I am so old school, behind the times, out of the loop and still think of the nineteen seventies as being twenty years ago. And this isn't much of a stretch by any means. Just ask my husband and three kids (aka) professional eye rollers.
I've had to consciously wean myself off my iPad and smart(is it really)iPhone. I do totally ignore my phone when driving. If it's an emergency they will call me ten times in a row and then I will pull over and answer. One call or text can wait in my driving manual. I also hate driving in the rain, at night or in heavy traffic, or somewhere I'm not used to driving.
In other words I want to be a Driven Miss Daisy, and kinda feel like I at least deserve that by this point in life.
I don't think that's too much to ask. Do you?
Trust me, I know some Karens who would demand a whole lot more at my retired age of almost sixty five.
I first came across Jelly Roll after seeing a TikTok video of a middle school kid playing guitar and singing his song (Save Me) for a talent show at his school. When the entire gymnasium began to sing along with him it literally gave me chills. All these kids, sixth, seventh and eighth graders knew every word to this song and it was a telling sign to me.
Our kids today, and by that I mean even ones in their 20's 30's sometimes need help, validation and encouragement. It can be one thing or maybe even one song that flips the switch to make a difference. That thing which makes you know you can be better and more importantly makes you feel like you want to be better, and aren't alone in your journey or battle.
My goodness but did I stumble as a young adult in my twenties. Nothing too radical and consider myself extremely lucky, but had many friends who weren't as fortunate. Some I physically lost, some rebounded and some even bounced way ahead of me and left me in the dust...but good for them!!
Life isn't as simple as it was when I grew up in the sixties and seventies. Sure we had our problems. Segregation and the Vietnam war to name just two, both discussed in hushed tones and in private. I don't remember hearing about a lot of hard drug abuse, at least not in our small community located just fifteen minutes from the center of downtown Atlanta.
I can remember on Friday nights our parents would take us to eat at the Varsity for dinner. Huge deal for us as kids...and still a huge deal for me every time I pass through the ATL. After dinner sometimes he would drive us up Peachtree Street to look at the hippies sitting on the walls and along the curbs lining 14th Street. It was mesmerizing, fascinating and spooky all at the same time. It was just so out of context for me as a kid, growing up in a city which was a cross between Mayberry and Mayfield. Opie and Beaver...what a great combination for a most joyful upbringing. Then he would cruise back up Peachtree and stop by the Planter's Peanut Shop to get us a huge bag of warm roasted peanuts. He would jump out of the station wagon, my mother would scoot over and drive it around the block while he went inside to buy them and by the time she made to loop he was standing curbside with our big yummy warm bag of roasted peanuts. The smell was borderline heavenly, and yes they had a huge Mr. Peanut outside the shop wearing his trademark monocle.
That was about as crazy as my life got growing up.
I can't even begin to imagine the pressures kids today are growing up with and amongst. Social networking and the cyber world in general are, and often have been, death for many a bullied or tortured tween or teen. I can tell you with full confidence that it would have cut me to my soul when I was in high school. I didn't date a lot, I was never asked to prom or went to one. It stung a little more because my older sister was like the bomb dot com in high school, before that term ever came about. A majorette, voted Valentine Queen, Homecoming Queen, dated the star quarterback who also happened to be a Golden Gloves boxing champion by the age of seventeen and there I was in my bedroom listening to the Tapestry album by Carole King and (ironically) At Seventeen by Janis Ian.
My mother died very suddenly (less than 30 seconds) a couple of weeks after my seventeenth birthday. Two weeks before my senior year of high school started. It wasn't like I was a nobody. I was the Varsity cheerleading captain, in hindsight probably because no one else wanted it, but at least I had an embroidered CAPTAIN patch on the upper arm of my cheerleading sweater and jacket. This was 1977, which by todays standard means I never went viral or had thousands of followers...but at least I wasn't made fun of. (that I ever knew about) That was the barometer we cruelly used when I went to high school.
