Where I sit is holy
Holy is the ground
Forest, mountain, river,
Listen to the sound
Great spirit circles all around me
Who I am is holy
Holy all are we
Body, thought and motion
Connecting you and me
Great spirit circles all around me
What I do is holy
Holy is my way
Work and play together
Celebrate the day
Great spirit circles all around me
During the summer months our church choir goes on vacation and the congregation steps up to the plate with some individual and innovative music. But last Sunday’s music blew us all away. The song is a Native American chant sung most recently by Shaina Noll. I got my copy off of iTunes but you can get the whole album at Amazon. The album is titled “Bread for the Journey”
I could go into details of the beautiful sound of the individual voices blending with the gentle sound of the flute soaring over us and the drums beating into our very bones….but that’s not what we’re here to talk about today.
I decided to get Holy if it killed me, dammit.
It was a perfect day to get holy. Beaven left right after breakfast to go to Dallas and wouldn’t be back until the next afternoon. I had over 24 hours all to myself.
I realize what a gift, an absolute luxury, I have out here. I seldom have to do anything I don’t want to anymore. I wake when I want and go to bed when I want. We eat when we’re hungry and we never have to worry where we will get our next meal. Beaven and I are both incredibly happy, healthy, and comfortable with who we are. But I wondered about this being holy thing.
First, I bought the song from iTunes for 99 cents. Good start. Then I paired it with about three other Holy Spirit type songs and listened to it in a loop for most of my morning while I cleaned house and did laundry.
I still didn’t feel quite as holy as I thought I should feel. When the mail came and brought me the latest copy of the Rural Farm news I noticed they spent half of the front page describing how toxic the soil has gotten from this drought. They used lots of words I didn’t realize farmers knew like “Nitrate uptake” and “prussic acid.” This didn’t sound like Holy Ground.
So I decided to take a walk around the place to soak up a little holiness.
I started with a walk around the pond.
I found cow tracks, which are unusual on our land. Then I saw the cow’s calling cards all around our pond. We are fenced except for one tiny break by the neighbor’s pasture, the neighbor who is notorious for letting his cows get out. This cow had found a way out of her pasture and into mine while my guard dogs snored at the foot of my bed.
About halfway around the pond I met Harold-- pretty much where he is every afternoon at this time, laying half in and half out of the water. Harold is either a water moccasin, which is poisonous, or just a plain water snake, which is not. Beaven and I spent the last three or four days doing a little research on our new friend without coming to a definite conclusion. We lean toward saying he’s just a plain old water snake. I named him Harold because it just seemed like it would help if we treated any snake we see as though it was always the same snake, kind of like a pet, as opposed to a whole herd of identical snakes that only come out one at a time while the rest wait in the bushes.
I stood for a long time and watched him. If I got too close he would slide back in the water and swim a little farther down the shoreline. I started out trying yet again to decide what kind of snake he is but eventually I forgot to worry about that and began to notice how graceful he is, as he stranghtened his coil and curled himself through the water in an elaborate "S" and then straighten completely to match the shape of the water's edge. Eventually I became too bold and he disappeared into the water completely and I lost him. As I stood watching for him I began to notice the water bugs skating on top the water. A few tiny young frogs would hop into the water as I approached where they were sitting. I could never spot them until they had already gone ‘plop’.
I decided to build a fire to burn some of the wood we cleared over the winter. This was the perfect time since Beaven was gone and he, well; let’s just say he doesn’t like it when I build fires. After the fire died down I got a lawn chair and sat to watch the coals. I was in a little pocket clearing where the woods were thick around me on three sides with the pond and the sun setting behind my back.
If you’ve sat by enough campfires you eventually learn to tell the wood you are burning by the smell of the smoke. This fire was oak and elm. No pine or cedar. Cedar pops and generally tries to take over. Oak fires are very calm.
Night fell slowly. I could hear the birds and the cicadas telling each other goodnight. The fire had taken on a very innocent assortment of flames that might have been what the scriptures had in mind on Pentecost.
The bullfrogs started croaking in the water and the tree frogs answered them from the woods. The coyotes sent out a group of howls to announce they were on duty tonight. The wild dogs answered them. A few domesticated dogs barked backfrom their front porches. Day turned to dusk and dusk became night. The Chuck Wills Widow, my favorite bird , called out to announce that all was well and the night became a symphony of sounds. I put more logs on the coals. I realized that except for a few conversations with the dogs, I hadn’t used my voice since I visited the produce stand around lunchtime and I was enjoying the quiet.
I walked out to the clearing across the field and impressed myself at being able to navigate easily in the dark. I know this ground well. I went to check on the sliver of moon I had seen through the trees. There I spotted three stars and remembered something I read this week that said the Sabbath arrived when three stars became visible at night. I returned to the fire and noticed how good the warmth felt on my legs.
I realized that where I was sitting was holy.
