Meaningful Things: Music and the Letter

I am a woman who loves to write. My father does, and my daughter. We're wordy sorts who feel an urge to tell our stories. Yes, we're all talkers, too. But we particularly seek out writing as a means of expression.

I am also strongly drawn to music and bonded to some of it. My music. It doesn't even have to be particularly good music for me to love it. I'm willing to listen to virtually anything at least once, and if I like a song, I'll probably always like it. I'll remember the first time I heard it and why it pulled me in. Sometimes I remember what the weather was like and what fragrance I was wearing. I certainly remember the company I was keeping at the time. Eventually some of the songs become a part of who I am, the artist a friend to me. And I like to introduce my friends around.

Um . . . and then there are my musical oddities. I (frequently) land on an old or new favorite and play only that song for ~ oh, say six months in the car. Likewise there will be one going in the office for 11 hours a day. I've been known to make co-workers nearly weep and Ex refused to go anywhere in the car with me for years. I like to enjoy my music by nearly complete immersion and then I move on to the next song. I think about how I'd play it or how I'd have structured the delivery of the lyrics differently. And yes, there is some hope for me. The medications do control most of the other obsessive behaviors . . . I'm kidding! And a music lover with similar taste to mine presents me with custom mixes frequently. They contain up to 25 different songs. I didn't know people listened to music that way.

I received a letter from a young man in the late 1960s. I was somewhere between 15 and 18, depending upon whichever year that letter landed. 1969, I believe, so either 16 or 17. The young man and I exchanged letters often, and this is unusual, because we were also seeing one another in person - extremely often. But he is a writer, too, and we both fell to written communication to supplement our face-to-face time. We each had that much need to express ourself to the other. It is fortunate that we developed the writing habit, because we faded from and reappeared in the other's life time after time. We spoke seriously at one time about collaborating on a book about a relationship that had many faces over time. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say we have exchanged a million words, or perhaps a googol, in person and in writing.

So the letter arrived with its 6-cent postage stamp. Sometimes I used feminine stationery. We both used college lined notebook paper. We were teenagers. Students. Notebook paper was appropriate to our circumstances. He wrote in fountain pen. He still does. This was a shorter letter. Just the one piece of notebook paper, written on one side. I'm sorry I don't specifically remember the letter's subject, but I do not. What I do remember is the writing in the left hand margin. It was a snippet of something, a poem or a song, and it was dreamy and beautiful. He had turned the page at right angles to write those words, as they were presented vertically when compared to the horizontal sentences of the letter. Although I did not have a complete frame of reference for the words, they made me think he was the most brilliant and sensitive young man I'd known.

When I next saw him or spoke to him on the phone, I asked about the words and he pointed me to a music album I've now owned on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD and MP3. I bought the record for myself with babysitting money and I proceeded to breathe in every word of every song . . . for 41 years now. Many of them are wonderful, but the one from which he wrote part of the lyrics is a thread in my personal tapestry. I introduced both of my parents, my husband and my child to the artist, but more to that song. They probably all liked it, but it didn't mean to them what it meant to me.

The words he wrote were these:

" . . All my sisters soon were gone
To Denver and Cheyenne.
Marrying their grownup dreams,
The lilacs and the man.
I stayed behind, the youngest still,
Only danced alone . . ."

The song is "My Father" by Judy Collins. Across the decades I've thought about my own practical Kansan father who wouldn't have ever promised such a thing as " . . we would live in France . ." or that "we'd go boating on the Seine and I would learn to dance . ." unless he had the paid tickets in his pocket. Of course, I'm not much of a dreamer like the woman in the song. I wonder which of us had it better.

