I Believe in Angels...

cue Abba: "I have a dream"

Fr. Matt preached a wonderful sermon this morning, based on the Propers for this, the 15th Sunday after Pentecost.

Hebrews 13, 1-8 "....show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."

He asked, "Do any of you believe in angels?"  

First, I heard Abba singing and then I thought of my paternal grandmother, Anna Louise Trevoy Stephenson, who died in October of 1905, just ten days after giving birth to her first child, my father.

Since he didn't ever know her, even less did we know her.  However, we did have a picture of her.  It was an enlarged photograph which had been colored and framed.  



As many of you know, my little brother, Royce Stephenson, was born severely handicapped with Cerebral Palsy, very smart but relatively unable to do anything for himself.  As a youngster he saw this big old picture and asked to have it on the wall visible from his bed.  Years and moves went by and "Grandma Stephenson" went wherever he did.  

As mother aged and care for Royce was tranferred to Sunshine Haven Nursing Home in Lordsburg, NM., he was extremely insistent that the picture be hung there as well.

I'd never paid much attention to it but eventually he and I talked about it, me out loud, him with his talking board.  Turns out he was very sure that she was his.  She was his Guardian Angel and while he lived somewhere on this earth, by golly, she was going to be there too.  

He said she comforted and encouraged him.  

I think his going to Heaven was a perfect opportunity for them to get better acquainted.  

Therefore, had we been called upon to raise our hands if we believed in angels, I would have raised mine.

Road Trip !!!

I love road trips.  I am a truck drivers' daughter. And I have never gone this long in my adult life without a road trip.  Now there's one in the works.

This year of diminished income has cut out all but the smallest of travels.  The last time I left the state (except for over there to Louisiana the other day) was for Kate's graduation from Alabama last August and we flew.

I like to fly just fine but its mighty pricey. I really love road trips.  Love to plan them, take them and look back at the memories of them.  Facebook makes it even worse with sites of places I've been and places I'd love to see.  Hatch Chili, La Fonda, Ireland, England, New England, you name it, I want to go there.  Then there are my many fortunate friends who go to beaches and islands, and cities and towns.  Then there are my FB friends who already live in really cool places, like Fairhope, Alabama, close to Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Perdido Key.  I have not seen one drop of salt water for an entire year!  Or a grandson who's sailing the Alaskan coast and another who's happy in Chattanooga, TN, and tells me I'd really like it.  Of course I would.  I like most of the places I go.  I even watched a special about Marfa, TX the other night and longed for one more visit to Big Bend country.

Anyway, whine, whine, whine, I have a road trip ahead.  Yay.  Granddaughter Alexis, a sophomore at UAB and cheerleader, is down for the UAB football game against UTSA, in the Alamodome in San Antonio in October.  I'll get to see her sister too, who will be in grad school at St. Mary's.  I may even get another visit with my new great-grandson.

I know, there's no other state, nor beach, nor new territory involved, but its over five hours from here to there, I get to stay in a hotel (love hotels) and eat at some of the best Mexican restaurants in the world.

Its really great to have found a job that I like and while it doesn't pay a lot, it pays.  I also work with interesting people from many different parts of the world, who travel and transfer to other places.  Obviously, listening to all there travel experiences only whets my already voracious appetite.  I do have a small cache of frequent flyer miles, maybe enough for one trip to Europe.  So when I get road tripping back on the map I will probably start thinking of farther fields.

Beep, beep ... see ya'.

Everybody has done it ???

To be honest, I've never been a fan of Paula Deen.  You can ask any of my friends.  I love cooking and baking and I like a lot of cooking and baking shows.  I am a mid-westerner, been in Texas over fifty years, but I am a mid-westerner.  Texans call us Yankees, but we grew up in the mid-west of the US.

Further, I've never been a racist.  How do I know?  My dad was one.  He was a hard driving truck driver and he knew every unacceptable politically incorrect moniker for every ethnic section of the city of Milwaukee.  He had disparaging titles for Italians, Irishmen, Jews and Polish Americans.  He used them with great regularity as he did cuss words.  When he came to Texas he adjusted them to fit the ethnic makeup here.  And, God knows, he was not alone in any of it.

Every time he used one of those words, about a person, or a group of people, or an expletive when he banged his thumb while hammering, my Mother responded, promptly and loudly, "Lyle, not in front of the children."

As a minister's daughter she went to some lengths to reference Biblical instruction regarding the Lord's name in vain.  As a biology teacher she was pretty clear about anatomical references.  As a fine example of an mid-century motherhood she was equally clear about debasing terminology.  As the mother of a totally handicapped son she was way ahead of the curve when it came to name calling of any person who also was afflicted in any manner.

I see a number of folks pardoning the recently exposed inappropriate comments by the above mentioned cook, followed by support for her based on the remark "we've all done that at one time."

Maybe there is over reaction, I don't know.  Why not ask someone who has spent a lifetime being called a name.  Maybe its "just about the money" ... as in minority persons buy food, cook and eat, too.

I am too critical of too many people and I know it.  But I am not a racist.

