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Friday, September 17, 2004

JANUARY TO SEPTEMBER....1978 

I have been reading my 1978 journal so that I can write about events for the first several months. I’ll have to confess, in reading it, I am exhausted. Let me see….I turned 46-years of age in May, this particular year. It reads like a continual little wheel that gerbils run on.

To record for my family, we shall continue on. January was very cold this year and we kept Jennifer and Jonathan while Becky recuperated at mom’s after her surgery in December. Jennifer was in school so we were on schedule for her coming and going. John was home the month of January between semesters at Bolivar and doing some preaching around our area. I was busy feeding people, doing laundry for all of us, cutting hair…fixing hair and sewing for everyone. I finished knitting a sweater for John and made knitted caps for Becky and the grand-children.

We celebrated all of the March birthdays which consist of John, Jonathan and Becky. George Jr. came at Easter and we had a good visit with him and all of our local family. Spring cleaning, yard work and church activities brought us up to Bible School time. We moved John back home from Bolivar and he, Warren and I taught classes in Bible School.

Shortly after, John had the opportunity to work with a friend who did brick work. He mixed and carried the concrete to Gene who laid the bricks. He spent the summer doing that and playing drums for the quartet on week-ends. He also went on the church bus routes so he was busy. His room-mate from college was getting married in June so we took John to Illinois, close to St. Louis, for the wedding.

Warren and I went to Nebraska to visit his maternal and paternal families and also stopped in Blair to see my relatives there. We were back and forth to Mountain Home on a regular basis to look in on uncle Alfred. He looked forward to getting out of the Nursing Home to shop for little extra’s to eat in his room.

He didn’t like their cooking or their rules. They took salt away from him because of his high blood pressure so he bought salt and a shaker and put it in his top shirt pocket before going to the dining room every day. It was his act of defiance against “the system”….he also kept peanut butter and jelly in his room with a supply of crackers. He bought a steel “safe” to keep his goodies in because he suspected the “hired help” of sneaking it out. He had a huge padlock and key………uncle Alfred was 86-years old in March and resented anyone telling him what he could or couldn’t do. We stayed neutral and let him wage his battles.

Uncle Tom and aunt Inabelle came to visit all of us on their way to the Nebraska reunion in August. They stayed several days and we always enjoyed having them. We were also visited by Warren’s sister and family as they made a sentimental trip to Arkansas where Warren’s brother-in-law was raised. (They have lived in Seattle for many years.)

Summer passed and once again we moved John back to Bolivar. Warren took John’s place with Gene to be his hod carrier. He enjoyed the physical work and “guy” visits they had during the day. I spent the last days of August putting up tomatoes and peaches as well as relish and pickles. Mom was around to visit with while I worked and as I look back on those days, they were pretty special. Mom helped a lot in her quiet way….she had a way of getting things done without a lot of fuss and muss.

September was to be on the next calendar page and school had been underway for over a week. As I hung clothes on the line early in the morning I could hear the drum and bugle corps practicing on the field. The sky was cloudless and bright blue and my thoughts were on an ant hill I had stepped over on the way to hang the sheets. I came inside and wrote the following lines…..

COMMITMENT

Commitment was only a word to me -
A word so easily spoken,
A promise made for many reasons
And all too often, broken.

Oh I’ve built a mountain of good intentions,
And though each was a solemn vow,
With every new day or come setting sun,
I could see where I’d failed, somehow.

One day as I watched an ant hill
Being shaped out of hard, rocky, ground,
My mind came off of the mountain
And true commitment I found.

We don’t learn to walk by running,
Nor does Trust build Her house in a day,
Like the ant we must be faithfully willing
To pick up and carry God’s clay.

Most of the time our ideals are far too lofty for God. We want to build mountains…He only wants ant hills. We get so carried away by “doing”….
all He wants is our “being………”

Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther