Category Archives: The Authentic Life

An attempt at analysis of the modern era and our ways of dealing with it.

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Life as a POW

After my dad had to bail out of his B-24 and was captured by German farmers near Freden, he was taken to Stalag Luft Ein, a prisoner-of-war camp for Allied air crew members. He was one of some 8,000 POWs — Kriegies they called themselves — at the camp near Barth in northern Germany. He spent 15 months there, only leaving after the Russians came through near the end of the war and liberated the POW camp.

Daddy’s 8th Army Air Force insignia.

A member of the Eighth Army Air Force stationed in England, Daddy always said that Jimmy Stewart, the famous actor of early 1940s, was his commander. I haven’t checked on that, but I do know that Jimmy Stewart signed up when the war began to express his patriotism and fight the Nazi threat. Daddy didn’t talk much about the whole experience, but he was proud to serve with the famous Stewart.

My sister remembers that Daddy told a story of Stewart borrowing his flight jacket once for a photo op! Daddy’s claim to fame, she says!

The B-24 Liberator. Daddy was a navigator/bombardier on one of these on missions attacking ball-bearing plants in Germany. The ball bearings were essential for the tanks the German Panzers were attacking European countries with.

I remember very little of what Daddy may have said about life in the POW camp. The two things I remember are that he hated the food and he and the other prisoners were constantly trying to escape.

People always asked, “Did you try to escape?”

Daddy always answered the same way: “We didn’t do anything else.”

Cartoons from the book Welcome to POW Camp, which I mentioned in previous posts, bear this out.

A famous story, one my Daddy told us, from Stalag Luft 1: the day they finished the tunnel, climbed out, and found German soldiers waiting for them. Somehow they knew.

These cartoons provide a bit of insight into what life was like in the prison.

Solitary confinement was used to punish the POWs for trying to escape or being offensive to the guards.
Daddy would never eat sauer kraut or rutabaga, as I recall. Mom said it was because that was all he had to eat in POW camp. She said he only weighed 90 pounds when he got home.
Despite the harsh treatment and dangers, the POWs continued to resist the Nazi demands to “seig Heil” or salute Hitler while in the camp.

Probably the dominant thing that I remember from my Daddy’s few comments about the war and his POW time was his strong belief that the sacrifice and the discomfort were all worth it, because the dangers of Hitler’s Nazi assault on the world demanded that Americans step up and join the Allies to defeat him.

Daddy’s wings and lieutenant bars, plus a few other pins Mom saved.

Daddy was awarded an Air Medal, American Defense Service Medal, and the EAME Theater Ribbon with a battle star for his service. As far as I know, he never displayed those or talked about them. I only discovered this list of medals recently when I found his discharge orders in some things of his that I’ve had for years.

The whole experience left him proud and dedicated to his life as a newspaper man, spreading truth in the world. It must have had serious effects on his health, as his heart started to go in his 50s, and at 66 he died following bypass surgery.

He was as good a man as has ever walked this earth, and he was equally kind and generous to everyone, regardless of their status. All of us, his children, have struggled to live up to the high standards he set.

And we still love, honor and miss him these 39 years later.

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Anna June Spring ‘24

April 2024

Ah, where to begin! So much going on with this girl I don’t know what to talk about first!

We had a great visit with JohnJohn at the Union Station back in March when some of our friends were playing there, and June just loved seeing him and hanging out with the kids at the Station. She wants to go back every weekend! She was very well-behaved, though I had a little bit of a hard time keeping up with her in the crowd. But she was not intimidated at all and didn’t cause any problems. She played with a group of mostly older kids around inside and out in the courtyard. She can hang with the big kids!

Her conceptual development continues to amaze me. Last month, she asked me, just out of the blue, “But Dad, who made God?”

I tried to answer that in a way she could understand, saying basically that no one could really answer that question, but there are different ideas about it. I refrained from trying to explain that we can’t rule out an infinite regress of causation…

She also asked me who was the first person. Also hard to answer. She’s constantly questioning! Those church folk are not likely to be successful at indoctrinating her!

Lots more to journal, as life goes on in stressful, joyful and unexpected ways! But focusing on June is what I’m about here! She’s with me at least five days a week, sometimes more, and we are getting on very well. I almost never need to resort to threat of punishment to get her to do what I’m asking her to do, and she’s almost always a very happy kid!

