The Traveler

This morning I want to talk about travel.. I have done a lot of it in my life and I am thankful for that opportunity.
I don't recommend getting married at 17 but if you are going to, marry a military guy because you get to travel. lol.
The first travel that I was able to do was with Daddy and my sister Donna, when I was 16. I had my new banana yellow Mustang and Daddy had a trip to go on, needing to inspect the Brunswick Factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Alger Sullivan delivered the wood for the floors and Daddy kept the machinery going that made this happen.
I could really do an entire story about each trip we took but today I am going to hit the highlights. I never knew that travel and exposure to new ways of life would impact me so much but it did and it has. When we grow up in a "bubble" so to speak, we are sometimes afraid of different cultures or ethnicity, but I am not. So here begins the travel of Kimmee..

First to the big city of Grand Rapids streets
Then to Holland to gather some treats
Slowly back home through Nashville way
Daddy in the back seat footing the pay

Next came marriage and moving to Milton
Twasn't long before the flowers were wiltin
Onto to San Diego, the land of curvy brunettes
The Zoo, Wild Animal Park and birth of my own dark haired beauty ( Ok, I know that doesn't rhyme lol)

From there to Okinawa via Fairbanks and Polar Bears
Landing in the tropics and wanting to shave off my hair
The Ryukuan People, so fascinating and kind
The Koi Fish feeding ponds, so sublime

Back for a visit via Hawaii to home
The Land of Don Ho and beautiful songs
The fragrance of orchids and peaceful people that touched
My heart and my mind in acceptance, so much

A visit to Sunnyvale, the in laws retreat
Then back to Okinawa , luggage at my feet
One more trip home, on a C5 airplane
You haven't lived til you have flown backwards and watched the passengers complain

A move to San Jose then became the norm
A Job, a new man, I had entered the storm
I settled a bit, but traveled home
My Dad passed and my future felt blown

A mid life crisis, an earthquake that made
Us move to Upstate and that made us pay
A long time in snow, no water, lessons learned
We come in alone but aging we earn

Illness overtakes me, a move to the South
Husband deserts me , I'm no longer a Mouse
13 moves in the span of 11 years
Boxes and trucks, smiles and tears

Finally I am settled in a home with a pool
I think I am tugging on that jewel
The one that takes us home, to a land far away
The one that makes us reflect on all we have to say

Thank you for reading, for coming along with me
I love you, I mean it, that's all I can see........
Always, Kimmee

Thankfulness in Nature

My Thankfulness involves Nature today. A wonderful healing for my spirit always...

Back in 1982, I was looking around for a house to invest in for my old age and found an ad in the paper for one. I arranged to go back and stay in this little place for two weeks and I fell in love with the Amish, the area and the quaintness of the DePeyster Village where the house was.

I bought this house 3000 miles away from where I was living and by 1984 had sent money back to the renters for repairs and was looking forward to moving and getting settled in.

I am a Florida girl born and bred and had never experienced any REAL cold. LOL. I finally got a chance to move to my "dream" home a few years later in 1989. The 7.1 earthquake had happened in San Jose/San Francisco area where I had lived for a long time, and I though there is not a better time to move on out of here. LOL.

We arrived after an eventful 8 day journey with a 24 foot truck, two other pulled vehicles and what looked like a convoy moving from California to Upstate NY. The truck broke down only 50 miles from our destination on a cold day in December, with 3 feet of snow on the ground. The house was cold, dark, and empty as the renters had moved out a month prior to our getting home and the house was full of rodents trying to escape the winter cold.

We had such a hard start to our life there but my children were little troopers. The furnace blew up and black smoke invaded the home within a week of our arrival. The mice had to be extracted and they were hesitant to leave. LOL. The furnishings arrived a few days later and we were in!

Little did I know that the next 18 winters would be one of survival, many hardships, and tragedy as my marriage fell apart.
I have written these things down for my children but I don't think they will ever want to read about them. We lived them...

One upside to the move was the cemetery.. I have told you all what a nut I am about History and Genealogy and within a short time I discovered that my Kith and Kin were buried 1/4 mile from the very home I purchased. It was a discovery that made me sure I was in the right place at the right time.

I could write all day long about all the things I found while digging in the garden that made me know I was home. The dolls, the toys which included marbles, little metal trucks, a large 1900's wagon, and many medical bottles and such. Since I was a doll collector, a Nurse and loved old things, it made my day!