About Me
- Jane
- I'm pretty much a typist for the Holy Spirit. I try to put those things into words in a blog called Jane's Journey. I have another blog for recipes called My Life in Food. Also Really Cool Stuff features Labyrinths and other things like how to fry an egg on the sidewalk.(first step: don't do it on the sidewalk, use a skillet) Come along with me as I careen through life.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Friends and Relatives
I’ve had a busy week. I’ve gone to three funerals and a family reunion. Sounds vaguely like a movie title, doesn’t it? But I learned a few things as always.
It’s true that you can’t pick your relatives but you can choose which ones you hang around. If you want, you can even turn friends into relatives of a sort. And you can make relatives your friends.
The first funeral was all too soon for a woman a little younger than myself. I didn’t really know Janet Dixon that well but I did bump into her at a couple of church functions. She appeared in worship one day a year or so ago sitting with her parents and wearing a jaunty pink baseball cap to hide the effects of chemotherapy. Right off the bat she established an easy going intimacy that made her special to everyone who spent as much as five minutes with her. I set out to attend her funeral and find out by listening to the eulogy what made her so special. I never made it into the funeral.
I got to the church an hour early and the parking lot was already full. I had never seen this before: a packed parking lot an hour before a funeral. I saw that the nursery already needed extra help so I ended up doing nursery duty instead of the funeral. Afterwards, I moved into the kitchen to help with lunch. The church kitchen filled up with the usual roster of people who have “worked” the kitchen so long and so often that most of us knew our jobs well. If anyone called for the pink bowl we knew exactly what they were talking about. Royanne Ramsey, who I call “Mother” Ramsey is the undisputed Queen of our church kitchen. If there is a moment’s confusion you just ask Royanne.
As the lunch died down into the cleaning phase and most of the mourners had left we fell into that relaxed mode women achieve when they know the busy part is over. We lapsed into conversation. I got a fork and stood talking to a couple of women while we shared a bowl of leftover fruit and a bag of potato chips.
Later that same day some of us drove to Restland for the funeral of Jack Hutson. Jack was a member of one of the founding families of our congregation. I had known his sister well. I had the good sense early on to adopt Maurine Bickle as one of my spiritual mentors and still think of her today as a model for my life. We went to show our love and respect for Jack and his family. There was no giant tidal wave of grief. There was no shock. Eighty-four is a good age to die.
I sat beside Doris and Jim Barker until Donna Harris came to sit between us. In front of us were Pat Tripp and Dana Dunlap. I give this seating chart because the six of us do not sit near each other normally in worship. Like most churches, we have a strict and unofficial seating chart. But we know each other well from sitting together on committees and passing in the hall and, yes, working in the kitchen together.
We six don’t have all that much in common except that we’re Presbyterians. We’ve watched each others’ kids grow up. We share a common tradition of worship. We know when to say “Amen” and when to clap for a song and when not to. One of our greatest and most underappreciated ties is that we occupy a sanctuary together during the Confession of Sin when the room gets so still you could hear a pin drop. It’s one thing to sit silently and confess to God; it takes on another dimension when you notice the other side of the pew is just a still as your own.
So here we are with each other in a kind of serendipitous seating, not stricken with overwhelming grief, just thankfulness to God for a life well-lived. There was about fifteen minutes for us to visit and gently tease each other before the service. And the love I felt for these five sisters and brothers in Christ was so overwhelming that I turned to Donna and couldn’t help but blurt out “God, I love these people.” Donna knew exactly what I was saying. “So do I,” she said.
A couple of days later Beaven and I attended his cousin’s funeral. Jimmy was another man whose time had come on schedule. Only a month before we were at Aunt Doris’ funeral when we realized Doris was the last of the aunts and uncles. The next to die would be within our generation. It was starting to hit close to home. And now, somewhat on schedule, the oldest of the cousins had died.
At the end of the service Jimmy’s sister and her family suggested we meet at a Starbucks to extend our time together. We are one of the families who often lament that we only get together for weddings and funerals. That wasn’t always so. The grandparents’ house used to be a required stop for Christmas and Thanksgiving afternoon. And at various times everyone had worked together at the family bakery. Even if you didn’t work there you would stop by for various reasons during the week.
At Starbucks we were able to resume our relaxed conversation. We started with talk of water wells and computer problems. The conversation eventually drifted to memories of the family bakery in Dallas. Els Bakery sold bread to grocery stores for over 60 years and all the cousins had their own memories of what went on inside the bakery. Some remembered eating the parker house rolls right off the conveyor belt or going in on Sunday night to make the yeast for the salt rising bread. Some remembered the frightening wrapping machine that someone always threatened to wrap a grandchild in. Everyone remembered the coke machine that only family was allowed to take the key and open the door to get a coke without paying. We were taking a trip down memory lane and everyone there had some sort of memory to share.
