JOHN E. MOORE SHARES 9-11-2001 MEMORIES

Our local newspaper, THE SAN ANGELO STANDARD TIMES, invited readers to share their 9-11-2001 memories in 250 words or less.  The following is the recall by my husband JOHN E. MOORE:

On September 11, 2001, I was teaching Air Force personnel at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida.  The students, from bases throughout the world, had come to learn Air Staff approved policies and techniques.  One student was from Goodfellow and the course proctor represented the Air Education and Training Command, Randolph AFB.  During mid-morning break, some of the students saw on TV that a plane had hit the World Trade Center; therefore, most of the class was gathered around the TV when the second tower was hit.  Security at NAS Jacksonville was immediately raised.  Non-essential personnel were asked to leave the base.  Many of the students were housed in a local hotel so the Academy arranged to have the remaining classes presented there. 

Looking back on that morning I can think of no place I would rather have been than with professionals dedicated to providing outstanding support to the military and their families.  I had worked in housing at bases throughout the country as a Command Specialist at AF Material Command before coming to Goodfellow for the last 5 of my 26 civilian service years.  Retired from civil service in August, 2000, I was offered a job as course developer and instructor for the National Center for Housing Management.  I spent the next 4 years teaching courses in Hawaii, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Jacksonville.  No class stands out as clearly in my memory as the class that was moved off base because Muslim Jihadists had attacked our country.    

COLORS

Colors make me feel happy inside. Unless you know the sensation, there seems no way I can explain it to you. It is just there.

Years ago we lived near a mill where yarn was manufactured. One of my greatest joys was being able to go to their factory outlet to buy yarn by the pound. Seeing those colors through the clear plastic bags brought my imagination to life as I envisioned a crocheted yellow cape for our daughter from one and a multi-striped full-sized afghan for my husband from another. When I came out of the store carrying the purchases, my husband’s imagination could see the possibility of the cape; however, of the afghan he wasn’t so sure. Once we got home and he saw me pulling the many pieces and lengths of colors from the bag, looking more like a mother hen plucking resistant worms from the ground than a sensible woman getting ready to crochet a large afghan, he really began to question the outcome.

As I sat on the couch, pulling free first a length of cardinal red yarn, then making a ball from a Kelly green one, I explained, “Colors make me happy.” John sat across the room from me in his recliner, shaking his head, wondering aloud how I was ever going to get that tangled mess undone, let alone make anything resembling an afghan from it. That kind of comment was exactly enough to make me more determined than ever to show him just what I could do!

After an evening of separating and balling yarns, leaving my inner eyelids resembling the colorful fabric of the costumes of clowns, I was sleepy enough to call it a day. Oh, but I was feeling happy because I knew I was ready to start the promised afghan after a restful night.

For a few weeks, once the work of the day was completed, I had many colorful evenings keeping my hands busy. My lap grew warmer with each passing night. Hubby sitting across the living room marveled as Johnny’s Cover of Many Colors continued to grow larger and the clear plastic bag of many colored yarn balls grew smaller.

Eventually the day came when I was able to present Mr. John, my husband, with the afghan that he has since used for about thirty years to “cover his button” (referring to his tummy) as he naps in his recliner.

We live a long way from the yarn factory now, but with yarn that lasts that long, I don’t have to crochet anymore. Now I can turn to computer-generated greeting cards and digital photos for my color fix.

Did I tell you colors make me happy?

© Marilyn Sue (Libby) Moore 9-1-2011

SPECIAL PEOPLE IN MY LIFE

Recently there has been some discussion on Facebook as to whether or not the friends we meet there are real or not. Some have pointed out that Facebook friends cannot be in your immediate presence so are not the same as “real” friends.

I thought about that this morning as I wrote the following to my Facebook friends:

“Good Morning, Special People in my life. Because I see your faces* when your names pop up on my computer, I smile many times in each day, both on my face and in my heart. Thank you for being an important part of what makes me who I am. Because you bring so many smiles to me, I have many to send back your way. Catch one and hold it in your heart and wear it on your face for this day.” (*meaning, in my mind)

Has anyone read, “A stranger is a friend you’ve not yet met”? A little over a year ago, many of my Facebook friends were strangers to me. We met in a writing group, our personalities clicked, and we became friends as we interacted through the various writer sites. Later we picked up the interwoven thread of friendship and have continued it through Facebook, being introduced to and adding a few more along the way.

Not all my FB friends were unknown, because many are family members (although some of those are now grown whom I’ve not seen since they were children) or longtime friends from all over the United States. However, if we carry out the premise that only the family and friends who can reach out and touch are able to give comfort, then I’m in big trouble. Other than my husband, the closest family members I have live about a three-hour drive from us. I do have a number of local friends who were friends prior to Facebook. They meet what seems to be the above-mentioned standard of being real by living within our city blocks, but like some physical family associations, some personalities mesh better than others. I know I have more in common with some of my online friends I’ve never met than I do with some of these with whom I’ve spent many hours. It’s what Anne of Green Gables refers to as “a kindred spirit.” It’s either there or it’s not.

I think I understand what those who seem to be throwing cold water on the fires of Facebook friendships are trying to get across. When we are facing life’s trials, there is nothing in this world as comforting as being in the arms of a loved one, whether it’s a daily greeting or a hug of sympathy. It is just plain good to know someone else is standing or sitting beside you when you have long hours at a hospital or you are facing some other life stress. However, having lived so far away from family and most of our loved ones for the majority of my years, there have been times when either receiving or giving physical presence has been an impossibility for me. Perhaps that’s how I have come to know the value of these online friendships, the ones who to me are real people. Some, but not all, may even remain faceless except in my mind, but the ones who are my special friends are real whether they live near or far, whether I have met them in person or not, and each one, being a real friend, carries a piece of my heart making each one a special person in my life.

M. Sue 8-24-2011

USPS ---- Uh-h-h, REALLY?

My husband is the Internet greeting card sender for our family. While he is preparing his list and checking it twice, often I am also at my computer doing my own thing, that of creating a snail mail greeting card for the same person. This way, on their birthdays, special people are twice-blessed; once with the lovely or lively interactive Internet card he chooses and once with the one I design with carefully selected photos and words, sometimes my own. That is, we aim for deliveries on, or at least near, the birthdays, but as I learned last night, it just doesn’t always work out that way.

I was quite surprised to read in a friend’s e-mail that the card I snail-mailed July 19th for her July 23rd birthday from San Angelo, Texas, had just reached her yesterday, August 9th, in Andersonville, Tennessee. She sent the message to tell me she hoped I didn’t think her rude or uncaring in not thanking me earlier, along with her explanation as to why. She said she was “taken aback” when she noted the postmark date.

I e-mailed back to say I thought no such thing as her being rude or uncaring, that I am thankful the USPS finally found their way from San Angelo to Andersonville! I added, “Your message has given me pause for thought: perhaps I need to prepare your husband's October 13th card and get it in the mail ASAP in order to assure timely arrival!”

We’ve all been hearing laments and excuses of the USPS: cut Saturday delivery, consider expansion of self-service kiosks, close small branches, increase postal rates…again. Judging from our personal Monday deliveries, I’d say cutting Saturday deliveries would simply make Monday workloads expand. Would cutting Saturday deliveries get a snail mail October birthday card from Texas to Tennessee more quickly? Expanding self-service kiosks…now there’s an idea; however, there are already complaints about what we are doing for ourselves…Internet and text-messaging. I suppose that's mixing apples and oranges though. Okay, will closing small branches aid in getting the mail delivered more efficiently? One could hope something will help, but I really don’t think that is the solution. Our small branch postal workers are friendly folks trying their best to do their jobs and they do it well. Somewhere, someone is really letting them down.

More questions than answers, so back to our computers.

Let me just finish by saying I am thankful it was a birthday card, not one expressing sympathy, that was so long in being delivered.

© Marilyn Sue (Libby) Moore 8-10-2011

THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY

As a little girl, I lived in a village in central Maine. The month of May meant creating, decorating, and hanging May Baskets.