I was a bully in high school without realizing it. If someone wasn't 'popular' ...voted onto Valentine Court or Homecoming Court, or an amazing jock or an absolute beauty, we would make fun of them. I am ashamed of the person I was then.
The craziest thing is that I mainly did it to make really popular people laugh, making me think I was one of them...'the beautiful people' therefore clinging onto them by making them laugh at me making fun of the people we both laughed at.
Is that effed up or what?
While I have (almost) finally reached peace with myself after fifty years of trying to pay it forward, pay it back and just be there if someone needs something I can possibly help with, it still doesn't feel like enough.
Kids today have it a thousand times worse with all the cyber junk out there, social media and instant posting of literally every single thing they do every single second within the proximity of any celluar device.
Talk about spooky.
Between my own three kids, I bet they had no less than ten casualties of classmates, friends or acquaintances while in high school or shortly after. That's a whole lotta funerals for a teen ager to have to attend and a whole lot of broken hearted parents and relatives. And my youngest graduated high school in 2013 so no telling what the statistics are now.
I do feel a beginning shift. I feel like we are bringing more attention to mental health and hopefully removing the stigma of "Mental Illness" as a death sentence or something to be ashamed of.
This video of this middle school kid...my very first inkling of even hearing about Jelly Roll, touched me.
How awesome is this kid and how many people may he have helped get through their day who felt lost and unheard?
Kudos to Jelly Roll for reaching out to this young man after he saw this video. It takes a village.
And yes, Gage Jude won the talent show at his middle school.
Be a part of your own village or someone's that needs help too.
Till next time...COTTON
When I was a kid, Halloween was always great fun but was a one day deal. (well two, because you had to eat all that left over candy the very next day before your siblings took it) But no more, no less. It was a two day sugar fest. Of course as a kid you looked forward to it for weeks, had that costume your mom bought you at the local A&P on grocery day, made of flammable material with a hard plastic mask held on by a stretchy string going around the back of your head and basically suffocating you throughout your journey around the neighborhood.
Talk about a good time. (adult sarcasm)
By the time you got to the first house you were already huffing and puffing behind the mask, snot running down your nose because it was hard to breathe through two punched out holes the size of lady bugs and eye holes on a mask that didn't line up with the ones on your actual face and were even harder to see out of.
Once again, fun times. (total eye roll and chuckle from me at the age of sixty four) But boy oh boy did we love it.
The past two years we have volunteered to help with the neighborhood Halloween party. My kids are too old to Trick or Treat but don't mind helping make it fun for the kids still roaming our streets and living in our hood.
Throw a neighborhood party at the park in our neck of the palms and almost everybody shows up. Halloween, Christmas, Chili Cook Off in January, Easter Egg hunt, Memorial Day, fishing tournament for Father's Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day....rinse and repeat.
Not a bad place to live.
Oh we rocked it this year. When putting all the empty tubs back into the storage shed at the park after getting all the decorations out, we came across a ghoul about twelve feet long. Battered, obviously at least a decade old and kinda not in the best of shape. I told my daughter to take it to the front of the park entrance and hang it up high enough where you couldn't see how beat up it was but would be great to see from afar.
She came back from the entrance less than five minutes later and suggested running it up the flag pole by the lake.
Talk about perfect!
It was nice to see so many happy, fun loving kids...just being kids and all getting along.
All monitored by adults but given the reign to just be kids.
These are unfortunately divisive and tumultuous times in our world, our country and even our own communities.
I know our views don't always align with a majority of the neighbors we live around but we strive to be good stewards, neighbors and friends you can rely on. And on the flip side, they have never let us down. Not once.
I think this country could learn a lot from the people living here in our little hidden hamlet, inside a nature preserve, scrambling to keep it out of the hands of bulldozers and deep pockets of developers.
As John and Paul put it (Beatles not Apostles)
"COME TOGETHER, RIGHT NOW...OVER ME"
Think about it.
Politicians are not our friends. Ballots are.
And yes I still have one of these desks. Complete with the pencil/or pen holder carved into the top of the desk and the hole on the side for an ink well. One desk butted up to the next. Your desk provided the seat fold down in front for the next student who sat behind someone else. I'm not sure where my mother got the desks, but at one point me and both my sibs had one as a night stand in our childhood bedroom.
Those big iron legs, which kind of remind me of the legs on the old sewing machines you pumped with your feet. Our neighbor had one when we were growing up.
It's like this. It may be 2024, almost 2025, but I was born in 1960 and my memories of those times are a lot more cheerful and a whole lot simpler.
People NEVER discussed or talked politics, or religion back then. They only expressed their political opinions behind the polling curtain...and yes they used to have a curtain to pull shut behind you.
We're down to crunch time, and thank goodness we are. I can't take much more of this insanity. What used to be political issues turned into moral issues for me, and it was all downhill from there. Yes all politicians have an agenda. What do you expect with all the millions put into their war chest from the upper class Billionaire conglomerates who control everything from banking to groceries to technology and oil? They are literally holding this country hostage while they laugh all the way to the bank. And I mean Democrats as well as Republicans. It's a swamp, it is wide and it is what is dividing this nation.
What is wrong with us now?
When I was a kid growing up in the 1960's, families, friends and acquaintances from both sides of the aisle all got along and politics were never ever an issue, nor was it ever brought up in conversation.
I also grew up during the civil rights movement, into and through the Vietnam war and in the seventies a whole lot of Watergate, a massive energy crisis and eventually a hostage crisis. All of that going on but we all seemed to still get along and no fingers were pointed or accusations made at each other. I will say that's when politics got snarky. Then they bashed Jimmy Carter. Really? Did they hate him because he was a peanut farmer or because he was a Christian?
Where did our camaraderie as a nation go and why did it leave?
I have my own thoughts about that, we all do, but take a moment before you make or share that post. Vet those facts. Do some due diligence, research, I hate to say fact check because the minions have made it an eye rolling word in my book but be intelligent, be educated and be aware of social media and all the fake crap it puts out as truth.
It's not necessarily true if it's posted or shared on Facebook, and more importantly...most probably isn't.
Don't be a part of the problem. Let's seek a solution together.
Till next time...COTTON
She was a living doll. She didn't say ten words her first few years, but once she found her voice has used it for the greater good and doesn't mind turning the volume up when needed or necessary.
She's a huge believer in equality and inclusiveness. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body and her heart is bigger than big, almost to the point of exploding. She spends more of her money on other people than she does on herself... on a regular basis, and is always without strings or expectations.
Simply said, Massey's a good person with a heart of gold.
I'm not sure there wasn't a baby swap at birth, although I was knocked out when they sliced my stomach open and took the little booger out of me but she's a keeper and hopefully we've reached the statute of limitations if there were a mistake.
I have drilled into all my kids' heads since they were little the importance of voting. Every.Single.Time.
It's the only way (in my humble opinion) to change things. It's the only way to get absolutely anything done. Deep pockets and the greedy one percent of this country/corporation and conglomerates have held us hostage for too long...while they all laugh at us all the way to the bank.
I don't care what party you are affiliated with (kinda a stretch at this particular point) but if every SINGLE REGISTERED VOTER voted every single time, can you even imagine how it could change our course? And what about how many people who are eligible to vote but don't register to do so?
We, as a nation have to be smarter than this and smarter than them.
I applaud Massey for her efforts. It wasn't easy, it took a couple of dedicated weeks and literally hours and hours and hours of her time. Of course my friends kicked in to help her when she realized how much postage for 600 postcards would take. It was a lot. Not kidding.
I don't care who you are voting for (well I do care but is also absolutely none of my business) but above all importance is the actual casting of a ballot. How can you not choose or care about casting a vote if you are eligible to do so?
It's literally the foundation of our country.
Kudos to you, Massey Cotton. This world is so much better with you in it. You make me proud every day.