The young man who wrote me the letter was an active Viet Nam war protestor. He was associated with a group called The Resistance (among others) and he participated in a protest organizing meeting at which he sat next to Judy Collins. He still grins when he speaks of it today. In 2000, my mother, my 10-year-old daughter and I sat in the champagne picnic area at the San Diego Summer Pops awaiting Judy Collins. It was cool on the bay. We munched and drank bubbly (not the child, of course). My mother hoped Collins would sing "Someday Soon". She probably would. It was a big hit for her. Amber hoped for "Pretty Polly". Unlikely, but I hoped so, too, in solidarity. When she walked out onto the stage, I nearly choked on my croissant cucumber sandwich. Where was Judy Collins, the cute folkie/hippie chick with the voice of an angel and the words that spoke to me, subject of Stephen Stills' "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"? Who was this 61-year-old in the pastel colored suit and what had she done with Judy? Until she took the mike and said, "Hello!" That was Judy Collins' voice! What the heezy? And as she sang the evening away, reminiscing about a young singer/songwriter named John Denver who stayed with her family while trying to make a name for himself, I realized that Judy wasn't a cute folkie/hippie any more and Leslie wasn't 16, and we were still spending a wonderful evening in one another's company.

When she sang "My Father", I wanted it never to end. My mother recalled the song and tapped my foot under our picnic table. My daughter, a child who knew every word, sat with tears rolling down her face.

When I did some research for this post, I came across the YouTube shown below. Judy speaks of her father's blindness and how he was sent away to a special school. It reminds me of my blind great uncle, Ralph. And then she proceeds to sing her beautiful song, taped in the same year I learned the words.

In my ears right now: The reader already knew this!


I'm going to end this one a little differently. It's the lyrics that charm me:

My father always promised us
That we would live in France.
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance.
We lived in Ohio then.
He worked in the mines.
On his dreams like boats
We knew we would sail in time.
All my sisters soon were gone
To Denver and Cheyenne.
Marrying their grownup dreams
The lilacs and the man.
I stayed behind, the youngest still,
Only danced alone.
The colors of my father's dreams
Faded without a sound.
And I live in Paris now.
My children dance and dream,
Hearing the ways of a miner's life
In words they've never seen.
I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
As it sets in my father's eyes again.

King of the Wild Frontier

In August of 1955, I turned 3. My mother was pregnant with Gary, who would be born the following January. I was a quiet and "good" child, but do not mistake that for "lifeless" or "dishrag". I was enthusiastic about many things. Just not unruly or untidy. A birthday party was planned, of course. It would be held in the yards of the two uncles who married the two sisters who lived next door to one another. It was a good location for hosting 50 people or more.

I was a passionate fan of Davy Crockett, having made his acquaintance by watching the Mickey Mouse Club most afternoons. I was also a fan of Annette and Karen and Cubby and most of the other Mouseketeers, except Roy. Roy freaked me out a little. Roy still freaks me out a little when I think of him mixed in with all those children. But I digress. It's Davy Crockett I was mad for. I liked Davy's rugged, but youthful, look and I was wild about the coonskin cap. I had a coonskin cap of my own and I wore it with panache, with dresses, with pajamas, with anything. [I still own a coonskin cap that sits on the shelf in my living room coat closet. I should bring it out to display, perhaps on the wall.] I liked that Davy was a grand hunter and shooter and knew how to live off the land.

But probably the most attractive thing to me about Davy was that he was born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, and my Granny-O was born in Tennessee. That must mean that Davy was a good, fine man. My hero worship was indulged, and this birthday party would feature Davy Crockett streamers, balloons, paper cups and plates, tablecloth, and whatever else in the world was sold with Davy's image in August, 1955. At least a dozen cousins dashed around the yards wearing coonskin caps, tugging at the tails hanging down the back. Those who didn't have a cap tried to pluck one off of the head of a luckier child. Games were planned, party favors waiting to be given to excited kids. It was some kind of day! An odd little snippet of reminiscence remains with me: when all of the cousins were gathered, there could be seen every hue of red hair known to man. From strawberry blond to deep copper, these were some redheaded Irish American kids. And more freckles than the law allows! I was the only one with dark hair and no freckles (and later Gary). I always remember playing outside with the cousins and the sun glinting off of their red heads.

