On Eagle's Wings

On Eagle's Wings
He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:29-31

Followers

Friday, August 31, 2018

Friday Foto Friends

I have very little to offer in the way of fotos this week to share with Deb at Friday Foto Friends. However, I'm just going to post what I have and say hello and Happy Friday! We are coming into that time of year that is my very favorite and it always is so filled with activities that it rushes by before you actually get to enjoy it!




Every time I drive home from church, I pass this pasture with Texas Longhorns grazing in it. I always wish for opportunity to stop and get a picture, but stopping on the road is too dangerous. Last Sunday I saw a man pulled over in the parking lot of a rehab center and he was taking pictures, so I decided to do likewise. And, of course that is when the critters decided to move on to another part of the pasture.

I bought a new wreath for the front door. 


My great-niece! She likes to hide in those little spaces. I remember Jason hiding in the dresser drawer and Jack in the drawer of the stove and in the stereo cabinets in the living room. So cute! And now her Daddy is home from his overseas duty and she is loving it!







Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Black and White Wednesday ... Bits and Pieces

Whoops! I thought I would make it brief today with little bits and pieces, but I find myself unable to stop. Pull out some of your old black and white photos you cherish to share and join Terri, Your Friend from Florida!



My mother's little sister, my Aunt Nancy was only 10 when I was born, so over the years, I have been much closer to her than other aunts and uncles. We saw her quite often and she came to stay with us after we moved to Tulsa. She married at 16, so I was about 5-6 years old when she visited us and helped mother while she stayed. This is so embarrassing, but hilariously funny at the same time. My sister and I took our baths together and both of us were so modest, we wore our panties in the bathtub! You may wonder why Mom didn't give us separate baths, but I'm guessing the expense of water and also Mom being so tired at the end of the day … or week!! So it was just easier. My poor Mom! Anyway, Nancy was just shocked as she could be that we wore our panties in the bathtub. Roberta and I used to get into little spats in the tub, as kids will, and I remember Mom pulling us out, drying us off and Daddy bending us over his knee for a little spanking after we had our pjs on. 

Years later, (like many years later), we were visiting the McCoy relatives and this little confession just happened to be blurted out! To our big surprise, we discovered that our cousins, Charlene and Debbie, had done the very same thing at those ages!!! Too funny. We had the best laugh over that!!

She had something in her pocket!! 

I remember when Nancy was dating my Uncle Gene and sometimes getting to be with them when they were together. It made me feel so grown-up to hang out with them. I also remember going to Aunt Nancy's wedding. When our parents finally bought a record player a couple of years later, Granny gave us kids all Aunt Nancy's 45 records, Elvis, Ricky Nelson, and so on! We thought we were in heaven since the only records we had were what Mom and Daddy got when they bought the record player … a Christmas album and Roy Acuff!! Roberta and I stood in front of that record player and sang our hearts out to Roy Acuff and later Ernest Tubb. Hey! We were country when country wasn't cool!



This is my mother's younger brother, our Uncle Sonny. He was a real tease and from what I understand, he loved teasing my mother because she was so sensitive and cried easily! He was one of the uncles who came to stay with us in Tulsa, too. I realized over the years how generous my parents were to offer hospitality to their family and try to help them even though they were struggling to keep their heads above water themselves. I loved Uncle Sonny and his wife, Dolly. She had been married previously and lost her husband and baby boy in a car accident. After marrying my uncle, she gave birth to four stillborn children before she finally had my cousin, Lonnie, who was a real cutie and we were so happy for them. (We also inherited Dolly's collection of all her 78 records after she and Sonny were married … Rosemary Clooney, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Glenn Miller and the like.)

Us with cousin Lonnie Wayne

Sonny and Dolly had a house with a front yard covered with good climbing trees and we would play there for hours. We loved that they had bunk beds in the bedroom where we stayed and one Christmas, my little sister had too much pumpkin pie and lost it all while on the top bunk. You know what they say? What goes up must come down! And it did. Shower right beside me!