I don’t remember how old I was when I started, but I do recall an almost abrupt end when we moved away from the village into the country where the houses were farther apart, then later into the city where, I had also grown older and the customs were different. Some families celebrated hanging May Baskets only on May First, others every day throughout the whole month of May. Our family and our little village celebrated through the whole month of May.

In my childhood, both boys and girls took part in coloring, cutting, and learning how to weave strips of heavyweight paper to form small basket shapes. Some of the woven baskets were square, some rectangular. Sometimes we folded colorful crepe paper in origami fashion. We were then able to make scissor cuts in it, so when it was opened it formed a little hanging basket nest, where we placed a few goodies. Whether it was the woven basket or the crepe-paper style, we made handles that we glued on. We made three folds of the heavyweight paper, before cutting the right length to form the handles for the woven baskets. Because the crepe paper was so flexible, we could braid it for those handles. Waiting for that glue to dry was the hard part!

The “goodies” we put inside, cushioned with tissue paper, might be store-bought candy, homemade fudge, or some little trinket we were done playing with that we thought the recipient would find delight in having. Once the little May Basket was filled we’d try to sneak to the home of our unsuspecting friend, quietly hang the May Basket on the knob of their most used door, yell, “May Basket!” and run away, hiding from sight as fast as we could. Sometimes they could guess by our voices who had left the May Basket, sometimes by the contents.

When I was in my mid-sixties, a friend made and mailed a May Basket to me! Apparently I didn’t, but how I wish I had taken a picture of it. Some info she included about May Baskets I’d not previously realized, was that the hanging of them by children is an old New England tradition. The original idea was to announce “Spring and Good Cheer”. The information pointed out that May Baskets were given as an expression of love and friendship not only to children but also to loved ones, pointing out particularly “invalids and shut-ins.”

This morning as I wished my husband a happy first day of May, I thought about my childhood and the hanging of May Baskets. I asked, “Did you used to hang May Baskets?” He said he doesn’t remember. He grew up in the city and, as I stated earlier, I learned the customs there were different, so I suspect he didn’t even hang May Baskets.

For me, it is such a happy childhood memory. Like so many things, I can only wish such a memory for everyone, so if you want to try something new with your children, grandchildren, neighbor kids, or school kids, why not introduce them to a new variation of the old New England tradition of hanging May Baskets?

If you’re trying to think of a way to bring cheer to a shut-in, how about making your own May Basket and filling it with a goodie or two of your choosing? It doesn’t have to be candy; a little plant would bring spring cheer!

What a Merry Month of May you and your May Baskets can make it!