In the early crisp mornings before winter, I would go out to my picnic table and drink my coffee. I would have to bundle up because Thanksgiving was approaching and it was pretty nippy, but I wanted to see what ever nature wanted to show me.
One morning as I was sipping my coffee, out of the woods came a magnificent wild turkey followed by two females. He has his feather extended fully and was prancing around trying to attract one of both of the females. He danced and wiggled, flapped his majestic wings, and the females avoided him like he was the plague. I said to him, you are going to have to do better than that to get their attention and just then he did.
He started moving his head up and down in a ballet type move. At least it was as graceful and his wings seemed to sway up and down. It seemed like slow motion, it was so incredibly beautiful. I could not take my eyes off this amazing dance he performed for me and for the two other females of whom, he finally had their complete attention. My coffee grew cold as I and they wallowed in this magic moment. I have thought of this so many times over the years and have always prayed to be worthy of such a gift.

This was but one of the many magic moments that started my day as I sat at the picnic table or my thinking rock.

The house still stands today and a new family lives within its walls, but my spirit will linger I know, as long as it is there. I put down roots in those early mornings, in the rocks, in the trees and the over 200 bulbs that I planted around that place and it brings me comfort knowing that it lives somewhere..

I love you all so much and pray that thankfulness of Nature will heal and nourish you as it does me.... Always, Kimmee

Flowers come in Three

I was outside watering today and kept finding flowers in threes...
Three is pretty significant in my family because I had 3 brothers and there are 3 sisters. I had 3 children and so did my brother Leeroy and Clifton.

So when the three flowers came up this morning, it made me think of my siblings. We are all older now, my brother Ernest the middle child in the family picture below is gone now, and all of us have made our own way in the world.

My sister Ruby and my brother Lee have passed their 50th wedding Anniversaries. I feel that is a testament to will and love and devotion and a lot of prayer because that is not easy.

Ruby has 5 children, their ages like doorsteps, and I don't know how she did that, to this day. They all love the Lord and one of them devoted her life to Missionary work. That takes a special person to do that, not that all of them aren't special, but I have a soft spot for those that give to others. I think that there are special blessings for those that give to the poor and minister to the sick...

Lee Peacock has 3 and his son has served our country and so has his son. I always honor those that sacrifice for us because when they touch American soil, it is like being born again, they are so happy.. ( that is what my Vietnam Vets had told me)
He has two lovely daughters too who have amazing families in and around the place where I was born. One of them married a farmer. You can't get any more salt of the Earth than that.

Clifton has 3 and his son lil clif was like my own. He came to Ca. and spent the summer with me when he was 12 and I never wanted to let him go. I am so glad that we are still in touch:-)

Ernest never married or had children because a motorcycle accident almost took his life when he was 21. 3 months in a coma later, he woke up but was never the same, except he smiled every day and loved the Lord for many years. I know that he is in heaven, whole, with his missing limb recovered and no longer in pain.

I have 3 children and 2 Grandchildren. My oldest is a Nurse who takes care of me, along with her wife, in a way that is hard to articulate. I love them so much for their sacrifice to making the rest of my years comfortable and loving.
My middle child has the voice of an Angel. When she was growing up, she would takes walks and I had neighbors tell me that they thought it was the radio when she would walk by. She sang with Jim Pagano in a little village called Heuvelton in upstate NY and I can still hear them in my mind.
My youngest is in college and will finish in a few months.. I always love a success story, especially when it comes with sweat and strife...
My baby sister Donna is the Angel of the family. She doesn't think of herself like this but she is.
When daddy stroked at age 62, she was the one that nursed him back to health. She and Peggy helped teach him to talk, to count money, to walk, to enjoy and have a life again.
When Ernest wrecked his bike, and after a two week respite at my place, he went to live with her in a full body cast and she fed him, cleaned him, talked with him to clear his mind and kept at it until he could walk and care for himself. If that is not an Angel, I don't know what is....

So lest I write another book, I will just say that the three flowers that came into my view this morning, started a flood of memories from my life and my siblings lives. We are apart in miles but will always be close in my mind because we are blood and that is thicker than water....
I love you all and pray that if you have a brother or sister that you can tell them that you love them today. Because one day that flower will wither and fall off the branch and you will miss them, just like I do Ernest and Daddy and Mama and Uncle Andy... Love, Kimmee

Dirt Road Memories

Afternoon family and friends,
One of my cousins wrote about how dirt roads make her feel and a flood of memories came to me. I remember them so fondly growing up in Jay.

