This one is for my Mommy. That wasn’t what I was thinking this morning when I dragged myself up after a short sleep following a long day. I was thinking I needed to go vote early, but it was chilly and I had a raspy throat and there are all kinds of excuses. Then I thought again and KNEW I needed to go vote early.
I dressed in all white for the Suffragettes, which was kind of a random last minute decision. It’s not the kind of thing I usually do, but it seemed so right today. Then I realized it was also for my Mommy, who mostly dressed in white. 
And for her paternal grandmother, who also dressed in white.
While driving to the election board for early voting, I suddenly found myself crying, once again something I’m not prone to doing while I’m on my way to vote. All these conversations I had with my mother came flooding back to me. Anyone who knew my mother knew how strong she was. I often wondered how in the world I was related to someone who was so much stronger than I ever felt.
I’ve written before about my mother’s childhood as the youngest of three children with a young widowed mother in the Depression. She didn’t really talk to me much about it until we were both older when our conversations deepened in the years before she died. As I working with non-profits or faced some of life’s greatest challenges, she would listen and then impart such wisdom based on her own experiences. She was a Republican who thought her husband did no wrong, but she was also a woman who could relate to so many things in the world. She surprised me time after time with her views on abortion, sexual harassment in the workplace, domestic violence, sexual preference, working women, racial inequity and a number of topics. Yes, we really discussed all of these issues over her final years. I don’t think she really changed, but I hadn’t really known what she thought. She was beginning to voice her own views based on her knowledge of what the world is really like. She was living a life of privilege after an early life of struggle and poverty and hard work. She didn’t forget what it was like – ever. In our personal conversations, she was very open minded and fair. I knew exactly what she would say to me this year. Exactly.
I’ve researched my ancestors and found a complete variety of experiences in my all white background. Some were poor, some were comfortable, some were wealthy. I think of my great-grandmother pictured above in her white dress who I find little about other than she was working as a maid for a family when she was fourteen. She became a fairly sophisticated woman in a small town. She read, went to the opera, had people over for discussions. My other great-grandmother on that side lived on a farm and ended up in a state home because there was no money and she was probably suffering from dementia or just extreme fatigue after a hard life.
So I drove to the polls with a sudden rush of knowing how all the women in my family would vote today, even the ones who were never allowed to vote. I had a vision of having a discussion with all my ancestors on both sides, male and female, about the candidates in this election. I’m not sure how the men would vote really because they are from a different time and different generations. But, the women would know exactly who and what is going on. I felt that so strongly after my fifteen minute drive, which was an interesting feeling. I certainly hadn’t been thinking about any of them when I started out this morning.
I arrived at the election board and there was a line. I remembered why I thought this was a neat way to vote from when I did it a few years ago. Instead of my neighborhood voting place in a church where everyone pretty much looks alike, the election board had a line of people from all over town. I spotted a couple I know ahead of me, a couple who is wealthy, with people on both sides of them who obviously aren’t. It was a clear picture of our city on election day and it was nice.
You can see the line wound up and around the dumpster, although not too long. Beside us were the election officials, who were drinking coffee and talking.
A man with a cane approached the line and they stopped him to show him where he could go so he didn’t have to stand in the longer line. He was most appreciative and they were very polite. Inside, there were sheriffs to tell us how to proceed and they were friendly and helpful and nice. Everyone was smiling, everything moved quickly and, even with a long ballot to hand mark, the whole thing took about 20 minutes. As I left, more elderly people, on walkers, canes and in wheelchairs, were entering through the other door. That was nice to see. They were making the effort to be there.
In an election like this, you look at the people around you and wonder how they are voting. It was hard to tell, thank goodness. I didn’t even presume to make a solid guess on anyone. It was a nice experience really.
So, I’ve voted, wearing white to honor my mother who was so surprisingly present with me today along with all the other ancestors who jumped into my head. This one’s for you, Mommy. 
I’m mostly writing this because I’m depressed and ashamed to have given any encouragement at all for the growth of this ugliness. I’m embarrassed for all the times I laughed at mean-spirited jokes or didn’t speak up when I heard words spoken that made me shudder. I’m ashamed for being so afraid at this time in my life when I should be relaxing and enjoying the fruits of my life – mainly my children and grandchildren.
I thought the description of the decorations for this Halloween shower were right up to Pinterest standards today as they used jack o’lanterns filled with flowers placed over the doorways. More details show that the guests were served punch before lunch, assisted by young girls, including the soon to be stepdaughter/niece of the bride. 
We may not dress in blue satin and silk these days and we don’t really have parlors anymore, but the rest of the details are so very familiar to those of us who have been to many bridal showers in our lifetimes.
You will notice that six-handed euchre was played at two of the showers. I had to look this up, although I knew it was a card game. Euchre was very popular at this time and was the game that introduced jokers to the deck. I can’t give you many details other than it involves taking tricks, so maybe it’s close to Bridge. I guess the practice of playing cards at bridal showers has gone by the wayside, although I think it sounded like a fun thing to do.
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Ella or Nellie Hamilton came to Kentucky from Louisiana (the clipping has that wrong, as she was born in Louisiana and moved to Hickman later) and moved to the town of Uniontown at the age of 19. I’m not sure what brought her there, but I know her father had died years earlier and her mother may have had relatives nearby. At the age of 21, she married my grandfather who was 34 at the time. I think it was fairly common for the men to marry younger women as I’ve seen this with others on my family tree. I’m assuming he was fairly settled by then. They were the first couple married at St. John Episcopal Church in Uniontown. I found a clipping that said he was confirmed as a member along with four of his sons years later and I know he served in leadership roles in the church after that.
She is holding her youngest baby while one of her daughters holds her youngest. This young mother would soon die and the son-in-law pictured behind the mother and baby would later marry one of the other girls who would raise the children. Hard to keep them all apart in my own family’s saga. My grandfather is the little boy in the grass in the middle, shown with one of the family dogs.
And this one must be about 1915…
And here she is on her 50th wedding anniversary in 1922. 
What were those spells, those fussy spells? I mean, why would she have reason to act anything other than her sweet loving self with 8 children running around a huge house…
…even though she had cooks and others to help with laundry and managing the gardens and the cleaning. I mean, really. Her mother also lived with them, so there was some help with the sewing and teaching the children manners and getting them to school. Life was easier in that she didn’t have to drive them to school since they could pretty much walk anyplace in town and everyone knew them so they were safe in that way.
It wasn’t a large painting at all. When I saw this Picasso, I felt a big smile. Oh you, Picasso, you! “Rocking Chair” was one of my favorites I kept returning to. Maybe I saw my future!
I won’t spoil the show for you, but it was pretty spectacular for art lovers. To think he spent his last years cutting designs and creating fanciful treats for us to enjoy all these years later. Thank you, Matisse!
I went downstairs to see the permanent Chihuly exhibition and the rest of the museum, going back through the Matisse show before I finally left. Chihuly brightens my day and brings joy to my heart. Having tried glass blowing, I can only say it takes not only creative talent but an enormous amount of strength to master the manipulation of the hot, heavy glass. His work always makes me go Wow!
Since I was by myself, I thought I would do some things I’d been wanting to do. Next was the Oklahoma City National Memorial, just blocks away. Did I mention I was born in Oklahoma City and lived there until my family moved to Tulsa when I was 2 1/2, back in 1948. I spent much of my life traveling back to see my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and even spent work time here later on. It is a part of me.
A couple of years ago, I toured the JFK Memorial in Dallas and I felt the same way about this one. I lived through it and it is so painful to walk through each detail again. Both are wonderful walks through our history with details that take you right into the moment if you were here at that time. For those who are younger, these are important ways to understand and learn what happened, bringing it to life. In the OKC memorial, you walk into an exhibit that shows what a normal day it was and then you wait to enter a room that is a copy of the ordinary meeting room where the Water Resources Board was meeting that fateful meeting. They had recorded the meeting and you sit in a closed room listening to a woman start the meeting, giving instructions, greeting the visitors, knowing that you are going to hear an actual recording of the bomb exploding. I was lulled into listening to her as she routinely did her job and then jolted by the sounds of bomb, screams, hysteria and confusion. You then enter the rest of the story. I didn’t spend too much time there as the photos and sounds were so very familiar to me. I stood in the memorial room, looking at the portraits of the victims, hearing their names as they were called as each person’s picture was lit. Powerful stuff to see the miniature memorials of stuffed animals, tokens of memory placed by families. Powerful. I was ready to race back into the 100 degree heat and rest in the memorial outside, standing in the shade of the huge tree that showed us we can make it, even through such atrocities.