This photo was taken on my Aunt Gerry's wedding day. She was my mother's older sister, Doris Geraldine, and she was a sweetheart. I understand she married young to get away from the hard times on the farm. Bless her heart! She married someone who turned out to be a bit of an odd character, to say the least. At the time they were married, he was a traveling preacher, but later turned out to be a hoarder and somewhat paranoid … something about the FBI! ;-) It got progressively worse over the years, but she stuck with him. She always had a smile and a quick laugh, along with a lot of wisdom from lessons learned along the way. Their front yard was so full of stuff … junk? … Aunt Gerry said people would drive by their house just to stare! Drive-by starings! (Maybe that's why the FBI was tailing him???) At least she had a good sense of humor about things.

Aunt Gerry and her family lived in Illinois and we visited them a few times over the years. One particular summer we loaded up in our 57 Chevrolet … our family of 5 and my Uncle Sonny, Aunt Dolly and Lonnie Wayne! No AC in that Chevy and an all night road trip to Illinois from Arkansas with four kids!! Whew! 

The 57 Chevrolet with me inside, my mom holding my brother and
my cousin, Lonnie Wayne, holding his ears!!!

We had so much fun at Gerry's house going over to Indiana to the zoo, swimming, and just playing. One funny thing that happened when Gerry and her family came to visit us was that we all loaded up in the car to go to some museum (probably Oral Roberts headquarters. Everybody loved touring that place). We got a little ways away before my Mom screeched, "Oh my goodness!! I forgot the baby!!" In her excitement, she left baby Phillip at home!! It was a while before she could live that one down!

When my mother's cancer had progressed so much, dear Aunt Gerry came to visit her and finally just quit her job to come stay with my mother for a while. All of Mother's family were so good to surround her with loving care and I will always be thankful in my heart for them. When Gerry came to visit me, we discovered we both loved Ricky Skaggs and just enjoyed each other's company getting to know each other better. She came to visit me after my husband had passed away. When Aunt Gerry died, my sister and I really wanted to go to her funeral and as we tried to make it happen, God provided in the most wonderful way as the airline just happened to be having a special that weekend and we flew together to Colorado.

My precious Granny! I can't say enough about a woman who loved and was loved so much. She had the best laugh! She persevered through many hard times and came out the champion. Over all the years, she and Grandad would faithfully come to visit us and our visits to her were always fun. We loved going to her house, she danced with us, she cooked big meals and told everybody where they could sit ... she never sat down, she was always waiting on everybody. More tea? More mashed potatoes? A little more fried chicken? How about some cake when you're done? Her kitchen was big and we all ate together in there, with us kids at the card table. She also always had a big Hershey bar in the fridge and I would sneak in there to steal pieces from it while we were there. Granny had a box filled with old pictures for us to look at and a music box with a pretty figurine that went round and round as it played "I Went to Your Wedding."

Granny let us drink real coffee, loaded with milk, and may have been a bit partial to little girls because once when the boy cousins were there at the same time, she didn't have enough syrup for everybody's pancakes. "Now boys, why don't you eat jelly on your pancakes and let Connie and Roberta have the syrup??!!!" Haha! Granny baked her special birthday cakes for everybody's birthday. I remember how much she loved Lawrence Welk and the Lennon Sisters. That did not sit well with me because I was jealous of them. After all, were not my sister and me her favorite singers? We always had to perform our newest songs when we were with them while Grandad took movies of us singing and doing our little mimes.

She and Grandad always sat very close together 
and worked the crossword puzzles each day.

Granny had a very big yard with many tall trees and beautiful snowball bushes. We had many Easter egg hunts there and hunted those eggs until they were completely inedible from being handled so much. Granny's house had a cellar door to play on just like the song Playmate, and we did. Her house was a happy place to visit. 

Good times at 705 Maple Avenue

My brother with cousins Johnny and Lonnie Wayne

One day when my sister and I were playing in the far back yard, we discovered a small headstone nestled in the grass with very faint writing on it. From what we could make out on the stone, it was the burial place for a baby from a very long time ago. Granny didn't seem to know anything about it and I guess it just went unnoticed as the yard was being mowed. 


She wrote this little note in a small white New Testament she gave me.
Above all, Granny cared about our hearts and making sure we knew Jesus! 

This is my Daddy's youngest brother, our Uncle Charles, and my cousins, Glen and Jimmy.
I don't think these guns were for play - they did some real shootin' there in the country.