You were so tiny back then. I never expected how huge of an impact you would make. Rock on Sis!!
Once again we dodged the ole hurricane bullet. We know it won't be that way every single time but will take and be grateful for all the misses we can. People always say how they would never live here because of hurricanes. At least with canes you have days if not weeks to prepare. Tornadoes and earthquakes just blindside you with no notice whatsoever.
On the upside, living here the rest of the time is a complete weather pleasure. Granted you have a few chilly days scattered in during January but by February spring is poking its head again. After almost eight years of living here I've learned my favorite season is anytime.
We are far enough inland to feel basically safe(r) from a hurricane storm surge although we also realize that we can still have significant to devastating damage. Potato/Potahtoe.
Bad things can happen anywhere, at any time, to anyone.
That is why you need to live where you feel happy. We were happy in Georgia for decades and decades. Then the opportunity came up for Tim to transfer here with a pretty big promotion so he took it. He lived here for well over a year before we followed him down. My brother graciously let Tim live at his house, probably the longest year of his bachelor life, but we were/are grateful for his hospitality.
I enjoy the warmer weather. We still have a touch of autumn and a whisking of winter but most of the time it's flip flops and shorts.
My favorite uniform.
I'm not even sure why I still have a sock drawer. I could get by with a four pack of footies and a pair of tube socks just in case. Instead I have a huge drawer stuffed with so many socks I could put on a sock puppet Woodstock, including the attending crowd of socks.
Tomorrow I am purging that drawer, boxing up the probably fifty pair of random socks and mailing them to a non profit in a much colder climate. I'm including the many heavy sweaters and a whole bunch of jeans that I just store under a window cabinet in my bedroom. Why in the world do I need ten pair of Levi's? Levi shorts, maybe...but long pants? No.
I did give away or donate most of my winter coats after moving here. Seemed silly to hang onto them after a year or so of living here.
And the comforters and sheets to beds we no longer have? Why am I hoarding old blankets and comforters?
Maybe I'm the reason for poverty in third world countries. (kidding but not kidding)
All good questions.
Some comments are meant to be lighthearted or in jest, but still...why am I hanging on to all these things? Especially when they could be made useful and make a difference to someone else.
I'll be honest. I think we're all tired of cleaning up after Helene and Milton. They must have been one miserable married couple to wreak the havoc they did on the east coast...and up into the mountains.
Weather, good and bad is everywhere. You can't run from Mother Nature, she'll always beat you. Every time.
I'm getting a pile together tomorrow...a big pile.
I'll keep my most sentimental and favorite hoodies, of course my Harley jacket and about two days worth of cold outfits. That's usually the length of a cold snap here, so the rest is only taking up space instead of helping someone else who needs it.
I still have clothes I wore when I first met Tim in the late eighties. I even have the pajamas my Diddy wore when he was wheeled into the hospital in 2002 with West Nile Virus. I still have the wedding dress my mother wore when she married our Diddy in the early 1950's. It's in a garbage bag in my garage, in horrific condition but wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
I have so many towels, clothes, blankets, sheets, comforters, kitchen gadgets and random small appliances that I could go on the old "Let's Make a Deal" and totally get on stage.
I feel a bit ashamed that I haven't thought of this yet...but I've thought of it now.
Freeing up my junk space, which is awesome but also providing someone else an even better space.
Being a good person.
That's all it takes...and doesn't cost one red cent.
Til next time...COTTON
This was posted before the first (majorish) hurricane after moving here to Orlando. It still makes me laugh, but still makes me mad she's a free woman.
Here we are again, years and storms down the road. This one is named Milton and is currently packing 180 mph winds as a Cat 5.
Yowza.
Here's the thing with hurricanes. It's either going to blow you off the map or blow on by like an annoying neighbor who's been knocking on your door for days like Gladys Kravitz.