The women worked in the kitchens of both homes, slicing tomatoes, forming hamburger patties, fixing potato and macaroni salad. The Davy Crockett birthday cake was featured as the centerpiece on a large dining table. The men fired up multiple BBQ grills and filled coolers with ice and canned drinks. An important task remained to be completed. Someone needed to pick up Uncle Ralph and Aunt Martha. My father and Uncle Ed were deemed to be the best candidates to transport elderly blind people, and I'm sure that had nothing to do with the fact that my dad had a brand new 1955 Chevy he wanted to show off to his brother-in-law.


The reader should know a bit about my dad and Uncle Ed. Although in-laws, not brothers, they were very much alike. Both were short, slight men with attitude. My dad had been a pretty remarkable boxer in the Air Force, and Ed has been described to me as the toughest human being who ever lived. This is based on his survival of the last days of World War II in the Philippines in hand-to-hand combat. He was tough physically and tough mentally. But my dad is no slouch! Both men possessed deadly wit, but were also sensitive. Uncle Ed was a lifelong reader of the poet, Robert Service, and my father has been known to silently weep watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie [recently]. Neither man was particularly well-educated, but both were extremely intelligent and articulate. These were also self-sufficient, no nonsense kinds of men. Neither was ever known to brook any measure of any type of bullshit from anyone. Never. None.

So, off they went together, Dad kind of show-offy in his new two-tone, driving on the freeway for a short distance, even though it wasn't necessary.

Uncle Ralph and Aunt Martha were ready, waiting with their birthday gift for me - a child-sized piano. Either someone had helped them, or maybe Uncle Ralph did it, but the gift was very credibly wrapped. Ralph strode confidently across the living room to the front door, cane tapping, rattling the keys with which he'd lock the deadbolt. Martha angled her elbows into the air so the two men could first hoist her out of the chair and then guide her outside. They did so. Ralph asked a couple of questions so he could understand where and how the car was parked. Once he imprinted that information, he walked quickly across the driveway to the curb, stepped down, walked in the street around the back end of the car, opened the driver's side door, pushed the seatback forward and got in the back seat. Dad and Uncle Ed were still maneuvering Martha toward the steps of the porch. Now it was their turn to learn that Martha was a leaner, a grasper, a clutcher. They were perspiring pretty quickly. It was high August and this was hard work!

Uncle Ed died in 2001, but he never altered one word in the retelling of this tale. My father has told it precisely the same way for 54 years and he still flushes bright red remembering that torturous trek across 25 feet of concrete to the car. The unholy trio shimmied like a hula dancer, traversing the two steps down from the porch to the driveway. It took them more than 10 minutes. Dad and Uncle Ed spoke encouragement, "Martha, step down 6 inches with your right foot and then just stop and wait." She extended her left leg as if to cross the mighty Mississippi in one step, began to wobble and nearly took the two men down. These two bright, efficient sorts wondered if she'd ever descended those stairs before, knew that she had and wondered why she seemed to have no recall of how it was done. The walk across the driveway was uneventful, but took a long time. Back at Party Central, the women thought it was about time for the car to arrive carrying party guests. Little did they know!

Arriving at the curb next to the car, Dad opened the passenger side door, flipped the seatback forward, assessed Martha's bulk, moved the front seat forward to allow more room and flipped the seatback forward again. Then began a 45 minute rodeo of the vilest sort. They tried first to give verbal instructions, but Martha seemed incapable of understanding right from left, inches from yards, forward from backward. She exhibited a fine understanding of hanging on to these men around their necks, as if for dear life, however. They knew they'd have to get physical with her - directions weren't getting the job done. They decided Dad would support Martha upright while Uncle Ed picked up her leg and put it inside the car. Then only one leg and the rest of her body would remain to be moved. She nearly toppled all three of them over backwards. They stood her in the gutter thinking she'd understand all she had to do was step up into the car, one foot at a time. They could even assist by lifting her legs for her, one at a time. Nope. She almost threw them all to the sidewalk.

It was Uncle Ralph who came up with the idea that worked. "Martha, bend into the car and give me yours hands." Uncle Ralph was going to pull. "Men, you know what to do next." Dad and Uncle Ed looked at each other, shook their heads from side to side, squared their shoulders, and each one tucked into one side of Martha's hind end. I've heard their analogy all my life: like pushing an elephant through the eye of a needle. Martha landed in the back seat a little worse for wear and tear. Her nylons had runs and her knees were banged up. Her (unnecessary) eyeglasses were askew and the floral pastel dress was rumpled. Uncle Ed always spoke of how her gray pincurls bobbed for a moment or two, like tiny springs on her head. Uncle Ralph helped settle her on the back seat and they rolled off to the party.