We do lots of activities, scooter rides to the park and playing in the yard, plus games inside. She loves hiding eggs — we’ve been doing that since a few weeks before Easter — and hide-and-seek, musical concerts, and lots of reading.

As we approach her sixth birthday and the end of Kindergarten, her reading skills are developing rapidly. She loves reading the Accelerated Reader books with me, and most of them she can read through with no help on the second or third read. She’s made 100s on all of them so far. It’s really fun seeing her decode and learn to read with expression.

She still just loves to talk, and it’s sometimes very entertaining, though late at night it’s annoying! Her vocabulary now includes words like “eventually,” “obvious,” “similar,” and “solution.” Are these Kindergarten words?

She calls me “Dude” or “Bro” sometimes now. But sometimes, she still likes to baby-talk. And she tells me she loves me every day!

She is totally amazing on the scooter! She can go so fast and make tight circles with both feet on the board, which she calls skateboarding—she met some skateboard kids at the park and got to try out a real skateboard. We do videos often for Granny!

She’s going on her third boat ride with her friend Ember today, and she loves driving the boat!

We’re really looking forward to our trip to Dixie next weekend! She needs to know all her cousins and other family! Should be fun!

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LittleJohnnyIX

(Another installment in the series of stories I tell June from my childhood.)

A visit to Granmunnie’s house

When Little Johnny was about eight or nine, he would ride the train, the Central of Georgia, from Adel to Macon and go visit his grandma—he called her Granmunnie—who lived in Gray. (Georgia Gray, as Johnny called it.)

Johnny got to ride the train because Granmunnie’s friend Mr. Green was a conductor, and he helped look out for Johnny on the trip.

Granmunnie lived in a big two-story house right in the middle of Gray, and worked as a social worker for the welfare department in Jones County. Johnny loved the house, though the upstairs, especially the room that was always locked at the top of the stairs, was a little scary. One day he climbed out the window of the landing onto the little porch roof and slipped down to look in the window of the locked room. He was kinda disappointed, though, because there was nothing but boxes and trunks and old manikins and piles of clothes in the room. No skeletons or ghosts or anything exciting!

He also loved going to work with Granmunnie at the courthouse annex, but the “trusties” who did yard work and janitorial work around the courthouse were a little scary too in their blue and white striped uniforms.

Johnny would get to ride with Granmunnie to visit some of her clients out in the county, and they would often stop at a peach orchard a friend of hers owned and she would walk out into the orchard and pick a few peaches and then she and Johnny would sit in her old 1940s Chevrolet and eat them.

They would visit a man who lived out in the middle of a pasture in a little shack he had made out of old signs and cardboard boxes, and a family who lived in an very old wooden house that was teetering on top of piles of rocks on a little clay hill. Johnny would try to talk to the kids who were sitting on the rickety old porch, but they never said much.

Sometimes while Granmunnie was working in her office, Johnny would go into the little county library that was in the same building and lie on the couch and read. He loved reading books about dogs, like Big Red, and one of his favorite characters, Augustus, and he even read some adult mysteries, including a lot of Perry Mason stories. (The Darby Trial was one mystery, which he read because he thought it was the Darby ‘trail’ not ‘trial,’ and he didn’t understand much of what was going on in it!.)

He and his Granmunnie had lime sherbet with Bubble-Up almost every day after supper, and Johnny still thinks of her whenever he sees lime sherbet.

Granmunnie’s house had a closed well on the back porch, but she never drew water from it. There was an old shed and a storage building in the back yard, which was all bare clay with a few oak leaves scattered around, and Johnny would get a rake and run around the back yard pulling the rake behind him to make tracks through the leaves.

There was also a very old, one-room house at the very back of the lot, just across an alley that ran through, and a woman who occasionally would cook or clean Granmunnie’s house lived there by herself. The old house had an open fireplace in it and the woman did all her cooking in the fireplace. Johnny remembers the way the house always smelled like wood smoke, because there was always a fire, even in the summer.

There was an old, old car in the shed that Uncle Dan had bought when he was young—maybe it even worked—and Johnny loved to sit in it and pretend to drive. It had wire wheels and no top, and Johnny thought it was just about the coolest thing he ever had seen!

The house was very mysterious to Johnny, because there were doors at several places outside that went under the house, which was higher off the ground than Johnny was tall! The whole thing was surrounded by old rusted iron fences that had very decorative, pointy things at the top of each post and gates that opened up into the alley at the side of the house.