"My" road was named after my 2nd great Grandpappy but I did not know that as a kid.
Morristown Road was its name. It was a clay dirt road and when it rained , it became a gooey clay mess, that you had to drive down in the ruts to make it anywhere. If you got out of those ruts, you were going to have yourself a ride to remember.

Riding on the bus was an adventure on those days and I admired our bus driver, Raymond Diamond's, ability to keep it on the road and in between those huge ruts.
I think all of us kids on the bus held our breath and if truth be told, I think we hoped that the bus would get stuck, but only if we were going to school. LOL.

Raymond Diamond was one of the most caring people. Yes, he was our bus driver but he was also our protector and teacher. I think that is what makes for a good bus driver. Often times, especially these days, they are faced with discipline challenges and he met those with a firm hand and a kind smile. I never knew that he was my cousin growing up and that his Daddy, Bernie was too.

I went to Bernie's store every week to buy candy. It was 3 pieces for a penny and for 10 cents, I could have candy all day long. I bought Red Hots, Coconut sticks, Mary Janes, Bubble gum, Sugar Daddy Mini's and my favorite Bit of Honey.. Man, those were the days and candy has never tasted so good as it did then.

Sometimes Daddy would take us to the five and dime in town. That was a wonderland of toys, candy, household items and all kind of geegaws for a pittance. The bins were filled with things of wonder and I remember going up and down the aisles with my eyes as big as saucers wanting one of every thing I could see. There was a coke machine at the front and for a nickel you could get the coldest 6.5 oz coke in a bottle. Coke back then, burned a little when it went down. It wasn't all watered down like it is today. And it was good, so good.

Daddy worked so hard but he always gave us a dime if we needed it and when I got old enough, I started working in the cotton fields to get my "candy" money for the week.. Years later I still feel guilty that I worked in the fields for candy and the people that I worked alongside were working for food. I was a young kid and I did not know that people were hungry or that my Grandmothers own family had been hungry.
Daddy always made sure that we had shelter and food. He worked for such little money and although there were 6 kids, I don't ever remember needing something and not having it. Most of the time I had my wants too and that was a blessed way to grow up.

I am so thankful for the Raymonds, the Bernies, and the Bauldree fields which gave so many people jobs. One day remind me and I will tell you of my cotton field days in which I learned about humanity. Of course at 10, I did not understand, but today I do...
I hope that you all have dirt road memories. Love to all, Kimmee

Story Of A Wooden Doll

Story of A Wooden Doll

My time on this earth began in the early 1900's. I was a tree in the forest that was chosen to become a doll. 

The men whom harvested my tree and made me into chunks of wood took it to the Schilling Doll Factory in Sonneberg Thuringia Germany. I was given to a master craftsman and he began looking at the piece of wood to determine what kind of doll could be made. The man with weather beaten hands picked me up and said, “I can see you now. He was getting an image but the image he saw was his own beloved 5 yr. old daughter Gretchen. He started to carve my head and he made it have an open area on the top so that he could send me down the line to have my brown glass eyes inserted. I could now see my predicament and looked at the hundreds of dolls that lay in various stages of being made into a complete doll. My master craftsman was interested in me personally as his little Gretchen had wanted a doll for a long time and this one was for her. He followed his doll down the assembly line directing her to be made with care. 

She was finally ready to be taken to the area to be dressed and he thought “how would my little one want her to be dressed?” He picked out a Volendam Dutch costume for the doll with the solemn face and thought how proud his little girl would be when he placed it in her arms.

He returned home with pride and could see his little girl standing at the door waiting his arrival after a long day at work.. His daughter could see that he had something in his hand, but had been taught not to ask questions about dolls that he brought home, because her mutter sewed clothes for the dolls sometimes and she thought this might be another of those times. 

 Her Vater ate his meal and talked of his day and the making of a special doll with brown eyes to match his own sweet one. After eating the humble meal, he gave the package to his daughter and said “this one”s for you”. Gretchen almost choked on her sausage as he said this because she did not dare believe that at last she too had a doll. As she unwrapped the brown paper that wrapped the package, she did not breath. When at last the paper was removed, she saw the doll that occupied her dreams.  Her face was so like her own with big brown eyes like hers. She did not have hair so she asked her mutter to cut her long brown hair to place in the dolls head to make her a wig. Her Mutter consented and the doll looked back at her solemnly in thanks, she thought, for her hair. 

