but also the surrounding crowd of frogs. The group rushed to the jumping frog and asked him, "why did you not just lay down and die?" the jumping frog said, "I did not lay down and die because you all were encouraging me to jump to the sky, jump to the sky. I knew then that had true friends."

If anyone reads my blogs, let me know what you think. Well its back to filling out applications for me. Please keep me on your prayer list that I can find a job I love and not just settle for a minimum wage job.

Whom shall I trust

We live in a world filled with injustice and unfairness. Joseph suffered unfairly at the hands of his brothers. David suffered unjustly for many years at the hands of King Saul, and through no fault of his own, Job lost his possessions, his family and his health. Job wondered why God was allowing him to suffer, but he never got a clear answer. He did however, through his struggles come to know God in a new and deeper way. Even though we face unfairness in our world, we can still use those opportunities to learn more about trusting God.
When our life is going smoothly, trust is easy. The tests of trust always come when our life stops making sense. Responding to tragedy is never easy. Maybe it is the terrible sense of loss that we feel. Perhaps, its the desire to know why that leaves us feeling alienated and alone. Was it something we did? Was it someone elses fault. Why did God allow it to happen? These questions often go unanswered. For many of us, as we make our moral inventory and dig up the layers of denial in our life, we realize that our suffering has resulted from our own behaviors. When Job lost everything, he continued to glorify God. God gives us the right to cry, to doubt, to fear, to question, to need and to wrestle with the very essence of our existence. As our hear cries our against injustice and pain, the bible reassures us the importance of being honest with God. God understands our strong feelings He never wants to participate even in the darkest part of our life. Only then will we be able to come to him with all our heart. Only then will he be able to bring us the healing and the hope he longs to give.

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes...

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.
He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90's, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
"Oh, bull----!" she said. "He hit a horse."

"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that..

But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.

So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family.. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.

(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church.
She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?"

"I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

"No left turns," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.

As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.."

"What?" I said again.

"No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."

"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support.
"No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works."
But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.

"Loses count?" I asked.

"Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."

I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

"No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.

She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer."

"You're probably right," I said.

"Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated.

"Because you're 102 years old," I said..

"Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.

He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:
"I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet"

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.."

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life,
Or because he quit taking left turns. "

Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one's who don't.. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it and if it changes your life, let it.Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it."ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!

50 years

Can you imagine living or being married to the same person for fifty years. Wee tomorrow, my parents Jim and Patty, will be married for 50 years. To me that is absolutely incredible. In fact other than my grandparents, I can't say that I know anyone who has been married that long.

My parents will have a big party tomorrow night at Del Frisco's. They have invited a very select group of people and of course it is mostly family. We will be taking family pictures before the meal tomorrow and then also in various parts of Sundance Square in Downtown Ft Worth. My mom has asked us to all sit down and write a toast to them. Both of my sisters have good enough memories that they can actually stand up and speak off the cuff. No not me, I have to think, and write, and scribble, rewrite, throw away and start again.

So here it goes, I think this is going to be what I will tell my parents tomorrow:

I started thinking about this toast weeks ago. I looked at poetry and stories and pictures. Nothing seemed to say what was and is in my heart. In looking at some of the photos, I came across me as the engineer of the train. When my mom would mop the floors, I would set up the chairs side by side in twos and don my mexican sombrero, get the drum my father made for me, put it in the engineers seat and take over the imaginary train. Oh the places that I seemed to take my brother and sisters. They always sat in their assigned seats and let me take them on that endless ride. They all knew that I was in charge of that train. No one dare sat in my seat.

Every summer, we would spend a week with my grandparents in Oklahoma. They would split us up in twos, because my grandparents just could not coral all four of us. My sister Amy and me were always paired together. One year, my grandmother took us to the little park in Waukhomis. There in all of its glory was the ride called the bullet. I wanted to ride that so bad... I just could not stand it. My grandmother bought me a ticket and took me on that ride. Needless to say, it was a long time before I enjoyed a roller coaster ride again. They just would not stop that ride and I knew I was going to die. That was the same summer that my grandmother hemmed up my cut off shorts, which were suppose to be stringy and very in style.

One summer we broke the tradition and went to Hot Springs, Arkansas. I will never forget that summer, We learned how to water ski and inner tube. Being on top of that water was like being next to God. We would get up early and sit out on the dock and watch the sun come up. The lake was so still and calm. I could go on and on with the memories.

