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There is much sadness in Calhoun County tonight Tears and grief have
settled like blight. All of the windows of the county are draped in
black
The businesses in town are all closed. Nothing is open except the coffee
shop and the little church. It’s beloved first citizen is never coming
back
There is a wreath upon each door and down at the filling station there
is a closed sign upon the pumps
At the little restaurant, they gather, speaking in subdued voices, out
of respect. The air of sadness, tonight, is everywhere
The preacher at the little Calhoun County Church bows his head, praying
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For
Those of us who’ve
lived and learned
Still don’t
know how to lose When a good friend passes on We are lost and most confused We must cling to what we have The memories we love best We remember all the good As Calhoun County is put to rest
We’ll
savor the memories ‘til we’re gone
We’ll
only see the sun that shines The beauty of the home-grown town The joy in Calhoun County lives There is another story when this one ends Another county comes to light
But no other Or make our lives as bright
©9/2/08Terry
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The Blessing of Calhoun County
Calhoun County’s lights are dim,
The summer night is still;
A solitary figure looks down
From the top of
A soft breeze begins to stir,
A tender song rises on the air,
And from the moonlit sky above
There descends a celestial stair.
As the figure mounts the stairs,
She pauses to look down again,
A benediction for all her friends.
The residents are awakened,
By all the church bells ringing;
They sit and listen in silent awe
To angels’ voices singing.
Then silence returns once more;
To sleepy people it was a dream,
But over the county forevermore
Shines a shimmering golden beam. |
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IT'S HARD TO SAY GOODBYE
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In memory of Tina Bedina
We were Sistas!
Passing on from one’s
life
Dear friends and family
go
Through death’s journey
As if in a deep sleep
though
Hearts and souls grieve
too
Loved ones must carry on
Missing greatly thy
presence
It’s hard to admit you’re
gone
I try to send a text
message
In telling events of the
day
Now you no longer respond
I try to answer for you
anyway
How much one wishes for
Answers of the what’s and
Why’s and how’s are
mystery
Facing the unknown
withstand
Don’t want to say
good-bye
Want to see if you are
all right
Was many times is what
thy wish
When we hung up for the
night
Yes, we were sistas,
silly too
Lessons to be learned and
shared
Misunderstandings cleared
up
Please know, I have
always cared
©Copyright 04 September
2008
MahTame
(I would sometimes call a playful
name.) |
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The Two "Ts"
TT for Tall
T for
T for Technical
T for Truths
That
T for Terrors
Remembered of war
T for Travel
To another home
T for Time
Theirs is no more
T for Tears
That they are gone
©September 3, 2008 |
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On the
Death of another Friend
When a voice goes quiet forever, you sometimes
expect it to be there still for you to hear. You find yourself listening
for it to cut across the silence, resuming old conversations left
dangling in the expectation they’d be picked up later.
You turn, looking for an opinion that will never
be offered again. Realization returns with a lurch. And you wonder – are
you still there, somewhere…Can you still see me? I hope you know I’ll
never forget you.
I remember watching the rose bush through the front
window after my brother
But from that day on, there was a little part of
me where I would forever be alone. No one would ever walk close beside
me there again, no matter where I went. Inside me, some of the light had
gone out forever. My brother, my confidant, my friend and protector had,
inexplicably, suddenly left me alone and bereft in the world. People
don’t have heart attacks at nineteen.
Death had brushed me closely for the first time.
But I was only seventeen, and for a long time, as the years passed,
there were no more such deep, heart-wrenching losses. But then, nobody
else was ever allowed that close again. Time does not necessarily cause
one to forget, but it does teach acceptance – and caution.
I did remember my grandmother’s death when I was a
small child, but mostly because of my father’s grief. I remember him
sitting on the front porch, holding me on his lap with his arms around
me, saying nothing while he waited for the coroner’s men to take his
mother away. It seemed like ages.
I only remember her as the old lady who wore long
dresses and high-buttoned shoes, and who stayed mostly to herself in her
bedroom. She did not like my mother. Occasionally, she would invite me
into her room for buttered raisin bread.
One lives; one watches and examines the world,
makes choices and decisions – which paths to take through life. I
watched people kill each other, for no good reason I could see. But I
had made a decision to take the path that led me to war; so I accepted
where I was for that year until I was able to leave.
For many years afterward, I declined to attend
funerals. I prefer to remember the living people I knew, not the shells
they no longer inhabit.
As I grew older and into middle age, childhood
friends began to depart, overtaken by years and various illnesses. Then
family members: my father, then a niece, then my mother, then my oldest
sister, followed by an older brother – with various friends and
acquaintances interspersed among them.
Now I watch my oldest brother with brooding eyes.
Although dependent upon a motorized chair to travel for any distance
longer than half a block, he remains as mentally independent as a hog on
ice.
