What Tree?

Every morning I tumble out of bed and groan my walking clothes on. I generally open the door and check the weather-today, it had been raining.

I decided to chance it and got ready for my morning habit. My husband was also getting dressed and I casually mentioned it had been drizzling.

I stepped out into the street and continued along my usual path. Everything was fine until I started heading back. It started to drizzle and I revved up my pace to a saunter (visions of Gene Kelley with an umbrella clouded my vision).

Then the heavens opened and I looked around for the ark. Instead I found an oak tree(thank God, it still had most of its leaves) and I parked my rain soaked body under it. I thought any minute my husband would come driving by and pick me up. I had already been passed by two cars, splashing through the streets. I would have stopped for the poor hapless woman in walking clothes and hair stuck to her head-but oh well...

I was becoming angrier and angrier as the minutes ticked by. I began to violently believe no one was coming to pick me up.

As I approached home, I figured my husband was down in the "shop" working out. No, the lights were off. He must be out running. I mentally ticked off how I was going to borrow my daughter's car (it was parked second in line in the driveway, my car was in the garage) and rescue my soaked husband. I got to the back door and it was locked-automatically my bladder went ape-shit-there must be a nerve in the door knob that connects directly to my walnut bladder and the urge was overwhelming. I ran to the kitchen door and squeaked/sloshed in. My very dry husband was sitting at the kitchen table sipping his morning coffee and reading the paper.

I stormed passed him on the way to a hot shower. I began explaining my morning to him and he was choking on laughter when he asked-what tree? I almost fell for it. I started decribing the neighbor's yard and I could see the suppressed guffaws in his eyes. I was livid. Now I know why men die first, if not their wives would fucking kill them.

Barlow RoadTrip

On my mom's 80th birthday-I drove her back to where I grew up and most of my brothers and sisters were born-Fort Eustis, Virginia. We also visited Williamsburg (another memory from my childhood).







8-04-08 I can remember when I was a teenager, all of my aunts and Mother getting together and laughing. Not the polite titter but the lung emptying, head thrown back, tears running down the cheek; gasping laugher that comes from the soul.
I guess I have arrived because at my mom’s birthday party all of my sisters sat around a big round table and we laughed our collective asses off; over our youth, husbands and shilly sit ways.

My husband and I brought Mom back to Georgia with us and it all started again at an innocuous truck stop somewhere between Memphis and Birmingham. The women’s bathroom was full so I opted to use the men’s. The door was open so as I was going in, I met a gentleman coming out. He smiled at me and said “Gotcha.” Mom immediately turned away from us and broke down into the kind of laughter that starts at the diaphragm and leaves one gasping for air and unable to talk.

8-11-08 Today was Mom’s real birthday. We drove from Evans to Fayetteville, NC. I very carefully obeyed all speed limit signs and only cussed under my breath at all the other fucked up drivers. Our first tourist stop was the Airborne Museum and thanks to Murphy’s Law, it was closed every Monday. OK, I wasn’t going to let this snafu ruin our first day on the road. I vaguely remembered the Cross Creek Mall where I had wiled away many hours, while living at Ft. Bragg. We ended up feasting on Chinese food served on a plastic plate. We shopped as only two addicts can and ended up at Talbot’s petite department so my tiny mother could find anorexic clothes to fit her frame. Of course, I don’t have this irritating problem, every store under the sun caries a size fat. (Mom, I never got your invisible waist that you promised me when I was fifteen. Crap, how old do I have to be?) Mom looked absolutely fabulous in a peacock blue sweater and skirt set.


Next, we went to the Coffee Scene for birthday cake and coffee. Getting back to the hotel was problematic. We made several wrong turns until I started recognizing street names. We pulled into the Hampton Inn and were horrified to see some fat man open the door to our room and go in. I was about to jump out of the car and beat his ass (I wonder if OnStar provides that service?) when Mom, choking back laughter, suggested we drive to the next parking lot. We both got the giggles and barely crawled to our room. It was at this point I told my mom you can’t be smart and beautiful. She just apologized leaving me wondering which one she thought I was.

