Nikki and Ava

 My brother once had a date. It turned into a one night stand and both forgot about it. The girl later got pregnant and had a girl. The father could have been one of several men. Lewis went on the marry and have three children.The girl by now was twenty one and she was wanting to know who her father was. Her mother gave her several names. She looked each one up and asked if they would be a paternity test. Lewis was the father. We welcomed her, especially Meme who treated her as her other granddaughters. Her girl of two at the time was the same age as my estranged grandson Nathaniel.

All this time she had grown up in foster homes in White Springs. I wish we had known her earlier.

Friday Jordon and i went to White Springs to see her.

When we camped

Camp Street

I was in the early thirties of life and still living at home with mamma in her house on Vickers and St Johns up the street. Daddy and her were still together, but his time was almost exclusively spent in Crawfordville, so there was no real urgency to pull from the best of all time apron strings. For a year or so I had my eye on Mr Emory Grays upstairs garage apartment for $125 a month, so when he called and told me it was again available, the future Morrell girl Vickie having moved out, I did not hesitate. My all the years here best friend Rick Bringger and my all time best bro friend Mark Philpot helped me load my few things and haul them up the steps. 

I was now, on my own, though I still lived on mamma’s cooking every evening. It wasn’t long before good things began happening, the best being I found in the mailbox below on the steps, a letter from a girl in Williston, asking if I’d teach her photography. A year had passed since I last tried to ask her out, she dating a doctor at Shands, so I had sort of given up. I did not hesitate and sent her a reply letter and set a time. 

And so the rest was history, good history. And it wasn’t too awful long we carried our first son Landon up the stairs, to share a corner of the one bedroom in the little crib, with Callie the cat wanting to cuddle with him. 

And it wasn’t long we knew this place with a view was much too small, so we were most fortunate to see Allan Crews several blocks up on Camp Street was selling his mothers home he grew up in, so our realtor Patty Mackey worked out all the offers and such, and before you know, we were down at Terry McDavids signing paper after paper for our first home. 

And the rest was history, good history.

And we still ride past and look up wistfully, hear mamma’s feet coming up the steps for a surprise visit, hear Emorys wife scolding him for something he didn’t do and he in his easy going way ignoring it. And we miss it, we miss the good history.

Burnt syrup

Jordon and I ground the cane, we only got maybe a gallon of juice. We set up the propane fish cooker and commenced boiling. We cooked it too long and it turned to taffy. Could barely get it out of the container. We cooked it too hot. We learn.

Cardinal

 Sabbath Cardinal

Today upon this last November sabbath

we held a brief ceremony in the crepe tree

appointing some Cardinals for the duty

of seeing to it beauty was utmost in the highest.

Of milk and wine

 The late blooming milk and wine crinoline lily

Set against the old Homewood split rails 

I hesitate to leave it in the turning chilly

The moon will rise and with it dwell.

Glory lift

 In the morning glory

It’s a grand morning story

The song all nature sings

to His glory

To this downcast it brings

a lift early

Sand lot

 Sand Lot

There is a chord that resonates within when from out of the autumn north sky soaring in the still night come the cry of the Sand Hills from their northern summer homes, arriving to spend the winter in the pleasant Florida climate. And I pause from the raking to gaze into the heaven not seeing the formation but knowing just above me circling are the cranes telling me of that longing for the pleasant places, away from the frozen stresses that would kill. And I resume raking, gathering the pine straw in circles, to gather them in the iron kettle, the smoke billowing toward the circling Sand Hill crane, a signal to them that I am below, just as last year, when as clock work, the burning began. I do not know if they got the signal or if they even acknowledged, raking silently, thinking of far off places from which we came, how if they missed the soon frozen ponds and bogs north, just as I, loved things over lands, far beyond my migration, land bound and locked in this acre lot. It will not be long before the time to return arrives, the leaves long since burned, smoke signals stored away. The cranes will stir, the land will green, when silently, upon cue, catching the scent of a northern current, one will lift, then another, and another, circling, higher and higher, calling, and they shall pass over me, silent in the acre lot, gazing, getting ready for the falling again, giving me the ability to signal them, when again, they return to me.

Thanksgiving 2024

 I opted to go with Jordon who is home to Allison and John’s. Melanie is going with Roscoe to Williston. 

Jungle Jane

 Blame the branch

There I was on a Saturday

Couldn't have been past ten

And there was Tarzan

Throwing Jane in the spring

And the branch

 Caught her gown

Leaving her naked

Swimming around

I'd only seen such things

In the National Geographic's 

Mr George would bring

Never before moving

I'm still trying to get over

That throwing Jane

In Wakulla Springs.

We gather

 Whole lot of nothing

I’m sure every large family gathering sooner or later segregates into the have and have nots, the young, the middle and the ancient.

I’d try and sit in one group and they’d be talking about nothing but what they got, what they going to order Black Friday, what one makes, etc and I’d tire and move on.

I’d try and sit in another group and they were immersed in online gaming with no interaction 

and I totally couldn’t relate and would move on.

I’d try the have not group and how they weren’t able to do this or that, how the health was bad, 

the pain great and the world going to hell and I’d tire and move on.

I went outside and told the little boy about the age of my grandson, fly your balsa wood rubber band propelled plane directly at me. I’ll try and film it.

It was good for about three tries until his daddy broke it up and he ran inside.

I took another walk to the end of the drive. My dog wouldn’t even go.

Tell me the story

 Tell me the story

Seems the further from the once sharply

defined scene

The more it blends into a dream

The lessons once written in plain 

black,white and red

Permeating skin, blood and bone

shaping within the Way herein we

so walk

no longer in the harsh light of law

but in soft beams of grace enveloping.

Less and less

 Facebook is getting less and less replies, to the point I hesitate to post much, for lack of response. You can count on the fake gals to reply. It’s like here. Three likes at most.

It’s something I’ve been long harping on. 

By fake i do not mean Missy, Elizabeth and others, i mean the ones that always say i am interesting and will i be their friend. I block them.