The charms of country living

Copyright 2005 Leader Publications

Recently I heard a couple of radio DJs poking fun at Jefferson Countians.  The nerve of those guys!  Granted, my sister-in-law, who lives in another county, and I joke about the fact that I'm "the relative from Jefferson County," but it's all in fun.  She herself hails from family that come out of the Bootheel of southeast Missouri, real country people.

I suppose I do my share in carrying on the stereotype.  A few years back, I worked at a job with a co-worker who lived in Wildwood.  He loved to make fun on my county of residence.

I  told my co-worker about the time my smoking car finally caught fire in downtwon Cedar Hill and a nice older couple offered me a ride home.

"They had just come out of the liquor store next to the video shop," I said.

Actually, they told me that their son owned the liquor store and they were coming from a visit with him, information I also passed on to my co-worker. 

Then there was the time I was sitting at the intersection of highways 30 and W when a pickup truck caught my attention across the way.  The driver was wearing those old-time pilot's goggles, the kind I had only seen in Snoopy cartoons.  After observing for a few moments, I realized why the goggles.  The truck had no windshield!


Another time I was exiting the Cedar Hill Post Office, walking out behind a man maybe in his thirties, and his mother.  The man had on overalls with a white tee shirt underneath, a huge belly partially hidden by the overalls in front.  He walked kind of stooped over.  He had rather long thin stringy brown hair. 

His mother had on a long tee shirt covering her large belly.  She also walked hunched over at the shoulders and had long, thinner, stringy gray hair. 

As they began to exit the lobby, they stopped at looked up at the 10 Most Wanted poster.

"Yeap, he's on there," the man said, pointing to one of the pictures.

Admittedly, I said to myself, "Leave it to Jefferson County to have people looking up their friends and relatives on the 10 Most Wanted poster!"

Another time, as I left the local grocery store in Cedar Hill, being distracted, I went to the wrong car, thinking it was mine.  I opened the drivers door and found myself looking at an older country gentleman.  He had on the stereotypical overalls with white tee underneath, a huge belly in front.  He had white hair and a white beard.

Realizing my mistake, I said, "Oops.  Wrong car," and shut the door.  As I walked away, I heard the man cry out, "Eck!  I ain't never had some'in like that happen ta me bafore!"

My family and I have unwittingly contributed to the typecast of Jefferson Countians in other ways.  Over the years, we've had the stereotyped requisite pick-up trucks, backyard dogs to keep predators away from the rabbits and chickens, and cats to keep away the rodents attracted by the dog, rabbit and chicken food.

I hang my laundry out on the line and when I care for the outside pets, I wear overalls and knee-high rubber boots (and do they help when it's wet and muddy). 

Even though I may joke myself about the stereotype of Jefferson County, the way we live belies the fact that we are hapy this way.  There is nothing wrong with being "country folk."  The ones previously described resprsent a life of contented simplicity.  I believe my own family's life is less hectic than that of so many others living in more upscale communities.

There is poverty in Jefferson County, of course.  But there's also a good dose of compassion here.  There are groups like the Big River Gobblers and the High Rdige Rotary clubs that donate hundreds of turkeys to the local food pantries at holiday times.  The pantries in turn can then provide all the other fixin's for their neighbor's holiday meals.  And county resident's, many of them retired citizens, donate their time working at the pantries.

Then there are the schools in our county that are well known for their generosity in collections for all kinds of causes.

When our own kids were still in school, I remember overhearing teachers talking about buying needed clothing for some of their less fortunate students.

Living in Jefferson County also affords us the opportunity to sample small-town charms similar to those found in the old "Andy Griffith Show."  Where else could you go to get your kid's haircut and end up babysitting the beautician's grandbaby while she performed the cuts?

And where else could you fill up on gas, only to find you left your wallet and check book at home and have the cashier take money out of her own back pocket and say, "You can pay me later."

After protesting, she said, "How long have I known you?"

I didn't even know her name, but she previously had been the cashier at the Dollar General in Cedar Hill for the 20 or so years I shopped there.

Some old-timers in Jefferson County may be thought of as "hillbillies" by some, but to me that only means they're down-to-earth nice.  My longtime neighbors sosp their vehicles to chat when driving past my home if I'm out.  One neighbor regularly buys treats for my little housedog to give when I walk her past their home.  Others stop me to talk when I pass by.

We receive visits from other neighbors as well, those from the woods.  We have a barred own couple whose antics we listen to when it's cool enoguh to have the air conditioning off and the windows open.  And I've had to stop my car on the road after dark to wait for a great horned owl to make its slow ascent with its long-tailed prey hanging between its talons.  We also have a herd of about a dozen deer that bed down in winter in the tall, dried grass on the side of our house.  Their circular beds of various sizes give away how many young ones are in the herd.

We've had our share of visits from raccoons and opossums and the infrequent skunk or fox.  From time to time we'll hear the wails of coyote in the distance.  Our oldest son says he's seen bobcat in the shallow woods behind our yard.  We also have a pair of pileated woodpeckers and their younster living in our woods, something that's considered to be a rarity due to the creature's shyness of humans.

My grandpa was one who had an appreciatiuon for Jefferson County.  When raising his family in St. Louis in the 1930s and '40s, he owned a clubhouse in Cedar Hill, in "the foothills of the Ozarks," he called Jefferson County.  Years later when I moved to Cedar Hill, Grandpa was delighted.  My dad used to tell me that every time he would drop by to visit his parents, "Pop" would get out of his chair, grab his hat and say, "Are we going out to Cathy's?"

And when sitting out on my back deck on cool autumn evenings, I think of Grandpa and understand why he had such a fondness for Jefferson County.  Along with all its other quaint charms, no place tops Jefferson County for its view of the sky and rolling, wooded hills.

I was there when it happened!

This story was published and copyrighted by the Suburban Journals around 1993.  At this point in time, Missouri Conservation officials were not admitting that Missouri had a bear population. 

I just received my March issue of the Missouri Conservationist and was lazily scanning through the table of contents when an article's title caught my attention: "My Aunt Was There When It Happened," by Joel Vance.  Would it, I wondered, answer some questions that I have carried with me for fourteen years now?  I quickly turned to the article and began reading.  After just the first sentence, my hopes were raised that this article would touch on something that I had been wondering about ever since that night, fourteen years ago, when my husband Tim and I camped out in a cave along the upper Meramec.

We were on a float trip together; just the two of us.  My in-laws were keeping our young son for a few days, so we decided to float down the river, and camp out at the mouth of a much-frequented cave.  We were the only ones on the river, being a Monday.  Or so we thought.

After an adventurous float through a thunder and lightning storm which caused us to pull out for a bit and sat under our tarp, we worried whether we would make it to the cave in time to set up camp.  We finally arrived in time to cook some supper and put up the tent.  Nightfall came quickly to the gray, cloudy sky.  We were exhausted from all of the hard rowing in our hurry to reach the cave, and it didn't take long for us to begin to drift off to sleep.  But just as I was slipping from the point of consciousness into dreamy sleep, I was awakened by the almost imperceptible sound of breathing.  And it was coming from inside the cave!

