Facebook Excerpts

On Priorities

There was a horrible mix-up in the breakfast program where I live this winter one day when schools were on late schedule. As a result, the breakfast was not available. There were some very hungry children, needing to eat because they were getting physically ill from hunger. I have a friend who teaches here and she and other teachers were scrambling through their personal goody stashes to hand out Cheezits and other goodies. The issue has been resolved, thankfully. There are bookbag programs at the community colleges, many churches and service organizations to provide food for children who have no access to reliable nutrition on the weekend. Puddings, Fruit Cups, Juice Boxes, Snack Crackers. Dammit, people, children need to eat. What in the name of all that is holy is wrong with our society?

I have nothing against animals, handicapped children, bullied children, missing adults, children with ADHD, Autism, Aspergers or anything else. But it puzzles me the way people will jump on the bandwagon of a "trending" issue and get all frothing at the mouth and sit back and blame the children by default by disparaging the fact that they are in a position of need and receive free/reduced lunches or have to depend on adults who receive government benefits.

There were over 2 million people that liked a Facebook Page for a little boy who felt othered at school, he received dozens of gifts, thousands of cards, went on GMA, was given a trip to Disney World. That is great, I am happy for him. Why not pay this type of care and attention to the children in every school system in this country who depend on schools who are closed on weekends and during breaks and vacation as the primary source of their nutrition?

Do we not draw a correlation between poor test scores and nutritional deficiencies? We should be doing so. If you are hungry you get headaches, you cannot concentrate, your blood sugar levels will spike and drop. School funding is tied to test scores, teachers are punished because the children perform poorly. Look in the cafeteria!

Look at your priorities, people. Personally, I think people pay attention to and give towards big stories as a way of avoiding the bigger problems. That is why we are so concerned about Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian and Lindsey Lohan.

On Life and Loss

One thing that happens with increasing frequency as you grow older is the passing away of people who are a part of the weaving of the fabric of your life. Our parents, relatives, friends, neighbors. Growing up in a small town, as I did, and having a large family and an even larger 'almost family', as I have, these losses are coming faster and faster for me.

My father, who was born in 1915, lived... most of his life in the same neighborhood. There was a family that lived across from my grandparents by the name of Shook. They had a son, Bill, who had 3 daughters and a son. His oldest daughter Kathy is the same age as my sister. They had a daughter, Helen, who had 3 daughters and a son. Her two oldest daughters are the same age as my sister and me. They had a daughter, Margie, who has (I think!) two sons and a daughter. There was a blind gentleman, Willard, who was a relative of the Shooks that lived with them that I remember giving us sticks of Juicy Fruit gum. Mrs. Shook still lives in the same house.

At various times, we (Ed, Carol, Mom, and myself) delivered the Bluefield Daily Telegraph to the Shooks, Margie's family, and Helen's family. (Bill did not live in Dalton Addition) Bill became a well known and much loved minister in our little community.

Word has reached me this morning that he passed away yesterday, and thus the fabric of my past has another broken thread. He may not have remembered me if I had encountered him these past years, and I doubt that any of his children other than Kathy would know who I am. I feel very badly for them, losing a father is a hard thing to go through. He lived well, was well loved, and will be well remembered. That is a wonderful legacy. They will be surrounded by family and friends, looked after with care and concern. Because that is what we do for each other.

When people are hurting, we look after them with care and concern. That is the good, and fine, and noble part of being a human. Love, care and concern for one another. And when we do it well, we can become a thread in the fabric that makes up another young person's life that is woven in a distinct manner that will be missed when it breaks, as all threads eventually do. (From March 15)

 

My Husband

 

Hello, Owl here. Today is a very special day, it is Apple's birthday. Join me in wishing him a big Happy Birthday in appreciation for the creativity, vision and talent he shares with the world. He is the embodiment of the term "gentle giant", standing tall at 6'6" and having a heart that is as big as the outdoors he prefers to spend his time in. ( From March 14)

 

A Poem

There may have been unicorns
In the wee hours of this day
Mist hung in the air
Dripping from the bare branches
Almost indiscernible buds beginning to form
On the tips of the trees
Wild violets are out
Soon to carpet the yard
Followed by dandelion
And clover...
The creek has been singing all winter
Ever on the move
That is why I think there may have been
Unicorns in the wee hours
They daintily snack on
Tender young violets
Sip from the cold creek pools
Slip away in the mist
Seen only by sharp eyed cats
And the fairies of the land

~Roberta Ellen Apple 03/15/2014

 

 

Happy Birthday to my daughter

I love you.

When I realized I was pregnant, I felt a weight of immense responsibility.

I was not nearly as mature as prepared for motherhood as I should have been.

I was wise enough to know I could not give you the life you deserved, so I made the decision to entrust you to a loving, caring family.

They did not disappoint.

I never, ever stopped thinking about you. The day my telephone rang and I heard your adult voice the first time was a day I rank second only to the day I met you in person. All else fades to insignificance.