When the visit was over, Granmunnie would drive Johnny in to the train station in Macon for his ride back to Adel. She always packed him a nice little lunch for the ride, and he enjoyed looking out the window while he ate.

One time, he had just finished his lunch when the conductor came through with a large garbage can calling out to the passengers for trash. Johnny wanted to get his lunch bag into the can, so he quickly rolled it up and tossed it in.

Just as the conductor pulled the trash out of the train car and started across the clattering, scary platform where the two cars were hooked together, Johnny realized that he had forgotten that in the bottom of his lunch sack were about four of his favorite cookies—Nabisco sugar wafers—and he had just thrown them away.

He was so disappointed and sad that he almost cried when he realized the cookies were gone. But it was too late to chase down the trash and get them back! Little Johnny remembers that trip—and his Granmunnie—every time he eats sugar wafers!

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Little Johnny IV

(These are a few more of the Little Johnny stories as I tell them to Anna June. Most of this is true…)

Little Johnny Rides His Bike

Once upon a time, when Little Johnny was about six or seven, he got a new bicycle without training wheels, and he was trying to learn to ride it. It was a little scary, but his Daddy was helping him.

One day they were riding up the dirt road from their house at 400 W. Alden St. in Valdosta, with Daddy holding on and keeping the bike balanced. Johnny was doing pretty good on the way up, and so, on the way back down the road, Daddy turned loose and Johnny was riding along on his own. But then… he got a little nervous and looked back to see if Daddy was still holding the bike, and when he did, he accidentally turned the handlebars a little too much and the bike flipped up and threw him right over the handlebars!

He hit the road right on his forehead, and a nice rock cut his head. Daddy pushed the bike on back to the house as Johnny walked along crying. He was okay; it wasn’t a terrible wound, but he did have a little scar right at his hairline for a long time.

The next day, though, Little Johnny went out and got on that bike and rode it right up the road all by himself! He was so proud and happy, and he rode that bike every day after that.

Little Johnny and the Train Trestle

(This is June’s favorite Little Johnny story.)

One night when Little Johnny was a teenager, he was driving his daddy’s station wagon around the mountain roads near Junaluska, North Carolina, where Johnny and his family were visiting their friends who had a cabin at the lake. He and several of his brothers and his sister Linda and their friend Bunny Anna were all just riding around ‘cuz there wasn’t a lot to do at the lake at night.

They were coming down County Road and everybody was having a nice time, and then Bunny Anna said, “Oh look, here comes the trestle, speed up Johnny!”

So Little Johnny, always hoping to make little Bunny Anna happy, stepped on the gas and the car started speeding along toward the trestle.

“No! No! Slow down! I was just kidding!” Bunny Anna said.

She thought that Johnny knew about the trestle and the curve that was on the other side of it, but he hadn’t done much driving on County Road, so he didn’t remember that curve.

When Anna said to slow down, he tried, but it was too late, he was going too fast!

The little Ford station wagon zipped underneath the old railroad trestle and there was the curve, twisting around to the right. Johnny was trying to slow down and putting on the brakes and turning hard to the right, but the curve was too sharp and he was going too fast! The station wagon crossed the left lane—luckily, there were no other cars coming from the other direction!—and was riding on the left shoulder of the road. Down below was a valley with a river and lots of rocks and Johnny was very afraid, but he kept holding the wheels on the road and finally the car slowed down and was able to get back to his side of the road.

Just a little ways further and there was a place to pull over on the right, so Johnny pulled over and stopped.

Suddenly, everybody started laughing and saying silly things because they were so happy they didn’t fall off the mountain into the valley.

But suddenly Johnny’s sister Linda, who was a very sweet and good little girl, yelled out at them all, “Stop your damn laughing!”

Everybody stopped laughing right away and gasped! They were so surprised, because Linda never, ever had said a bad word before! Everybody started saying sorry and feeling really bad for laughing after they almost died, and Little Johnny especially felt terrible about being so foolish and driving too fast. He promised Linda and all the others that he would NEVER do that again!

