48 Years Ago November 22

I remember most of this day so clearly in my mind.
My mother always had the television on in the mornings as we would prepare for school. The television was a very small modern set ~ we always got to try out the latest models since my father was a television and appliance manufacturers rep. It sat upon the Philco refrigerator.
That was the era of our beloved President John F. Kennedy.
I loved everything I read and heard about him. I loved his regal ways and his speeches..I felt safe with him in charge, but I was always worried for him.
I remember watching one morning when we got to take a visual tour of the White House with Mrs. Kennedy and gaze upon all the decorating she had done. I remember seeing her and the children.
The Kennedy family reminded me of my father's side of the family..big, Catholic family that spent summers together boating and enjoying each others company~lots of cousins and loving aunts and uncles.
The news of the world bothered me as a child as I would worry about the threats of communism. That was drilled into our heads as I was young. I used to lie in my bed at night and imagine going to the Soviet Union and speaking alone with Nikita Khrushchev. I had seen him stamp his shoe on the table in important meetings. I imagined how I would talk to him and convince him to no longer be a threat to the world. I would be the child that would save us all.
I would worry about the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs. Those types of worries carried over into my daily life as I walked to school. To this day, I avoid watching the news in the morning on television.

I remember the morning of November 22, 1963. I was standing in the kitchen ready to eat breakfast. I was facing the stove with my back to the television on its refrigerated stand and I heard the news man say that President Kennedy was going to Dallas that morning. I recall an imaginary map flashed in front of my face and I saw that it was the state of Texas. My finger traced a line to Dallas and my mind's eye followed it. I thought to myself.."Oh I wish he wasn't going there." Then I thought better of that and told myself that our President will be alright because he will be with 'our people'.
The news came over the loud speaker in that second floor art class in the early afternoon. I was in the 7th grade. I'll never forget the tearful memory of my classmates and me trying to finish out the class time.
I don't remember finishing out the rest of the day.

Friends by the Written Word

I can sit here at my little desk and visit marvelous interesting people all over the world. I read blogs~some about traveling, some about decor, some about cooking, some about poetry and literature and animals, and some that are so poignant I sit and read and weep. I am never alone and come to read to help myself get through a tough time or enjoy a happy time or just reassure myself that I am amazingly not much different than everybody else. I let my mind wander into another's life of triumphs and travails and just plain everydayness. I can comment and get responses immediately much faster than a posted written letter. I can copy and print these tidbits of wisdom and bits of thought onto tangible paper to read over and over again..so all is not lost to the ether. I have struck up friendships with people I may never meet, and have only seen still photos of~yet we are connected~and yet we are separated by towns, states, countries and oceans. We look at the same moon when it is full and think of each other across vast waters. We try to solve mysteries together and we send each other gifts. We cry for one another, we laugh with each other and we are in awe of each other. We share our lives and are bonded in our friendship by our love of the written word.

Compulsion

For people who are artists and artsy creators, antique shop owners, vintage hunters, there is one common thread...We want IT! IT is just a little something that catches our eye and no matter how much stuff we already have, we have to have something more~even if it is exactly what we already have at home. We can't help it, it is an addiction and except for space allowance and bumped toes in the night, it is a relatively safe addiction...I have never heard tell of any one dying from this affliction! There are hoarders and there are "got to have its". We are not the H word! Hoarders have massive amounts of worthless junk. We just have slightly smaller than masses of wonderful treasures. *note to offspring~ There is a big difference.~

Just a thought....

This thought just came to me...
Do electric lights make a noise that we subconsciously hear?
You know how quiet the night is when all the lights are out.....