We've been through both, although we have been very lucky thus far. I've heard from friends and neighbors we've met here that Charley was a monster and parts of Orlando were out of power for an entire month. Are you kidding me?? I would have already moved to another state by the end of week one. Of course we have learned a lot since then. Our first hurricane we stocked up on tons of food that went bad in our freezer and refrigerator after four days without power...with no ice to be found within a fifty mile radius.
I feel like we are true, thinking Floridians now. We bought a nice size generator and a propane tank about the size of a smart car to fuel it. We live on a well so if the power goes out, no water. Total bummer.
Now we can bypass just the hot water heater and A/C and everything else will work as usual. If we need hot water we can bypass another breaker and heat the hot water tank, then switch back. As far as the A/C our house was built in 1967...when rooms had multiple windows and cross ventilation. We have five windows in our bedroom alone, a lanai off our living room with french doors opening up to it and four huge windows in our kitchen, Massey has a small screened in porch off her bedroom...not to mention we have ceiling fans in every room. Unless an anomaly of a storm (jinx don't speak a word) occurs we'll be okay. Our biggest concern is that it has rained and rained and rained here for the past month or so. Our yards are beyond soaked, and so are the tree roots.
Not a good scenario, but what are you gonna do?
We were in the Keys (arrived early this past Saturday) for our annual vacation when forecasters determined we were in deep dodo back in Orlando when Milton finally made landfall late this Wednesday near Tampa. Already a Cat 5 and headed our way next.
We spent all day Saturday on the dock and Sunday as well before deciding even though the Keys were out of the warning area, our homes and dogs back in Orlando weren't. So we loaded everything back up into our vehicles and left early Monday morning way before daylight even thought about poking its head out.
The good news is we came home with our suitcases full of clean unworn clothes and a weeks worth of groceries, drinks and staples.
We spent the day getting our ducks in a row, resting from no sleep and making a game plan for tomorrow.
I have almost as much furniture in my yards, front and back and under my pergola as I do inside my house. That's where I spend the majority of my time so I like to have all options open. A hammock you say? Got one! A chair under an umbrella covered six seater table to sit and eat? Come on out and have a plate of food! A pergola? Do you want to sit in the rocker or the glider?
Adirondack chairs with foot stools under three beautiful trumpets trees above you and a bird bath behind you which is regularly visited by cardinals, thrashers, blue jays, wood peckers... hummingbird feeders busy, squirrel feeders and suets almost being fought over and generally a most pleasant experience for a sixty four year old woman to spend her retirement? I'm your girl!
We're shoving everything into the utility shed at the back of our property tomorrow, including the glass/tile patio table with the umbrella and six chairs.
Milton may be bad. May not be bad...but at least we're home to make sure we can do everything in our power to take care of everything we call and know as HOME.
Helene taught us a lesson which should always be remembered. Mother Nature always wins.
Hunkering down with our dogs, hopefully plenty of supplies, preparations galore and a lot of hope.
Til next time...COTTON
The above photo was our first big hurricane experience after moving here in 2016. We were still living in the sardine can rental with three big dogs who had decided they didn't like each other anymore, any of the time. We woke up to no fence and three big dogs we had to walk separately multiple times a day. Talk about fun!
We stocked up on all the wrong kind of food. The power was out for almost four days and bags of ice to purchase became non existent on day one. We had to toss so much lunch meat, ground beef and chicken. What was I thinking? Obviously I wasn't or I would have concentrated on battery operated fans, peanut butter, chips, and baby wipes. We lived and learned quick with Irma. Luckily our landlord had his peeps come over and put the fence back up on day two. It still wasn't fun and was hotter than an F bomb. I would go sit in our car in the driveway just to get cool with the A/C and charge my phone. I would have slept there but gas stations were running out of fuel too.
There was a senior living facility across the street from us who had these huge generators, humming loudly enough to remind me that I was melting while older peeps still had A/C and oxygen. I told Tim on day two I was going to walk across the street and sign myself in.
I was close to not kidding.
We've only had a couple of hurricanes since then which have messed with us in any kind of significant way.
You learn quick about hurricane prep down here, and you learn even quicker who your friends are.