I lived with Gretchen for 5 years until one day she became sick with a terrible fever that took many of the factory workers including her dear Mutter. 

After Gretchens’ death her Vater could not bear to look at the doll, nor think about his beloved daughter's hair. That only brought painful reminders that his daughter could no longer light up his life with her smile. Her doll was forgotten in a drawer until money was needed to purchase food. Her Vater removed the brown paper wrapped doll without looking at her and took her to market. He bargained for food to feed his remaining family and did not give the doll a second look.

I was sent to a doll store and promptly placed in a window where many little children looked at me daily. It was the time of the war and a soldier came in one day to buy me to take to a place called America.. I was happy because I had been saddened by the death of Gretchen and needed someone to love me again. 

I was stuffed in a suitcase and began the long air ride to America. After what seemed a inordinately long amount of time I arrived to a little girl called Helen. She was a sweet little girl whom played with me endlessly and always asked me “Where did you come from?” and “who had you before me?” Whose hair is that on your head?. She could tell it was real hair but I did not tell her as I was saddened to leave Gretchen and I also did not need the reminder that she was gone and my life had changed.   (image borrowed from Google search)

I can’t say that Helen was unkind but she had many such dolls and I never felt the love that I felt when I was in Germany. We moved many times and I am sure that I lost my wooden leg on one of those moves to Canada. Many years passed and Helen grew up. I was relegated to a drawer once again. Then I was carefully placed in a box. 

My present owner found me one day in a box without my leg and unclothed on a shelf. She had very little money but had made a deal to trade her jewelry for ME.. I felt very special as no one had cared that much about me for a long time. When Gloria saw me in the box with the exact brown eyes that she had, it was all over for her. Gloria saw herself as a little girl, in that dolls face..The present owner told her the story of My travel and a bargain was made to trade the doll for jewelry. I was worth a lot and it took several gold bracelets and a diamond ring before the lady would trust Gloria with her aunts doll, but finally a bargain was made and I was on my way to The USA again.... 

Since that time in 1989 I have lived with Gloria. She has talked to me and loved me as Gretchen did and also kept Gretchen alive for me and others when she tells the story of how I came to live with her.

I now go to another lady named Ingrid to live. I don't blame Gloria, she is ill and must make sacrifices to move to a place called florida to live near her daughter, the Nurse. 

She tells me she has found a good home for me and I believe her. She even says I will have a new leg.. That would feel so good after all these years. 

She is also sending along my story so that Ingrid will know me and my life and so that she will never forget how one little girl in Germany that thought I was so special.  I am awaiting my trip and hope that my new owner will like me as I plan to like her. Who knows? There may be other dolls that I can visit with there and maybe even add another chapter to my story.

The End

of is it???????...

The Heart Leaf Lesson

Hi my sweet friends,
Last evening I was outside and found a heart leaf. Then I found several more and the lesson came to me that the first leaf is our beating heart passionate, filled with the heat of love and life.

The second leaf has grown, knowing love, but is damaged with the things that break our hearts over the course of its life.
A love gone wrong.
The loss of a child, sibling or parent.

The haphazard fortunes of loss and then more loss...

The third leaf is our hearts so broken that they have died. It is hard for us to feel good about things. We may be sad or depressed or feel dead inside.

And then just when we may have lost all hope, a new love begins to blossom. We may have aged enough that we love ourselves, just as we are in this moment, or the beautiful path of life may have brought a new person into our lives, or we may have weathered all the loss and realized that we survived.

Bent, but not broken as we previously thought.

No matter which leaf of life that you may be experiencing right now, take heart that it will change and depending on how we trust ourselves or others, it will become new again, passionately beating filled with the heat of love and life..

Full Circle....

I love you all so much and pray that love finds you every beating moment of your heart. Always, Kimmee

The Lunch Room

I hear people talking about getting junk foods for lunch at school and it brought back so many happy memories of my lunch room at Jay.
We did not have junk food. We had nutritious, hot, homemade meals every day and the lunch ladies knew us all by name and smiled when they gave us our food. It always smelled so delicious to me and my mouth was watering by the time It got to be my turn, to have my meal placed on my separated tray.

