This is a short week with no printing on Monday due to Labor Day. By the time this reaches you, you will be back to work! I want to thank those responsible for putting up another “Stop” sign (on Tuesday, Aug. 30) that was broken off down at ground level Aug. 14. It would appear that the person that did it probably should have called for a ride home. Now the stop sign is adorning someone’s garage or bedroom wall as shortly after it was broken off, the sign and post both disappeared. (Maybe there were fingerprints on it!)
Last Sunday Bethany and I went to Le Mars to get some food for her cats. I only had three things in my cart when she came down an aisle and said, “I need your cart.” Little did I know that she was going to put three bags of cat food in my cart. I could hardly push it! A woman came up to me and said, “Do you live in town?” I said, “Yes, but not this town!” She replied, “I was going to say that you must have a lot of cats for all that food!” (Le Mars has a 3 pet ordinance.) Not much later, another older lady pointed to my carat and said, “Those kitties will be happy with that food!” I was glad when Bethany checked out and I didn’t have to have people comment about what was in my cart!
Jesse had a abirthday on Tuesday, August 30. Zachary had smoked a brisket and we were at Jesse’s for supper. I have to admit that it was better than the hamburgers I had been eating the last three days!
I put a chuck roast (not completely thawed out) in the slow cooker at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday. By the time it had ‘thawed’ out in the cooker, the cooker had more than enough liquid. One other time, I came to check on a roast and found that the liquid had gone out of the cooker and I had a mess to clean up. This time I caught it in time and removed some of the liquid.
I have peoples’ addresses and birthdays in the computer that I cannot get to. I was sure that Shirley Shea’s was Sept. 1. Bethany said not to send a card as she knew it was not her birthday on Sept. 1. On that day I called Heartland Care Center and found out that I was right and that there was going to be a birthday party for her. Steve and I were there by 3 o’clock and found her enjoying the time with some of her family. We went to sit down at a table where there were extra places to sit. The lady at the end of this table was wearing a “crown”. It was her birthday! Then I saw Cindy Stevenson with a lady that had a corsage on. It was her mother and –she was celebrating her birthday, also! Come to find out, there were three ladies that had their birthdays on the same day—Sept. 1! This doesn’t happen very often. There are times when birthdays are close to another, people will celebrate all of them on the same day. But, this time it was unusual that there were three birthdays all on the same day! Jeralyn Hoefling’s mother, Margie Schiltz is 90 years old, Cindy Stevenson’s mother, Dorothy Clow is 96 years old, and Shirley Shea is the youngest of the trio!
When I think of birthdays, I was sure glad that there was a surprise birthday card shower for Jeanette. She really enjoyed the cards. Two months later, she passed away. It seems that the older a person gets, the more they appreciate these little things. Steve is having a birthday Sept. 16. It is also the same day that Bob Becker’s funeral is. The funeral is at Boothby Funeral home, burial in Le Mars, and then fellowship at Faith Lutheran Church after that.
After I got home from Heartland Care, I got supper ready. I used Bonnie Wilken’s recipe for ham balls. I took a chance that the oven would continue to run until they were done! Baked beans were in the oven at the very last. The oven did work until the beans were done! It was good that Steve came for supper or else I would have eaten alone as the other two were going mowing and would eat when they got back. So, everything was put in the slow cooker at “warm”.
The Marcus Public Library is getting a new ‘pitched’ roof. Hopefully this will stop the leaks. The house that was standing south of the new bank (United Bank of Iowa), went down the other day. Now there are just two houses on that side of the street.
Going through some paper files I found an interesting article that brought back some memories. Many years ago I attended a seminar on funerals and burials. At that time if you were not settled in a place, you were buried in whatever cemetery was where you were living at the time. (Now, many take an urn with them and when the time comes that they are settled in a place at last, then the urn is placed in a cemetery for burial.