Work History

In a conversation with one of the employment experts I have searched out about my inability to land a job, he said, "maybe it would be better if your "work experience" data didn't go back quite so far. Try starting with your radio job in 1980."

Here's the funny part, I had not begun at the beginning, not even close.

On a summer day in 1956, my good friend, Bunkie, and I visited the radio station in our Milwaukee neighborhood.  We trucked through Hawthorn Glen, across Hawley Road and up the street marked by a huge broadcast tower and a small cinderblock building.  For some reason, long forgotten, we were welcomed in by the genial General Manager, Bill Weaver, and a friendly Program Director, Gene Edwards.  

Some fella named Gordon McLendon had recently put WRIT on the air.  He was famous in Texas for movie theaters and radio stations but this was his first foray into the midwest, land of labor unions.  He had sent some of his best Dallas folks up to show 'em how it was done, this new Top Forty Radio.  He was a pioneer.  Both of the above mentioned had been at KLIF in Dallas.  The Chief Engineer was a Texan as well.  They were all such nice people!  The air staff came from many places, mostly New York maybe, although I know Red Jones was from Georgia and Chuck Dunaway from Texas.

Turns out the old station had used 78 rpm records and this hot new station was set to switch to 45's. ( It is 1956 people.)  And they needed some diligent and very inexpensive hands to catalog the record library for all the new records.  We got the job although frankly Bunkie thought hospital work sounded like a better money maker and was soon gone.  (She got her nursing degree at Marquette and nursed for many years.)  Money was tight at our house.  My teamster Dad had been on a protracted strike and the possibility of buying some new school clothes really appealed.  They were paying me $25 a month and I had business cards, cards that said Sally Stephenson, Record Librarian.  I still have one.  Beside that they allowed, begged me to take all those old 78 records home with me.  It happened to be what our record player could play.

Short story, I worked at WRIT most of my high school years.  The McLendon ownership was short lived.  He didn't much care for having to pay a separate "engineer" to play the records, run the spots and cue the deejay.  By the second Christmas party we'd been bought by Balaban & Lederer, fancy Chicago and St. Louis broadcasters and the tenor of the place changed.  We had some fairly famous folks through the doors. The night newsman for some time early on was Tom Snyder, what a case he was.  It was a fun way to find a career, one I thought was going to be journalism turned into broadcasting.

It also resulted in my first try at television.  Our 7-midnight jock, King Richard, (he'd been Dick White in the Night at a different Milwaukee station) started a once a week "dance party" show on the newest UHF tv station and I helped.  Sometimes I actually appeared live, on camera, drinking the sponsor beverage.

With graduation I accepted a summer "internship" at KILT, another McLendon station, newly on the air in Houston.  The PD, Gene Edwards and his wife (for whom I had become a regular babysitter) had a new son and offered me room and board at their house in exchange for child care and a job at KILT (this time in Traffic and Continuity) for the summer.  I was in Texas three days after graduation.  Finagled a scholarship at the University of Houston in Radio/TV, naturally.  They had both radio and tv stations and it seemed perfect.
KILT was an amazing introduction into Texas radio and I worked there while going to school.

Unfortunately I "fell in love or something like it," and married that summer, ending my college career.  Lindsey, who was also in broadcasting, had to serve a two year Navy stint in exchange for being in the Reserves.  I left KILT and took a job at AS Black Advertising as Production Coordinator.  Mr. Black was not pleased to find I was soon pregnant and wanted me out but I ended up working until just a month before Laura was born.  In fact I (well my hands) appeared in a Grand Prize Beer TV spot shortly before that.

During our two year Navy duty I gave birth to two, worked at Gimbels toy department, and for an advertising agency in Charlotte that promoted a big time event called Carolinas Carousel.  My boss, Earl Crawford, took me for coffee one morning with Billy Graham's mother.  (Soon after the Navy was over, I had child number three, Lindsey gave up his FM job in Philadelphia and we moved to Charlotte where he worked at WSOC.)

Then he decided we should move back to Houston where he had gotten a job at KTRH.  We left Charlotte on the day John Kennedy was assassinated.  In Houston, with children 1, 2 and 3 years old, I went to work for Brown & Snyder Advertising, Sylvan and Phil, what a pair.  Several clients but the most important was a young man running against Ralph Yarborough in his first political race, George Bush.  He lost.

And I went back to KILT, this time as Continuity Director in the lovely McLendon Building on Lovett Boulevard.  Very few of the same folks were at KILT, Bill Weaver was still the GM and he'd married my pal Beverly who'd worked there at the beginning.  Lots of the stories and people get mingled up.  Richard Dobbyn was fascinating.  Dan Lovett was fresh out of Missouri and green as could be.  Dickie Rosenfeld was just cranking up his legendary personality.  Disc jockeys came and went.  So did record promoters.  One, now famous, Steve Tyrell, brought his buddy, a dj at KNUZ, Paul Williams on one or more visit.  (Should probably note that I was now a single mother of three young kids).  Steve was dating the Traffic Mgr, next office, so Paul talked to me.