Bill Moyers explained what was going on when he was in a similar occasion at a family funeral in Oklahoma thirty years ago: “We were looking …. for landmarks to share again after years of separate journey. And in ordinary places while there was still time we found them.”
My last family event was a reunion of sorts for the Mehaffie family on Fathers Day weekend. For the first time Terry had his brother, his 3 sons and everybody’s kids. Only one niece and one son was missing among over thirty people. It’s a special treat to count myself among them because I’m not actually related to any of them. Terry is my father’s second wife’s third husband. Don’t wear yourself out trying to figure that one out, just accept it. It will make it easier to understand how I ended up with two brothers with the same name. (“This is my brother Don and this is my other brother, Don.”) And if it took a little effort to become part of the Mehaffie family I can say it was worth it. I like these people. I genuinely like them. I would pick them for friends.
We spent time catching up with the Louisiana bunch who landed on their feet after Hurricane Katrina displaced them for a couple of weeks or so. Terry, Jr., the car salesman, found business booming as soon as they went back. And now the second phase is just around the corner. The “second phase” is folks who need a more dependable car in case they have to evacuate. Then I got to meet Terry’s nieces, one of whom lives and works in New York City in the neighborhood of ground zero.
In all of our conversations I reveled in not only the stories that make them interesting but in how normal they are. I won’t bore you with the details here but the family I grew up in before my mother died was anything but normal. That’s why I’ve developed the ability to make family where I find it. But it was a nice change to take family this week and discover what good friends they can become.
For friends who attend worship together on a weekly basis and do the dishes together after a church supper, it can be easy to maintain the ties that bind us into a family. For blood or legal relatives who live distances apart, it takes a little work.
It’s worth it.
It’s true that you can’t pick your relatives but you can choose which ones you hang around. If you want, you can even turn friends into relatives of a sort. And you can make relatives your friends.
The first funeral was all too soon for a woman a little younger than myself. I didn’t really know Janet Dixon that well but I did bump into her at a couple of church functions. She appeared in worship one day a year or so ago sitting with her parents and wearing a jaunty pink baseball cap to hide the effects of chemotherapy. Right off the bat she established an easy going intimacy that made her special to everyone who spent as much as five minutes with her. I set out to attend her funeral and find out by listening to the eulogy what made her so special. I never made it into the funeral.
I got to the church an hour early and the parking lot was already full. I had never seen this before: a packed parking lot an hour before a funeral. I saw that the nursery already needed extra help so I ended up doing nursery duty instead of the funeral. Afterwards, I moved into the kitchen to help with lunch. The church kitchen filled up with the usual roster of people who have “worked” the kitchen so long and so often that most of us knew our jobs well. If anyone called for the pink bowl we knew exactly what they were talking about. Royanne Ramsey, who I call “Mother” Ramsey is the undisputed Queen of our church kitchen. If there is a moment’s confusion you just ask Royanne.
As the lunch died down into the cleaning phase and most of the mourners had left we fell into that relaxed mode women achieve when they know the busy part is over. We lapsed into conversation. I got a fork and stood talking to a couple of women while we shared a bowl of leftover fruit and a bag of potato chips.
Later that same day some of us drove to Restland for the funeral of Jack Hutson. Jack was a member of one of the founding families of our congregation. I had known his sister well. I had the good sense early on to adopt Maurine Bickle as one of my spiritual mentors and still think of her today as a model for my life. We went to show our love and respect for Jack and his family. There was no giant tidal wave of grief. There was no shock. Eighty-four is a good age to die.
I sat beside Doris and Jim Barker until Donna Harris came to sit between us. In front of us were Pat Tripp and Dana Dunlap. I give this seating chart because the six of us do not sit near each other normally in worship. Like most churches, we have a strict and unofficial seating chart. But we know each other well from sitting together on committees and passing in the hall and, yes, working in the kitchen together.
We six don’t have all that much in common except that we’re Presbyterians. We’ve watched each others’ kids grow up. We share a common tradition of worship. We know when to say “Amen” and when to clap for a song and when not to. One of our greatest and most underappreciated ties is that we occupy a sanctuary together during the Confession of Sin when the room gets so still you could hear a pin drop. It’s one thing to sit silently and confess to God; it takes on another dimension when you notice the other side of the pew is just a still as your own.
So here we are with each other in a kind of serendipitous seating, not stricken with overwhelming grief, just thankfulness to God for a life well-lived. There was about fifteen minutes for us to visit and gently tease each other before the service. And the love I felt for these five sisters and brothers in Christ was so overwhelming that I turned to Donna and couldn’t help but blurt out “God, I love these people.” Donna knew exactly what I was saying. “So do I,” she said.
A couple of days later Beaven and I attended his cousin’s funeral. Jimmy was another man whose time had come on schedule. Only a month before we were at Aunt Doris’ funeral when we realized Doris was the last of the aunts and uncles. The next to die would be within our generation. It was starting to hit close to home. And now, somewhat on schedule, the oldest of the cousins had died.
