Kansas - skyscraper silos. Corn fields. A Big Well. Wichita airplanes. Big Brutus. Clean roads.
Missouri - shapely barns. Quilt trail. Ozarks. Seafood buffet. Mountain Grove. Friendly people. Springfield traffic. Tall cornfields. Truman's birthplace. Wild purple statice.
Kentucky - gigantic barns. Intensive corn farming. Mississippi levees. Sycamores. Wild mimosa. Dense population. Land Between the Lakes. Bowling Green. Corvettes. Ancestors. Cumberland River. Queen Anne's Lace.
Surprising things about the trip so far are how clean the roads are in Missouri and Kansas. Missouri is clean. Kansas is squeaky clean, with lots of green spaces inside the towns. Missouri has great roads. Kentucky has poor signage. Nowhere have there been near enough rest areas. But Missouri's rest stops, even though they are few and far between, are the best. Kentucky is not as clean as either Kansas or Missouri but has taller trees.
Tomorrow morning we are going to go grave-hopping, looking for my Kentucky/Tennessee ancestors. These are my grandmother's people. And the more I study them they more they feel like my people, too. We are in Burkesville, KY tonight, in a motel on the banks of the Cumberland River. My 4th great-grandfather lived here in 1810, before he got his land grant and moved to the South Fork in Wayne County. He was granted 50 acres, and owned, in 1860, an appalling 11 slaves. He was married twice and had 13 children. I don't think he was wealthy, but he has a severe face in the single picture I have of him. They were hillfolk.
The Tennessee side has a moderate claim to fame. My fourth great grandmother's father was the brother of Gracie Williams, who at age 16 married Alvin York of Sergeant York fame. We will see his and her graves tomorrow, as well as those of the other ancestors -- cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents with several "greats" along with their names. I bought some Deep Woods Off today to keep the ciggers at bay. I've already been bitten all around my ankles by the horrible things. I'd forgotten how buggy the south is. Also how muggy. 104 degrees with 65% humidity will really take it out of you.
Till next time---
Onward....
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
Dodge City, Kansas
When Daddy was a young man, coming home from World War II, his troop train stopped at Dodge City, Kansas to take on fuel. The returning troops were made to stay on the train. Daddy had pulled KP duty the day before, and his sergeant said to him, “Hey Corporal, jump down from this train and run over there to the station to get me a newspaper.” He gave Daddy a nickel and Daddy jumped down from the train. Inside the station, he had to wait in line to buy the paper. As he was walking back to the box car being used as the kitchen, the train started away from the station. Daddy tucked the paper under his arm, and holding onto this cap, began to run. All the other guys in the KP car, hollered at him, and held out their hands, and Daddy made it to the train in time for them to pull him aboard as the train was leaving. Thus, he made it back to Texas and home. A few more seconds, and he could have been AWOL, all because of the sergeant and his newspaper. Daddy told me this story last night when I called him from the road.
It was 111 degrees in Dodge City yesterday. There are 27,000 people living here now. I imagine it was a much smaller place in 1945. We stopped at the Boot Hill Museum before we got a motel room. The museum is a tourist trap. We bought some souvenirs and left. They don’t allow dogs, not even leashed ones, on Boot Hill. We couldn’t leave her in the car. The temperature inside the car said 121 when we got back, and we were only gone about ten minutes. She was, as she always is, ecstatic to see us.
Today we will strike out for Missouri. Hopefully there will be better internet there. The weather everywhere is too hot for traveling. But I am pouring out my bucket list. I can now check off Kansas. That leaves about 15 more states I need to visit before I die. And another item on my list -- seeing the fireworks on the National Mall on the Fourth of July -- I will be checking that one off next Wednesday. In the process, I also get to see my son and his partner. I miss my “connections” to the world and to myself. My sweet son is one of those connections. A most precious one.
Onward ....
Monday, June 25, 2012
Adventures in Unemployment
It has been a while since I posted anything here and a lot has changed. For one thing, I am now officially unemployed, and frankly, worried. The company I owned with my ex-husband has, to use an appropriate cliche, gone down the tubes. The last several weeks have been tied up with closing things down, separating assets -- again! It's like getting divorced a second time from the same man. Now, I find myself wondering how I'm going to pay the bills.
Think I mentioned a few posts back that I had taken on a sales territory for a blouse manufacturer. So far, I am in the red with that endeavor. I've sold some blouses but my travel expenses have far outpaced any commissions I have been paid, and the blouses have simply stopped selling. I have some personal items I want to sell that might bring in some fast cash, but after that, I'm pretty much out of ideas. This is keeping me up nights, obviously. I guess I should have seen it coming. Well, I DID see it coming, but it's like having a someone you love get a terminal disease. You know they will die but it still hurts when it finally happens.