I told myself that it was just Tim breathing, and that the cave was somehow causing an echo.  But the breathing became louder, and it was coupled with a kind of snorting sound, like that of a large animal.  I awakened Tim and he, too, heard it.  As we lay motionless, listening in fear, we began to hear other sounds.  We heard the unmistakable sound of a very large animal's body scraping along the side of the cave, as if it were shifting around, trying to get comfortable, grunting and snorting as it moved.  The really peculiar thing was that every time we heard the body scratching along the cave wall, a group of bats would stir and fly out.  There was no longer any doubt that were sharing our sleeping quarters with a bear!  And a big one, I gathered, at that.

Our whispers were especially soft when we spoke to one another about what to do because we didn't want it to know we were there.  I wanted to run down to our cnaoe immediately, but my husband wouldn't have it.  We would have to leave all of our camping gear if we did that, and if we took off downstream we wouldn't be able to get back to collect our things.  The cloudy, starless night made it too dark to pack up and leave until morning.

As we lay there trying to figure out what to do, visions of stories that I had read began flowing through my mind.  Stories from the Reader's Digest, stories from my own local newspaper; stories that told of hapless campers that had been mauled by bears.  My uncontrollable fear caused even more uncontrollable muscle spasms in my legs.  My leg muscles were twitching violently from my thighs down to my claves.  Try as I did to hold my legs still, fearing we'd be discovered by the bear as my shaking legs were causing noise from the sleeping bag, it was useless.  There was no stopping them.  I realized then the origin of the term knock-kneed since, had I been standing, my knees surely would have been knocking together.

Tim's answer to our dilema was to pray.  But I felt that we should do something more.  You can't just pray, I reasoned, and then sit back with your hands behind your head and expect your prayers to be answererd.  He realized that I had a point.  Finally, he told me of a cliff that we could climb up on.  It sat on the outer wall of the cave, and he had been holding off telling me about it because, given my fear of heights, he didn't think I would be able to cliimb it.  I climbed it.  It was literal rock climbing, but I dimbed it.

We sat on that narrow edge of the cliff for about three or four hours, until the sun finally came up.  The bear had obviously fallen asleep by then, since his noises had long since silenced.  I stayed up on the cliff and kept watch on the cave entrance while Tim went down and packed up our things.  As soon as he finished, I climbed down and we hurried ourselves out of there.

We tried to make something of the day we had left on the river, but with the lack of sleep and my shattered nerves, I just couldn't enjoy myself.  As we floated along, I noticed for the first time how very narrow the river was.  If a bear were along the river's edge, it could easily come into the river and reach us.  I scoured the river bank up and down, looking for any movement in the tall reeds.  When we took our lunch break, things didn't get any better, since I feared the smell of food would be attracting.

We finally reached the end of our journey, although behind schedule because we were so tired.  We were pretty happy to see Joe, the canoe rental man, waiting for us.  As we drug the canoe up to the truck, we asked Joe if there were any bears in Missouri. 

"Sure," Joe said.  "They've imported them from Kansas."

"Kansas," he went on, "didn't have any turkeys, so we sent them some turkeys and they sent us some bears."

"Well," I informed him coldly, "we had one in our cave last night."

"Oh," Joe laughed, "they're just honey bears, not much bigger than a good sized dog.  It probably came in just to get out of the storm yesterday." 

I wasn't quite sure what a honey bear was, but the name made me think of the sun bears that I had seen at the St. Louis Zoo.  They were black with an orange chests, and not you'd call large, for a bear.  Still, on their hind legs they reached about my height, and they had the claws of any bear.  With that description in mind, the name honey bear didn't ease my convictions that we had been in a precarious position that night; then again, it sounded a little less frightful than if we had been sharing our campsite with the larger-sized black bear.

For years we wondered about that night.  Was it just a harmless honey bear, whatever that was?  Or was it a big black bear?  We both felt that, based on the noises it made, it must have been quite large.  However, we both thought there weren't any black bears in Missouri anymore.

And now, after reading Joel Vance's article, I have come to find out there is no such thing as a honey bear.  So that leaves only one explanation for what was in our cave that night.  It must have been a black bear, as we feared, after all.  But in Missouri?

Well, a year or so ago I read an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch about a black bear, called Big Red by the locals, that has been traveling back and forth between Arkansas and Missouri for years.  The article presented a map that chornicled the bear's travels.  I showed it to Tim, and he said it went directly through where our campsite was that night.  So maybe we have an answer after all these years.  Maybe we were sharing our camp that night with Big Red.

So here is yet another bear story to go down in the books for Missouri conservationists.  The only difference is, this one's true.  After I, I was there when it happened.

Worst job I ever had!

This is a story I wrote for a college class.  I returned to school after I left the below mentioned job.

Copyright Catherine Coyle Murphy 2000

Leo hung up the phone just as I was putting my fingernail file away in the CO III desk.  The CO III desk:  It took me months before I learned that it meant the desk of Computer Operator III, or the desk where we performed the paper work of the computer room.  For years all of the office-type duties had been assigned to Leo because the other day shift operator, Mark, was too incompetent, or so he pretended to be, to do it.  But Mark was gone now, he surprised everyone by actually searching out and taking on another computer operator job.  Mark, like everyone else at the corporate headquarters of Sports Wear Manufacturers, had been miserable since Data Mergers, the corporation I was now employed by, had taken over the Information Services (IS) division.  I was Mark's replacement and I didn't mind the paper work.

"Something wrong?" I asked as Leo approached with that slow, purposeful stride that meant, "We have to talk."

"That was Roy on the phone," Leo said.  "He's in the hospital.  Thinks he had a heart attack,"  he continued, not even feigning sympathy.

"Great," I replied.  "Is he OK?" I asked, suddenly aware that I wasn't showing much sympathy either.

"He sounds fine.  It's probably just indigestion.  Have you seen what he ate last night?  A whole bag of Ripples and five Dr. Peppers," Leo said with disgust.

Leo had a habit of looking in the trashcans to see what the second and third shift guys had to eat.  It bothered him that they never re-shelved the backup tapes or did much else during their shifts except to eat.  Whenever he found packages from a take-out place, he'd say, "Looks like they had a party."  But it had been a while since that happened because second and third shift were both down to one man each, Roy on third and Little Joe on second.  Since they were alone, they couldn't leave the building.

"How long will he be out," I asked, already trying to figure how Leo, Joe and I would cover Roy's shift.  I never could understand the company allowing positions to go unfilled for as long as six months.  Their policy seemed to be to hire only once a year, during February.  Then they would institute a hiring freeze that began in March and would always last through the end of the year.  If anyone left after February, the rest of the employees had to cover the spot until the following year.

"He doesn't know yet, but a few days at least.  I'll tell you one thing, I'm scheduled for a four-day weekend and I'm not working through it," Leo said in a voice that told me he knew he could kiss his little vacation good-bye.