At the end of the service Jimmy’s sister and her family suggested we meet at a Starbucks to extend our time together. We are one of the families who often lament that we only get together for weddings and funerals. That wasn’t always so. The grandparents’ house used to be a required stop for Christmas and Thanksgiving afternoon. And at various times everyone had worked together at the family bakery. Even if you didn’t work there you would stop by for various reasons during the week.
At Starbucks we were able to resume our relaxed conversation. We started with talk of water wells and computer problems. The conversation eventually drifted to memories of the family bakery in Dallas. Els Bakery sold bread to grocery stores for over 60 years and all the cousins had their own memories of what went on inside the bakery. Some remembered eating the parker house rolls right off the conveyor belt or going in on Sunday night to make the yeast for the salt rising bread. Some remembered the frightening wrapping machine that someone always threatened to wrap a grandchild in. Everyone remembered the coke machine that only family was allowed to take the key and open the door to get a coke without paying. We were taking a trip down memory lane and everyone there had some sort of memory to share.
Bill Moyers explained what was going on when he was in a similar occasion at a family funeral in Oklahoma thirty years ago: “We were looking …. for landmarks to share again after years of separate journey. And in ordinary places while there was still time we found them.”
My last family event was a reunion of sorts for the Mehaffie family on Fathers Day weekend. For the first time Terry had his brother, his 3 sons and everybody’s kids. Only one niece and one son was missing among over thirty people. It’s a special treat to count myself among them because I’m not actually related to any of them. Terry is my father’s second wife’s third husband. Don’t wear yourself out trying to figure that one out, just accept it. It will make it easier to understand how I ended up with two brothers with the same name. (“This is my brother Don and this is my other brother, Don.”) And if it took a little effort to become part of the Mehaffie family I can say it was worth it. I like these people. I genuinely like them. I would pick them for friends.
We spent time catching up with the Louisiana bunch who landed on their feet after Hurricane Katrina displaced them for a couple of weeks or so. Terry, Jr., the car salesman, found business booming as soon as they went back. And now the second phase is just around the corner. The “second phase” is folks who need a more dependable car in case they have to evacuate. Then I got to meet Terry’s nieces, one of whom lives and works in New York City in the neighborhood of ground zero.
In all of our conversations I reveled in not only the stories that make them interesting but in how normal they are. I won’t bore you with the details here but the family I grew up in before my mother died was anything but normal. That’s why I’ve developed the ability to make family where I find it. But it was a nice change to take family this week and discover what good friends they can become.
For friends who attend worship together on a weekly basis and do the dishes together after a church supper, it can be easy to maintain the ties that bind us into a family. For blood or legal relatives who live distances apart, it takes a little work.
It’s worth it.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Alligator Pond
I was a Girl Scout Leader for almost ten years. I helped lead two different troops, one for each of my daughters and I loved every minute. Except maybe that one time they were all…well, almost every minute. We did everything from flag etiquette to walking in parades dressed as clowns. Each spring an eighteen-wheeler would pull up to our house and fill our garage with boxes of cookies. But my favorite part was the camping. We were a hearty, no-nonsense bunch. Elizabeth’s troop got the Polar Bear patch on our first campout. That’s the patch for camping in weather below freezing. We camped in mud. We camped in tents on a hill surrounded by storms while seventh grade girls ran around in the rain and lightning, with the thunder almost as loud as my screaming to stay inside their tents. I was positive that God was going to strike them all dead and I wouldn’t even care. I was one of those warm and fuzzy Girl Scout leaders.
My friend Peggy and I kept a running tally of all the things you need to be a Girl Scout leader. Our point was that no one with girls this young had enough money to actually buy these things herself, therefore we claimed it should be issued to us as equipment. The list included a chain saw, a weather radar, a fifteen passenger van with a trailer behind it, a Xerox machine and several heavy duty canvas 8-person tents. Later, Peggy added a hysterectomy to the list. That’s when it occurred to me that what we all needed was lobotomies and I wondered if we could get a group rate. Maybe they could do the surgery as part of your initial training.
The rewards were small and seldom. There may be a few girls out there who can tie a square knot or build a fire as a result of my leadership. But there’s just as many who have learned that you can drop buttered bread face down in the dirt and it doesn’t taste nearly as bad as you might think.
However, my claim to fame that I boast proudly is that my troop was the only one that I know of to see the alligator in Alligator Pond.
I had been camping at Bette Perot Camp for several years when it happened. They have a pond on the back side of the tent area, at the start of their nature trail. And there was a sign at the edge of the pond that stated quite plainly “Alligator Pond.” Whenever we passed it, the girls would get all nervous and question-y about the alligator. Was there really an alligator in the pond? Would it jump out and eat them? I could never tell them yes or no for certain. That was one of the things that I missed in the training. Maybe I was in the bathroom when they discussed alligators eating the girls.