Bill Weaver had to fire me.  I sent a whole day's mail out that should have been stamped .05 cents, as .50 cents.  It was a big mistake but probably not the only one I made that year.  Anyway, Dickie called Jack Harris and I got a job at KPRC, traffic assistant and soon radio secretary.  That was a fun time too.  Tim and Bob were local traditions.  KPRC was still sort of block programmed and carried the Astros.  The radio office was down the hall from all of the TV stuff and right outside the coffee bar which was often occupied by "stars" fixing to go on someone's live show.

But enough of my work history .... I guess this is Part I ... 1956 to 1966.  Its not on my resume.

Yoga Music -- Rant alert

I love hymns.

I also love yoga, or as they call it at the Y, Gentle Yoga.  It is the best for stretching and feeling better.

But, I skipped Yoga again today.  I skipped for a crummmby reason.  The music.

We have a new instructor and she is very very good.  Except she insists on playing hymns for the session ( at least now instrumentals, earlier by choirs or Christian rockers).

One of the best parts about 45 minutes of yoga is to concentrate on your breathing, on not tipping over and on not being distracted.  

Maybe you can listen to familiar hymns and not be distracted; not remember the quartet at the Lordsburg Methodist Church singing that one at your Father's funeral; or how every rendition of that one reminds you of your Grandmother, or how "Blessed Assurance" immediately calls up a special Sunday service.  Good for you.

I can't.  I know, its a little bitty thing.  But, trying to remember the second or third verse of "Amazing Grace" is not conducive to yoga practice.

All my preceding yoga instructors used ethereal semi-Asian sounding music, fairly low, just so it would not distract.

I need to get a grip on this because I really believe that I feel better after Yoga.  

It did not occur to me ...

that I would be eight months in boomy, bloomy, Tyler, without finding employment.  But it is so.

However, I'm not complaining, just observing and appreciating.  I am very grateful to my Tyler kids, Lane and Kathy, and Currie, for their considerable generosity that helps me stretch the bucks, from reduced rent, to fill-ups and WalMart trips.  Big help.  I'm fairly proud of myself for remembering some old single mom tricks, like pasta casseroles that make pretty good eating even three (or four) days in a row.  I can stay out of stores.  I can watch my credit card debt inch up and not panic.  I can dump a pricey Internal Medicine Clinic and opt for a friendly Family Medicine place.  If you know me you know that getting in the car and heading out is one of my favorite solutions to any problem.  Not so much now.

Here's the upside:

This is Kyndall Grace, the youngest of my eleven grandchildren.

And if I'm gone tomorrow, she will remember me.  We spend some time every week doing something special.  Very often it includes taking pictures and usually of something in nature.

Sometimes its just singing silly songs in the car, or reading her newest book.  KGB, as I call her, is in Kindergarten but she's a reading machine.  She is also a counting machine.  You know, everyone of my grandchildren may have been as bright and funny as she is, but she's the one I am getting to know.  And she knows me.  

That is a gift.

There are many gifts here in greater Tyler, an adorable house on two acres with a bazillion birds, a kid who appreciates my cooking and cleaning, a wonderful new church family that makes my heart sing, (better than listening to me sing!) it is a really beautiful part of Texas, a little chilly, a lot hilly, and covered with sumptious plants and flowers and trees.

When I start to worry about making ends meet I remind myself that the important ends are meeting and there's a lot more to old age than making ends meet.

As Currie is inclined to say, "Thank you Father."

Medical but not Political

I have Shingles, again.

The last time, about 7 years ago, Laura and I were driving back from Baton Rouge.  Internal pain galore, nothing external.  So when I went to the emergency room in Brenham, I suggested internal diagnoses; kidney stones, gall bladder attack, etc.  I should have kept my ideas to myself.  I spent the next two weeks seeing surgeons, nuclear x=ray machines, and other doctors.  One did ask what those spots on my midsection were and I said "spider bite, I guess" ... because I was just guessing.  Finally a nurse friend said, "have you considered Shingles?"  I had no, zip, zero knowledge of Shingles and so I had not.  I went to my Family Practice clinic and asked the nurse to look at my "rash" and see what she thought.  She instantly thought "Shingles" but it was too late for any radical medicine and I did survive.

I had wonderful medical care in Navasota.  Dr. Selva is probably the finest internist I've ever met.  And Shingles did not present during those five years.

Tyler, new clinic, very nice and the Doctor's kids go to All Saints.  However, it seems to be a place for the retired rich, those with "supplementals" ... I don't have supplementals.  Every visit so far has resulted in the need for more tests, more tests and more tests.  Every exit has seen me write a check only to receive a further bill in the mail.  I was so spoiled in Navasota.

So today, suffering an ugly rash and some other symptoms and not wanting to self diagnose (ever again), I went to Urgent Care in Tyler.  I had forgotten what good care I got from them three years ago when I totaled my car on Christmas morning and had a nasty pair of piercings and swelling on my right hand, the only injury from a near death roll over !!!  It is the best place!  They listen.  You see a doctor within minutes. He knows what he's talking about and is even nice.  Medicare covers it.  I wish they could prescribe my blood pressure medicine and I would never go anywhere else.

So, I have Shingles again.  It seems to be a lighter case.  The prescriptions cost $45.  Glad its not fleas or bedbugs.  The exterminator would have been more!