Poor Leo.  I had just come back from vacation, which meant Leo had been working 19 days straight already without a break.  He was really looking forward to his four days off.  Even so, I wasn't too quick to commit myself to fill in completely for Roy.  I hated that.  Just when you return from a break you have to start working literally non-stop.  The worst part, though, were the actual hours.  I always thought getting up at 4:30 in the morning wouldn't be so bad if I had regular weekends off to recover, but having to do it twelve, nineteen, or more days in a row was a bit much.

"We'll have to talk to Joe this afternoon and see what we can figure out," I told Leo.

"Yeah," Leo said as he subconsciously pressed a few keys at the main console.

"This is nothing but a sweat shop," he mumbled as he walked out the door.

A minute later Rick ran through the room while I was taking readings from the air conditioners.  Even though I was against the back wall and there wasn't anyone else to see him, he made his usual pass through the room with the index finger of his left hand held lengthwise under his nose, a gesture meant to be an imitation of Hitler's mustache.

Rick, like everyone else, hated the new executive director, the 10th in four years.  But, like everyone else, he was also scared enough of him to risk being overheard saying anything about him, thus the silent gestures.  He was saying he thought Mike was a Hitler.

Rick also developed the habit of cutting through the computer room whenever he left his cubicle to avoid passing Mike's office and risk being called in.

Leo couldn't help but laugh at Rick as they passed each other through the door.

"Did you know there's a book out called The White Collar Sweat Shop? I asked Leo upon his return.

"Let me guess, you wrote it," he said.  Leo was always making fun of me because I had written a bit in the past for a local newspaper.

"No, but I read a review of it last week," I replied.

"So, we're not alone in this?" Leo asked.

"Looks like the IS professionals are going to have to unite," I said.

"Oh sure.  We'd get a lot of support from all the Asians and Middle Easterneres that work for nothing but a green card," Leo said.

He had a point.

Our camaradereie-like conversation was interrupted by Suzie, the Oracle girl.  Suzie handled problems with Oracle software.  She was an old Sports Wear employee, too, like Leo, Roy, Rick and others who had been absorbed by Data Mergers when they came in and took over the IS department four years ago.

"Are you guys being asked to fill out a form describing your volunteer activities?" Suzie angrily asked us.  Suzie was the only one who seemed unafraid of Mike or anyone else from Data Mergers.  Maybe because her husband hd a decent enough job.  Or maybe she was hoping to be let go.

"Not yet.  Are you?" Leo replied.

"They want us to fill in a form each month describing which volunteer activity we did.  Who do they think they are dictating what we do with our own free time?"

"I know.  Mandatory volunteering.  That cracks me up," I told her.

"I already filled my form out and do you want to know what I put?" she asked.

"What?" I replied.

"I said I did yard work for my parent's neighbors, a woman in her sisties and her parents, who are in their eighties, all of whom have cancer," Suzie said with finality.

"That sounds good to me," I said.  "I'm not worried about it myself.  They know it's illegal to force people to volunteer.  They won't give trouble to anyone who resists," I added.

"I don't care if they do," Suzie said as she headed out of the room.

What the company really wanted was for its employees to spend time working on volunteer porjects within the community, projects set up by the company, so we would be volunteering under the company name, all just for a little PR for Data Mergers.  There was nothing in writing concerning the mandatory nature of the volunteerism of course, it had come down through word of mouth.

"By the way, the laser printer is down," Leo said just after Suzie left.

"OK.  I'll tell Tom when he gets in."

"You know, we're really supposed to call Waco when we need hardware repaired," Leo informed me.

"Really?  How come you never told me that before?" I asked.

"I don't know.  Guess it just seemed easier to go get Tom," he replied.

I put in a call to Data Mergers' corporate headquarters.  It was located in Waco, Texas.  Like the CO III desk, people here used to refer to Waco, never telling me whom or what they were talking about.  But now I had been here long enough that I was beginning to feel comfortable, having picked up on their different names and acronyms.

A few hours later I received a phone call.

"Hello.  This is Tom.  I'm told you have a printer down."

"Yes."

"Can you tell me where it's located," Tom said.

I began to give Tom the location of our building in Chesterfield.

"No. No.  I'm already in the building.  Can you tell me where the printer is located," Tom interrupted.

I then began to give Tom specifics as to the location of the laser printer.

"So its the laser in the copy room next to the computer room?" Tom inquired.

In sudden recognition of the voice on the other end, I said, "Is this Tom Jansen?"

"Yes," he said.

"Tom!  I was told I had to call Waco to report the printer.  I thought they were going to send someone from the outside."

"They just want you to call Waco so they can keep track of how much work we do.  Heaven forbid they end up paying for too many technicians," he said sarcastically.

"Maybe they also want to make sure you're not overworked," I said with a laugh.

"Yeah.  Right," Tom replied.

"So, Tom, I'm supposed to phone Waco, Texas every time I need something as little as a printer repaired when all I really need to do is walk ten steps to the door, open the door and call out to your cubicle, "Hey, Tom.  The laser's down.'"

"You got it," Tom said.

"This company doesn't have a problem with micro-managing, does it?" I asked.

"Not a bit," Tom replied.

"I'm just wondering on thing, Tom.  Does the satellite site in Hong Kong have to call Waco when they need a printer repaired?"

"Good question," Tom laughed.  "I'll be right over to fix your printer."

Just as I hung up the phone, Rick returned to the computer room in tears.  He was laughing so hard he was crying.

"You guys won't believe this," Rick began.  "You know those text pagers Mike introduced at the last team meeting."

"His new toy, you mean," Leo said.

"Yeah.  Well, you know the problem we had with the mainframe over the weekend?  I sent him two text pages, but he never did call us.  We figured he must not have been that worried about it.  Well, he just called me and John in and asked why he wasn't informed of the problem.  I told him I sent him two text pages and he said, "Oh, I don't carry the text pager on the weekends. Johnny said later, 'From now on, we'll send him a text page, then we'll call him on the phone to tell him we sent him a page,'" Rick said.

"That's good," Leo said.  "What an idiot, you know?" he added.

Rick walked out of the computer room laughing too hard to remember to put his finger under his nose.

As the end of our shift neared, I was again at the CO III desk fillilng out my time sheet.  Then I filled out my other time sheet.  Then I filled out my third time sheet.  One was for Data Merger's corporate headquarters.  We had to fill in how much time we spent on various duties during the day, handling problems over the phone, handling problems in person, reading our e-mail, etc.

The other on was for Sports Wear Manufacturers.  They wanted to make sure they were getting their money's worth from Data Mergers, so they wanted to know how much time we spent on various duties during the day, handling problems over the phone, handling problems in person, reading our e-mail, etc.

The thrid time sheet was just a recording of our hours worked.  It was the one used to compute our pay.

"Hey, Leo," I said as I began filling out my second time sheet for the day.  "How come they don't ask us how much time we spend filling out time sheets?"

"That's good.  That's real good," Leo said.  That was his way of giving a compliment about something witty you had said.