Deep down I was pretty sure this was merely a picturesque name designed to give the camp a certain ambiance; kind of like “Bluebonnet Trail” or “Heavenly Hill.” I was fairly certain no camp in their right minds would allow an alligator in their pond, especially one that housed little girls. I was certain the minute an alligator showed up the blue haired matrons that ran the Girl Scout program at that time would delegate some 20-year old maintenance guy with minor education to catch it, truss it and cart it off to another pond, maybe at a Boy Scout camp, preferably in another state. An alligator was the last thing I worried about at the camp. Plus, when you’re the kind of broad who is willing to spend your weekend with a bunch of hyper little girls, not much is going to scare you, certainly not a measly alligator.
By the time Emily was in the third grade we took her troop to Camp Bette Perot. The girls were new to camping and they were enthusiastic and energetic. That is a nice way to say driving me out of my mind—another reason the lobotomy would have come in handy.
As we came to the pond I gave them my usual routine about being really quiet so the alligator wouldn’t know we were there. My intent was to try to coax some fish to the surface so the girls could see them. We had little bags of crackers for them to feed the fish.
They always manage to stay quiet for about five minutes this way. I was looking forward to that tiny five-minute span of quiet. We broke our crackers and threw them in the water. As I was sitting there enjoying the blissful silence one of the girls whispered, “Mrs. Els I think I see the alligator.” This hit me as a great way to squeeze maybe five extra minutes of quiet as I encouraged the others to remain still and maybe they could see him, too. Soon another girl announced she saw the alligator. They were all getting into the being quiet part and I was patting myself on the back for getting them to set a new record for being still over ten minutes.
Then I saw him. And there was no doubt in my mind that this was an alligator. That sucker had to have been eight feet long, nose to tail. First I saw the ridge of bumps along his body barely breaking the water’s surface. A few minutes later I saw the ridges on his tail. Then his tail gently moved in a slow arc to propel his body toward us. He gradually moved closer to us and his two yellow eyes peeked up above the water. He got within six feet of the dock we were sitting on. I was screaming and clawing inside but couldn’t let the girls know. Besides, I was really enjoying the peace and quiet. He was a pretty graceful alligator. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind what we were seeing. His tail drove him closer to us and our delicious crackers, or maybe my tasty little scouts.
It was Cathy, the most hyperactive of them all, who I knew would break the spell but she did it so calmly I was impressed. Slowly and softly she said, “Oh, Mrs. Els, he can see me and he sees that I’m fat and I think he wants to eat me.” With that, Cathy merely stood up and the alligator immediately dipped below the surface and disappeared from our lives forever.
The miracle of it all was that we didn’t have 10 little girls and three women run screaming back to the cabins. As I remember we just continued our walk, talking about the remarkable thing we had just seen. We didn’t spend any more time at the pond, though.
Now that I think of it that may have been the last time I was at that camp. I don’t remember reporting it to the camp but I never read about any little girls being eaten by an alligator at Girl Scout camp in East Texas. If that alligator knew anything about third grade girls, which he probably did since he was surrounded by them every weekend, he was probably more afraid of them than they were of him.
I lost track of most of the girls in that troop but I still think of Cathy and worry about a third grade kid who thinks she's fat.
My friend Peggy and I kept a running tally of all the things you need to be a Girl Scout leader. Our point was that no one with girls this young had enough money to actually buy these things herself, therefore we claimed it should be issued to us as equipment. The list included a chain saw, a weather radar, a fifteen passenger van with a trailer behind it, a Xerox machine and several heavy duty canvas 8-person tents. Later, Peggy added a hysterectomy to the list. That’s when it occurred to me that what we all needed was lobotomies and I wondered if we could get a group rate. Maybe they could do the surgery as part of your initial training.
The rewards were small and seldom. There may be a few girls out there who can tie a square knot or build a fire as a result of my leadership. But there’s just as many who have learned that you can drop buttered bread face down in the dirt and it doesn’t taste nearly as bad as you might think.
However, my claim to fame that I boast proudly is that my troop was the only one that I know of to see the alligator in Alligator Pond.
I had been camping at Bette Perot Camp for several years when it happened. They have a pond on the back side of the tent area, at the start of their nature trail. And there was a sign at the edge of the pond that stated quite plainly “Alligator Pond.” Whenever we passed it, the girls would get all nervous and question-y about the alligator. Was there really an alligator in the pond? Would it jump out and eat them? I could never tell them yes or no for certain. That was one of the things that I missed in the training. Maybe I was in the bathroom when they discussed alligators eating the girls.