Lest the reader think these sweating, frustrated men were a little severe with an old, blind woman, consider this: Dad and Ed did not take a running start at Martha or execute a flying wedge maneuver up her backside. No jerking movements were made that might have harmed her neck or back. They simply dug in and pushed together against a seemingly unmovable mass. The slow forward momentum caused Martha to begin paddling her feet and legs, her body finally catching onto what her head hadn't been able to grasp. One foot got purchase on the curb and the other finally made contact with the carpet in the car. Uncle Ralph pulled for all he was worth. I wonder whether it might have been easier to install Martha in the front seat. For part of the difficulty was caused by the contortions necessary to squeeze between front and back seat. Up and into the car was not the only challenge. But it was the 1950s and those two young men didn't think to put Martha any place other than in the back seat next to her husband where she should sit.

One of the bigger kids saw the car approach and announced its arrival at the party. Some of the adults walked out to the driveway, concerned at how long it had taken to bring Martha and Ralph to Gardena. One look at Dad and Ed, and most of the adults in the clan knew there was a rich story to be told. The party began in earnest now, good food served, games played, prizes awarded. Scattered groups of kids belted out, "Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free . . . " When I opened the gift of my piano, Uncle Ralph sat behind me and showed me how to place my fingers on the keys to play more like a concert pianist than Jerry Lee Lewis. "The story" circulated quietly among the adults, most of whom had to step behind the garage for a laugh out loud. My cousins and I were not timid about approaching blind people and starting a conversation, so both Ralph and Martha were chatted up repeatedly by kids of various ages. Martha managed to do my serious, sensitive cousin Mark out of his coonskin cap by using her tried and true line, "I'm blind." I am uncertain why she thought she needed a kid's coonskin cap, but I am now a 57-year-old woman who owns one, so perhaps I should not cast aspersions upon Martha. But at least I bought my own.

At dusk, the women began to gather dishes and tired, cranky children. The party was officially over. Granny-O decided she and Grandpa should take Ralph and Martha home. Ed and Dad watched over the fence in disbelief as Martha fairly hopped into the back seat of Grandpa's Impala. My father ranted in the car all the way home about the agony of moving Martha. There was no laughter in the Chevy, as my mother was still sensitive about her shopping adventure with that good woman. When we arrived home, Dad was overcome with guilt about sending Granny-O and Grandpa off alone to deal with Martha. They were old. He and Ed were young, but had barely been able to manage. He dialed the telephone, having decided if Granny-O failed to answer, he'd drive to Ralph's home to help offload Martha. Dad was slightly surprised that Granny did pick up the phone. "Mom, I was concerned you might need help getting them inside." "Oh, it was uneventful," replied my grandmother. "Earl never even turned off the engine, I had them inside so quickly."

In my ears right now: What do you think? Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free, raised in the woods so's he'd know every tree, killed him a b'ar when he was only three. Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.

Something that charmed me:

Turn a Blind Eye to Human Frailty

I've blogged several times about my maternal grandmother, my Granny-O, born in 1899, mother of 12, grandmother of more than 40, and the unconditional love giver in my early life. There's my Granny, less than a year old, on her mother's lap. The little boy standing between the parents is Ralph, my great uncle. No, he didn't blink when the photo was taken. He was blinded by the measles at the age of 18 months in about 1896. Here he is about 4 years of age. In a few short years, he will be put on the train and sent to the Tennessee School for the Blind, which I believe was in Nashville. But wherever its location, it was "away". Not near Knoxville. Granny was 4 when Ralph went away on the train, but she spoke of his sobs 70 years later. He was a scared, blind child going off on the train alone, away from his family. He stayed away many years. He returned in his late teens, confident, able to read Braille and write, skilled at a number of crafts including broom and brush making, as well as recaning chairs. He knew how to keep his clothes and possessions clean and in good repair, including sewing on buttons and doing his own laundry. He could get around expertly on public transportation and he knew all manner of ways to ask for just a little accommodation for the fact that he was totally blind. For all of his life, when he cashed a check at the bank, he asked the teller to fold the different bills in different ways - $20 bills folded in half vertically, $10 bills folded in half horizontally, and so on. I would wager that Ralph never "got taken" for his money by a sighted person.