J

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Little Johnny Stories

Little Johnny Stories – Dad to June…

These are some of the stories I have told to June over the years when she wants to hear “Little Johnny” stories. Mostly they are true stories of things I remember from childhood, tho sometimes the gaps of memory are filled in with things to make it interesting to her. She often remembers stories that I’ve told her that I have forgotten I told her, and it’s sometimes challenging to remember what it was all about from her description, so they are an evolving form! The titles are mostly from what she calls them when she asks to hear them… I will post a few of these along and along as I can get them written up.

“Little Johnny and his Mommy”

Once upon a time when Little Johnny was a very little boy living in a duplex beside the highway in Gray, Georgia, (which Little Johnny always called Georgia Gray) he wandered out to the edge of the highway from the back yard where he was supposed to be playing. His mommy had always told him to stay in the back yard and never, never go out near the highway because it was so dangerous.

But that day, Little Johnny saw the big Army trucks loaded with tanks and big guns and lots of interesting things, so he wanted to get a better look. He wandered across the front yard watching the convoy and even went down into the ditch by the highway. Mommy was watching out the window and she saw that he was leaving the back yard, so she wiped her hands on her apron and headed for the front door.  She saw Johnny just as he was going into the ditch, and she started calling out to him, “Johnny, you get back in this yard! Get away from that highway! Come back here right now!”

But Johnny was really interested in those big green army trucks and the things on them, so he glanced back at his Mommy and said “Okay Mommie!”

But he didn’t come back. He just stood in that ditch watching. He didn’t even notice that Mommy was coming across the front yard now, and she was not happy! She was still calling to him to come back.

When she got to the ditch, she grabbed Johnny by the arm and turned him around and said, “Young man, what are you doing! You know you are not supposed to be out here by this highway!”

“Yes Mommy…” Johnny said. He was not watching the trucks anymore, he was watching Mommy’s  very angry face, and he was worried.

Mommy turned him around and gave him a good spank on his bottom and then started marching him back to their apartment, talking to him the whole time about how bad it was to go out to that highway and how dangerous it was and how he had better never, ever do that again or he would get the spanking of his life when his Daddy got home.

“Yes, Mommy,” Johnny said. He was crying now, and he was very sorry that he had gone out to the highway. “I’ll never do that again, Mommy!” he promised.

“Well, I sure hope not!” Mommy said. She was still mad, but she was starting to calm down now. Stopped and knelt down beside Johnny. “You really scared me, you know! I love you very much, Johnny, and I don’t want you to get hurt, so please remember to do what I tell you to do!”

“Yes, Mommy. I will,” Johnny said.

And he was sure that he would really try to remember that, because he did not like to see his Mommy so mad!

“Little Johnny and the Preacher”

One Sunday not long after Little Johnny had moved to Georgia Gray, where his Granmunnie lived, Johnny’s Mommy and Daddy invited the preacher from their church to come over for dinner after church. Little Johnny’s Grandaddy, who died a long time ago when Johnny’s Daddy was just 19 (he was almost 30 by now), had been a Baptist preacher, so Johnny’s Daddy and Mommy really liked going to church and they wanted to get to know everybody in the church, because most of them had known his Grandaddy. They also wanted to make a good impression on the preacher, so they told Little Johnny to be really nice to him.

Now Little Johnny was a sweet-looking little boy, with a head full of reddish curls, and his Mommy sometimes said he looked like a little angel and she sure wished he’d act like one. So Johnny said he would be good.

But, in the duplex where they lived were two little boys a little older than Johnny. Mommy said they were “sawmill kids” because their daddy worked in a sawmill, and she also said that sawmill kids were sometime kinda mean. She was right about these two little boys, because they had been teaching Johnny some kinda mean things. Like bad words to say when people were doing things you didn’t like.

So when the preacher came in and met sweet-looking little Johnny, he started rubbing Johnny’s head and saying what pretty curls he had. Well, Johnny didn’t like that so much, so he looked at the preacher and he said, “Get your damn hand offa me!”

Oh my gosh! Johnny’s Mommy and Daddy were so embarrassed, because, you know, nobody’s supposed to say cus words to a preacher, especially not a sweet-looking little boy, so they apologized and they made Johnny say he was sorry and they tried to explain that he was learning bad words from the little boys next door and they would never let him hear them saying anything like that.

So the preacher just laughed and said, “Oh yes, it’s fine, just being a little boy!”

And they all laughed and tried to forget about it, but it was not quite the perfect after-church dinner that Johnny’s Mommy was hoping for!