Deep down I was pretty sure this was merely a picturesque name designed to give the camp a certain ambiance; kind of like “Bluebonnet Trail” or “Heavenly Hill.” I was fairly certain no camp in their right minds would allow an alligator in their pond, especially one that housed little girls. I was certain the minute an alligator showed up the blue haired matrons that ran the Girl Scout program at that time would delegate some 20-year old maintenance guy with minor education to catch it, truss it and cart it off to another pond, maybe at a Boy Scout camp, preferably in another state. An alligator was the last thing I worried about at the camp. Plus, when you’re the kind of broad who is willing to spend your weekend with a bunch of hyper little girls, not much is going to scare you, certainly not a measly alligator.
By the time Emily was in the third grade we took her troop to Camp Bette Perot. The girls were new to camping and they were enthusiastic and energetic. That is a nice way to say driving me out of my mind—another reason the lobotomy would have come in handy.
As we came to the pond I gave them my usual routine about being really quiet so the alligator wouldn’t know we were there. My intent was to try to coax some fish to the surface so the girls could see them. We had little bags of crackers for them to feed the fish.
They always manage to stay quiet for about five minutes this way. I was looking forward to that tiny five-minute span of quiet. We broke our crackers and threw them in the water. As I was sitting there enjoying the blissful silence one of the girls whispered, “Mrs. Els I think I see the alligator.” This hit me as a great way to squeeze maybe five extra minutes of quiet as I encouraged the others to remain still and maybe they could see him, too. Soon another girl announced she saw the alligator. They were all getting into the being quiet part and I was patting myself on the back for getting them to set a new record for being still over ten minutes.
Then I saw him. And there was no doubt in my mind that this was an alligator. That sucker had to have been eight feet long, nose to tail. First I saw the ridge of bumps along his body barely breaking the water’s surface. A few minutes later I saw the ridges on his tail. Then his tail gently moved in a slow arc to propel his body toward us. He gradually moved closer to us and his two yellow eyes peeked up above the water. He got within six feet of the dock we were sitting on. I was screaming and clawing inside but couldn’t let the girls know. Besides, I was really enjoying the peace and quiet. He was a pretty graceful alligator. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind what we were seeing. His tail drove him closer to us and our delicious crackers, or maybe my tasty little scouts.
It was Cathy, the most hyperactive of them all, who I knew would break the spell but she did it so calmly I was impressed. Slowly and softly she said, “Oh, Mrs. Els, he can see me and he sees that I’m fat and I think he wants to eat me.” With that, Cathy merely stood up and the alligator immediately dipped below the surface and disappeared from our lives forever.
The miracle of it all was that we didn’t have 10 little girls and three women run screaming back to the cabins. As I remember we just continued our walk, talking about the remarkable thing we had just seen. We didn’t spend any more time at the pond, though.
Now that I think of it that may have been the last time I was at that camp. I don’t remember reporting it to the camp but I never read about any little girls being eaten by an alligator at Girl Scout camp in East Texas. If that alligator knew anything about third grade girls, which he probably did since he was surrounded by them every weekend, he was probably more afraid of them than they were of him.
I lost track of most of the girls in that troop but I still think of Cathy and worry about a third grade kid who thinks she's fat.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
My Evening as a Dixie Chick
The Dixie Chicks are in the news again. No matter what your politics are, you have to admit they have a fairly exciting lifestyle. I’m going to tell you about the night I had their lifestyle for just a bit. No matter how small the resemblance, it was still one of the most exciting times of my life.
In the summer of 2000 one of my friends got tickets for our little group to see the Dixie Chicks. This was “pre-Bush embarrassment” and they were one of the hottest tickets in town. Nancy was able to get us tickets through a friend of a friend who knows someone who knows someone with the Dixie Chicks. I've never known anyone famous but now I have someone who is a friend of a friend of someone famous. Maybe that counts. We numbered four and each of us had something to contribute for the evening. Nancy got the tickets and handled the money. I cooked a tailgate dinner-mostly salads and cold stuff. I was deep into my Martha Stewart phase so it was very elaborate and tasty. Janet was in charge of the ice and drinks, including Champagne. And Lori said she would drive.
We all met at Lori's office to switch to her car. Lori owns a website design company and she had just moved into a fancy new office. Business was booming and she was tired. So she did what I understand the overworked, wealthy and generous do on occasion: she hired a limo for us that evening. Lori was ready to kick butt and enjoy herself. And we were only too glad to go along for the ride. She introduced us to Carlos, our chauffer for the evening.
Carlos was driving a long black stretch limo with darkened windows, not the wimpy kind they use as funerals. It had a bar with crystal wine glasses. Janet uncorked the champagne and we popped in the latest Dixie Chicks CD then sat in total luxury while Carlos, our newest best friend, worried about traffic and parking. When we got to the concert Carlos set up our table with our red and white checked tablecloth and began acting as our personal maitre’d. I guess there’s not much for a driver to do once he’s finished driving. Hanging around us must have beat sitting in a hot car by himself. We got out all the food I had been cooking for two days and it was delicious from the Gazpacho right down to the Lemon Poppyseed cake.
