Three great people

In the last three weeks, three of my friends have passed away. It makes one think of great questions in life and also practical ones. One was my next door neighbor and two were gentlemen from my church. They were wonderful people in such divergent ways.



Eugenia Carnes Wiseman was my neighbor. Before she and her daughter, Glenda, moved next door thirteen years ago, her mother, Henrietta Carnes was my neighbor. There have been Carnes next door to us for the past twenty-six years and I don't know what it's going to be like to not have a Carnes neighbor next to us. Mama Bill was always handy whenever I needed to run somewhere and needed a last minute baby sitter. She was a wonderful cook. We could expect some wonderful treat often from her kitchen. She walked everyday into her 90's, I could not keep up with her on the steep hills around our house. After Mama Bill passed away, her daughter, Eugenia, and her granddaughter, Glenda, came to keep us company. We have been blessed by their company. While we were in New York and Mississippi, Glenda fed our cats everyday. Now they live between their house and ours. Glenda is mentally handicapped. She is just a little older than me. It has been wonderful to have her as my neighbor these past years. It was always good to see her walking in the yard. If she came by and saw no food in the cats bowl she would come on the porch and go feed them. Sometimes she would be on the porch and we would come out in our underwear and be surprised that she was there!



The sad thing about Eugenia's death is that Glenda will have to move. She receives a small stipend from Social Security because of her handicap. Now there is not enough money for her to pay the expenses in the house and she will have to move to public housing. Glenda misses her mother and I'm sure she will miss our remaining shared cat. One of our cats was killed last week and she was devastated. She kept saying it was terrible to lose her mother and her second favorite cat in one week. We had a funeral for the cat and invited Glenda to attend. We stood around the grave and told stories about Spot. Glenda told about Casey and Spot killing a copperhead a couple of weeks ago in their yard. She was convinced that they were protecting her and her mother. Glenda will live by herself in the high rise. She is capable of cooking, riding the bus, and is an excellent house keeper. She will be fine, but I will miss her so, so much. It will be hard not to see her everyday, in the yard or on our back porch.



Kenneth Stipe and his wife, Bobbye, were some of the first people I met when we moved to Rome. We started a new Sunday School class at North Rome Methodist twenty-six years ago. I have known them exactly half my life. They adopted us as part of their family. They have been like parents to me and Freddy and grandparents to Nicole. We have always had chili and cornbread on Halloween night until the last few years. Freddy had seven surgeries on his foot beginning when Nicole was in kindergarden and through the third grade. Bobbye and Kenneth kept Nicole several times through those years so she could go to school and not have to stay with my family in Alabama and miss school. Kenneth was the world champion hugger. He would fold one in his arms and gently give the best hugs ever. He was always in a good mood and always had a smile on his face. Once, Bobbye told him Leigh needed a whipping. He took her to her room, pulled of his belt and told her to hollar every time he swung the belt. Bobbye thought he was killing Leigh and she came up and caught him in the act of beating the bed to death! He was too gentle to whip Leigh. He was firm when he needed to be, but I only ever saw his gentleness.

Kenneth's funeral was a testament to a life well spent. Steve Story and Barbara Davis performed the service and his son, Ken Stipe did the best eulogy I've ever heard. He read things he had written down about his daddy through the years, he read letters from Kenneth's daughter, Leigh, and his son-in-law, Mark. They talked about how wonderful, kind, and gentle he was. Freddy, my husband, did the music. He played the guitar and led us in singing "How Great Thou Art." He sang a song he wrote, "When Flowers Bloom." Kenneth always loved it when Freddy sang in church. He especially loved it when he would sing something he wrote accompanying himself on the guitar. After Ken's loving eulogy, Freddy sang "Ave Maria" a cappella. It was probably the hardest thing he had ever done. We laughed and cried, cried and laughed and Freddy had to hold his composure which he did admirably.

It seems strange to me that we have to compress a person's life to an hour. We try to boil their life down to it's essence. I guess most of the time we manage pretty well, after all funerals are for the living, not the person who has gone on to another plane. I think that if we are remembered, we are still alive in another's heart. I hope one day that most people that have known me in life will remember me fondly. I will remember these three people for as long as I live because they made an impression on me in some way. I will remember you Eugenia, Kenneth, and George. I will remember you while I am Living Life...

The Fourth of July Weekend

It was a wonderful Fourth of July weekend this year. I suffered no catastrophes, made it through the whole weekend without falling down. I paddled a river, cooked the most awesome meal, had a wonderful night at the fireworks, finished the fourth with watermelon and kisses, and...when it was raining on this fine Sunday, rolled right over and went back to sleep all afternoon.

On Friday, July 3, my friend, Sandy, and I loaded up at her house in Piedmont and drove two more hours south to the Coosa River in Wetumpka, Alabama. We see the beginning of the Coosa everyday here in Rome. At the confluence of the Etowah and Oostanaula Rivers the Coosa begins right here in downtown. It is a muddy river here. In Wetumpka, the river has mica and quartz crystals through it and it looks like gold and diamonds in the water. There are interesting rock formations all along the river that you might or might not see depending on the discharge from the Jordan Dam. There are several rapids going from Class I to II to the infamous Class III rapids that goes by the name of Moccasin Gap. It has a pretty fast flow and is an S turn. You have to be on your Ps & Qs to make it. You must hug the right side of the first fall and stay right going through the S. If you don't the big sandstone rock has a shelf that will reach right out and grab you. That's what happened to many people. I don't know if it was the first time a lot of people had paddled this stretch of river, but almost every canoe flipped on the shelf of rock in the second bend. We laughed watching all of them. Sandy said that she had never seen so many people turn over. I anchored in the rocks and Sandy would reach out to people floating by and we made friends with about 15 people we fished out of the river. I met one young man from Fort Payne, my home town. He and his girlfriend made good natured fun of their friends who had flipped in the Gap. Sandy took a picture of them and promised they could see them on Facebook. Right after the picture was taken they flipped their boat in the calm water! It was so much fun!

Saturday, was grilling day. We have three different grills. Two gas grills and one old very nearly worn out kettle grill. Which is my favorite? The old worn out one. I carefully built my indirect fire, soaked and made a foil packet for the cherry wood chips for smoking. I use pure charcoal, none of that presoaked charcoal for us. I use a chimney starter to get it going. While waiting for the coals to turn white I made a rub for the Boston Butt. I used cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, pepper, garlic, dry mustard, brown sugar and gave that baby a massage like it never had in real life. I smoked the butt for two hours on the grill then finished it in the oven for three hours. It was the best pulled pork I've had since Henry Irwin ran his BBQ on Broad Street. I made my own sauce. I used brown sugar, pepper flakes, salt, pepper, tomato sauce, ketchup, garlic, and my secret ingredient is a Sprite. I simmered it for the three hours that the Butt finished in the oven. I made potato salad, slaw, and baked beans to finish out the meal. My brother, Everett and our Uncle Barnard came to partake of our repast. A good time and a full stomach were had by all. We loaded up the CRV with extra lawn chairs and headed to Ridge Ferry Park for the Fourth of July celebration and fireworks. We enjoyed the music, the moment of silence to remember our troops who have given their all for our freedoms, and of course the fireworks. There must of been near 100,000 people who watched the fireworks from the park and all the higher areas of Rome. When we returned home we had watermelon, printed pictures for Everett and Uncle Barnard of the night's festivities, hugged and kissed them and sent them on their way. They left around midnight and Freddy kept telling me I needed to let Uncle Barnard go home. I did, but reluctantly!

Sunday came with overcast sky and a gently falling rain. Just the relief we needed since we have been having weather so hot we just short of hellfire and damnation! We were going to church, but I couldn't wake dear husband up. I sat on the front porch with a good book, my Sprite, and an absorbing book. I slept Sunday afternoon away in a nap in my favorite napping spot, the sofa. We had great leftovers and probably will have them for the rest of the week. Can Living Life be better than this!