Little Joe, "Pup," as he was also called due to his youth and the fact he was the new kid on the block, arrived and dropped a bag of little toy army men on the CO III desk.

"For the War Room," he informed us.

He was referring to the small stock room in back of the computer room.  Mike wanted Leo and I to clean it out so they could turn it into a private work space for Rick, John and the other programmers when they had a difficult problem to work on.  Mike, in his constant quest to relive his military career, liked to refer to it as the War Room.

After a laugh, I went back to filling out my time sheets while Leo began telling Joe about Roy's heart attack, still showing no sympathy.

I had decided by then to go ahead and fill in extra so Leo could have his four days off.  Joe, too, who was a single kid of twenty, said he didn't mind the overtime.  He had just bought a new truck and moved out on his own and was beginning to feel the realities of adult responsibilities.

As far me, I was beginning to feel guilty because I knew it would be a long time before Leo got any more time off.  Little did he know I was planning on turning in my resignation that week.  I had had enough of the corporate culture and I was going to go back to school.

Back to school at 42

copyright Leader Publications 2001

I speak from experience.  Going back to school at the age of 42 is a whole lot different from returning to school at 32.  And attending a four-year university is a bit more challenging than going to the local community college.

At 32, I began attending Jefferson College.  In eight years of part-time attendance, I earned two associate's degrees.  Returning to school at that age, for the first time since high school, actually proved more difficult for my family than for me.  My husband, naturally, had his share of laundry mishaps.

I'll never forget the day I rushed to my daughter's school to see her take part in a play.  On the way there, it occurred to me for the first time that Dad had gotten the kids off to school.  Would Courtney be dressed appropriately for the play?

As the children paraded past the group of proud parents, I noticed in horror that Courtney was wearing her brother's clothes.

"Court," I whispered as she passed me by, "you're wearing J.T.'s clothes!"

"I know," she whispered back.  "It's what Dad gave me to wear."

Turns out my husband thought that just because the pants had an elastic waist, the outfit was for a girl.  Fortunately, Courtney's part was played in the dark.  She was a bat.

Now that everybody is 10 years older, my return to school at 42 is proving to be much more difficult for me than my family.

After working for more than a year in the computer field, I decided the excessive overtime required wasn't for me, took my life back and enrolled at the University of Missouri, St. Louis (UMSL).

UMSL is 42 miles northwest from my home in Cedar Hill.  If anyone thinks a distance of 40 miles doesn't have much effect on the temperature, think again.  The winter weather at that campus is a bitter, bone-chilling cold.  Of course, it didn't help matters that I started in January.

It took me two weeks to figure out how to dress to keep warm while walking from class to class.  I finally settled on a sweatshirt, sweat jacket with hood, my winter coat buttoned up to the neck with hood tied tight, gloves and winter boots.  Had I owned any long johns, they would have become a part of my ensemble as well.

Speaking of walking from class to class, that campus is so large I developed shin splints on my first day of school.  If the school's buildings had their names printed on the outside, as Jefferson College does, it might have helped.  But I had to walk long and hard to find my classrooms, carrying a heavy book bag over my shoulder.  For some reason, the UMSL administration chooses to display the names of buildings on the interior.  Once insde, you will find the name of a building printed above room numbers, on signs in the halls, just about everywhere.  That isn't a lot of help to the hapless student on the street, trying to figure out which building in a long line of similar-looking edifices is the one she wants.

During my first week, in addition to the shin splints, I came down with the flu.  It was obvious that I should have stayed home, but I didn't want to be absent so soon.  I became so sick in one of my classes that I had to go out in the hall in search of a place fot lie down.  For a time I wondered if an ambulance would be needed.  My attendance was sporadic for a few weeeks after that while recovering.

Then there was the time I got lost in the university library, a horrible experience.  I literally could not find my way out.  It happened on a day when my last class had been canceled.  It seemed a good tiem to explore the library.  In no time, however, I realized I was lost.  Actually, I had entered one library and eventually ended up in another one.  Apparently several libraries are connected together because, following UMSL's naming practice, the library names were displayed all over on the inside.  Therefore, it wasn't difficult to tell when I was in a different one. 

In my desperate attempt to find my way out, I decided to use the stairs instead of the elevator, thinking it would help me keep bettere track of my course.  This meant, of course, that I would have to carry my book bag up the stairs.

After that first awful day, I had switched to a book bag on wheels.  In no time, I was beginning to sweat under my winter ensemble and I still wasn't feeling well from the flu.  I was beginning to get clammy and shaky.  Finally, after climbing yet another set of stairs and with the certainty that I could not climb further, I came upon a woman in uniform sitting at a desk.  I stumbled up to her and asked, "How do you get out of the place?"

Shen she pointer over her shoulder and said, "Just take these staris...," my face fell, my shoulders dropped and I let out a groan  - all of which she seemed to find funny.

I finally did find my way out of that library.  Needless to say, I have never gone back.

To be honest, my first few months at UMSL were so difficult I don't think I would have stuck it out had my classes themselves not been so interesing.  Attending Jefferson College first was a good choice because the smaller campus and more personal classes gave me a good base for the challenges of a university education.

But best of all, Jefferson College has all of the buildings' names printed on the outside!

Do Your Homework, Mom!

copyright 1997  Leader Publications

Note:  I reworded this a bit since my mom is no longer with us, to make it apply more to the past than it was originally written.

Caring for our aging parents is a lot like caring for our kids.  We worry if they eat right.  We worry about their health.  We take them to the doctor.  We take them shopping.  And we help them with their homework.

Yes, homework.  There’s a program that allows seniors to attend college for free, or half-price, and many of them are taking it up.  It’s not uncommon anymore to see an octogenarian or two on area campuses.

My mom, who was in her 60s, signed up for classes in film studies and stage design at an area college.

The film studies class came first.  Mom told me that it mostly consisted of watching old movies from the 1940s and 1950s.  Unlike all the other students in her class, Mom had already seen every one of the films at least once, years ago.

Though that familiarity may have helped, my mom still had to do some research and write a couple of essays for the class.  That’s where my help came in.

With her first essay, mom had done the reading and wrote down notes she wanted to include in her essay.  But when it came to actually pulling it all together, she just couldn’t do it.  She brought her notes to me and asked my help.

I know it goes against college ethics to do someone else’s homework, and with an old scandal relating to that very thing, concerning a student named Paige Laurie, I was almost afraid to do it, since I was a college student at the time, too.  However, I attended a different school than my mom.  And I reasoned that in my mom’s case it wouldn’t hurt.  After all, she wasn’t actually going to do anything with the credits she earned.  So I pulled her notes together into a reasonable sounding essay.

Mom sat on my couch while I sat at the computer composing her paper.  To ease my conscience, I would often read a sentence aloud for her approval, feeling that somehow, if she approved the sentence, it was more like she wrote it herself.

The project took up quite a bit of time, a couple of hours, so I was glad when we finished. 

Some weeks later Mom came over with not just an essay, but a research paper to be written.  This time she was really overwhelmed and instead of writing her own research notes, she merely read some sentences into a tape recorder from a book that she wanted to include in her paper and brought the recorder to me.