Why, I sometimes wonder, did God place us here as
mortals, and teach us to love, to have compassion, to depend upon one
another, when sooner or later we‘ll inevitably be separated? Separated
with the hope we’ll eventually reunite with friends and those we love on
a different plane.
Such things are truly unknowable. But it’s not
pleasant to watch friends and family members slowly weaken and die. I’ve
decided even thinking about it further is futile, so I'll stop here.
Life, as some sardonic soul wryly observed, is a
bitch…And then you die.
© |
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Not Gone, Waiting! She who once walked the lands
a question in her heart and mind, who and what am I, and then Creator
answered. Confused and trying oh, so
hard to be the man her father wanted, never good enough it seemed Creator said you are to me. Deep inside the answer found,
oh, the trouble that she found, brave heart she was and fought on Creator gave her courage Loved and lost so many times,
never understanding where she failed to make the right connection Creator said sweet child I
love you And then, when all seemed lost
forever love walked in and held her tightly, years short but important Creator never fails to reward
you So much to so many, a teacher,
friend, lover, companion, though by many spoken of so roughly Creator knew what your heart
wanted A gift she gave with her
living, to a few who understood her very life was precious and
expressive Creator smiles a well-done Into the West our beloved one
is walking, leaving behind memories and lessons, in honor she served Creator opens arms in welcome! to she who's name must not be
spoken, I offer this my loving token! Granny |
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For
tear drops falling from my eyes
the music of my heart suddenly died
I
spoke to you as more than a friend
I
called you a Sister, and forever you remain
deep in my heart where music once dwelled
I
feel regret for what, who knows
what the hell
The rain of tears falling from my cheeks
Suddenly feel like knives on my face
the bitter heart that once had mended
now has broken once again
the music I heard when we spoke offline
must have been angels
even though I knew not why
I
spent my lifetime trying to make friends
only to feel the heart ache and pain
of losing those who mean so much to me
I already miss you
One day we shall meet
where angels dwell and sun fills the sky
and the music of my heart
will once again bring sunshine
© |
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Inside
With the passing of
He saved some lives and cried over those he could not save.
furry sense of security that they were loved and special.
He worried about this part of his nature.
Yet a part of
I am a friend of
Rogue |
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REMEMBERING
Missing a Friend
At first a feeling of emptiness
The world is suddenly hushed
Disbelief turns to reality
Inside our hearts feel crushed
The one who taught us all so much
Has now crossed to the other side
The last chapter has been written
In Calhoun County there's not a dry eye
She taught us how to love and live
No judgments did she make
She accepted us all as friends
While sometimes her own heart ached
She loved her
The one who loves her still
The one who accepted her in life
Now faces deaths empty chill
Tranqulity-Base has an empty spot
One is missing from the IWVPA
I'll remember her and all she taught
And for her peace I pray
Until we meet again
I'll never forget you |
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IN RETROSPECT : Tina |
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~SMALL THINGS~ |
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The Emperor of the Monkey Western
Her name was
It all started when
the three of us,
We set our minds to the task of acquiring a pair of birds to start our flock. We were certainly in no position to purchase them. There were plenty of them – it was just a matter of catching them. A friend who was a year behind us in school already raised pigeons as a 4H project. He was not willing to part with any of his birds but he provided us invaluable information on how to catch a few starter birds, and what we needed to provide as food and shelter for the birds before we caught them.
There was an
abandoned community named
Riding our bikes the
eight miles to the ghost town of
The three of us had
determined that we needed to build a flight pen and a pigeon house of
some sorts. Around
Having forgotten our original mission of finding adequate housing for our future pigeon flock we burned an hour and a half of our morning scrounging through the discarded artifacts representing the lives of the members of our little community. Portions of the dump were constantly smoldering – a perpetual fire burned there consuming those items of day-to-day life that were combustible.
An old man lived at
the dump. He told us his name was
He had a quart bottle of whiskey and he took a long pull on it every five minutes during our conversation (he did not offer any of whiskey either). His language was deplorable; he used words that we had never heard – we knew in our minds however that they were words we should not repeat in normal intercourse without risking the loss of our summer as punishment.
He told us he was a
farm laborer and that he worked periodically for the price of a bottle.
He told us that he had been married years ago. He said his wife
left him because he ‘shit his pants after he passed-out after a day of
drinking’ – It made perfect sense to us that his wife had tossed him
out. We were young boys at the age of innocence where our
interests were in baseball and adventures but not girls. His
conversation always hovered around women and drink – neither of which we
had any interest. He told us about a recent rendezvous with a lady
who lived in a room on the floor above
As he rolled a
cigarette he told us that for a drink of his whiskey she allowed him to
lift up her dress and put his hand between her legs. As we
listened each of us had that image in our minds and wondered why anyone
would want to do such a thing. The more
We found several
rolls of discarded chicken wire and enough bailing twine to tie the
bundles. Each of us bundled a manageable amount of chicken wire
and drug it from the dump to
A few days passed
while we constructed a pigeon house and flight pen. Having compiled the necessary components of a pigeon raising enterprise (including pigeons); we had to find food for the birds.
