It All Worked Out

Good morning everybody.  Have you been outside today?  It is so beautiful that I had to just get outside for a minute or two.  To all you worker-bees, you get to do that when you retire.  Anyway, as happened I walked by my garden and lo and behold, there were some red tomatoes clinging to the vines.  I stopped and picked a few.

One of my sweetest memories is the fall after I graduated high school.  Everything was right with the world, but at the same time everything was wrong with my personal world.  No job..............no college............no boyfriend............no ambition...........and I worried constantly about all these things.  Still, it was a wonderful time of bonding with my mom.  Everyday it would be me and Mom alone.......kids in school...........dad at work........the autumn of 1966. 

My life would turn around by December 1966 when I became a working girl, but that fall was a time just for Mom and me; riding together to take a truck load of peanuts to the mill, watching "Days of Our Lives", ironing as she folded clothes, shopping in Shawnee.  We did about everything together that year; just hanging out.  That was the fall when we first discovered Sandy's Hamburgers in Shawnee........remember that place?  This was even before McDonalds.  Ten cent fries; twelve cent burgers and Mom and I loved them.  This was our own special place and we stopped every time the two of us went to Shawnee. 

This brings me back to those tomatoes I saw this morning.  On those precious fall days (and please believe me, they were indeed precious) of 1966, I would fix Mom and me lunch which almost always was a grill cheese sandwich.  What made our grill cheese wonderful and memorable was having slices of tiny fall tomatoes on them.  To us, the tomato lovers, those sandwiches were wonderful.............something I will never forget.   

Oh sure, in 1966 I had those worries about what the rest of my life would bring and I am sure Mom was worried about that for me as well, but in the end, 45 years later............the most precious part of that year was bonding with mom...........just hanging out.  It all worked out.

I love you.