July 30

 

"It's time to go," he said, as I watched a smile spread across his face. My heart fluttered and my stomach rolled. I looked into his brown eyes, swallowed hard, and nodded yes. Still nodding yes, I looked at my hands covered in nickel from the slot machines.

 

"Let's wash our hands, " I announced.

With our hands clean we shared a hug, then hand in hand we walked across the casino parking lot to the Little Church of the West.

 

The time 6:20 pm. Inside we heard the organ music play and watched a wedding party of a dozen young people flow out of the church. We stood beside the door not sure of our next move.

A man stepped through the door and turned our direction. "Are you waiting to be married," he asked.

Our heads nodded and finally we replied in unison, "Yes. We are the 6:25 wedding."  

We stepped inside the old wooden church. I glanced at the dark wooden walls and pews. We signed the register and followed a man down the aisle. I imagined my parents walking down this same path thirty seven years earlier. Like us, they had both been married and divorced. They met during the war and four years later mother took the train from Wichita, Kansas to Los Angeles. My father met her at the station and with another couple they drove to Las Vegas and took a daring but happy gamble on a marriage. 

I thought if it worked for them it would work for us. After all, getting married is the easy part.

Then I heard the minister's voice, "Do you, Letty, take Jack to be your husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death you part?"

 I do.

He did.

We have done for thirty eight years. 

Oh, my Goodness. This is the first time in thirty eight years that I noticed the Matthew's name is misspelled. I am sorry Matthew. 

We have raised three healthy, happy, and wise children. We couldn't be prouder, nor happier that we took that gamble thirty eight years ago. 

I love you Jack. 

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Reflections on a Still Hot Summer Sunday

Our week began on a cool Monday morning with me sitting out front sipping on my hot tea, while Jack and Murphy walked to the park and back. I attempted to relax and watch the grass grow, and nearly succeeded until I saw a weed in my flower garden. Not just any weed, but a nutsedge that grows connecting tubers under the surface of our muddy clay soil.  I sat my hot tea down and walked over and pulled it up, along with its family of young sprouts. By the time I sat down my tea was luke warm and it was time for breakfast. 

This has been a month of tomato sharing around the neighborhood. Friends covet these round red juicy fruit and even write about them:  "Holy my gosh! I just ate an end piece of that glorious tomato  from Letty….ORGASMIC! Our capressi tonight will be incredible. Please thank her profusely for us. And I WILL be trying to grow tomatoes next year. There is absolutely no comparison to the crappy ones we get in the store. Thanks so much for sharing. "

Tuesday morning the rocket with Wally Funk onboard took aim at the skies and I hit record, so I could watch and enjoy it throughout the week. Wally is one of my newest heroes, along with Sandra Day O'Connor, Georgia O'Keefe, Margaret Thatcher, Anita Hill, Christa McAuliffe, Maya Angelou, and poet, Mary Oliver. With the exhilaration of teenager, I watched  the video of the New Shepard launch, over and over. Can you imagine the thrill she must have experienced at 82, and in space for the first time.  My body tingled in excitement for her. The same thrill I felt when Christa McAuliffe flew into space, but this time there was joy on earth. 

TV News photo

When I first heard that the rocket was called New Shepard I imagined the shepherds keeping watch over the this new rocket, but naming it after Alan Shepard works for me. The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space missions are living history in my mind. 

How is it that we never heard of the women on the Mercury team?

In 1961, Funk was among a group of female pilots testing whether women were fit for space travel. They became known as the Mercury 13, and they passed many of the same tests as the men. 

"I had needles stuck on every part of my body. Tubes running up my bottom. So I went along with it. It didn't bother me," Funk told Holsenbeck. "And then they said, 'We want you to come with a swimsuit; you're going to go into the isolation tank.' Well, I didn't know what that was. The lights come down, they said try not to move. Well, I didn't have a whole lot to think about. I'm 20, I had $10 in my pocket. And then finally they said: 'Wally, you were outstanding. You stayed in 10 hours and 35 minutes. You did the best of the guys that we've had and of the girls.' "

The program was canceled (WHY?)  and Funk was never accepted by NASA. She made clear then that she had not given up on space.

Wally says, I never let anything stop me.

I know that my body and my mind can take anything that any

space outfit wants to give me--high altitude chamber test, which is fine;

centrifuge test, which I know I can do five and six G's. These

things are easy for me.  

Wally Funk in 2017

Story Corp interview with Wally Funk

One evening while devouring information on Wally my mind took its usual route of diversion, and I found myself missing the writings of Molly Ivins and Cokie Roberts. 

Cokie offered me reflection. I cherish her book We Are Our Mother's Daughters. With politics being the driving force in her life and golf in mine, our childhoods couldn't have been more different. We did share one thing in common. Our parents shared news of the day, at the dinner table with us. We, like Cokie, listened intently as our parents recounted the day or the many episodes of the country club. She became and Washington Correspondent/Journalist and I became a Storyteller. 

The stakes they play for in politics are paper and money. The chips they play with are your life. 

Molly Ivins

The quote is sobering, but Molly could say what she thought. Molly made me laugh at the world around us. If you need a laugh right now then please click on this link to a David Letterman interview of Molly Ivins 1992. For reference to the topic Letterman brings up, please note why Anita Hill is on my list of heroes. 

I cleared my head of worries this week by playing several rounds of golf, working with Murphy on his new puppy manner lessons, and finishing the last of the gardening until the temperatures drop out of the nineties.  The heat of summer has finally arrived.

WAIT WAIT 

Jack and I are playing defense with Murphy's antics. 

We are so smart, being football savvy fans, that we used three (de) fences in crisscross order to keep this young puppy out of a garden that has been torn apart this year by flooding, a deep freeze, hail, broken glass, and a digging puppy. Nearly a week went by until he found an opening, holes to China were dug beside each pot. Jack  filled in the holes this morning and we shrugged our shoulders. This, too, shall pass. 

Before I could finish writing this passage, Murphy jumped on my arm and crisscrossed my mind!!!! My arms, with this thin skin, look like they have been in battle with a ferocious cat. The solution can in the form of this rattling can. Thanks to the Walenz family who used this technique on June Bug.  

We have a canned Rattler, our newest defense for 
stopping undesirable behavior.