8-12-08 We started out driving at 9:00 and drove to the VA Welcome Center. Hot damn, I hit pay dirt because the smart little cookie working behind the counter gave me the appropriate maps and, as an extra bonus, drew out our route. I promptly forgot the maps and left them in the bathroom. After a huge cluster fuck, I returned to the Welcome Center and retrieved them. Then it was on to Starbucks and Williamsburg. We pulled into the Hampton Inn Williamsburg, registered and regrouped. We then headed downtown to the Visitor’s Center. We saw a short movie on John Frye (a burgess in early Williamsburg, we left before the movie was over -I whispered to Mom I knew how it ended.) Mom bought us both two day passes and we ended the day at Ruby Tuesday. We also shopped at Yankee Candle, decided it was too expensive but ended up buying our friend a pair of blue candles for her table.
8-13-08 We were off to Ft. Eustis around 9:30. We ate breakfast at the hotel and got directions from the front desk. When we drove through the front gate-the MP's were very kind and provided us with a map. We started at the Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) office, then tanked up and went to the PX. We bought the only souvenirs available-ceramic mugs, with Fort Eustis emblazoned across the front. This whole time Mom and I were swapping memories, she remembered our old set of quarters as being nearby.

When we left the PX, I followed the old, familiar pine trees to an older set of buildings called Okinawa Village. I turned in and we were both surprised and happy that I had found the apartments that looked just like the ones where we used to live. I was going to turn around and drive down by the river when voila-there was our old apartment building (2322) and our old set of quarters. I wanted to get out immediately but there was a Doberman Pinscher running loose behind the apartments (It would have never happened while we were living there because the quasi-Colonel Klink-like MP's would have issue some ticket or other to the hapless owners). Mom and I waited for as long as we could then I got out and started snapping pictures. I slowly walked around our building, remembering the Alban's, Rapski's, Lenhart's, Hunt's, and Bates.

We turned the car toward the front gate and ended up by the Ft Eustis club. A nice, young soldier instructed us to follow him to the main gate and he gave us a royal tour of the new Ft. Eustis. Thanks to OnStar, we made it back to Williamsburg and the tour of the Capitol Building.

8-14-08 The next day was reserved for Jamestown. I was amazed that we had to buy another ticket just to stand on the banks of the James River. This spot was run by the park service, while the settlement was run by the state. It seems only the shuttle was covered by our two-day pass. I began to violently believe in tourist traps. What a rip.

We didn't watch the movie in the center; we walked across the footbridge to the riverbank. We joined the tour of the character Mary Buck. We were both bored and decided to tour the site on our own. We checked out the 1607 church, the statues of John Smith and Pocahontas (or as some like to say, Cokeahontas) and the old cemetery.

We sat on a bench catching our breath before boarding the shuttle to the ships and Jamestown settlement. We saw the Susan Constant, Discovery and the Godspeed-but what really caught my attention was a family of midgets. As near as I could remember they never made the history books. How relevant was this? After the ships, we walked back through the settlement. Man, everything looked smaller than I remembered it. Maybe the little people felt right at home…

After Jamestown, it was back to Williamsburg and lunch at Huzzah's. Next, we ventured out on the cobblestone and horse dung-laced streets. We managed to see the jail, armory and gardens. We saved the best for last, the Governor's Palace. Once we were ushered inside, the tour guide made us all feel uncomfortable. What a Nazi. He barked out what we were not supposed to do and then raked a poor unsuspecting girl over the coals for drinking Sprite. Her mother tried to smooth the situation over by lamely telling him that they joined the tour late and didn't hear his orders. What is up with all of these sucky tour guides? When we got back to our room, I feel asleep watching a Reba marathon.

8-15-08 Bright and early on Friday morning, I was at the business center downloading Mapquest directions. We ate and then loaded the luggage in the car. By this time, Mom and I had decided it was a woman-hater who had written all of the maps we had been using all week. We drove with our uncanny sense of direction and made it to 95 S. We stopped for lunch at Exit 95 and shopped all afternoon. Mom bought another suit (the clotheshorse rides again) and she bought me a cute pair of Ecco sandals.

We stayed at the same Hampton Inn in Fayetteville. Mom didn't want to unload her suitcase so she hopped into the trunk and pulled out her pajamas. I told her she looked like she belonged on the Soprano's. We watched Mrs. Doubtfire, Dr. Phil and the Olympics. Lights out at ten.