Ralph lived with his parents after his return from school. The day after Granny graduated from high school, she, Ralph and her mother boarded a train for Denver. I do not know why Denver was the destination. No friends or relatives awaited their arrival. None of
Granny's 12 children ever met their grandfather. I do not know why the marriage split up. I do not know anything about that Great Grandfather after June, 1917, nor very much about him before that time. For the next 30+ years, Great Grandma and Ralph shared a home and followed Granny's family from Denver to Los Angeles, always living nearby, always in daily contact. Ralph never married. Great Grandma would not have approved of any woman on the planet, so Ralph didn't even try. He enjoyed his many nieces and and nephews, who also loved him. The brood were intrigued with the Braille books and his abacus and accordion. They wondered how he could perfectly recane a chair or weave a basket without sight. He read aloud to them often, sometimes reciting literature from memory. My mother and her siblings recall teasing Uncle Ralph by asking him what he thought "plaid" looked like and how he would know a horse from a mule if he woke up one morning, able to see, and was presented with a view of those two animals.

Great Grandma died in 1950 at age 96. Ralph bought himself a tiny one-bedroom bungalow in old Los Angeles, continued to work and made extra money by playing his accordion in the streets at holiday time. This required him to take a number of buses, making transfers often. I never heard of Uncle Ralph getting lost. Not once. He was 58 years old the year I was born, slim, tall, upright, shoulders back, a nice looking older man. His shirt was never buttoned up incorrectly and he did not sport clashing clothes. He took care of his business in a businesslike way. I think he was admirable. Some years later, he would sit beside Gary's crib, holding the child's hand and reciting something - maybe Longfellow's Hiawatha - and the little boy's head-turning took a slower pace.

I do not know how or where Ralph met Martha. She was also a southerner, but I don't know specifically where she called home. She was certainly age appropriate for Ralph. She became blind in her 30s or 40s, and I don't know what caused it. She was a tall, buxom woman with a backside like a brewer's horse, large hands, legs and feet. She looked like a typical older matron of her generation: pastel floral dresses, serious black "witch" shoes, gray pincurled hair, and the ridiculous pair of eyeglasses some blind people wear for reasons I do not understand. My god. I have just described a woman of the approximate age I am right now. I don't look like that in any way. Whew. When I was old enough to catch quietly spoken partial conversations, I drew the conclusion that Martha may have "had a past", whatever that meant. I do not know how the women in the family reached that conclusion, or whether it was a fair one. Martha brought her own money to the marriage, causing eyebrows to be raised because she liked to shop at Saks Fifth Avenue, not Sears or J.C. Penney like most of our family's good women. She had some "no account" adult children whom I did not know, but who were deemed to be scandalous for some reason. I don't think the marriage was about fire and passion. I think much of it, for Ralph, had to do with the companionship of a mature woman. He must have missed that after his mother died. I don't know what the marriage meant to Martha. Importantly, Granny-O accepted her because Ralph wanted Martha in his life.

Martha had not adjusted well to being a blind person. She constantly bumped off of walls and doorjambs in her own home. Her sweater was frequently worn inside out and she often wore shoes that were not a matching pair. Her dress and blouse buttons were usually one or two levels wrong when she presented herself for the day. She wore large clip-on earrings almost always, and almost always, they did not match. She did not master the use of a cane, and was a danger to any innocent bystanders when she attempted to use one. She preferred to have one or two people at her elbow(s) to guide her along through life. Martha was also known to cite her blindness as the reason for unfortunate events that had absolutely nothing to do with one's ability to see. After her death, Granny-O and some of the family women went to Ralph's house to pack up Martha's belongings to be shipped to her children. It was discovered that Martha had an apparent affinity for bourbon. Read this, enough bottles stashed throughout the house to choke a landfill. It made one wonder if all of Martha's clumsiness and general difficulty navigating through her day was entirely attributable to blindness. It made one wonder if, when Martha had been loud and belligerent, it was the bourbon presenting and not angst at having been struck blind.