I have actually been preparing financially for this for a year. The real reason for selling the Buffalo Wallow was to get out of debt. I knew it was the most valuable thing, by far, that I owned, and once it sold I could pay off everything. So, I have no bills, other than those associated with homeownership of the New Mexico house: taxes, insurance, utilities, etc. But now I find myself living in an area where there is 29% unemployment, I am a 59-year old woman who is definitely NOT bilingual, an understood requirement for employment in this area. So the dilemma is what to do. I'm several years away from qualifying for Social Security, and oh yes, there's my exorbitant, and I might add crappy, health insurance premium, which is automatically deducted from my checking account each month. I'm OK for now. If I'm really stingy with money, I can last a while. Certainly not for the four years until Social Security becomes an option, but for a while.
My thoughts are to somehow make my skills as a writer pay off -- now, when I really need them to. I've done the book review thing. I enjoyed it but earned somewhere around .0000003 cents an hour -- maybe. Freelancing has never earned much for me, but I'm looking into ways to possibly make it pay better. I open to anything.
The company has for the last several years allowed me to procrastinate about writing, but that option has just closed. I'm for sale. I am thinking about a website, maybe get some editorial work. I'm pretty good at editing -- the "big picture" kind of editing. I can read something and tell when it isn't working. I can even often tell how to fix what isn't working. That should be worth something to another writer, although maybe not as much as before this self-publishing craze that is gaining momentum. I've done a little bit of research, put out feelers to people who are making a living at freelance editing. I do have some ideas.
And of course, there's the endlessly unfinished novel. We have a long-planned, unavoidable road trip to make this next week. The trip will end with the final "board meeting" in Texas of the company. After that, I will be disassociated from it forever.
Many years ago, when I was going through one of many bouts of marital troubles, I ran home to my parents for a weekend. My husband at the time and I were thinking about separating, which in hindsight we probably should have done for good. I don't remember much about that weekend except for my mother telling me that I needed to "find my purpose." This was long before I had become a published writer; I had only aspirations at that time. Her words stuck then and they seem especially appropriate to me once again. As soon as we are back from this trip, it's past time for me to "find my purpose," to become productive again. There has been a lot of joy in life lost over the last ten or so months. I am hoping to also "find the joy" that has been lacking.
Onward ....
Think I mentioned a few posts back that I had taken on a sales territory for a blouse manufacturer. So far, I am in the red with that endeavor. I've sold some blouses but my travel expenses have far outpaced any commissions I have been paid, and the blouses have simply stopped selling. I have some personal items I want to sell that might bring in some fast cash, but after that, I'm pretty much out of ideas. This is keeping me up nights, obviously. I guess I should have seen it coming. Well, I DID see it coming, but it's like having a someone you love get a terminal disease. You know they will die but it still hurts when it finally happens.
I have actually been preparing financially for this for a year. The real reason for selling the Buffalo Wallow was to get out of debt. I knew it was the most valuable thing, by far, that I owned, and once it sold I could pay off everything. So, I have no bills, other than those associated with homeownership of the New Mexico house: taxes, insurance, utilities, etc. But now I find myself living in an area where there is 29% unemployment, I am a 59-year old woman who is definitely NOT bilingual, an understood requirement for employment in this area. So the dilemma is what to do. I'm several years away from qualifying for Social Security, and oh yes, there's my exorbitant, and I might add crappy, health insurance premium, which is automatically deducted from my checking account each month. I'm OK for now. If I'm really stingy with money, I can last a while. Certainly not for the four years until Social Security becomes an option, but for a while.
My thoughts are to somehow make my skills as a writer pay off -- now, when I really need them to. I've done the book review thing. I enjoyed it but earned somewhere around .0000003 cents an hour -- maybe. Freelancing has never earned much for me, but I'm looking into ways to possibly make it pay better. I open to anything.
The company has for the last several years allowed me to procrastinate about writing, but that option has just closed. I'm for sale. I am thinking about a website, maybe get some editorial work. I'm pretty good at editing -- the "big picture" kind of editing. I can read something and tell when it isn't working. I can even often tell how to fix what isn't working. That should be worth something to another writer, although maybe not as much as before this self-publishing craze that is gaining momentum. I've done a little bit of research, put out feelers to people who are making a living at freelance editing. I do have some ideas.
And of course, there's the endlessly unfinished novel. We have a long-planned, unavoidable road trip to make this next week. The trip will end with the final "board meeting" in Texas of the company. After that, I will be disassociated from it forever.
Many years ago, when I was going through one of many bouts of marital troubles, I ran home to my parents for a weekend. My husband at the time and I were thinking about separating, which in hindsight we probably should have done for good. I don't remember much about that weekend except for my mother telling me that I needed to "find my purpose." This was long before I had become a published writer; I had only aspirations at that time. Her words stuck then and they seem especially appropriate to me once again. As soon as we are back from this trip, it's past time for me to "find my purpose," to become productive again. There has been a lot of joy in life lost over the last ten or so months. I am hoping to also "find the joy" that has been lacking.
Onward ....
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