I had to do most of the cooking at home and it was a treat for me to have someone else cook. They fixed things I did not know how to fix and they made wonderful desserts. I wish I could list all of the wonderful meals but I am going to talk about the dessert that I loved so much. It was a yellow cake with strawberry frosting.. Home made strawberry frosting and homemade cake and it was sooooo good. When I would see it on the trays as we stood in line, I would begin to taste it. I never had anything like that at home or a salad or fresh fruit most of the time.

The Lunch meal was an important meal to me. It cost 25 cents a day and a nickel if you wanted an extra milk, which I did sometimes. If someone did not have money for an extra milk, I would still see them get one. The lunch ladies would not let anyone go without lunch or milk if they needed it.

You paid for your meal at the end of the line right before you went into the cafeteria line. When your 25 cents was paid, you went into the actual place where you could see the food. Large pan after pan of delicious smelling food. Casseroles, homemade bread, salads of fruit and greens, and those wonderful desserts. I am so glad that Daddy thought it was important for me to have a hot cooked meal at lunch. It gave me a much needed break from my job and it made me feel more a part of the school experience.

One of the best things about the lunch room were the lines. This is where you could see and hear everything that goes on inside the school and outside the school. I was a quiet girl, not very talkative except to my two friends, and I heard a LOT of stuff in that long line. It usually took about 10 minutes to get through the line and in that time I heard about where the Rolling Stones were playing and who went back stage to be with the band after, the chatter about the first black kid that tried to segregate our school and what a tragedy that was a few days later or so I heard, and I learned to admire one person who I never met but watched each day.

She did not have full formed arms and hands. I would not learn what this was called until I became a Nurse and knew what Thalidomide babies were. She did not know who I was and I did not know who she was but I knew her from seeing how she overcame something that most of us would cry about every day. I thought she was amazing and I never told her. She held her head high, walked and talked and laughed and balanced every thing so well. I was considered a person without any disability but she was the one without any disability. I would watch her in line as I sat at my table, alone a lot of the time, and I admired her so much. I would smile at her and if she ever looked at me, she would smile at me. I wish I knew her name so that I could tell her what a silent impact she had on my life. Wolfe comes to mind but that may be wrong. I often looked around at the kids who were worried about clothes, shoes, a car and then look at her thinking about all of the things she had to think about each day and it kept me grounded on important things in my life. Thank you unknown Jay High School girl...

I remember when one girl became pregnant in high school and she disappeared. You did not go to school pregnant in that day and I don't know if any schooling continued for her. You were ostracized and alone. I feel for her today.

I feel for that black kid that tried to come to our school. I heard he was stabbed on the second or third day that he was there but that could be false. All I know is that he was only in school a day or two and then he was gone and we never had another kid of color come to our school while I was there. It was still the old South in the 50's and 60's. I'm sure that has changed today.

The lunch room was the place where we had our standardized tests also. They were fairly easy for me because I was able to read well. We had to bring two no. 2 pencils to the tests and they were timed. The entire lunch room would be filled with each grade as we tested. It was hard for me to concentrate on the task at hand because I was thinking about the meal I was going to have in a little while in the same room. lol...

Kids today will not have the variety of home made meals that we had available. For a small school in a rural community, we sure had it going on over many other schools. Our education was stellar and our experience was also.

I am thankful for the lunch ladies. Many of them were like surrogate Mothers for this lil girl that did not have a Mother at home. They will never know what an important role they played in my life, but they sure did....

Gloria Peacock Kimmel Feb 2016

Postscript: I looked up the Elementary lunch menu for Feb and was pleasantly surprised to see that good meals are still being cooked at Jay. I think that is an important thing that distinguishes Jay from other schools. Thank you Jay and those amazing Lunch Ladies.

Jay Elementary | Official Lunch Menus & Meal Information

Check out what's for lunch today at Jay Elementary ! The official portal for detailed menus, nutritional analysis, and more for Santa Rosa District.

SANTAROSA.NUTRISLICE.COM

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Gloria Peacock Kimmel The daughter of the Lunch room manager Mrs. Lou Leonard kindly shared her memories and Carole Magaha Barnes shared a photograph of the 1960 Lunch Ladies. It was sure wonderful to put names to faces in my memory.
Left to right....Thelma Bryant, Sue Corsey, Mattie Maddox, Mattie Harrison, Artie Lou Leonard, (aka Moma Lou!), Mattie Carden, Lois Bauldree, and Mary Polk. Mrs Lacey & Mrs Wyche came on board later. Mrs. Bryant, Mrs Polk, & Mrs. Harrison left before Mother retired.