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The Children, Spring 23

April 9, 2023

Taylor and the kids have been enjoying church a lot lately. Taylor is getting involved with classes and the kids are going to choir and Awanas.

Anna June is still being a challenge these days — seems like I write that often! She asked me recently to tell her all the Spanish words I know, so I’m trying. She wanted to know how to say ‘I want to go outside’ — which I think is something like Quera vas campo… maybe? I guess I need to break out the old Spanish books.

April 12-13, 2023

Spending the day with Marvin today, as Taylor and Anna June are on the Turtle Center field trip. We’ve had a good day, though Marvin is still sick.

He’s thrown up, had an earache and going to the doctor. Anna June is sneezy and coughing, but seems okay.

She keeps asking me about “patterns” and asking if things are a pattern. She seems to be very good at seeing them. She truly fits the descriptions I see online of “the sensitive child.” Lots of empathy and responsiveness and imagination is part of that personality, they say. She’s that.

The other night as I was sitting on her bed at story time, she noticed me rolling my head uncomfortably against the wall, so she got up and got me a big pillow for my head. So sweet!

We keep talking about homeschooling, as we have since before Marvin even started school. Maybe soon, or maybe next year. Maybe a group thing? Lots of possibilities.

April 14, 2023

The doctor ordered an x-ray of Marvin’s chest. It’s very concerning, so we’re doing the nebulizer treatments and an antibiotic… he seems to feel okay today, but no school.

Turns out it’s pneumonia! So we’re treating them both for that.

April 16, 2023

Kinda returning to health and happiness now… but too sick for school. We are seriously considering not taking them back, since they seem to get sick again every time they go back. And they’ve missed so much school.

April 21-23, 2023

A shooting in the Food Lion parking lot has us worried about taking the kids anywhere! The world is going crazy!

We’re definitely making the move to home school. The kids seem happy to be home, so it’s going well so far.

A great day with the kids yesterday! We played with them a lot and had a fun time inside and out! Working learning into the fun is the main idea of this approach to school.

Marvin spontaneously wrote a big sentence on the sidewalk when we were “chalking.” Then he had a meltdown because June altered one of his letters!

Taylor took a very calm and constructive approach to his fit, and he got over it quickly. I need to work on being more calm in the face of their outbursts.

April 27, 2023

Marvin asked, “What is infinity?” Mom and I both said, “I don’t know.”

Anna June said, “Infinity is forever!”

Astounding! But this homeschooling may be a challenge! Child-directed learning.

May 4-7, 2023

June still wants to resist anything she’s asked to do. Otherwise the homeschooling is going pretty well. We’re trying to do something good every day, and we’re working out a schedule. Lots of exploring so far.

Marvin was in a play/musical at church this morning, so we had a nice family time! He did great, though he said he hated it. June wanted to be in it too, but not old enough.

She sang Jesus Loves Me for Granny today, and her voice was so beautiful! She was really trying to impress Granny! She gets all the nuances of the melody and the emotion!

She said she wants to be a rock star. And a princess.

Hope I live to see her grow up!

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The Children, Winter ‘23

Winter 2023

November 2022

June was holding a pretend meeting with someone, though it was not clear to me who was involved. She was very serious about it all, and at some point, she said to the imaginary group, shrugging her shoulders, “All the boys are so stoopid! They don’t like their wives!”

I didn’t ask what she meant by that.

December 2022

We have all been sick a lot as the weather cools off. But we’re decorating for Christmas and visited the Live Nativity, which the kids loved, especially the animals.

And Christmas was good! Excited, happy kids all around! A new trampoline was the big gift, and they’re excited about that.

Had a great visit with John at the Sikes family gathering and oyster roast! So good to see him! He even came by on his way home and we had lunch together.

And had a great visit with Gene! We spend about three hours talking about all kinda stuff, reminiscing, talking about the world. We’re both feeling our mortality deeply these days.

January 2023

The kids are ever-challenging! June is not responding to our best efforts to get her to obey without threats of punishment. She just cruises above it all… wide open all the time! Bedtime is usually hard, sometimes impossible. But her potential is still shining through. She’s so engaging and so smart! How to keep her and everyone around her safe and within reasonable limits without crushing her spirit is the challenge.

I’m going through a bunch of old photos of some of the older times with family — not easy task.