Uncle Charles lived with us for a time and worked with my Daddy. Charles began dating the girl who lived across the street from us there in Sand Springs. Her family was quite a mess and provided a show for our family on Saturday nights as their Daddy would come home very intoxicated. You could hear them and the mother and two daughters, Bobbie Jo and Sue told us how they would all have to hold the man down. Pretty shocking stuff for my parents (and us kids) who were naïve as to the ways of the world. Anyway, Charles and Sue married, but it wasn't a good union at all and ended up in divorce. I will spare the details here because all of them have passed and will only say what a pity that sometimes people bring different kinds of baggage into relationships and never have the skills or desire to cope with it and grow from it.

This precious little girl Teresa is the first child of my Uncle Charles and his wife, Sue.
Teresa and my brother were pals!

Charles abandoned his little girl and her mother. My mother, being the caring mother she was, continued to care for them and so we would frequently go visit Sue and Teresa. Mother would bring Teresa to stay at our house and we also took her with us a few times to Arkansas so she could visit her Grandma McCoy.


Paulette was a cousin I never really knew, but she was my age. Her Dad was my Dad's older brother and he had five children. Their family was distant geographically and relationally from everyone else. Although they lived in Kansas most of the time, they lived in Arkansas for a while and I feel sure that's where this picture was taken because of the way the "house" looks. My parents lived in a house similar to that while I was a baby. My memory of my uncle's family is strange because we took a road trip to Kansas once to visit them only to discover their house was crowded to the hilt and could not accommodate guests. My parents visited with them and then we found a motel to stay in overnight before returning home. What makes me laugh is the next morning, I remember Mama waking up my sister and me and telling us in awe that "the motel room costs $7!!!" Oh my goodness!!! That was quite the experience for them.


My Great Grandmother Sanders. What a woman!

Judging from all the photos I've seen taken at this house, we visited her for quite a few holidays. Since children were to be seen and not heard at her house (or when she was around), I mostly remember sitting still when we visited. Her home had a second story and I was fascinated about what might be upstairs, but only remember being allowed up there one time. It was a mystery to me and so my memories there are only of sitting and also seeing my Aunt Nancy be married in that house. Later Great Grandma Sanders moved to Tulsa and her house there was somewhat more relaxed. The prior owners had left a children's playhouse in the back yard which we found to be a fun place to play. Grandma also had a bedroom filled with books and each one I opened were too grown up for me and had notes and lots of underlining in them. Hmmmm, I'm thinking I may have inherited that gene as I love books and all are marked up. (The few books my mother owned, I did my share of printing my ABC's in!)

Grandma Sanders did soften up and mellow over the years and was quite tenderhearted over my little brother, Phil! He stole her heart and she baked him birthday cakes with a little car on top. She may have given him that little guitar he is holding.That never happened for the rest of us!!! She did bake banana nut cakes for my Dad, which is very interesting because I don't think she really approved of my parents marrying. (Grandma always had a bandage on her nose as long as I could remember as she had cancer on her face, but because of her religious beliefs, she would not see a doctor. Cancer eventually took her life at 84.)

To wrap this up, I'm posting a photo of my Dad which was taken in front of his old schoolhouse. In a previous post, I had said I wish I had a picture of it not realizing that I did have one.


Daddy as a boy

And a young man about 30
wearing his signature hat!




Sunday, August 26, 2018

Losses

This past few days have been a bit of a downer and while I was glad to get the mammogram out of the way and know that is one I don't have to think about for another year, I then had to take DH on Friday for a CT scan and follow-up with the vascular surgeon. Going into Dallas is always a stressful drive, but I pray the angels guard us all around and we arrive safe to our destination and back home. One little wrong turn after we arrived and I was in a maze, but we still found our way. It took three hours to do everything and I could tell by the doctor's very careful explanation that he knew we would need to really absorb what he was saying. Long story short, the stent is still in place, but there is a leak into the aneurysm and it is growing. Soooooooo, something will need to be done.

Following that, on our way home, we stopped at the motorcycle place to turn over the title and the extra key and pick up the check in payment of it. The repairs were just going to be extensive and to think of having it repaired, then bringing it home to try to sell it or let it just sit in the garage for the next few years wasn't going to happen. Seriously, DH's grief over the loss made me so sad, I wanted to weep. But I didn't. I couldn't. So we drove home and it was sad and he could not sleep all night for thinking about it and also what the doctor had told us. 

On top of that, while we were at the doctor, I received a call that my dear friend might not have much longer to live and her son was calling a limited number of people to please come visit. And so I did visit her on Saturday morning. I stopped by on my way to pick up flowers. She is in much pain and non-responsive to everyone.