Mom sat on the couch, sometimes falling asleep, while I slaved away on her research paper.  It was not wonder that she fell asleep because I spent seven plus hours on the thing.

Being in college myself, I had my own homework to do, so I decided than that this would be the last time I helped Mom with her homework.  A few weeks later, Mom called me and told me “we” made a “B” in the class.  She then said she was thinking about taking English composition the next semester.

“Oh, Mom, you don’t want to do that,” I said in a near panic.  “Besides several essays, you’ll have to write a 10-page research paper at the end of the semester.  It would be really hard.”

“Oh, really,” Mom said in surprise.  “Well, that last paper wasn’t so bad.”

“Maybe not for you!” I thought to myself.

Thankfully, Mom never did take the English comp class.  She signed up for the stage design.  I was useless to Mom in that class, as it required a project of making up a small model of a stage design, and I’m just not good at that kind of art, so when Mom realized it was too much for her, she just dropped the class.

To her credit, Mom did complete a creative writing course with a grade of “B,” all on her own.

Addendum:  I have a few poems my mom wrote that are really good and I will be posting on my blog in the future.

Funny Things Happen

My family thinks I should write a book. This is because funny things seem to happen to us.  Some of them are actually our fault, others not.

One example occurred a long time ago, the first time I pumped my own gas.

It was the late 1970’s, not long after they came out with self-serve pumps and also just after I got my driver’s license at the age of 19. When I went up to the cashier’s window to pay I said, “I got five dollars on pump number 89.”

“What?” the young man asked.

“Well, that was the number on the pump,” I informed him.

“That’s the octane level,” he replied.

“Oh,” I said as I handed him my bill, then briskly left.

Another time when I was about the same age, my husband and I were driving out Hwy. 21.  There was a sign along the side of the road advertising a turkey shoot.  I had never heard of this before and, animal lover that I was, blurted out to my husband, "You mean they line those turkeys up and shoot them!"

Then there was the time I walked past one of my telecourse professors at Jefferson College.  I had taken the telecourse over the summer and was back on campus the following fall. I had never actually met the professor, since my telecourse was completed through the mail, though I knew him by sight.

As we passed each other I noticed him smiling at me.  The course had required quite a few writing assignments and I just assumed he was smiling because he recognized me.

“There’s that Cathy Murphy. What a writer she is. Hers were just about the best essays I’ve ever read,” I imagined him thinking.

I went along to my classroom and sat down, my pride increasing by the minute. As I set about organizing my things, however, I noticed the front of my shirt was just about covered in graham cracker crumbs from the snack I quickly ate on my way to school.

And that, I realized, was the reason he was smiling.

Another situation occurred simply because I had too much to do. We had five kids, the youngest, twin girls, who were about three. Once when my family and I attended a religious convention, my dress kept choking me around the neck.  During the drive there and throughout the morning, I kept pulling at the collar of my dress because it kept choking me.  Finally, about half way through the day’s program as I was again pulling at the front of my collar, I felt the tags that would normally have been in the back of the dress and realized with a sudden horror that I had my dress on backwards!

As usual, we had arrived late to the program, so I imagined all 700-plus people who saw me walk down the aisle must have been thinking to themselves, "That lady has her dress on backwards!"  I waited for lunch break, when people would be up and about, figuring I wouldn't be as noticeable and went in to the bathroom to correct the problem. 

To rub salt into that wound, I was once with some friends and told them my funny story about spending a morning with my dress on backwards. When I returned home and went into the bathroom to freshen up, I saw I was wearing two different earrings. I always wondered if they noticed.

One situation I found myself in was fully the fault of kids.  I went out into the yard one morning and noticed the swings on the swing set were misaligned, again. Someone, maybe the neighbor boys as a joke, would always misalign the chains of the swings so they would hang unevenly.  I approached the set to repair the damage when my hair - I used to wear it in a long braid down to my waist - got caught in the chain links of one of the swings.

The harder I tried to free myself, the worse it got. I was stuck fast to that swing.

At first I hoped no one noticed, but after several minutes and coming close to resorting to yelling out, “Help!” I found myself wishing someone would come to my rescue.

Finally, after taking some deep breaths, I slowly felt my way through the knotted mess and got myself free.  That evening when I told my husband about my ordeal, he said, “Well, you could have just unhooked the chains at the top and brought it into the house.  “Oh, that would look cute,” I said. “walking into the house while holding a swing up to my head.”

My sister seems to have a similar problem, only she doesn’t have kids.

Once she moved into a tiny apartment that came with a tiny dishwasher. Because she and I always had to wash dishes when we were kids, she refuses to do it anymore and insisted on using that dishwasher.

She told me that after a while she noticed the dishes weren’t getting clean and the dishwasher smelled, so she called in the maintenance man.  She said he pulled the dishwasher out into the middle of the kitchen, hooked it up to the faucet and turned it on, only to have bubbles come out all over.  The maintenance man told her she was using too much soap.

“A lot of people do that with these things,” he said.

So my sister cut way back on the soap and continued to use the dishwasher. After a few weeks, however, the same problem was occurring, so she called the maintenance man back a second time.

Again he pulled the machine into the middle of the kitchen and hooked it up to the faucet. This time she asked him something she had wondered about during his first visit.

“Why do you hook it up to the faucet like that?” she asked.

“Well, you gotta have water to use it,” was his surprised response.

My daughter has apparently inherited my sense of direction.  Soon after they moved to their home in St. Charles, she went to the store, but got lost on the way home.  She was only ten minutes away but it took her two hours to get back home.  At the end of her harrowing adventure, she was speaking with her husband again on the cell phone as he tried to direct her.  As he stood in the front yard with the phone to his ear, he watched as my daughter drove down the street right past their house!

She thought she had entered their street at the other end, so thought their home would be further down.  She learned then her street ended in a cul-de-sac.

On another occassion, my sister, mom and I were on our way to a wedding.  On our way, I pulled into a gas station to fill up. My sister jumped out of the passenger side and said, “I’ll pump.”

I got out and said, “OK. I’ll go in and pay.” As I headed for the store I stopped, turned around and said, “Let’s see, what pump number is this?” at which point our mother, who heard me through the open car window, looked up at the pump and said, “Let’s see. It looks like number 89 to me.”

It’s got to be heredity.

The Imposter Roz

Copyright Catherine Coyle Murphy 2012

Submitted to Leader Publications July 2012

By Catherine Coyle Murphy

For the Leader

You know you have too many pets when you discover that a strange animal has been living in your house for who knows how long, and no one even notices.  Of course it helps, the animal that is, if it happens to look a lot like one of your own pets. This odd situation occurred at our home some years ago.

One morning, our daughter went to open the kitchen door to let out our cat, Roz.

To quote our daughter, “As Roz was going out the door, Roz was also coming in the door.”

When she inspected the cat she had just let in, she realized the cat that had been in the house wanting out was not our cat, it just looked a lot like her.