Here they are, relaxing in that wonderful home, much smaller than I remember it when we gathered for dinners and holidays. My grandad had his workshop in the garage in back and the big kids got to eat at the big table in the room behind the kitchen at the back of the house. The smaller children ate at the kid’s table in the kitchen. The beds were so tall that we could crawl under them easily and had endless games of hide ‘n seek. We played on that porch and walked that street for hours.
Driving around the corner, I saw the movie theatre we used to walk to, now an antiques mall…
…and parked across the street for a fried chicken lunch. It seemed like the right thing to do and the right area to be in.
After drinking as much liquid and eating fried chicken and fried okra, I headed further north with the goal of visiting my grandparents’ grave, very far north in a city that sprawls forever. Driving past the more affluent areas where my grandparents and cousins lived later, I finally arrived at the cemetery. I have to tell you that my family isn’t much for visiting graves and I hadn’t been here since my grandmother died in 1977. My parents were both cremated, which I agree with, so here we are. I’ve visited all my grandparents’ graves now along with my great-grandparents, so I’m up to date. There are mixed feelings about graves for me. They are interesting, but I’m obviously not out there all the time. I don’t know if we are losing some history, but I’m about dust to dust too. I’m being cremated myself.
Wiley Post, the great aviator from Oklahoma who died in the Alaskan plane crash with his friend, Will Rogers.
I hadn’t been on this stretch in a few years, so it was a new adventure. There are places with stories like this.
And then you turn a corner and then modern times hit you as you meet the new Iowa tribe.
In the eastern side of Oklahoma, we have brown dirt, regular dirt. About halfway between Tulsa and OKC, you begin to see the red dirt, clay colored dirt. Growing up, we would play in this bright stuff, staining our summer clothes. I guess my mother knew how to get it out because I’m picturing white shorts and tennis shoes with globs of red mud on them. Anyway, that memory came back as I saw this scene with cows and ducks cooling off in the red muddy waters.
Across the road, there was a farm with green plants pushing up through the red earth.
I kept turning around and going back to see these things. On the last pass by this field, where I had stopped to take pictures, I had to stop at this sign, conditioned by my mother who never saw a road-side stand she didn’t love. 
I mean, you have to stop, don’t you? Especially when you can meet Mr. Wilson himself.
I know he thinks I’m the most ignorant city girl he’s ever seen as I asked him questions about how hard it is to grow crops in that red soil. Of course, he smiled his missing tooth smile and told me it’s no problem if you have water. Of course. And I purchased potatoes and peaches and tomatoes from him, even though I asked and he told me that these weren’t his crops as his aren’t ripe yet. Duh. Of course they aren’t. I know when Oklahoma crops come in. But I wanted to keep his stand going, chickens running around with its cute painted things and all sorts of quirky items on the ground.
Following along, I approached Depew and took the truck route through the mostly deserted town. It had its own charm as I drove the main street, thinking of the people who came from all over the country to travel this road.
Leaving Depew, I crossed the old railroad tracks leading east.
Now I was passing through other towns that had jumped on the Route 66 bandwagon and restored their main streets with antique shops and restaurants and museums for those who are hitting the off roads again. Occasionally, I saw one of these signs and jumped off the current Route 66 onto the old one.
Driving for just a stretch, I would imagine how it must have been with new fangled cars heading across the country on great adventures – without the air conditioning I was enjoying so much! Whew! These old stretches have wildflowers still alive before our stretch of summer heat wilts them all.
At a house on the old road, I saw this basketball goal where someone had made Old Hwy 66 into a private court.
Here’s the old sign you see in the background.
Turning back from this little touch of the old Mother Road…
I kept going, stopping and turning around for things like this that caught my eye as I made my way home.
And this. I saw the sign from the road and then turned onto the next street with another one of those Old Hwy 66 signs.
It was deserted, but must have been a lot of fun at one time.
That was my day on the road alone, not rushing anywhere and stopping to see whatever. Adventures and people I wasn’t expecting made me arrive home hot and happy. I should do this every week, this getting in the car and going somewhere. There’s so much to see out there in ordinary places and I’m old enough to enjoy it and young enough to do it. Thanks for coming with me…
Confetti Thoughts 