I took this picture of the flowers in the car. 
I loved the sunflowers and the cheerful pitcher.

For my DH, the loss of the things he enjoyed were more than the loss of possessions. It means the loss of his dreams, his freedom, the fun he enjoyed as a man of adventures. He had told me before that when he flew, it brought tears to his eyes. And all these things now just aren't possible for him. So I am thinking maybe for his birthday, I might arrange for him to fly with one of his buddies. We will see.

For my friend, she wasn't willing to give up on her dreams either. Having only recently retired, and knowing her cancer was serious, she still had made plans for a trip to Africa! After spending her life in service to her employer, her family and friends, she was going with friends on an exciting adventure which now will not be happening, and more than likely, she will be in hospice.

All of these things are heartbreaking to me and I feel helpless, but I know I can trust my God and know that He is in control of all things. He is there for us, and He will take care of us. I will wait on Him and see what wonderful things He will do.











Friday, August 24, 2018

Saturday 9: Think

Welcome to Saturday: 9. This is a fun meme with 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. Copy the questions on your post, answer, and link up with Sam at Saturday 9.


Think (1968)
Unfamiliar with this week's song. Hear it here.
In fond remembrance of The Queen of Soul (1942-2018).

Aretha Franklin was one of my favorites of the Motown Singers, and Marvin Gaye with her. What fantastic music from them!

1) As befits one of America's premiere artists, Aretha Franklin sang at three Presidential inaugurations. The first was Jimmy Carter's in 1977, when she sang "God Bless America." What's your favorite patriotic song? 

I think I like God Bless America and America the Beautiful equally. Our National Anthem still gives me chills, though. I'm sorry there is such a flak about it.

2) The daughter of a Baptist minister, Aretha grew up with church music. She told Rolling Stone one of her favorite songs was the hymn, "Victory Is Mine." What's your favorite religious song? 

Way too many, but Victory in Jesus is always one at the top of the list. In Christ Alone.

3) She welled up a bit when President George H. W. Bush presented her with the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. When is the last time you shed a tear?

While going through some old pictures which stirred up both sweet and sad memories.

4) In 1980, the Queen of Soul sang for the Queen of England in a Command Performance at The Royal Albert Hall. Have you ever been to London? 

Yes. We visited at the end of May, 2002 and enjoyed it very much. It was windy, cold and rainy, but on the days we visited the Cotswolds and Windsor Castle, the sun came out and it was quite nice.

5) Since Aretha had many honorary degrees, it would have been appropriate to refer to her as Dr. Franklin. Who is the last person you referred to by his or her title (Officer, Father, Sgt., Dr., etc.)?
My husband's doctor.

6) In this week's song, Aretha tells her lover that it doesn't take a high IQ to understand what's going on in their relationship. Do you know your IQ? I think I do!

7) A sculpture of Aretha is on display at Madame Tussaud's in New York. Do you think wax museums are cool, or creepy?

They can be kind of fun, although some parts are a little creepy. And surprise, surprise, here I am with Aretha herself!


well, sort of!

DH did not get the memo for what to wear to this meeting.

Brother Phil standing behind General Eisenhower.

And Susan, my sis-in-law with the Kennedys.

8) Aretha and Motown legend Smokey Robinson were literally lifelong friends, since they were playground buddies in Detroit. Smokey is one of the only people who can claim to have seen The Queen of Soul with a bucket in a sandbox. If we went to the playground today, would you head for the swings, the slide or the jungle gym? Or, like Aretha, would you play in the sand?
I will go for the swings.

9) Random question: Do you like pumpkin seeds?
I do. And they are good for you.

Friday Foto Friends

I'm running late today and will be gone most of the day, but wanted to put in my two cents worth of fotos! Joining Deb at Breathing in Grace for Friday Foto Friends.



This was another beautiful sky from the other night. 
I can never resist them.

This plant finally decided to bloom. It was supposed to be a plant that loves sun, but it has been dry all summer. I won't buy one next year as it doesn't seem to be able to take the heat! You know what they say! If you can't take the heat, stay off the patio. 

Trailer for sale or rent?
No rooms to let for 50 cents though.
Just trying to get rid of some unnecessary items these days.

And after our visit with the doctor for a CT scan for DH and follow-up visit, we will be saying good-bye to this last cycle.