The parking lot was great people watching territory. We could see right off the bat that we were a good 20 or 30 years older than most of the audience. They were going to be mostly teenaged girls, some with their families and some alone. Sitting there in our small circle of lawn chairs, half of us could see teenagers coming toward us and maintained a running report on the tightness of their jeans and the boots. The other half of us watched them as they walked away from us and observed that there's a style of shirt now that's almost totally backless. "You sure couldn't wear one of those if you had any boobs," said Janet, who has plenty enough for the rest of us. We were starting to feel pretty old and motherly.
After a drive totally without hassle, after our leisurely and tasty meal and an assortment of great girlfriend talk; we just left Carlos to clean everything up and strolled into the concert and our reserved seats. It turned out that Nancy’s friend of the friend wasn’t that great of a friend or maybe our tickets were at the bottom of the friend’s priorities because our seats were in the nosebleed section. Just getting to our seats was an aerobic exercise. This turned out to be not such a bad thing; the concert was for their “Fly” album and there was a huge helium fake fly buzzing around the ceiling. We had a better view of the fly than most people. I think the fly’s main function was to dispense t-shirts and assorted gimmees to warm up the crowd. I realize having a huge fly buzzing around you at a concert throwing things at you may not sound very classy but, trust me, it was cool.
It was a great concert. Especially considering that I knew very little about the Chicks and had bought my first CD only the day before. I enjoyed the music and the crowd. I was glad to have gone to so many church youth events because I realized how much youth gatherings, at least in the Presbyterian Church, are like rock concerts. And since I’ve gone to so many youth events, I knew all the moves and attitudes. And I learned them at church, of all places. It was fun to let my hair down and boogie down with the kids. My own daughters would have been mortified to see me act that way but I had a blast
We had five teenaged girls in front of us who had no visible family but somehow kept bringing back beer from the concession stand. At first I assumed they were of age but as it gradually sank in I turned to Nancy for an estimate of their age and she confirmed what I thought: "17, tops." At least they had shirts with backs to them. But little else. They wore almost identical short tight dresses with spaghetti straps. They must have put their money in the bodice of these almost nonexistent dresses because they kept digging around inside and patting their tiny chests. After their third beer I wanted to call their mothers and rat on them. But by that time we had also made friends with them. They would turn around to see Lori and Nancy dancing as wildly as they were and they would all high-five each other in sister-like glee. I half-expected Lori to offer to buy them a beer.
For some reason there were five girls but only three seats. Fortunately for them there were very few times in the night anybody sat down, but they managed to do it when they needed to. And they kept pulling out their cell phones to call people. Given the noise level inside Reunion Arena, this was a real curiosity. There's absolutely no way they could have completed a call nor heard a sound through the phone. It was a real mystery to me.
It was a really well done concert and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Knowing we had our own private driver waiting to drive us home, we weren't in a big hurry after the concert. So we let the crowd die out before we left. But we had a hard time locating Carlos, who wasn't where he said he would be. Moderate grumbling was made all around and once we connected, we ended up being just about the last car to leave. However, Carlos managed to weave his way through the traffic and we found ourselves passing other cars on the road around the arena.
I explain all this because eventually we noticed that people were waving at our car. Carloads of teenage girls were leaning out of their cars shouting and waving at us, hanging out the window on their tiny bare stomachs. They were shouting and waving with an almost hysterical delight. I'm thinking "Haven't these people seen a limo before?" But they kept up. It felt sort of like being in a parade as every car of teenagers waved hysterically at us with glee. Finally it hit us all that people thought WE were the Dixie Chicks inside this stretch limo with its blackened windows.
NOW we're talking about an ego rush. There’s no other word. A real Ego Rush. I'm positive that's who they thought we were. Most people, including teenagers, don't wave at other cars, even limos, the way they were waving at us. We finally talked Lori, the only blonde among us, into raising her blonde little head just a few inches out of the sun roof and wave an arm just to give them a thrill.
Or maybe it was to give us one, I'm not sure which.
An evening to remember with a smile--
Your friend Jane, a real Chick now
In the summer of 2000 one of my friends got tickets for our little group to see the Dixie Chicks. This was “pre-Bush embarrassment” and they were one of the hottest tickets in town. Nancy was able to get us tickets through a friend of a friend who knows someone who knows someone with the Dixie Chicks. I've never known anyone famous but now I have someone who is a friend of a friend of someone famous. Maybe that counts. We numbered four and each of us had something to contribute for the evening. Nancy got the tickets and handled the money. I cooked a tailgate dinner-mostly salads and cold stuff. I was deep into my Martha Stewart phase so it was very elaborate and tasty. Janet was in charge of the ice and drinks, including Champagne. And Lori said she would drive.