My parents were there for every clarinet recital, basketball game, guitar lesson and much much more. There was nothing better than running to my father when he opened his arms to me and told me he was proud of me. And there was nothing better than my mom coming into my room and laying down beside me and telling me she loved me. My parents instilled in me a good education, but most importantly a strong belief system in God. As a family when we were younger we would sit down and say the rosary together. I remember watching my father as an adult while he was praying. I truly believe that the holy spirit passed through him. My mother taught us the power of prayer. My great grandmother Daisy Penn also taught us to have faith and to love our family members no matter who had harmed us, because when it comes right down to it, the only people you have in the end are your family. I know that my parents and my sisters and I hope my brother will always be there for me as I will always be there for them and their children if the need arises. So in conclusion,
To my parents,
I know that I have not been an easy child to raise...
But I have to say that my life has been easier because you have had my back.
You have always been looking out and trying to protect me as best you could.
Now I am not saying that I have always listened or taken your advise.
Even through all of my life's lessons, that I did not want to hear,
I could hear your love loud and clear, and it did make all of the difference.
I have not always shown the proper respect, but the respect has always been there deep down in my heart.
I cannot every repay you for all you have done for me, but today I would like to say thank you for loving me and caring for me.
I love you with all my heart.
May the lord bless you and keep you. Happy 50th.



Here's to fifty years and hopefully many more.

I named this blog what if... because I got to thinking about what I would do if I had money, fame and fortune. Growing up we all wanted to be firemen, policemen, and astronauts, just to name a few. What is it that makes us determine who or what we want to be? Did any of you all follow your passion or did you just settle for what was in front of you because you had to? Did something happen in your life that made you choose?

About two weeks ago, my boss fired me. She called me several names and then said that I was not the up to standard employee that she wanted. Now mind you, I have worked for her a year and she has never once written me up. At first, I was really angry, but then I decided that anger was going to do me no good. That emotion was just wasting my time and energy. If I continued to rent her space in my head and continue to worry, I was not going to be able to move forward. So I have been out job hunting for the past two weeks. She actually has a new girl that I had been training and then her little pet that could do no wrong. The Friday before he let me go she took her out and bought her some new clothes for the photo shoot. This particular person did not like me at all an would constantly do things to sabotage me. She would pack a box short, or she would not take a message or she would not follow through on something that I had asked her to do. Anyway, i better be careful or I will drag this little essay in the wrong direction and bring about bad Karma to myself.

Let me describe that unemployment insurance process to you ( for those of you that have never had to ask for help from the state). The first thing that you are told is that you have to file for unemployment insurance. There is a very limited number of people who actually qualify for unemployment if they have been fired. Usually, if you have been fired you were terminated because you broke some policy or procedure within your company. Now if you were fired because of that you are not eligible for unemployment benefits. Now on my way out the door, my boss said, I will not fight your unemployment, and I will always give you a good recommendation for a new job. I actually thought this was quite funny as she just got through firing my ass basically, because she did not like me. Then you are given a calendar with all of their classes listed on them. You can substitute one of those classes for a job contact.

You have to have three job contacts a week. I have been trying to do as many as possible. If I only did three a week, I would never be able to find a job. Of course after you do all of this, you are eligible to go to the resource room. There you can meet with an advisor who will look over your resume. One of the career placement counsellors sent me an email and said, If you need any assistance with anything, please feel free to give me a call or/and email. I sent her and email and requested and appointment. I thought maybe she might have a few other ideas for me. She said anyone in the resource room would be available to assist me.

So, I went to the resource room. The educator in the center of the room asked me what I needed. I asked if he had time to review my resume or to advise me on how to change my work in Texas file to receive more jobs that were a better match for my skill set. He said, "Well, first little lady, you have to check out this computer. You can have it for a maximum of one hour." "Do you know how to turn it on?" By this time I was so frustrated I wanted to smack daylights out of him.

Anyway, I have been looking for a job. Now mind you, I have absolutely nothing. In fact, I really do not know how my next months bills will be paid. Talk about doing anything, I emailed my face book friends and asked if anybody needed their house cleaned or if anyone had any odd jobs around the house such as mowing the lawn etc. A friend called me back and told me she would pay me to clean a room in her house. This room happened to be the dog and cat room for some show animals. So, I have demeaned myself and will clean up poop for a sum of money. Mind you I am no better than anyone else, but it is just really sad that I have a college degree and cannot find a job other than picking up cat poop.

Filling out applications has changed. You do not actually go business to business anymore. People, managers, supervisors, do not want to be bothered by you to ask for applications. Everything that you need is online. You just type in the name of the store, or company, their web sight will pop up, their career jobs will pop up and then all of the jobs across the united states will show up. This is quite an overwhelming procedure. The work force commission sends me a new email everyday with potential jobs. They are not necessarily jobs that I can do, but I have to go through and weed them all out. Yesterday, I went through 4 pages of potential jobs, most of which I did not qualify for, or they were more than 50 miles away. the only way to find a job is to just keep plugging away at the computer. I want to know where the old lady pulls out an index card and says, go here and interview, they have a job that might be just right for you. Whoever came up with that concept has surely never filed for unemployment insurance.

I guess I have to keep my sense of humor about it. There are people a whole lot worse off than me, but what if I was rich and famous. They say money cannot by happiness but i think whoever made this statement must have been pretty wealthy, because money sure can buy a lot of things that make me very very happy. So does anybody out there have a work force, unemployment funny to share. Please, feel free to tell me all about it.