That night, the interloper reappeared and my husband brought him in for all to see.

To make the whole situation even stranger, our cat Roz was a bit unusual looking. She was a Maine-coon/Persian/alley cat mix. She had ash-gray fur, which upon close inspection the gray could be seen mottled with a cream color. She had the hugely fluffy tail of a Persian and she grew a ruff around her neck each winter like a Maine-coon. Roz had gold eyes.

The other cat, which we have since referred to as the imposter Roz, had the same shade of gray and was just as fluffy as our Roz, but he did not have the cream color mixed in. He had emerald green eyes.  He was also was lot larger than Roz.  But who notices such details when you’re just opening a door to let a cat in or out, or when a cat is at its food bowl?

Actually, the discovery explained a few things. I remember before the imposter was discovered, my girls once expressed concern because Roz was gaining too much weight. “We need to put her on a diet,” they told me.

Some time later, they the girls were concerned Roz was quite sick because she seemingly lost a lot of weight rather quickly.  “We need to get her to the vet,” they pestered. 

We now know the assumed difference in weight was caused by the fact that sometimes the imposter Roz slept with the girls, other times the real Roz did.

Our youngest son said he always wondered why sometimes Roz felt light and soft when she slept with him, while other times she seemed strong and heavy.  The girls also noticed that sometimes Roz purred softly, and other times she had a really loud purr.

The discovery also helped us realize that our female cats were not the ones wetting on the dirty laundry pile in the basement after all. The imposter Roz, an un-neutered male, had been spraying the clothes.

The only member in our household who did notice the strange cat, we came to realize, was our dog.  We always wondered why Duke would only chase after Roz when she entered the house and never the other cats.   He probably was only chasing the imposter Roz, but we really didn’t pay attention if he seemed to chase after her only some of the time.

The imposter Roz had made himself pretty much at home. He knew to sit on the shelf outside the kitchen window and meow to be let in.  Aside from being chased when he first entered the house, he otherwise ignored the dog just like our other cats did.  He knew where the food bowls were, as well as the bedrooms and basement.

I think my husband must have been pretty relieved at the discovery of the imposter.

Just a few weeks before the finding, he was at the stove about to prepare breakfast when Roz meowed to go out.  He went to let her out and returned to the stove.  Within seconds, Roz was again meowing to go out.

My husband was just beside himself trying to figure out how the cat got in again so quickly.  The poor guy must have thought he was going nuts.

After a few weeks of diligent checking when Roz was let in or out, we all fell out of the habit.

The imposter continued to sneak in undetected.  We knew so because he continued to leave his tell-tail sign – I mean –  markings, on the laundry pile in the basement.

Wilbur's Day in Court

Copyright 2012 Catherine Coyle Murphy

By Cathy Murphy

For the Leader

My sister-in-law has a niece, Elizabeth, her brother’s daughter.

My sister-in-law’s parents helped her brother raise Elizabeth in their home.

As most people know, when grandparents raise a grandchild, the child often gets most things he or she wants, as was the case with Elizabeth. And Elizabeth wanted a pig.

So, Wilbur, the supposedly Vietnamese potbellied-turned 300-pound porker entered the family as a tiny squealing little thing.

In time, Wilbur wasn’t so tiny anymore and had to be banished from the house to live in the backyard with Snoopy the dog.

The family lived in Maryland Heights where agricultural animals aren’t really allowed, but they hoped nobody would notice.

Unfortunately, the family was hoping for too much.

As Wilbur grew, a neighbor began to complain that Wilbur caused a stink and, after the family refused to give Wilbur up, for Elizabeth’s sake, the neighbor took them to court. I like to refer to the episode as Wilbur’s Day in Court.

My sister-in-law, Karen, a bright woman, in her thirties at the time who works as an X-ray technician, went to court with her mother in the fight to keep Wilbur. Karen said her mom asked her to serve as Wilbur’s “character witness.”

Karen’s mother couldn’t afford a lawyer, so she represented herself.

At the start of the trial, Karen’s mother, Elizabeth’s grandmother, help up a large poster-sized photograph of Wilbur and, pointing to it with a yardstick, began expounding to the judge, “This is Wilbur. Wilbur is a good pig.”

At that point, the judge cracked up laughing, stopping Karen’s mother in mid-testimony and threw the case out of court.

The neighbor who caused all the trouble has since passed on.

There was a time, however, after Elizabeth grew up where the family decided to try to find a new home for Wilbur. The only stipulation was he not go to anyone who would want to eat him. But a new home was not to be found. So, Wilbur eventually died old and happy after a long life sharing the backyard with Snoopy the dog.

Elizabeth is grown now, married and the mother of two little children.

Once her kids get a little older and ask for a pet, and if they ask for something unusual, I wonder if Elizabeth will be as generous as her own grandma was.

Nah, I doubt it. That kind of spoiling only comes from grandparents.

Brady, the UPS dog

Brady is our grand-dog. He’s four years old, the same age as our youngest grandson.

Brady and his family used to live on a farm. Like all dogs, Brady loves to go for a ride.

Whenever pickup trucks used to drive down the dirt road leading to the farm, Brady would jump in to the bed of the truck. The owners would have to stop their trucks and get him out.

I used to refer to Brady as the UPS dog. That’s because the family had two regular UPS delivery men. Whenever the trucks started up the long driveway to the farm house, Brady would jump in the open driver’s side door and ride on up next to the driver.

One of the drivers was afraid of dogs. Whenever he had to deliver a package to the farm, he would rev the engine and speed up the driveway in hopes Brady wouldn’t be able to jump in. Sometimes it worked.

Brady and his family now live in a suburban neighborhood. He likes to be walked to the bus stop with the kids. But one time he got loose and bounded onto the bus.

My daughter ran after him but couldn’t reach him until he made it all the way to the back. As she escorted him out, he managed to give big, sloppy kisses to many of the kids in the aisle seats.

Meanwhile, my grandson, with a huge smile on his face, proudly exclaimed “That’s my dog!”

What does Hurricane Georges have to do with Franklin and Jefferson counties?

copyright Suburbn Journals  2000

Note:  This was written before Hurrican Katrina.  Also, Sandy is now working at Des Peres Hospital.  She and her fiance, Dave, live in Wentzville.

What does Hurrican Georges have to do with Franklin and Jefferson counties?

"A lot.  It's why we're here," said Mike Crihfield, 46, former Mississippi resident, and recent transplant to Catawissa, along the Jefferson/Franklin County border.

Crihfield, a disabled military veteran and his wife Sandy, 39, came through Jefferson County in 1998 in their attempt to escape the effects of Hurrican Georges.

The trip was a first through the area for Mike, a former professional bass fisherman and avid outdoorsman.

"I just fell in love with the rolling hills and country feel of the area, Mike said.

The couple had enough of hurricanes and was ready to make a change. 

"I never thought there would be a place as beautiful as Mississippi," Mike said.  "Until I came through here."

Crihfield said he has vivid memories of Hurricane Camille, a 1969 killer that took more than 250 lives and caused over $1.42 billion in damages.