It was stressed that funerals are for the living. Those left behind have had their lives changed when their loved one died. It was shortly after this seminar that I experienced a time with a salesman who was out to sell cemetery plats cheaper than what local cemeteries were charging.
It was a day when Jeanette and I packed up some of the kids and took off to Sioux City for a sale that had things we were interested in. At that time, there were no seat belts and no console in the middle of the front seat, so there was extra room for passengers. Just before we left, I heard Jennifer as she was talking to Rodney—“Now Rodney, if you get lost remember to say, ‘I am Rodney Rassel and I live at (she even had the street number!) Marcus, Iowa.’” (He was 2 years older than she was but she was always like the Mother Hen!)
When we reached the store, I knew where I was going and thought Jeanette was watching Jennifer. Not long after I was there, I heard over the loud speaker, “Attention shoppers, there is a little lost girl wearing a red checked hooded shirt in the material department.” About that time Jeanette came around the corner and said, “I thought you had Jennifer!” (This red checked shirt was one that my grandma gave her and even though it was warm out, it was her favorite one—so I knew she was the one lost.) Jeanette went to get her. There she was, bawling her head off! The salesperson said, “Do you know this lady?” She kept on crying but finally said between sobs “yes”! When she came back to me, I asked her what she was doing where she was lost. “You always go to look at material and I thought you were there.”
We hadn’t been home very long when a man was knocking at the door. He asked if Floyd was home. I pointed to the living room where Floyd was watching “I Love Lucy”. No one ever bothered him when he was watching this show. I got Jennifer in the bathtub when Floyd came and said, “Who is that guy? He says he is a friend of the family and he’s not from my family. Is he from your family?” I said, “No”.
Then the man came behind me as I watching Jennifer and said, “I’m here to sell you a cemetery plot.” I answered that we already had one. He looked right at me and said, “I don’t think so!” About that time, Jennifer was bailing water out of the tub, with water going through a short hallway and onto the hardwood floor in the dining room where I was standing. I said, “Now look what has happened just because you have tried to sell a cemetery plot. GO and don’t come back again!” Cleaning up the water mess, I asked Jennifer why she threw the water out of the tub. “’Cause you scolded me today when I was lost!”
This man was in Marcus with what seemed like ‘forever’ trying to sell lots in Cherokee. He contacted my grandmother who had buried grandpa in Marcus, but the salesman didn’t take her word for it. She finally sent him on his way. He called on the house where our minister lived. He spoke to the minister’s wife and asked if she knew where she was going after she passed away. (In other words, she was given a religious sermon on dying.) She asked him if he knew who she was. As he was looking through his ‘calling names’, she said, “Don’t bother, I’m the minister’s wife and I know all about death. Be on your way!”
He went to the restaurant where Jeanette worked. He walked down the side where the booths were and then came to the front where she was. “Who is sitting in the back booth? She looks like she needs a cemetery plot.” (It was Mrs. Mossman.) Jeanette told him to GO and not to come back again.
I helped the older kids collect for the newspaper. There were people that liked to talk so they left me to go to them to collect! I went to Mrs. H.’s house and she said, “I’m so glad to see you. I just got rid of the cemetery salesman. He said he was going to cut our visit short as he had to get back for a Board Meeting.” She asked him if there were many on this Board—and he said, My wife, my son, and me!”
There were people that bought lots there and when it went up in weeds, some moved their burial plots to another cemetery. I’m just glad that ours is where it is as when I want to go to the graves, I don’t have to go miles to get there. That was my experience with this salesman!
Remember in your thoughts and prayers those who have lost loved ones to death, have had their lives changed, are having health problems some of which are terminal, those who have a job and are still trying to make ends meet, and be with those who are trying to shorten the distance between friends and family with a bridge instead of a wall.
I will leave you with this quote from Meghan Markle (Duchess of Sussex): “I think forgiveness is really important. It takes a lot more energy to not forgive, but it takes a lot of effort to forgive.”