Just call me Froggi... Hopping thru my days with the ramblings, musings, & thoughts of my life
November 30, 2004 was the day my husband passed away. I remember driving home in the rain, thinking the weather suited my mood. We had been in our new home only a month, moving from Florida to Tennessee so he could see me settled where I wanted to stay.
A recent blog post from a friend reminded me about high school reunions. I’ve attended two – my 25th and my 40th. The 25th was a resounding success, a comeback for a very shy student. I got to attend with my husband/soulmate (found after two divorces).
I saw a photo of a friend zip-lining and it struck me that I’ve done some things in my lfe that I never expected to do.
A post I read a while back rang a bell for me. I tend to like routine, comfortable things, and simple foods.
Our school did annual eye exams although I’m not sure at what age/grade they started. I do remember 6th grade. I was told I was near-sighted and needed glasses. Horrors! I felt ugly enough with buck teeth and dark natural circles under my eyes. But when I got them, I suddenly realized there was a clock on the wall in the front of the classroom. I’d never noticed it before. That meant I could sit in the back of the room instead of the front row and my shy self liked that.
I was 55 when I learned to ride my own and it was a rocky start. I had never considered learning to ride, preferring to be a passenger. But when my husband was diagnosed with cancer, he spent the six weeks of radiation time convincing me I needed to learn. If he didn’t make it, I’d have family to ride with. At that time, both brothers and both their wives, a cousin and her husband, another cousin, my son, as well as my husband’s nephew all rode.
I’m a baby boomer, through and through. My pre-teen years in the 50s brought a love of doo-wop music as well as the classics from Rick Nelson, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Frankie Avalon, Everly Brothers, Dion & The Belmonts, Del Shannon, and many others.
Last week, I talked about our rings. Now a bit about our wedding…
When we met, we were both widowed from twenty year marriages and those were not our first marriages. We had both done the “official” type wedding and we wanted to keep this one low key.
In 1985, when my late husband and I were married, we had next to no money. I charged my JC Penney card with the purchase of his nugget ring (which I still have, resized for me to wear on my right hand) and I wore my late mother’s wedding set (which I have passed on to my oldest daughter).
As a teenager, I had diary. I don’t think I used it all that much but I had friends who wrote down everything that happened every day. What a fun read that would be now. All my high school memory items were lost in a move many years ago including my scrapbook and diary.
I thought about this incident last night before I fell asleep. On a past cruise, a younger woman we met (maybe in her 40s) said this to me after meeting us and chatting a while. “I don’t mean to be mean, but I thought you were his mother.” Um, really?
It’s never easy losing a loved one. Aunt Fran wasn’t an aunt by blood, she was a foster sister to my mother. Her parents, Reatha and Thornton Burns, took in three foster girls in their teens as companions to their daughter Frances.
The thing I dreaded the most was taking my younger brothers to the movies with me. It was in a neighboring town and I used my babysitting money to go. I was maybe twelve or thirteen, so they would have been six and nine. I remember whining that my other friends didn’t have to bring their brothers with them. Needless to say, I made them sit far away from me.
It was New Year’s Eve, our tenth anniversary. Where were we? Why weren’t we celebrating together? Here’s the true story.
While living in Colorado Springs in the late 1990s, my late husband, Mike, and I became good friends with several other couples around our neighborhood. Several of the husbands were members of a local four-wheeling club and mine joined them on several outings. Back woods camping, no shaving, lots of beer and tall tales, or so I suppose.
My mother died from a heart attack in 1985. She never met my late husband Mike nor my current husband, Stu, but I hope she is watching over us and that she knows how wonderful my life has been. She was 61 when she died, I’ve outlived her by almost four years now.