So long. I'm really sorry, but you really must go!

He loved his toys and I'm glad he got to enjoy so many of them over the years, but now it's time for somebody else enjoy. The unusual cycle/scooter is like brand new, with very few miles on it and looks beautiful. However, because it has been sitting in the garage for the past six years, it is ready for a makeover and the guy at the motor scooter place is willing to take it on and sell it. So thankful.




Thursday, August 23, 2018

Thankful Thursday

Today was the day for the annual mammogram! It turned out to be more than a mammogram as I had to have two ultrasounds which made me flinch just a bit as I wasn't expecting to have to do that. I'm happy to report all is well and I remain cancer free since 2005! Now that is something worth celebrating and I will hear the office good news when I visit my doctor next. One funny thing: when the radiologist came into do the ultrasound, he said, "turn on your side and raise your left arm over your head!" Well, I couldn't resist! "Raise your left arm and do the hokey pokey!" They got a good laugh from that.

Then after, lunch with a few ladies from last year's Bible Study Fellowship group. We had a wonderful time together catching up on all we have been doing this summer and looking forward to our new study in September … People of the Promised Land, Part I, a study of Joshua through 1 Kings. I'm ready!


Sweet ladies. I will miss them this year as I am going to BSF at another location which is closer to my home.

Now tomorrow will be DH's turn for ultrasound and visit with his doctor to check the status of his abdominal aneurysm! Praying for very positive results!



Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Black and White Wednesday

Linking with Teri again on this Wednesday to share more black and white photos!




After moving from Arkansas to Oklahoma seeking a better way of life, that is, making a living, my parents lived in several different rentals before finally owning their own home. While the rentals were pretty undesirable in comparison to the expectations of newly marrieds these days, at least they were better than a shack in the hills with no facilities, and very hard way of eking out a living.

First stop was a basement apartment in West Tulsa. Mother was pregnant with my sister and she says she was sick the whole time. She had also suffered through her pregnancy with me, but the suffering didn't seem to have much effect on us babies because we were all a hefty size. (Her love for cheeseburgers during that time with me was something I inherited!!)

They moved to a little three room house and then a duplex which is where these pics were taken. We had a neighbor named Bessie who greeted us girls with a cheery "Good morning, morning glory!" but also sometimes was somewhat mean to us. I'm not sure Mom ever really elaborated on that to us too much. 



I have very few memories of this place except to recall our landlords, the Smiths, a kind old couple and that their small home smelled like toast and jelly! I remember a little store on the corner where we would go and the people there would set me on the counter to polish my toenails. One important thing my parents learned here was that you lock your doors at night. Mama told us about a night when she got up to go to the bathroom and saw a man standing in the hall. I guess because she was half asleep, she thought it was Daddy, but when she realized it was a stranger in the house, she screamed and the man took off!

You can see from the above pics the type of neighborhood.
At least my sister had a horse and I had my first car!!

I can remember in this house having a big standing radio and watching my mother iron while she listened to her soaps and we got to listen to Howdy Doody and Clarabelle. I also remember seeing her put up wallpaper! Weird memories, but she really slathered that paste on the back of the paper! Haha! Bless her heart! At one of the little houses, my memory was of a neighbor who spent a lot of time in the yard gardening and wearing a straw hat with little cherries on it. I remember hearing the noon whistle blow and knowing my Daddy would be stopping to eat his lunch.

When we moved to Sand Springs, we lived in three rooms in the back of a house owned by the landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Debolt, who lived in the front of the house we knew as the "white house." It was fun to visit this sweet older couple as she had a pump organ which she let us play. You could get a real workout on that pump organ. And he, being a carpenter, had lots of wooden scraps and blocks for us to play with.

Memories here are sweet. Both my sister and I started school during the period of time we lived in these houses.

My sister and me in front of the white house

With Daddy in back of the white house
(desperately in need of paint!)

The lot next door was vacant, but during the time we lived there, Mr. Debolt built a house for him and his wife to move into. It was known as the "yellow house." 

You can see the vacant lot behind us.

And here behind us is the newly built yellow house!
Mr. Debolt posing with us.

Mr. and Mrs. Debolt were very kind to my parents and us. So I really don't know what possessed me one day to spit on him! His reaction to that awful deed was to slap me and then tell my parents what I had done and also that he hit me. I don't remember getting a spanking for that, but I do believe I deserved one.