"Even though I was only a teenager, I volunteered for the cleanup.  There were bodies everywhere," he said.  "I never want to see a sight like that again."
Preparing for and anticipating hurricanes can take tis toll on people as well, Sandy said.

"We got tired of sitting the storms out in our shelter.  We would be stuck in there with our two large dogs and two cats, with no electricity or air conditioning.  We just didn't want to go through that again," she said.

Sandy wanted to move back to this area for years.  Most of her family lives in St. Louis and surrounding counties.

"But it took a hurricane to get Mike to go," she said.

Mississippi and Louisiana newspapers regularly print hurricane preparations.  The instructions could cause outsiders to wonder why anyone would want to continue living under such a threat.

Residents are told to keep an axe in their attics in case they have to climb into them to escape rising water.  The axe will come in handy if they need to break through the roof.

New Orleans residents who live under continuous threat of having their entire city covered over with waters from Lake Pontchartrain are given even more explicit directions.

Those lucky enough to survive such a flood will probably find themselves clinging to roof or tree tops until rescue attempts can be made.  Until then, they will have to fend off any passing allligators or poisonous snakes, none of which will be in a very good mood, considering they too, will have been recently displaced from their homes.

There will also be a threat from fire ants, which cling together to make themselves into a floating ball.  When the ant balls bump into anything solid, it breaks into a swarm in a desperate attempt at survival.

Sandy, a reigstered nurse at St. Luke's Hospital in Chesterfield, worked at a hospital in New Orleans.

After their 1998 visit to Jefferson County, the Crihfields decided to put their lakefront Mississippi home on the market.

In April they moved into their dream home in Catawissa.  The home sits on about nine acres of woodland and has a built-in, indoor swimming pool, as well as a recording studio.

"Mike has arthritis real bad and the only thing that brings him relief is hot water, so the heated pool really appealed to him," Sandy said.

The former helicopter pilot is also a musician/songwriter and has dreamed of having his own recording studio.

"Now I just have to learn how to use the equipment, Mike said.

Mike has invited the former homeowners, Jerry and Angie Austin, to come back and use the studio, and in turn, show him how to operate it.

Jerry Austin is a member of the local band Joybone.

Mike and Sandy have been settling in and enjoying the country atmosphere of their new home, which includes almost daily visits from deer and other wildlife.  But even though they are glad to leave the threat of hurricanes and the testy creatures that pose a threat to hurrican flood survivors, the Crihfields have quickly discovered that Missouri counties have their own share of pests to be contended with.

"The chiggers here, they're incredible," Mike said as he scratched around his ankles.

This one's for you, David

Copyright 2005 Leader Publications

By Catherine Coyle-Murphy

            Having a student walk past you in the hallway of your high school, make eye contact, nod and say, “Hey, man.”

            Waiting in line in the cafeteria, then going through the line to select what you’ll have for lunch.

            Eating that lunch in the school cafeteria along with all the other students.

            Things to which most of us wouldn’t give a second thought, the severely handicapped student longs to do.

            A few years ago I had the privilege of working as a teacher’s assistant with the Special School District of St. Louis County. I was assigned to a student, David, who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy. At the time I worked with him, David was 16 and a freshman at a high school in the Rockwood School District.

            In technical terms, David is non-verbal. He can’t speak. But that doesn’t mean he can’t communicate. David could raise his head, or sometimes just his eyes, up for yes, and down for no. And you would be amazed at how much communication can take place with such seeming limited abilities.

            David was assigned to a special education classroom, but he attended an English class, gym, art and a music class outside the special ed. room.

            David loved being a part of the regular school and he relished being treated as just a regular kid.

            When I worked with him, I always took him through the lunch line, wheelchair and all, to select his meal. He wouldn’t opt for waiting at the table while I selected his lunch for him, even though it would have been faster. David wanted to do whatever the other kids did. And he wanted the independence of picking out his own lunch.

            We would go through the lunch line and I would tell David what was available and he would raise his head up if he wanted it, and down if he didn’t.

            When David really wanted something, he would raise his head up, or back, as far as he could and hold it there.

            When he seriously didn’t want to do something, he would drop his head down, chin resting on his chest, and keep it there. A time or two when he did that and the other teachers and I were distracted, he would get tired of holding his head down and begin to raise his head, only to let it drop quickly again once we turned our attention back to him. He would then continue to hold his head down and look up and around with his eyes to see if we were paying attention.

            When walking with David through the hallways of the school and he wanted to meet someone, and that someone was always a girl, he let me know by darting his eyes quickly between the girl and me. I would then approach the girl and tell her David would like to meet her. The girls would always smile and blush at the flattery and come up and talk to David.

            As a native Guatemalan Indian, David is handsome with black hair and eyes and a dark complexion. I would often overhear the girls saying, “He’s so cute,” as we passed them in the hallways or in the gym class.

            It was sometimes difficult to assess David’s intellectual abilities. At times when I was instructed to test him, I would ask him questions, often using flash cards and asking him to answer yes to the correct answer or to gaze at the correct card. At first, David would get all the answers correct, but after a short time, he would get bored and begin to purposely give wrong answers.

            Sometimes, when he was really bored with an assignment, he would turn his head aside and refuse to look at the material at all.

            For art class, I would place my hand over David’s, or place his on top of mine, and draw whatever he wanted. I was given some information about him at the start of the school year, such as that he liked sports, girls and animals, so I had an idea of what to ask him he wanted to make.

            For collages, I would hold up magazines for him and he would let me know when he liked a picture he wanted to include in the collage.

            When working with clay, I would have David feel the clay as much as possible while we sculpted his chosen project. We made an owl and a mummy.

            David attended the homecoming dance, with myself and another aide as his assistant. He danced with at least seven girls. Some asked him to dance, others he asked, through me. The girls would hold his hand and move his chair to the music as they swayed along. I remember when David’s dad arrived to pick him up after the dance. His poor dad just couldn’t understand why David didn’t want him to attend with him.

            In gym class, we would play kick ball. We would release David’s feet from the footrests and push his wheelchair fast toward the ball after it was rolled toward him so his foot would hit the ball. Then, we would run as we pushed his chair, running bases around the gym lobby floor. David loved it and laughed hard the whole time.

            The gym teacher would also take David near the end of the class and work with him in the same way, having David participate in one of games going on, whether it was soccer, basketball or other indoor gym games.

            Outside, we would push David’s chair around the track as the other students walked or ran.

            Some might question having such a severely handicapped student attend a regular school, but those who do should try to put themselves in David’s shoes. David wanted to be a part of the high school scene. He wanted to do the most ordinary things we all take for granted. Things like receiving that nod and that “Hey, man,” from another kid passing by in the hallway. Things like waiting in the cafeteria line and picking out your own lunch. Things like attending a regular class, or dancing with a girl.

            And why shouldn’t he?

           

Little bald kids don't make me cry

Copyright Leader Publications 2006

Due to the recent Colorado shooting tragedy, and my son’s recent seizure, I think it’s time for a “Count our blessings” column.  My heart goes out to the victims and their families of the tragedy, including the shooter, who must have had a mental problem to do such a thing.

(My son mentioned here is now 28)

I don’t know why I cried when I saw him. I usually didn’t cry at the little bald kids attached to IV poles.

            These kids are always present in the waiting room of our son’s hematologist.

            Our son has a mild blood disease requiring infrequent visits to a hematologist. The doctor is also an oncologist, or cancer specialist, which explains the little bald kids attached to IV poles who are always there.

            Our son, now 22, was born with other health problems. He is deaf and as a baby was diagnosed as hypotonic; his muscles were weak. Add to the list chronic asthma he developed by the age of four, and you can probably imagine my son and I spend our share of time in the waiting rooms of many specialists.

            A neighbor of mine used to tell me that whenever she found herself feeling down, she would just think of me. Considering the health concerns of our one son alone, on top of the fact that we had four other children, I could kind of understand her feelings.

            Once, however, when she said it, I began to feel rather down myself.  If I really had it so bad, I wondered, why didn’t I see it?

            And then I realized.

            My neighbor had two children, both of them healthy. Therefore, she never saw what I saw in the waiting rooms of some of our son’s doctors and hospitals.

            My neighbor never saw the parents of the 6-week old baby as they were being told their son would suffer brain damage, if not from the meningitis that was swelling his brain, then from the medications he was being given to fight it. That was, if he survived at all.

            My neighbor also never saw the mother of the 17 month-old baby-sitting next to me in the pulmonology clinic. She held her chubby baby on her lap, his oxygen tube attached to a tank behind his stroller. The mother’s face was beaming.

            She told me that she took her baby home form the hospital just the day before for the first time in his life. She explained he was born prematurely and his lungs were so severely damaged that doctors were afraid to let her take him home even then, and only allowed it on the condition she bring him back to the doctor’s office every day for at least the first two weeks.

            And she was just beaming.

            My neighbor also never saw the 14-year-old girl, head shaved with a big, black X marking the spot for the radiation that was supposed to attack her inoperable brain tumor.

            I still remember her parents, who were divorced, standing apart from each other, trying to comfort their daughter while steadfastly ignoring one another. The tension was palpable. I remember thinking how funny it seemed that the father’s girlfriend, who was with him, looked remarkably like his ex-wife.

            In most of these cases, I felt sorry for the parents. With this one, I felt sorry for the girl.

            As far as the bald kids hooked to IV poles, they usually didn’t move me to tears because they gave me no reason to cry. Those kids knew how to live life for the moment. They were in a doctor’s waiting room and there were new toys to be played with, and, by golly, they were going to play.

            As far as the boy mentioned earlier who did make me cry, well, it wasn’t the boy, really, who caused my tears, it was his little sister. The boy was about 8, his sister, maybe 5. The little girl was thoroughly berating her brother for something he had done wrong during their play.

            The scene caused me to think of the times when well-meaning people told me that by having a disabled child, our other children would learn compassion.

            “Compassion!” I would think to myself. “How I wished they would show their brother some compassion.”

            No, siblings of the disabled, or even, as in the boy’s case, of the seriously or terminally ill, don’t necessarily learn compassion. What they do learn, however, is that the disabled and the ill are really no different from anybody else, and that brings a sense of normalcy into their lives.

            And watching such a normal scene occurring in a day in the life of a little bald kid attached to an IV pole is, I think, what made me cry.

Kids say the darndest things!

copyright 2012 Catherine Coyle Murphy

“Pee Paw lets us do a-a-anything we want,” my nieces, Amy and Katie used to say of their beloved grandfather. “He even lets us walk on the kitchen counters.”

My husband and I are now grandparents of four. We have a step-grandson, “Mason,” who is 16; a grandson, “Dante,” 8; a granddaughter, “Kelli,” 6; and the youngest grandson is “Zane,” 4.

Dante and Kelli are the result of our daughter’s first marriage. Zane makes up the “ours” in the “his, hers, and ours” of our daughter’s second marriage.

Grandkids certainly add a good dose of humor to our lives with their own special way of expressing themselves. As the saying goes, kids say the darndest things.

Once when the kids were visiting us, we headed outdoors for a walk.

“Don’t you want to wear your shoes?” I asked Dante.

“No,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I just want to wear my feet.”

For a time before her second marriage, our daughter and her two children lived with us. In the evenings, Dante and I would sit out on the yard swing and look at the moon and stars. As a result, he began to call me “Moony.”

The name stuck, and we are now affectionately known as Moony and Papa to all of our grandchildren, including Mason.

As a friend of mine likes to say, kids have no filters. They tell it as they see it.

One time I was babysitting the kids when Dante was about three, and he was watching one of his children’s programs on television when a grandmother character appeared on the screen.

It was the stereotypical grandma, gray hair pulled back in a bun, Ben Franklin glasses, a dress tied at the waist with plumpness issuing above and below the belt.

Thinking he was giving me the utmost of compliments, Dante called out, “Look! A grandma! It looks just like you, Moony!”

Another sweet aspect of having grandchildren is the affection they so freely give.

A few years ago, Dante’s parents decided he could no longer watch Papa play his “Guild Wars” game on the computer because of the violent component.

While babysitting the kids some time after that, my grandson climbed on my lap as I sat on the couch, smothering me with kisses.

“I love you, Moonie,” he crooned. “You’re the best grandma.”

More kisses.

“How sweet,” I thought. Until I noticed between his expressions of endearment, his neck would repeatedly stretch up over my shoulder.

Papa was playing Guild Wars. And the computer desk sat directly behind the couch.

I used to wonder at times if I might want our grandkids to be able to say, “Moonie let’s us do a-a-anything we want,” just like my nieces used to say about their Pee Paw. But a little episode with our granddaughter some time ago gave me second thoughts.

The family visited us once during Kelli’s potty training stage. Wearing a little sundress, she stepped out of a wet diaper and continued on to play.

“Kelli,” her mom called out. “Come here so I can put a dry diaper on you.”

“No,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I just want to wear my butt.”

Memories of a Father and Daughter

                     

           

Walking to church,

Hand in hand;

Father and daughter,

Now, isn’t that grand!

Drive-in movies, Grant’s Farm,

The Zoo;

And don’t forget walking

On Daddy’s shoes!

                                   

       Magic tricks, Library trips,

Frankenstein films at night;

Christmases and Easters

Were made to delight.

                                               

           

Arrows on the walls,

Leading down the stairs.

A racetrack for the boys!

Now, who put that there?

           

Meremac Hills,

Mom and Pop, and Rex;

And airplanes to fly,

Airplanes that wrecked!

Standing in line,

Report cards in hand.

Dad exclaims to each one,

“Now, Isn’t that grand!”

Rebellious teens;

Did he know what to do?

Of course not!  Who does!

But he pretended too.

Grandchildren came;

They grow up so fast.

Now great-grands are here,

To make the magic last.

Walking together,

Hand in hand;

A father and daughter;

Now, Isn’t that grand?