8-16-08 It was overcast, what a perfect day for driving. We only ran into traffic as we got closer to Augusta. Finally, we pulled into the driveway at my house. my daughter was home but my husband wasn’t. I felt like kissing the ground. Mom and I were safely at home, the trip was over and we had made many memories.



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Choices

I wrote the following after a chance meeting with another military wife at the Springfield Mall in VA. I was killing time, I was up in DC attending the Association of the US Army (AUSA) annual conference and struck up a conversation with a fellow wife. I was so inflamed, as soon as I got home-I typed up the following editorial and sent it in to the Augusta Chrnicle.




Following my Army Soldier husband from duty station to duty station, to my way of thinking, was not a hardship-it was a given. We had two children, a wonderful life together, and to break up the family so I could have a career was unthinkable.

Unfortunately, women and men who marry into the military often do give up all hope of establishing a career. My dreams came crashing down back in 1998 when I was hired full time to teach English in Richmond County, Georgia. I had been teaching for 17 years, earned my teaching certificate during a stint my husband had teaching ROTC at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. I was only given credit for having taught 1 year and my pay and retirement benefits reflected that of a brand new teacher.

This also happened to a fellow Army wife, Jeannice. She quit a lucrative job in Washington DC (she had been employed as a staff accountant since 1999) to follow her husband to his new duty station at Ft. Gordon, GA. She received no unemployment benefits and unfortunately this scenario is happening more and more. Should a spouse have to choose between a career and family?

Jeff Opdyke of the Wall Street Journal writes, Am I making the right decision -- for me, for my wife, for our son? And more broadly, how do you ever simultaneously value family and career when choosing the best for one means you must, by necessity, compromise on the other?

With so much upheaval in the military, should a spouse be made to suffer just to keep the family together? Employers are loosing out on a great resource; military dependents are great employees.

The Military Spouse and How I Honor That Title

I wrote this for a booksigning I did at Woodworth Library at Fort Gordon in May 2010 in honor of Spouse Appreciation Week.

Good morning I am so glad you have come today to learn about the varied life of the Army spouse. Not enough is said or written about our sometimes difficult lives and all the sacrifices and life choices we make for those we love.

First of all, I want to say that writing has always been an outlet for me. I started writing when I was a little girl and have continued all of my life. This book is a collection of the poetry I have written over the years. I was at Fort Bragg (in the middle eighties), I was giving a reading of some of my poetry and another wife suggested I compile all of this into a book. That planted a seed. It wasn’t until our family retired here that this book materialized.

I finished up the poems that I wanted to include; I met the artist who drew my front cover. And then I just sat on it. Both of my kids finished up college, my husband moved on to another career and I got a job teaching English at Augusta Technical College. Still the unpublished manuscript called to me. This year- I followed my dreams.; I began the publication process last September, the book was published in January and here I am.

Like I wrote in my book, my life has been a magic carpet ride. I have seen and done things that were unimaginable. I have lived in Germany-got to feel and touch things I’d only read about in books. My husband and I went to the Innsbruck Olympics, vacationed in England, France and Spain and toured Italy and Greece. This was pretty exciting stuff for an Army Brat.

My dad was an NCO and spent 23 years in the Army. I have been a marathon ID card holder. I was issued my first card at age 11 and have had one ever since. That sums up the creative process and mindset I went through before I published.

Most of you are curious about the process I went through to get published and remain sane enough to speak to you today. After two failed attempts to get published through main stream publishers, I opted for self publishing.

I guess the key learning point here is to always believe in yourself. I guess being stubborn isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you have any inclination or ambition of doing anything else-by all means do it. Writing has been nipping at my heels my whole life. I have done everything else but…I still create. It is in my blood, my DNA and it just won’t go away.

