Jewells of Thought

Last night I had to came to a decision. After posting my one article of the day I thought I would have another one. Still I promised I would get to bed earlier than the previous two nights. I wanted to post my thoughts for these big anniversaries today.

For 84 years Rosemary Alsman was celebrated by her family and friends. This year is now the 4th year we are celebrating without her. Mom and I have been spending a lot of time up at the house looking through her tins of sewing stashes and working with her sewing machines. It feels like she is still with us while we have been rummaging around trying to find parts to the second machine.

Today is D-Day, but my thoughts have been on Grandma’s machine and getting back up there to work on some more projects. Is it a bit ironic my first project to finish is a Cobra Helicopter, a military aircraft? I wish Grandpa Freddy could have seen this collection he would have been as happy as I was to find it.

There are two other ladies who are good friends of ours that have the same birthday today as Grandma, in fact there may be a third. Ladies we have known for a while, but apparently not their birthdays until recent years.

Last Thursday WTHI TV has been going back in time to yesteryear to relive historic events. The episode they looked at was from 2008 the year before I graduated college we had a horrific flood in the area Terre Haute to Sullivan to Worthington it was horrible. That weekend was Grandma’s birthday. We had made plans for us all to get together at Red Lobster her favorite restaurant to eat for her birthday celebration as a family. Roads were out. Those who were in Terre Haute couldn’t get out and vice versa those trying to get in couldn’t. We couldn’t get to Red Lobster safely.

So we did what we could we went south. We knew about a good place for family style food and the Bishop side had been there a few times for gatherings. We had my college graduation party there the following year it was primarily family invited. McKinley’s is the name and it is a buffet. Country style and antiques everywhere and outside you can see tons of cats wandering around the gardens. That was an unusual birthday and it took a long time for our ground to dry up for planting what we could plant. I think we had a lot of insurance claims that year and those of our fellow farmers in our community that year.

Even at college I knew some of my fellow students were farmers. I remember talking to a guy from Decker telling me how bad it was down there. His father died the Christmas before I graduated. We had a lot in common, but my graduation was the last time I saw Erik. He was a part of our History Tribe who loved and adored Dr. Cutchin, our professor and History advisor.

Talk about memories… those are thoughts from my recent past I had forgotten. Nothing like D-Day and my Grandma’s birthday to bring back some fond memories of my college days.