Monday, May 29, 2023

I GO TO POP'S PLACE...ONCE A WEEK!


Posted posthumously

 I GO TO POP'S PLACE.... ONCE A WEEK!

It'd be nice-- if I could go back there - one more time--

in real life and not just in my imagination.

This is a perfect example of how important places are.  Things that happened --had to happen...somewhere.  And though the people have gone on, I still see all the places...in memory.

If you didn't have a farm to go to when you were a kid, I feel bad for you.  "Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go" is a song all should sing.

There's just something about it--the red and white checkered oil cloth on the kitchen table--the table surrounded by old-fashioned straight-back cane bottom chairs.  Have you ever walked down into a country cellar and found yourself surrounded by a couple hundred quart jars on each side of you--filled with green beans, blackeyed peas, corn?  Peaches, pears, cherries and pints of jellies of all flavors?  It's a beautiful sight.  

Over in the corner are baskets of potatoes, winter squash, turnips, apples.  

Have you walked into a farm smoke-house and bumped your forehead into hams, bacon, sausage, all smoking or curing?

Have you ever seen a chrome milk bucket airing under a grape arbor?  Have you ever been in a milky smelling separator room?  Have you ever tried to milk?  Or churn?

Have you ever walked through a garden in sandy soil and saw watermelons all around you?  

Have you ever walked a mesquite pasture, hunting, and had a snake crawl right between your legs?

Have you ever read and dozed under a cool, sweet smelling grape arbor?  

Even if you've done none of these things...you can go there.  Take some time....go back and visit Pop's Place...once a week in your imagination!  






Saturday, July 16, 2022

THE PHOTOGRAPHERS


May be an image of 2 people, camera and outdoors 


Kindell, our granddaughter, a professional photographer, created this on Memorial Day, marking the one-year anniversary of Mil's passing: 

It’s so hard believe that’s it’s been a year since we lost him. I think about him all the time, especially when I’m photographing. It’s funny, how much in common we share and how similar we are. I could never pretend to possess even a fraction of his intellect, but we both had a passion for so many things - and so many of the same things.


Though I don’t read as much as I used to, nor do I write much anymore, and my interests and endeavors change with the wind - photography is still the one thing I keep coming back to and my love for it always grows. Granddad was the same way. Photography wasn’t something he did, it was part of who he was. He could see a photo opportunity in absolutely anything and make ordinary things tell a special story. He was a craftsman with his camera and with his words.

I saw this photo of him for the first time at his memorial and it instantly became my favorite. Then at Christmas, I was gifted two of his Canon 35mm cameras. One of them is the camera in this photo.

So today, to honor him - I recreated this photo with that same Canon F-1 35mm camera. I thought it would be hard, but it was so easy because it just came so naturally.

 


Monday, March 28, 2022

THE OLD HOUSE

The house on Reid St.
 


Editors note:  I was going through Mil's writings today and found this gem.  I have looked through his past posts and don't see that it has been posted.  There are other posts about the house on Reid, but this one provides such a colorful picture of boyhood in 1940's America that it it deserves a read.


THE OLD HOUSE

by Mil

The old house sits there, lonely- looking on the corner with its windows boarded.  It has been allowed to run down and deteriorate.  Other houses nearby are neatly stuccoed, roofs are new, flowers are growing.  Even the big elms planted in the early 40's have been cut down.  Where a clover and grass lawn was once the summer water place for kid's play, there are bare spots and a little Bermuda, struggling for a foothold. 

Looking at this old beat-up house, it is hard to realize that I smelled the newness of the paint and was the first person to sleep in that new front bedroom, way back in 1940.  

We had moved, gone to a carnival, and somewhere bought some orange slices.  That is the sort of thing kids remember, I guess.

They say it takes a heap of living to make a home.  Well, that house certainly had its share when we lived there 1940-48. We planted elms and they grew big and the kids climbed in them.  We watered each other with the hose and slid around in the wet clover.   We had a cow pen, chicken coop, rabbit hutches, all gone.  We had a garden - a big garden- all this gave some structure to the back yard.  All gone now - just a vacant lot appearance.