Attend a writer’s support group, literary functions that catch your fancy, and READ everything you can get your hands on. Reserve a day or night just to catch up with articles in the Writer’s Digest, Poets and Writer’s and sometimes I just read the market books for poetry, non-fiction and fiction just to see what is out there. Read up on trends in the writing community-my writing friends keep me informed. I also volunteer at the local writer’s conference at our city’s college-Sandhills Writers Conference. My friends know I write so they tell me when they hear of something in the writing biz. Be bold, do things just because-I ended up with the newsletter editor’s job for the AUSA Chapter at Ft. Gordon simply because I expressed an interest in writing. I was working for Raytheon as an executive secretary at the time. I volunteered to write parts of the church newsletter, I wrote our neighborhood’s newsletter, I teach English. My publisher friend called me and asked me to help launch the Columbia County Literary Guild and I did. Be open to fresh ideas even if it means you may have to work for nothing. Join literary organizations like the Georgia Poetry Society, or join your local arts councils.
The most important words of wisdom would be to always follow your heart. I may not have always made the best decisions but I have always been happy.

I want to leave you with one thought-my life was never a well thought out plan. I started out thinking I would always end up in Little Rock, Arkansas and work in the human resources department of the hospital where I worked while in college.

I never expected to marry my husband or spend my life flitting from one military base to another. I never thought I would live in Korea-much less have my second child there. Another two words comes to mind-perseverance and flexibility.

I tried to think through the nomadic life I had chosen for myself and my kids. I figured teaching would be my best bet. I went back to grad school and instead of finishing with an MA in Learning Disabilities; I opted for a teaching degree and another minor in English. I have been using it since 1984.

I never thought I would get old enough to retire-believe me time has been the only constant in my life.
When retirement was approaching-I panicked and got my real estate license. I managed to hang on for a year and then went back to teaching. In that whole year, I only sold one house but I found the one we’re living in now.

My children have graduated and left home. One is married and living in Atlanta and the other is working at SRS. My husband has gone on to another career and I am concentrating on what I love to do. Life is good.

Green Is As Green Does

The shock of no longer being part of a big, green family came over me slowly. My husband had retired from the Army after serving his country for 27 years. I have always felt the Army was my green space. We do care more and waste less. We do care more about people, that is why we do what we do and we waste less of our time and energy on things that do not matter.

I had never thought about the differences-good and bad, of being an Army wife and raising two Army Brats. Most of the differences were positive: making friends, living in exotic locales, having to depend on my husband and kids because there was no one else…

Army wives all share one thing in common; we are away from family and have to substitute rushed friendships that we have just made. Moving into quarters in Seoul, Korea, I had barely met my neighbor. I had asked to borrow sheets until mine came in the hold baggage shipment. The next week her father-in-law passed away and she and her husband flew back to the States for the funeral. For the next three weeks, I was the sole caretaker of her three teenage sons. Needless to say, we are close friends to this day. She returned the favor by being my best friend for the rest of the tour.

I remember the Christmas we had invited several couples over to our tiny Korean apartment for dinner. Our kitchen did not have an oven. I borrowed one from another American couple on the 11th floor. I was constantly running up four flights of stairs to check on my pies. I was 8 months pregnant, the whole day was a comedy of errors, but the memories made and the hilarity of the situation are woven into the treasure trove of family stories passed down to our children.

Now the differences don’t seem as pronounced. I did miss growing up with my family. When I left home, my younger sister was in the fifth grade, she just had her fortieth birthday. I don’t share many of the memories they have. I have missed every reunion, and one sister even married and divorced and I never met her mate. My kids don’t know their cousins, but I have the warmth of my husband’s closeness and my children’s soothing kisses and the green blanket of a life lived serving others to comfort me.

Aging--These Are My Golden Years

This blog is a tribute to the passing years. When I was younger, I longingly awaited my golden years as a cap to working hard and raising a family all over the globe. Unfortunately, thanks to a changing economy and the fact I like to eat-I am in the ludicrous position of pursuing ANOTHER career until I am laid to a much needed rest. I don't feel singled out-this situation is being played out all over our great country. I have faith in our country that this scenario is finite and will come to a much heralded end (hopefully we saw the beginnings in the last election).

Anyway, as I ponder the future, I decided that I am too selfish, i.e., it's all about me, to be despondent and am going to enjoy the ride. This blog is in response to what I want to do with the rest of my life. Never mind that I wanted to drink myself blind and quietly drool into the ocean, I will become a productive human being and contribute responsibly to the human race (whatever that means).

Whenever the muse (or the wine) hits me; I will explore another issue that is facing the baby-boomers et al...or just me.