When the Debolts moved into the new yellow house, we moved up front in the white house! It had a cellar which had a very dirty, mildew smell. This house also had a swamp cooler which meant there was some relief from the awful heat! Oh yes, we were "moving ahead!"

Daddy's brother, Sanford, and family moved into the three rooms in back. LOL - a whole lot of shifting going on. While we lived in this house, two of Daddy's brothers and my mother's brothers would come visit and while there, would have to sleep in their car because there was "no room for them in the inn!" They came from Arkansas also looking for a better way to make a living, but all moved back to Arkansas and went on to be successful there. (Daddy's youngest brother Charles actually married the young lady who lived across the street from us there.)

Daddy built a really big and sturdy swing for us which everybody loved! You could swing much higher in it than we could in the tire swing hanging on the tree. We played Red Rover, Red Rover, Drop the Handkerchief, Hide and Seek … birthday parties, made mud pies, played Superman and jumped off the tree stump, watched the Mouseketeers on our little TV, made clover leaf necklaces … Mama cooking in the little kitchen, Granny giving us her piano and watching it being moved to the white house, Saturday nights at our neighbor Hawk Mason's house for the men to watch boxing on their TV and us kids to play with his daughter June. (Funny the kind of things you remember … I remember being fascinated with beer commercials and how they would pour the beer and it would be all foaming over the top of the glass. Beer was something that was foreign to us as my parents never drank. The song that was played, From the land of sky blue waters!!) And who could ever forget all the Kool-Aid we drank? Mama froze it in ice trays to make popsicles for us.

Mama took care of June often and I'm not sure if her mother worked or what the situation was there. Mother made us little outfits to wear … (I also remember June's bangs were always in her eyes and it really bugged Mom, so she cut her hair and then worried about what June's mother's would think.) 

June and me

The street where we lived!

Neighborhood kids

While living in the white and yellow houses on this street, we attended a Pentecostal church which met down the street from us in a little white clapboard building. We would go to Sunday School and hear the Bible stories and receive a little card with the Bible story on one side and a picture of it on the other side. Wish I had saved those little cards. 

There was a neighborhood grocery store and the whole family would go on Saturday to buy groceries because Mom could not drive and so Daddy took all of us. During the week when he was at work, Mom would take my sister and I and walk to the streetcar stop, which was a good ways away and we would ride it to downtown. She would shop, usually at Kress, buy us some kind of something special and then we would eat at the counter in the basement. Whatever we bought was special to us and when Daddy came home we would run to the door to show off our prize!

Other people in our lives I remember during these years between 1954 - 1958 were the Boggs family and my Aunt Della. Sonny Boggs worked with my Dad and had two daughters, Monita and Barbara Jo and son, Leroy.

The Boggs family

Their mom, Essie, was so sweet and made great peanut butter cookies. She also made little rompers for my sister and me to swim/wade in. We spent a lot of time with them and it was always a treat for us. We had good times at their house, had picnics with them and played at Lake Spavinaw. 


Another favorite place was my Aunt Della's yard. It was like a playground as she kept children and so she had swings, teeter-totter, slides and horses. 


Homemade ice cream at Aunt Della's

When I was in second grade, the Debolts built another home and moved across town leaving us to move into the yellow house. We lived there until 1957 at which time Dad and Mom decided to buy a home and we moved across town where we started a new school. My mother was expecting another child which we were thrilled about and he was born several months after we moved. The house they bought wasn't any bigger than the yellow rent house, but at least it was in a better part of town and would then lead to a home they would later build. There were mostly always happy times in our new little house, meeting new friends and welcoming our baby brother Phil.




This picture shows a few things you don't see much anymore. My little brother with his first toy gun! (He has never had a thing for guns since he was a little boy!) That blonde end table with the black telephone on it! It was our first phone and we were on a party line for a long time.  We kids used it mostly for calling Time or to hear recordings of blurbs from movies that we never got to see! I can't tell how many times we heard Doris Day screaming on Midnight Lace! Gifts wrapped in thin tissue paper … the Christmas tree decorated with icicles and a few cards … the old flowered rug … and the round picture on the wall was of Oral Roberts first headquarters in Tulsa. Our good old family friend Viola worked there as a pray-er in the Prayer Rooms.