February 2023

Another interesting story from June during some phonics activities… the word “backpack” somehow prompted a story of some animal friend of hers named Dory, who’s a tiger she met when she went to the jungle with her “sisters.” When I was shocked at the idea of a tiger, she hugged me and said, “She love everybody!” And she has a sweet tiger family.

Taylor and the kids are going to church pretty much every Sunday now, and they seem to be enjoying it. It’s a bit hard for me with my background with Southern Baptists, but they seem to all be very good folks.

February 17, 2023

June’s prophecy:

Documenting here that last night, June predicted that, in 100 days, Screven would have a “really strong storm” and we’d better make our house strong enough not to get blown down! (That should be about May 27 or 28…)

March 2023

I got to see my dear cousin Marilee and her husband, Bob, recently, and Taylor and the kids met them. Was so great! Family connections!

Then we visited with Linda and John on the way home and that was great too!

Then on Sunday, Stewart and I went to see Gene and Sarah. Really good visit, though he’s still not doing very well.

Marvin and June seem to be doing great in school, liking and getting along well at home most of the time! Though June has been on a stubborn streak all week — nothing terrible, but she just wants to resist everything!

Spring is here, tho cool weather still in store. We’re thinking of adding a deck.

Things are going well with the kids, though Marvin is having some issues with anxiety and various complaints about things physically wrong with him — his gums, his head, etc. He talked to the school counselor about and we’ve talked to her. She seems not overly concerned, but she asked about deaths or other trauma in the family. It could be related. He is still sad about Bob’s death.

June’s just wild! Hard to reign in. And she want us to have another baby.

My health issues continue, so that may not be a possibility!

I do hope we’re raising some strong children, as it seems as though the changes in the world are going to demand much of them. Maybe they will be “the generation” — the one who actually stands up to the authoritarian trends this world is facing.

Children raised to treat all others with kindness and respect is truly how we extend ourselves into the future.

We’ve all been sick a lot lately — seems the kids just keep picking up things at school.

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Bad dreams

It was the Winter Solstice. June was almost asleep, but she looked up at me and said, “Daddy. I been having bad dreams about people getting dead.”

I tried to stay calm. I said sorry, and tried to comfort her, but I was shook. I asked her what people, and she said, “Everybody. Even you.”

Again, I tried to comfort her and stay calm. Then she said quietly and very seriously, “ Did you know that your grave is beside mine?”

I said no, and tried to continue to comfort her.

I remembered that early the day before, she had said something about having a really bad dream. She didn’t say what. I didn’t ask. She’s an old soul whose awareness penetrates the veil in both directions. She remembers past lives and sees our future.

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The Children, Winter 2022

January 7, 2022

Our fifth Christmas together was wonderful, very sweet with lots of visiting with family. The Woodards at Granny’s Christmas Eve dinner, John and Manna and family came for a visit, and the kids got along great! Also a visit to Marvin’s family in Cherokee! Wild and very fun visit, lots of cousins and most of Marvin’s dad’s family. Though Marvin was pretty sick after we got home.

January 15, 2022

We’re putting a playground swing/slide together, and June is actually being very helpful. She can put the washers on the bolts, hammer in the T-nuts (she’s quite proficient with a hammer!) and screw in the bolts. She even knows which way to turn them to go in or out! I noticed when I asked her to take some out that she intuitively knew which way to turn them! Pretty amazing! Lots of adults don’t know that. In addition, I was very impressed with her work ethic! She made sure those T-nuts were hammered all the way in, and she kept at it even when she was tired. She really wanted to be helpful and not just play, she followed instructions and was very cooperative!

February 3, 2022

We were sick much of January, though didn’t seem to ever be the Omicron- though we were worried.

I’ve tried to get in touch with Liana a lot recently to no avail— am a little worried an not sure what to do. So hard.

Trying to get the kids moved into the other bedroom. Things are up and down, sometimes I’m just hanging on by a thread…

February 27, 2022

Juney continues to spout amazing stuff! Says “ actually” a lot! And this morning over something she said, “What are they damn looking for!?”

March 5, 2022

March has started off well! June continues to amaze—playing in the sand, making castles and telling elaborate stories about the people who crash them down! She likes my “talking stories” at story time, and now she’s making up her own! What a trip! She’s very involved in them lately, suggesting topics from her imagination and then correcting my efforts to turn them into stories.

Challenging! And her Why? questions! “Why do we have bones? Why do we need walls?” Almost anything that occurs to her, she asks why we need it. Challenging to find answers! I wish I had a list of all her questions!