We all met at Lori's office to switch to her car. Lori owns a website design company and she had just moved into a fancy new office. Business was booming and she was tired. So she did what I understand the overworked, wealthy and generous do on occasion: she hired a limo for us that evening. Lori was ready to kick butt and enjoy herself. And we were only too glad to go along for the ride. She introduced us to Carlos, our chauffer for the evening.
Carlos was driving a long black stretch limo with darkened windows, not the wimpy kind they use as funerals. It had a bar with crystal wine glasses. Janet uncorked the champagne and we popped in the latest Dixie Chicks CD then sat in total luxury while Carlos, our newest best friend, worried about traffic and parking. When we got to the concert Carlos set up our table with our red and white checked tablecloth and began acting as our personal maitre’d. I guess there’s not much for a driver to do once he’s finished driving. Hanging around us must have beat sitting in a hot car by himself. We got out all the food I had been cooking for two days and it was delicious from the Gazpacho right down to the Lemon Poppyseed cake.
The parking lot was great people watching territory. We could see right off the bat that we were a good 20 or 30 years older than most of the audience. They were going to be mostly teenaged girls, some with their families and some alone. Sitting there in our small circle of lawn chairs, half of us could see teenagers coming toward us and maintained a running report on the tightness of their jeans and the boots. The other half of us watched them as they walked away from us and observed that there's a style of shirt now that's almost totally backless. "You sure couldn't wear one of those if you had any boobs," said Janet, who has plenty enough for the rest of us. We were starting to feel pretty old and motherly.
After a drive totally without hassle, after our leisurely and tasty meal and an assortment of great girlfriend talk; we just left Carlos to clean everything up and strolled into the concert and our reserved seats. It turned out that Nancy’s friend of the friend wasn’t that great of a friend or maybe our tickets were at the bottom of the friend’s priorities because our seats were in the nosebleed section. Just getting to our seats was an aerobic exercise. This turned out to be not such a bad thing; the concert was for their “Fly” album and there was a huge helium fake fly buzzing around the ceiling. We had a better view of the fly than most people. I think the fly’s main function was to dispense t-shirts and assorted gimmees to warm up the crowd. I realize having a huge fly buzzing around you at a concert throwing things at you may not sound very classy but, trust me, it was cool.
It was a great concert. Especially considering that I knew very little about the Chicks and had bought my first CD only the day before. I enjoyed the music and the crowd. I was glad to have gone to so many church youth events because I realized how much youth gatherings, at least in the Presbyterian Church, are like rock concerts. And since I’ve gone to so many youth events, I knew all the moves and attitudes. And I learned them at church, of all places. It was fun to let my hair down and boogie down with the kids. My own daughters would have been mortified to see me act that way but I had a blast
We had five teenaged girls in front of us who had no visible family but somehow kept bringing back beer from the concession stand. At first I assumed they were of age but as it gradually sank in I turned to Nancy for an estimate of their age and she confirmed what I thought: "17, tops." At least they had shirts with backs to them. But little else. They wore almost identical short tight dresses with spaghetti straps. They must have put their money in the bodice of these almost nonexistent dresses because they kept digging around inside and patting their tiny chests. After their third beer I wanted to call their mothers and rat on them. But by that time we had also made friends with them. They would turn around to see Lori and Nancy dancing as wildly as they were and they would all high-five each other in sister-like glee. I half-expected Lori to offer to buy them a beer.
For some reason there were five girls but only three seats. Fortunately for them there were very few times in the night anybody sat down, but they managed to do it when they needed to. And they kept pulling out their cell phones to call people. Given the noise level inside Reunion Arena, this was a real curiosity. There's absolutely no way they could have completed a call nor heard a sound through the phone. It was a real mystery to me.
It was a really well done concert and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Knowing we had our own private driver waiting to drive us home, we weren't in a big hurry after the concert. So we let the crowd die out before we left. But we had a hard time locating Carlos, who wasn't where he said he would be. Moderate grumbling was made all around and once we connected, we ended up being just about the last car to leave. However, Carlos managed to weave his way through the traffic and we found ourselves passing other cars on the road around the arena.
I explain all this because eventually we noticed that people were waving at our car. Carloads of teenage girls were leaning out of their cars shouting and waving at us, hanging out the window on their tiny bare stomachs. They were shouting and waving with an almost hysterical delight. I'm thinking "Haven't these people seen a limo before?" But they kept up. It felt sort of like being in a parade as every car of teenagers waved hysterically at us with glee. Finally it hit us all that people thought WE were the Dixie Chicks inside this stretch limo with its blackened windows.
NOW we're talking about an ego rush. There’s no other word. A real Ego Rush. I'm positive that's who they thought we were. Most people, including teenagers, don't wave at other cars, even limos, the way they were waving at us. We finally talked Lori, the only blonde among us, into raising her blonde little head just a few inches out of the sun roof and wave an arm just to give them a thrill.
Or maybe it was to give us one, I'm not sure which.
An evening to remember with a smile--
Your friend Jane, a real Chick now
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