© Marilyn Sue (Libby) Moore 5-1-2011

A LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER

Dear Beth~ I’ve been meaning to tell you how much the digital picture frame you gave us means to me. I realized today that Dad finds pleasure in my latest downloads to it, too, when he mentioned one particularly beautiful flower, describing it so well I knew exactly THE ONE from around thirty I had just added! I confess I keep wondering just how many pictures the frame will hold before it hops off the desk or counter top, whichever place I have it for viewing or loading at the moment, and yells, "WAIT! STOP! ENOUGH, ALREADY!" So far, that hasn't occurred, but I am expecting it at any moment because I think I see the sides swelling like the cheeks on a kid puffing out as he/she prepares to blow a bubble in a bubble-gum-blowing contest! Last year, I took my digital camera…you know, the one I told Dad I didn’t want, but he bought for me anyway?…and headed towards a beautiful bunch of bluebonnets carpeted between the walkway of a private home and a busily traveled street near our house. I thought, “They are so beautiful, surely the owner won’t mind if I stand in the street and take pictures of just the flowers,” As I stood there doing so, a kind woman came from the house and invited me to come closer, saying, “They are beautiful this year, aren’t they? I have irises over here, if you’d like to take pictures of them as well.” Next thing I knew, her next-door neighbor came over and invited me to her house, too, not only to the front yard filled with a variety of roses and more irises, but also into her back yard where her kitties wrapped their tails around my legs as she and I visited while I took more pictures with the digital camera…the one I was sure I’d never use. I came home having made two new friends - six if you count the four-footed, long-tailed ones - and with my camera filled with pictures of bluebonnets, deep-red roses, irises of several colors, orange-red poppies, and even a buzzing bee. I downloaded the pictures onto my computer, then into the digital frame. Over the past year, every time I have taken flower pictures, I have added to the collection. I have had many opportunities with other neighbors inviting me into their yards. I have photographed gorgeous golden roses, yellow and lavender irises, red-orange amaryllis, peace roses, many additional flowers as well. And each time, as soon as I got those flowers downloaded and saved to my computer, one of the next steps was to add the favorites to the digital frame. Once I found out how much fun I could have with the digital camera I didn’t want, I went to our local rose garden. One day last week, it was time, so I went again. I took nearly two-hundred pictures. Of course I didn’t keep all of them and I certainly didn’t ask the photo frame to hold every one I did save, but I added plenty to it that day. Then, yesterday I went to the city park where I added most of an additional hundred pictures to my floral collection. Again, the digital frame wasn’t asked to hold every one, but the favored few have been added today. So far, so good. No yelling for me to stop yet. I am thankful because to me, the digital frame is a place of peace. It holds a slideshow of wonderful moments of meeting new friends, of lovely blue clouds drifting by in the sky, majestic sunrises and sunsets, a variety of flowers that can only be conjured up in the mind of a magnificent Creator, of quiet time spent down by the riverside, and a reminder that someone who understood provided my heart’s desire for a quiet place to parade my pictures. Thank you, Beth. Love always, Mom

THE THREE-QUARTER-CENTURY-CLUB

Picture of Kent and me taken in June of 2003

It was the summer of 1948. I was eight years old. My mother and I were invited to go to Augusta, the capital city of the State of Maine, for a special afternoon celebration of the Three-Quarter-Century-Club.

Since I have already explained my age, it should be obvious, that the three-quarter-century, wouldn’t describe my mother, but if you guessed it to include one of my grandparents, you would be correct. My Grandpa, William Herbert Glidden, had celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday on May tenth of that year; therefore, he was eligible to be a member in good standing of the Three-Quarter-Century-Club.

As we approached the Augusta Armory building that lovely summer afternoon with Grandpa and my Aunt Charlotte, who drove us there, I had no idea what to expect, but I soon realized the place was filled with a huge crowd of very happy old people! The folks milled around with greetings of those who hadn’t seen one another for long periods of time. I overheard conversations and witnessed hugs that told me of family connections from different parts of the state.

Even at my age, there was joy in observing these reunions, but to my delight there were more surprises to come. A hush fell as everyone found folding chair seating in that huge building. Attention was directed to the stage. The men who stood there fit the three-quarter-century (and more) qualifications, as they cradled their well-tuned and warmed-up fiddles, ready to start the entertainment of the afternoon. And what an entertainment it was! Fiddle-playing at its finest was presented to the constantly-smiling, foot-tapping, (sometimes foot-stomping!) audience. All too soon it, like all good things, had to come to an end. As I write this, I am fully aware that the fiddle-playing of those particular men has also ended; however the memory of the joy they gave this girl that warm summer afternoon of her eighth year lingers like the resonant sounds of a bow on the strings.

Three-quarters of a century seemed old to me that day. Today, it doesn’t seem so old. Today, my brother, Kent Wilmer Libby, celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday. Although he says the winter has been a rough one, he definitely is not as old as the long-ago men who played those fiddles! If the Three-Quarter-Century-Club is still around, Kent is eligible to be a member in good standing, just as our grandpa was, but times and people have changed. I doubt the club is still in existence. An Internet search provided no information about it. Of course, there are still wonderful gatherings of great fiddle-players who bring crowds of happy folks together to help create memories for new generations, but whether we celebrate with fiddles or phone calls, three-quarters of a century is still something marvelous to celebrate.

HAPPY THREE-QUARTERS-OF-A-CENTURY, KENT!

© Marilyn Sue (Libby) Moore 4-13-2011