March 11, 2022

June learned to pump her swing yesterday! I had tried to get her to do it several times before, she kinda got the idea last weekend. Then yesterday she was begging me to push her, and I just started saying “Pump, pump!” In rhythm with her swinging and she got it, started doing it. She was so excited! Screaming and laughing and saying “I got it!”

No sick kids the past month, so we’re happy! And they’re in their own bedroom! They were fine by themselves all night, so all good!

March 20, 2022

Everything seems to be back on track now! We survived a late freeze last week, the yard looking great. The kids are getting along well most of the time! More outside time means a happier Juney! Marvin is pretty addicted to the TV/tablet stuff!

A big breakthrough! Talked to Liana for the first time since the Bob Memorial. She had heard that Stewart and Julian are selling Mom’s house, so we talked a good bit, and agreed we needed to talk more often. She told me more about her medical issues, which is very worrying to me!

Also saw Lucy a few weeks ago! She was on the way back to ATL from a visit to St. Pete. So good to see her! Life has gone so crazy! The split, the move, the virus, the world! Never see anybody! Sad! Maybe things will get better this summer!

Brother Gene is not doing so well lately, but we’re hoping for a sibling reunion this summer. His issues are spreading, getting treatment. Very worried. Also worried about Stewart since he’s moved to Brunswick and I never see him! John and Manna and the kids seem to be doing well! Hope to see them soon!

March 25, 2022

Marvin can read! And June is potty-trained!

And June told me, “ Dad, one of these hippos doesn’t work properly!”

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Wild kids, Fall ‘21

September 16, 2021

Miss Anna June is wild lately! She and Marvin have fun, and they’re not fighting as much, but they ARE wild! Loud and running around the house on these rainy days! They need outside time!

June and I walked to city hall today, and she liked that! A bit shy of Barbara though. She’s learning so fast and remembers everything! Her language skills are over the top, and she’s very print-aware. Be reading soon! Still a big fan of Doc McStuffin!

September 26, 2021

I talked to everyone but Gene on my birthday. These talks seem so much more poignant since Bob’s death. Time is short for all of us. Everyone seems to be doing well, though Liana is sick. She said she’s tested negative twice so probably not the Rona. Scary. I am so ready for this Trump and his effects and Coronavirus to be gone from our lives! The two most destructive events in our national life in my 3/4 century of living.

October 17, 2021

I had a long and difficult talk with Liana this afternoon— bad news about her possible RA diagnosis. Lots of pain in her hands for a week or so. She’s delaying g her plans with Dani, and she’s not coming to Bob’s memorial in Dixie. So the chances of seeing her get slim. Maybe I can go to Atlanta, tho it’s a hard trip for me now. She’s also still pretty hurt over everything and it’s hard to know what to say to her other than that I wish I had handled things differently. Regrets are bitter medicine, and no amount of sugar makes them go down any easier.

And what’s to be done about it all now? It’s a hard conversation to have. I think we both feel a little better after talking. I hope so. I need to communicate somehow.

November 21, 2021

We had Bob’s memorial service last Sunday. Powerful and hard, but a great family experience. I think everyone appreciates the family more now. Taylor loved the family gathering and loved everyone. I think they all loved her too. Though there was some negativity.

November 28, 2021

Things are going so well lately, so sweet! The kids are doing well, bedtime has finally settled into a new routine for them, story time is good, no fighting or difficulty over it. Marvin usually goes right to sleep, June is going to sleep fairly easily with me, no crying for Mommie or getting up and down now.

They’re getting along better usually, tho June can be a stinker sometimes! And I’m a happy man!

December 5, 2021

Things continue to go well! The kids are still trying at times, but overall that’s better. June has been really stubborn a lot, but she’s also very sweet, too!

Marvin learned to ride his bike without training wheels yesterday, so we let him ride to the playground today and he did great! He was very responsive and good, able to manage the bike well! June’s frustrated because she can’t keep up on her little trike, so we’re gonna get her a bike. She’ll be riding in a year! Bedtime has been a little harder lately, but still okay. Christmas decorating is under way!

December 18, 2021

Things continue to go well on most fronts… June is being a trial lots of the time, but we are dealing with it. Marvin is doing well in Kindergarten, maturing well!

No movement on the Liana front— the other kids seem to be doing well.