A little rivalry grew up around taking Martha shopping. Whichever young woman was selected for such duty was in for a treat. For Martha would pay for a babysitter, pay for the bus or taxi rides - a taxi was quite an extravagance! - buy a nice lunch, and buy a little gift for her shopping companion of the day. My mother's sisters and sisters-in-law engaged in a little healthy competition for the honor. They all knew the ropes: dress up nicely including hat and heels, elbow-guide Martha through the store to the department that would display what she sought to purchase, describe the selections to Martha with many words, enjoy the lunch with mimosas and select the gift that Martha offered to buy. A nice outing by anyone's standards.

My mother's turn finally came. She was young and cute and dressed herself adorably for this outing. She knew what she would choose for her gift, because good, lacy slips didn't grow on trees. She wanted a red one. I was deposited at Granny-O's and my mother walked to Ralph and Martha's house. This may be a good point to remind the reader that my mother, in her early 20s, hadn't exhibited the strongest of coping skills. She wasn't good in a pinch and didn't always know what to do when things got hairy. Martha was in rare form that morning, gesticulating to make a point in conversation, perhaps a little loud. The taxi arrived and my mother must have felt like the tiny tugboat piloting a massive steamer out to sea. My mother admits today that the first moment she fully realized the disproportion of their body masses was approaching the taxi. Martha was a leaner, a clutcher, a grasper. But my mother was made of tough stuff. [She thought.] Mother and the driver finally got Martha situated in the taxi, and they set off for a very long ride to Wilshire Blvd.

Saks Fifth Avenue was a revelation to my young mother and she got to take it all in at a leisurely pace, as Martha was bulky and slow. They arrived in the department where Martha was given a chair to sit on and my mother ferried girdles, nylon stockings and other 1950s mature lady foundation garments back and forth from the display counters. Martha wanted detailed descriptions of each item and comparisons between one item and the other. She felt everything with her hands, stretching some of the garments to test their elasticity. She was damned touchy about the exact color of nylon stockings, pinning my mother down hard about the difference between beige and dark beige. Finally a $50 purchase was made - a huge sum in my mother's view. More old lady lingerie in a bag than the law allows.

It was after paying for her purchases that Martha loudly announced her need to "pee". My mother was a little touchy about such language in such a fine store. Her eyes darted about and she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone had noticed such an indelicate pronouncement. She also realized she was in the belly of a mighty big department store and she didn't know her way around. Mother asked a clerk where to find a restroom and was given directions to one on the floor below. As she steered Martha toward the elevator, the older woman continued to announce her urgent need, and mom began to sweat it. She rang for the elevator, which arrived fairly quickly. Pushing Martha into the elevator car, she heard the torrent begin to hit the wooden floor. The elevator operator visibly recoiled, and Martha loudly announced, as if it was a really good reason for wetting on the elevator floor, "I'm blind!" Mom began to cry and the elevator operator asked, "What do you want me to do, young lady?" He took them to the ground floor where my mother steered the dripping Martha out to the curb and hailed a taxi.

I was eating a favorite with Granny, pineapple and cottage cheese, when we heard my mother's sobbing on the back porch. Granny-O jumped up to see what was the matter. Was someone hurt? What had happened? My mother had to lie down on the sofa to start telling the story. She wept, she wrang her hands, she gnashed her teeth. "No lunch, no mimosas, no red slip." Granny was appropriately sympathetic, but she didn't give the event quite the weight my mother did. Until . . . "I had to give the taxi driver $10 of my money to clean his back seat after dropping us off. When I asked Martha to cough up the $10, she said, 'I'm blind.' "

In my ears right now: Manfred Mann, Blinded by the Light, what else?

Something that charmed me: Last night I got the loveliest, sweetest "good night" . . .

