People I remember most

  

March 7, 2008

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I’ve written many feature stories and articles about people. Some of them are etched in my mind more than others.

There was a blind Air Force wife who had a one year old sighted baby.  I interviewed her in base housing at now defunct Blytheville Air Force Base. The woman’s husband, a lieutenant, was away on military duty at lot, so the main care of the baby was left to the mother. The baby was named Christie Noel because she was born at Christmas time.

The tiny toddler was beautiful. She wore little bells on her white shoes so that her mother could hear the bells jingle and know where the toddler might be. At one point the baby stopped running abut the room and laid her head in her mother’s lap. She gazed at me, and sucked her thumb. The mother touched the baby’s head. I snapped the photograph that would be used to accompany my story.

I asked the mother to describe her baby to me.

She said, ” I don’t really know what she looks like, but I know she’s pretty. She described what she thought the baby looked like from touch and feel.

I should mention that the mother had been sighted until she was about 13.   An  infection had caused her to become blind.

The mother told me about her coping skills of caring for the baby and her household.

I asked her about her fears and she surprised me with her answer.
“Spiders,” she said. “I’m afraid Christie might try to pick up a spider.”

A Super Bowl novice

February 4,  2008

Over 97.5 million viewers watched the most watched Super Bowl ever in broadcast history.

I was one of them. However, you’ll soon learn that I am a football novice. Actually I rank below a novice. I know little about the semantics of football. Because I had heard a lot of pre-game discussion, I decided I would tune in on Sunday night

I phoned my son and told him I was going to eat my nacho cheese Doritos, and watch the game. I told him I knew the Patriots were going to play and that they were undefeated in preseason play.

I then asked him who the Patriots were playing in the Super Bowl. He told me the Patriots were competing against the New York Giants who were not favored to win. I told him I thought I needed to root for one team or the other. I decided to watch about 1o or 15 minutes of the game before I picked the team I wanted to win.

About 15 minutes later I phoned my son and said that I had decided to root for the New York Giants because I liked the looks of the quarterback.

“Yeah,” he said, “that’s Manning. His brother won the Super Bowl last year.”

“You’re kidding,” I said. “That must be his brother that’s up there in that booth in the shadows away from the crowd.”

I went on to tell my son that I had mixed emotions. I hated to see an undefeated team lose this game, yet I wanted the underdogs to win too. One of the players was 36 years old and that’s old for the grind of football.

I settled down to watch the rest of the game. I don’t know a lot about first downs, and all that, but I know that getting a first down is very important to the players and the coaches. And that it takes the whole team to win a game, not just the quarterback and the receivers. I didn’t know the names of any of the players so I had to familiarize myself with team members as the game progressed.

The game became extremely exciting as I watched play by play. I couldn’t believe all the outstanding throws that the quarterbacks made and the almost impossible catches.

Near the latter part of the game I was astounded to see Manning fight his way out of a tangle of Patriots who were bent on bringing him down. As Manning escaped, the Patriots were pulling and janking on his shirt tail. He broke free, then threw an amazing football to his receiver, number 85, who jumped into the air, did a backward limbo, and caught the ball. He held on despite having to fight off a Patriot who was just as bent to steal the ball away. To me, that was fabulous.

After that, I was hooked on the game. The last 15 minutes of the game I was biting my nails and standing in front of the t.v. set. The game, I knew, could still go either way. It seemed the Patriots were being outfoxed on the field.

I was thrilled when Manning made the touchdown throw and it was caught by his receiver, number 17. That play clinched the Super Bowl win for the Giants.

No, I didn’t learn a lot about the game of football. All I know is that it was an exciting game that I’m glad I didn’t miss. It sure beat watching a Hallmark rerun.

It also proves that a novice can enjoy the game.  Oh, yes, the final score was 17-14. I guess that’s important to mention.

Well, Christmas is over and it’s just a few days until we begin the new year 2008.

This morning I started dismantling some of the Christmas decorations and stored them in cardboard boxes until next year. Christmas dinner leftovers crowd the shelves of my new refrigerator. There’s leftover turkey, smoked ham, whole sweet corn, cornbread dressing, turkey gravy,  cranberry salad, five cup salad and apple pie. It was a good Christmas with relatives and friends, nine of us in all.

Somehow today I’m having postmartem feelings now that it’s all over. There was such a lot to do before Christmas with all the preparations of decorating, shopping, buying and wrapping gifts, cooking. Now that it’s over, I feel letdown. A sadness has crept into my day, leaving me lonely and blue. The glitter is gone.

The old thoughts that were pushed aside by the busyness of Christmas are surfacing; those issues and feelings that haven’t been properly dealth with. You know how it is with something that is bothering you. You can gloss it over and cover it with activities, but eventually your mind returns to that niggling bothersome reality

 There’s nothing you can change. It is all consuming and clings like static in your mind

What is she talking about, some of you will say.  Others already know and relate.

Regardless, it is a new year and that brings a promise. It brings a promise of a happy beginning and a happy ending and better times within.
God is in control.

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