In farming community grain elevators were constructed near the railroad depot and tracks for the convenience of loading railroad cars with the harvested grain. Each time the grain was transferred from the elevators to the rail cars a certain amount of grain was spilled on the ground in the process. Pigeons roosted high in the eves of the twenty story elevators and fed on the spilled grain.
One morning we each borrowed a fairly large cooking pot from our mothers; got on our bikes and rode to the elevators across from the depot to gather food for our flock. There was a nice big pile of good hard winter wheat. We chewed handfuls of the wheat and made gum in our mouths while we filled our pots. It took surprisingly little time to gather the grain and put the pots in our bike baskets.
As we walked our bikes across the tracks we saw a big black motor cycle parked at the train depot. We stopped at the depot to investigate. The machine was black and white with a full leather black saddle and leather saddle bags with silver conchos as decoration. The suicide shifter was chrome and shined brightly in the sun. It was the only vehicle parked at the depot. We went inside the depot for a drink of water and maybe some motorcycle conversation.
The inside of the
depot contained three waiting benches and a long front counter that
spanned the whole width of the building. On the wall above the
windows on the south end of the depot was a huge clock with a long
pendulum with a brass weight. Standing behind the counter was
Ger was the station
master for the Montana Western Railroad. The Montana Western
Railway was constructed in 1909 by the Valier Land and Water Company to
promote agricultural land development in the Valier area. The
railway was connected to the Great Northern Railroad. The Montana
Western ran between the towns of Valier and
The car was constructed in 1925, named car #31, and now resides in the Mid-Continent Railway Museum, located in North Freedom, Wisconsin. Because of its size and purpose, locals fondly called it the “Monkey Western”. It was the delight of the local kindergarten classes – not only because of several field trips to see it arrive and leave, but because once a year the class took a field trip and traveled the forty miles to and from the small town of Valier.
Ger wore his strawberry blond hair in a ducktail. He wore a long sleeve khaki work shirt and khaki trousers. On his feet were a large heavy pair of black engineer’s boots; those typically worn by motorcycle riders. In his left breast pocket was a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Ger looked to be somewhere in his middle thirty’s, with a light beard or no beard at all – we couldn’t tell for sure. Ger had the complexion of a woman – no tan, and no farmer’s tan.
Ger was a chain smoker who always had a lighted Lucky Strike in his mouth. He had a unique way of smoking – never holding the cigarette in his hand; it was always in his mouth and got rid of the ash by blowing it off while holding the cigarette in the left side of his mouth and blowing the ash off from the right side. If was a fascinating orchestration of the art of smoking and all three of us were captivated by the process.
Ger had a strange shape not fat but overweight. He wore his trousers high on his body almost like he had a waist. Although the three of us never discussed it, we all thought that there was a definite narrowing of his body between his ribs and hips – he looked paunchy and definitely had hips.
We looked around the inside of the depot; none of the three of us had been in there since kindergarten. Ger, genuinely proud of his calling and position offered a tour – we declined. Ger insisted on the show and tell session and we succumbed. When he had finished we knew that Ger was whole of the Montana (Monkey) Western and the sole reason for its success. Ger was the station master, loaded and unloaded baggage, sold tickets and dispatched for the little freight that the car carried.
We were interested
in the motor cycle. Ger told us it was his means of
transportation. A 1949
On our bike ride home, all three of us thought but none of us could put into words the curiosity we had for Ger. There was a strange curiosity we had but could not understand – we put it out of our minds and talked about our pigeon enterprise – wasn’t squab a delicacy and wouldn’t restaurants from all over be putting in orders for our product?
We went to
A couple of summers had come and gone since the pigeon raising enterprise. It was fall and I was walking home from school. The local hospital was across the street from our grade school. As I walked down the sidewalk by the hospital I heard a voice from a third floor window above me. I looked up and saw Ger at the open window cigarette in his mouth yelling a greeting to a lady sitting in a car on the street.
Ger had on a flowered night gown. Ger was telling the lady about the hysterectomy he had just had. I did not know what a hysterectomy was, but I knew men did not wear pretty flowered night gowns. Now I understood the feeling I had a couple years before at the train depot.
©9/7/08Terry
This short story is
dedicated to
While she suffered
greatly in her short stay on earth; she was able to bring joy and
comfort to a good number of people. She had the good fortune to
experience life as a member of both sexes, which I am sure gave her the
unique ability to communicate with empathy and kindness to her
acquaintances. |
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