Our neighborhood is an eclectic one. Some living here are the beginning of third generation families. We are also sprinkled with new move ins, transplants from other cities and states, and even countries.
We're a melting pot of society huddled in a small slice of paradise, surrounded on all sides by a lake, a state park, a marsh preserve and a nature preserve. A hard thing to find these days in Orlando.
Most of our community, or at least the most vocal part, are pretty much straight up Trump fans who would never vote Democrat or Independent in a million years. (if they lived that long)
That's their right and more power to them but dang...why do some of them have to be so "in your face" with it?!
Number one I have voted across party lines my entire life since turning eighteen in 1978. Do my ideals lean more left than right? Absolutely, but never do I just vote a straight ticket ballot. And number two, it's nobody's business who I support or vote for. That's the way it was when I was little and that's the way it should be now. Political choices should only be expressed behind the proverbial voting curtain...which was an actual curtain when I was young. Even my own parents refused to tell us three siblings who they voted for, every election, every time. Politics and religion simply weren't up for discussion when I was a kid or even a young adult.
That's the way it should still be, but after the 2020 election, politics turned into a mud slinging, name calling, bullying slander fest with absolute nonsense and hate filled venom. And if I'm being honest, one person is guilty of inciting it the most and seems to revel in it more than anyone, which is extremely disturbing to me.
Talk about a hurricane of epic size and devastation for the entire nation?!! We're better than this and now is the time to come together and work together to leave this country a better place for my children and grandchildren...and their children.
Anyhoo...enough of that. I need to practice what I preach, and by the way, so do all politicians.
So on a much (hopefully) lighter note, we are leaving for vacation early this Saturday morning. And by early I mean pulling out of the driveway at four AM. For the past several few years we spend the second week of October in the Keys. We rent the same place every year. It's in the lower Keys about twenty minutes from Key West. Close enough to the wonderful craziness of all that is Key West but far enough from it to be a private, hidden gem with every amenity you could want. A literal one minute walk to the end of the dock from the house. Not one red light. A couple of really great local restaurants, shops and fresh seafood markets.
So Helene (hurricane that is) kinda of got us nervous but skirted right on by us, wreaking absolute havoc after she left Orlando. The devastation is mind boggling. How many people do you think who live in Asheville, North Carolina even think about or consider hurricane preparedness? Not to mention north Georgia, Tennessee and everywhere else her nasty self visited or sat over.
Maw Naytch don't play... by any rules but her own, and always gets her way.
So we're forging ahead with our plans. Granted there is a tropical depression brewing but at worst is predicted to be nothing like Helene and only has a 40% chance of developing and heading to the Keys.
If it's just a minor wind event (as predicted) so what? It's supposed to rain here in Orlando every day next week, like it has for the past month. It's never been this rainy for so long since our moving here. Mildew and skeeters everywhere...we have a lot of outdoor space and areas where we relax, eat and entertain. Great most all the time but not this past month. Thank goodness climate change is a hoax. (NOT)
I told Tim if it was going to rain here all week anyway, I'd much rather be in the Keys, even if it rains there a little. At least we'll be looking at the ocean from under the covered dock or from one of the two covered porches at the house. In my book a rainy day at the beach is better than no day at the beach. Saltwater heals everything.
We have learned after living here for almost eight (seems crazy, feels like two or three) years that there is nothing you can do about hurricanes. You just learn to live with the possibility and eventuality of them at some point in time. Besides that small window, it's paradise (for me) living here and feels well worth the risk. Hurricanes have a mind and direction of their own and can change it in the matter of a couple of hours...for the better or for the worse.
If need be, with given notice and warning from the proper authorities we can pack up and head out of harms way. If not, we're at the beach and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
Praying for sunshine, will accept a little rain but plan on relaxing, laughing, eating, enjoying the view, the company and having an adult beverage or two. We can always snorkel around the dock even if it's raining...we'd be getting wet anyway!
I'm a player. Put me in Coach!
Till next time...COTTON