Granny-O

The Blair Family of Park City, Tennessee

Fall of 1900

My granny is the infant in her mother's lap

She was born December 7, 1899


My granny was my unconditional love giver. She lived a long life filled with every kind of pain and joy. She shared both of those with me. She did not see me through rose-colored glasses, but loved me anyway. She was a woman who was ahead of her times in many ways. She also steadfastly refused to modern up in other ways. She was both intelligent and educated (for her time and station). She was a quilter whose hands were busy with needle and fabric always. She sewed from necessity - she had a dozen children to dress. When they were grown and gone, she sewed Barbie cothes year-round to give to all the granddaughters at their birthdays and Christmas. The woman handcrafted Barbie slips, bras and undies and then repeated the process times 20!

I couldn't possibly blog about Granny in one fell swoop and be done with it. She lived 87 years and I had her for 34. That story can't be quickly told. So I shall do it in bits and pieces.

You see in the photograph the Blair family. Martha Snyder Dugan Blair (my great-grandmother) gave birth to 14 children. You see the 4 who survived. The two boys in the back are the Dugans. Their father died. Martha loved him deeply. The man in the picture is John Blair. He is the father to Granny and Uncle Ralph standing next to him. Martha did not love him. Granny always said, "Well, if she didn't love him, I wonder what that makes Ralph and me?" No, Ralph did not blink when the camera shutter snapped. He was blinded by the measles at about 18 months of age. He was a wonderful, fascinating man and I'll blog about him, too, but this is about my granny.

The Blairs were poor as Ralph and Granny always told it, but they also stressed that they never went hungry, never went without coats against the cold, always had shoes. There are numerous portraits and snapshots of them, so they obviously visited photographers when they went to town or when one came by. They look decently (not ostentatiously) dressed in the photos. They lived rurally. They were not farmers, but Martha kept chickens and a cow, maybe a pig. Oddly, for I have a very rich oral, written and photographic family history, I cannot tell you what John Blair did for work or money. I know absolutely nothing about him. None of his dozen grandchildren ever laid eyes on him.

Granny was the youngest child and Martha was about 40 when she was born. Martha pampered this only daughter and loved her dearly until, as Granny told it for 87 years, she (Granny) began to have opinions of her own. Martha was made of stern stuff, and you don't see the possibility of a smile on her face in the photo. Not even feminine softness. She did not tolerate differences of opinion well. Uncle Ralph never married until he was 58 years old and Martha had died. She wouldn't have approved of anyone, so he didn't take it on.

I have many, many Granny anecdotes to tell, but I think I'll end this post with some words about the end of her life and how good she was to me. A plain talker, my Granny would take on difficult subjects without fear. There came a time to talk about her mortality. I am a bit of a phobe (all right, in my younger years I was hugely phobic) about hospitals, illness, funerals. She knew that well. For about the last 5 years of her life, she told me many, many times that ours had been the best relationship of her life and she did not want me hanging out at a hospital or seeing her for the last time at a funeral. She gave me permission not to go through that. Over and over again.

She fell and broke her hip minutes after the Broncos lost the Super Bowl in 1987. Aunt Pat teased her after surgery the next day. "Mother, you didn't have to throw yourself down just because they lost." She seemed to be doing well. Until the pneumonia came. She was on a respirator and could not speak, but she was alert. The relatives were called in. Granny adored Ex. Not just because he was my husband. They just clicked. Ex went up to the hospital bed. "Granny do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?" Blink. Blink. "Do you know who my wife is?" Blink. Blink. "Do you know why she is not here with me to visit you?" Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

She held on for 2 weeks. Aunt Pat called at 2:00 a.m. to say she had left us and joined Grandpa. I called Ex who was in San Jose at training. He had just been hired by the union. He was devastated. I went to the funeral. He needed me. I grew from it.

In my ears right now: "When It's Springtime in the Rockies". My Granny loved that song. I learned to play it - for her - for my first piano recital. She made me a blue dress to wear with a big satin bow on the back.

Something that charmed me today: A sweet exchange of very early e-mails, that reminded me I am loved and cared for.