I gave birth to you but you have given me so much more these past years.

My darkest days have a hope now, because I know you are there. Thank you.

My father would have been 97 yesterday ...

On March 12, 1915, Robert Ernest “Poss” Smith was born to John Robert and Mattie Mae {Ernest} Smith. He was the third of eight children and the second of three sons.

When he was born, the family lived in the Bluefield, Virginia, area where his father was a locomotive Engineer for Norfolk and Western Railroad. While he was still a small child, the family moved to Richlands, Virginia, and settled in an area of town known as Dalton Addition. The family first lived in a 2-story wooden framed house typical of the era. As the children grew and extended family began to visit more frequently, his parents built a new, larger brick home on their property.

Poss was an adventurous child, and would often go off on his own to explore and amuse himself. His sisters told stories later in life of how adept he was at disappearing on the walk to church on Sundays, coming home hours later with stained clothing and a sheepish grin. He was given the nickname “Possum”, later shortened to Poss, at an early age, an apparent reference to his tendency to sneak off on his own. Poss was very much his mothers son, in part attributed to his father’s line of work. Being a train engineer was a time consuming profession and it had fallen upon Mattie to shoulder the bulk of the instruction and discipline of the children. From all accounts he had a happy childhood, and excelled in his studies in school.

Poss had aspirations of becoming a teacher of history, a dream that did not find favor with his father John and a series of defining events in his life began to unfold. John would not willingly finance a college education for the boy, who graduated from Richlands High School in 1931, about 3 months after his sixteenth birthday. A compromise was struck and he attained a 2 year certificate from a business college. He declined to go to work for Norfolk and Western and follow in his fathers footsteps, opting instead to try his hand at coal mining.

As he grew older he developed an appetite for alcohol that would play a destructive role in his life over years, the physical affects would eventually contribute to life altering ailments. He married a woman who was slightly older than he, Evelyn Stallard from Wise County, Virginia, and they quickly had fraternal twins, Larry and Gary. His inlaws were farmers, owning good sized apple orchards. Evelyn soon made apparent her desire that they live on her parents’ property and expected Poss to work for her father and with her brother in the orchards. He was not keen on this, and the couple fought bitterly. Evelyn moved back to her parents’ home when the children were very small, and Poss spent the next years rambling about the world.

I am unsure as to what he did when, but know the general idea of those years. His sister Fay and her husband Farris settled in Florida, and he spent no small amount of time there. He told me once that he had a job at one point that entailed going out into the ocean off the coast in the Cape Canaveral area and retrieving the experimental rockets that were being tested by the precursor to NASA. I have no doubt he worked hard at whatever he did, and played hard as well.

He spent no small amount of time in the Merchant Marines, and was aboard merchant ships during WWII. He used to tell us about the various ports he had visited, and of being on at least one vessel that took enemy fire from German submarines while transporting supplies to Allied forces and crossing the Black Sea. He had been ashore in France, England, Turkey, and Egypt and sailed around the horn of Africa. He spoke of Paris, Cairo, Ankara and other cities. He sailed out of New York and New Jersey most frequently. He was recruited to attend officers’ school while in the Merchant Marines but declined. He had a few scars from minor mishaps and suffered from the effects of malaria for as long as I could remember, having tremors and sweats for which he was prescribed medicine. When he would return from a voyage, he would send part of his pay to his mother, part of it for the support of his sons, and he would drink and carouse until he was broke with the remainder. From time to time he would find himself on a train headed to Virginia, where his mother would lovingly nurse him back to health.

He developed bleeding stomach ulcers as a result of his lifestyle and was ‘home’ to get healthy when he and my mother met.

My father was the best read man I have ever known. There were few subjects he could not converse about with no authority. 

He was in his forties when my sister and I, and our younger brother, were born. He had developed diabetes by the time he was 50, and suffered from congestive heart failure. He spent the last years of his working life as a salesman and warehouse foreman for a wholesale grocer in our town. He gardened well, growing an amazing volume and variety of food.

My father was sarcastic, and had an extremely jaded view of mankind. He was kind and lenient with his three youngest children and a loving grandfather in his later years. He thought of those he loved first, always. He had close friends he talked and visited with often. He loved cherry pie, apple pie, Boston cream pie and pound cake. He had a weakness for Reese’s cups and Kit Kat bars. He drank hot tea with milk and sweetener with his evening meal and always had fruit and cottage cheese as well.

When we were small we climbed over under and on him as if he were a jungle gym. I cannot count the times my mother punished me as a child, yet remember with shame the times he did so.

I am a spoiled woman today because he spoiled me as a child, and my sister will tell you the same.

I could, and one day may, write a book about him. Even then there would be much untold.

He passed away less than a month after his 71^st birthday in 1986. I can still hear his voice in my dreams, and would like nothing more than to be able to make him lunch one more time. Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup and Lane cake for dessert. I think he would be pleased.

I love you, Daddy.