The ruts in the back where Dad parked his pickup are gone. 

The new stucco, in spots, has peeled off the old, leaving giant bare spots.  It needs a new roof.

The bushes and roses around the house are gone.

The old 1100 is still on the front post, the same as before, running downward vertically.

The old hump is still in the sidewalk, impeding any roller skaters or tricyclists just as it did 40 years ago.

I learned to play jacks on that sidewalk.  Yes, boys watched the girls and had a go at it.  I played marbles out there beyond the sidewalk.  I built dams along that curb when it rained.  I climbed those trees on a hot summer's day and watched the world go by.  I stood in front of that big window in front and yelled "yanh-yanh" at the kids throwing rocks, because one thing they wouldn't do, was throw it at a big window. 

We picked ups bottles of milk off that porch in the morning.  It was Collins Dairy, with the orange lettering on the bottle.  Campbell's milk had red lettering.

I had a baseball backstop on the edge of that backyard, next to the street.  Mother killed chickens for lunch in that yard.

We told ghost stories on the lawn out front on a long summer evening.  Through that window over there, I heard FDR with his fire-side chats as the old radio brought them to us.

The garage where we kept our '41 Chevy has been enclosed and made into a room.  The door is open and old furniture and trash are strewn around.  

Back there behind the garage was a tall fence with a 2x4 brace near the top.  This was our "Tarzan on the vines", our "airmen bailing out of the plane" area. Yes, we'd jump 4 or 5 feet to the ground for effect.  

Next door was the kid with all the latest comic books.  You could always get the latest Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers comics if you had something good to trade.

Two blocks over lived a family where, as an early teenager, I borrowed all the Zane Grey books.  What joy! 

In 1941 it rained so much that a lake four blocks wide formed about a block North of us.

Once, they had massive holes, like giant graves, 8 feet deep, dug in the streets for laying pipe.  It rained so much they were half full of water.  One day my brother disappeared and everyone feared he had fallen in one of them.  We searched everywhere. A happy ending, he was found at my uncle's. 

A block down on a vacant lot we played "army".   We dug two pill boxes, roofed them and dug a tunnel between.  I get cold sweat now when I think:  "What if that tunnel had collapsed?"

Another block down on another vacant lot, we built a good back-stop and had some hot baseball games.   We had a "good" hard ball if we were lucky--the rest were covered with black friction tape.  

I went to Boy Scouts on my bike from that house.  I got my first gun- a Red Ryder BB gun- at that house.  I licked the front sight, too, just like Sergeant York.

On weekends we would get the Denver Post with several pages of comics.  We read them cover to cover.  There was no TV and little radio on weekends.

During the week we listened to Bob Hope, Fibber McGee and Molly, Mr. District Attorney, the Lemac Show,  and "Can You Top This?"  If you were sick and missed school you'd listen to "Queen for a Day"...("Would YOU like to be Queen for a Day??"). Compared to the TV offerings of today, kids had little media entertainment. Mother once said:  "I read that someday, they would have it where you could WATCH as well as listen to a radio."  I looked at that little lighted dial with the numbers on it and wondered how you could see anyone in there.

Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.   I, though very small, listened to the reports on that radio that it was feared Japanese planes would fly over San Francisco on that Sunday evening, (wherever San Francisco was).

The Clovis Journal landed on that lawn and we hurried to see how Joe Palooka and Jerry Leemy were doing against the Nazis, with their cool .45's on their hips.

Looking at that house today, it seems incredibly small.  It didn't seem small THEN.  Of course, who ever head of four bedrooms and a two-car garage?  Only the doctors or auto dealers had those kind of houses.

At that house we had a Black-Out once during WW II.  All lights in town were turned off at about 8:30 p.m. and planes flew around.

During WWII we watched the B-24's fly circles around town;  then later B-17s, and I think finally B-24's.  We saw a captured Japanese Zero once in a big tent downtown.  For 25 cents you could get in, walk up a scaffold and look into the cockpit.  It was much bigger than I thought a "fighter" plane would be.  

Why do we become attached to houses?  I guess because they are a part of our lives --our past--which is gone.  Our memories go back to a simpler time - a time that is gone, never to be recovered.  But like loved ones, they live in our memories and can never be erased.  Maybe a home is more than wood and stucco. 


Mil's Place

Posted posthumously 3/28/2022
















Monday, January 31, 2022

THE POET

 

 




Friends of Mil's and readers of Mil's Place know that Mil left us earlier this year.   I (the "Beloved Editor") have been looking through his unposted writings, and will be selecting some for publication.  This is the first.  

  THE POET


He’s the one

That reminded us 

To see—


To see—

The universe,

The stars at night

The blue sky

Of day

The freshness

Of a dewy April morning


The clouds

The blue sky

The trees

Swaying

and shimmering in the wind


The roses

The flowers


The look of love 

In a mother’s face

As she counts the 

Fingers and toes

Of a new baby…


A baby’s first gumless giggle


Paper and pen

Would fail

To list

What we

Don’t see—


It was the poet - he did it

He reminded us 

To see


And wonder….


Mil 









Thursday, July 1, 2021

MY HOPE

 Written by Mil in 2013.  It was read at his memorial service and printed on his memorial folder.  

MY  HOPE

 

That when he

Came into this world---

He might be a blessing

With his life, to others.....

 

He would be a credit to his parents...

He would be well---remembered

In his home town.

His name would appear

with honor---in the halls

of his alma mater. 

 

His memory would be ever lovingly

engraved on the hearts

Of his family, loved ones, and friends.

 

Above all, his children, and all children

He ever met, taught,

threw a ball with---

Would talk about him, when

They were old, as ONE

who helped them on their way,

and caused them to want to

lead godly lives.

 

That every note he ever sang, every

one---in praise of Jesus and

His matchless sacrifice, is still

echoing as sounds do---

Somewhere deep in the universe. 

 

That the earth would have been

the poorer, had he never been born. 

 

That his name was inscribed

in The Book of God’s Kingdom,

“On the page white and fair...”

That April day in 1947, when he said

“I believe,” and opted for Jesus.

 

Maybe one day, the Creator will say:

“Well done, thou good and

faithful servant.”

 

So may it be recorded for Eternity.

 

Amen

 

MY  HOPE

BY  MIL

12/10/13




Thursday, June 10, 2021

MIL: IN MEMORIAM

 


Mil: our brilliant, funny, and creative blogger is at rest now.  He was much loved by his family and friends and will be missed greatly!  Thank you for reading and appreciating Mil's stories.

 There may continue to be new posts, as we discover unpublished writings  



Sunday, March 7, 2021

SPRINGS OF LIVING WATER














See the streams of 
  living waters,
Springing from eternal    
  love,
We'll supply Thy sons
  and daughters 
And all fear of want 
  remove,
Who can faint while
 such a river
Ever flows their thirst
 to assuage,
Grace which like the
  Lord  the Giver
Never fails from age
   to  age


Glorious things of Thee
   are spoken
Zion, city of our God;
He whose word cannot
  be broken
Formed thee for his 
  own abode;
On the Rock of Ages
  founded
What can shake thy
  sure repose?
With salvation's  walls
   surrounded
Thou mayest smile at
   all thy foes."
-----
  "Glorious Things of
     Thee Are Spoken"
   ....John Newton
           (1725-1857)
.....Hymn Tune:
    "Austrian  Hymn,"
        Franz J. Haydn
           (1732-1809)

(One of the great hymn      
     tunes... of the world) 
------
Mil
8 MARCH 2021
Photo "BANFF".   
  by Connor Moore,
           (29/18)


"