fruitcake affects me

I detest fruitcake, yet I have been buying it every Christmas for over well over twenty years, until this year.  I have always hated the sight and smell of fruit cake, but my mother loved it.  Every time I saw it on the shelf at the first of the holiday season, I would buy my mother (and my mother in-law) a fruitcake.  My mother in-law passed away December of 2013, and never partook of the fruit cake I had purchased for her that Christmas.  My mother passed away only a few months ago, on October 23rd.  I have been weathering her passing all right, but have moments of true longing.

There has been something kind of sad and humorous at the same time happening to me this Christmas season.  Every time I see a Claxton Fruit Cake ~ I find myself verklempt.   So far I have been blindsided at least three times by a Claxton Fruit Cakes.  I immediately get a lump in my throat and avert my eyes.

There are other things.  A few years ago my mother asked me to be on the lookout for a DVD of a one season TV series called 'Hawkeye'.  I made several attempts to find the show, but failed to find it.  Well, last Friday night, I actually stumbled across it at the DVD stand in the Cracker Barrel store.  I thought "a great Christmas gift for mothe....r)".  There I go again.  I keep getting ambushed!

I have also been ambushed a few times by marmalade.  My mother loved various kinds of marmalade; pineapple, peach, orange, whatever.  Mom loved marmalade.  It didn't take much to please her.  She enjoyed those little treats in life.

She absolutely LOVED ice cream.  Mom loved ice cream more than any treat, and yet I haven't been affected by ice cream. How odd.

Don't get me wrong.  I am doing well.  I am not depressed or obsessing. I haven't gone off the deep end.  I am okay. I do find it strange though, the items that stir the feelings of this loss.

I am having a pleasant Christmas, even without Mom.  Of course I am missing her, and already miss giving her a fruitcake.

vacant city

i know that I am disappearing
but it is my secret

the doc had a long name for it

but i can't remember

all i know is that i am fading from within

and i cannot tell her this secret

i cannot let on to anyone

that i am no longer ordinary
my end like all men is certain

but my end will come as a day
i will simply no longer remember
you or myself
my heart breaks
not because i am losing myself
but because i will lose you
somewhere in the process

does being a stranger
in a strange town
make it easier or more difficult
i could easily lose myself here

i need to work

i need to keep sending the money back home

i need to keep moving forward

into this uncertainty

no one really knows me here

no one knows me like you

no one will miss me here

i know you will

what a strange predicament
yet i cannot come to grips with it
it seems easier to keep going through the motions

day to day

call you
tell you how much i love you
tell you until i can no longer
until i cannot
remember you
beyond your reach
lost beyond recognition
lost somewhere
within my own reflection

every time I see blue

For some reason, the first thing I thought when realizing we were days away of Mom's passing, was the line "every time I see blue, I'll think of you".  I then thought, there's a song in that, so I tucked it away.

She died the following Friday morning. For some reason, I fell to sleep easily that night.  I woke up about 3:30 Saturday morning with that line dangling over my head.  I rolled off the couch and picked up an acoustic and started a simple four chord progression.  The melody just poured out, but I had to piddle with the lyrics a little.  You can tell that I have yet to get it quite down.

The last thing I wanted was to take the song in a sad direction.  I am a little sad, naturally, but for some reason, I wanted this to be a song about my Mom not to be a downer.  She loved blue, and I didn't want the song to be blue.

Hallelujah!

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready.” It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.”
~Revelation 19:6-9

Esther

 

there is an eternalness about her

a constancy

a gentleness
that sheltered over me
 like a wing

a touch
a cool cloth
upon a fevered brow
 with a word
a hand
a kiss
i could not guess

to count her prayers
over me
over her brood
throughout our lives
i could not guess
nor imagine
the price
of such love and sacrifice
ever awed
by her endless ways
 of gentleness and grace
ways
that my Heavenly Father
chose
to love me
David B. Finlayson

hindsight

A few days ago, while leaving a restaurant, I was stopped by a man in a wheel chair.  He saw me heading to the door and rolled up close to the exit in a way that I could not overlook him.  He appeared to be in his thirties.  He looked pretty scraggly, half-shaved, tattooed and unkept.  After he reached out to shake my hand, he gave me a hard luck story about a motorcycle accident and losing a leg.  I knew what was coming, that he wanted money.  Without hesitation I reached into my back pocket and handed him what cash I had in my pocket.

I started having regrets about it as I drove away.  I thought about my dad, how throughout his life as a paraplegic due to polio, never asked for a handout - never begged for a penny.

I can't help it, in hindsight, I don't think I did that guy any favor.

abide in love

The above is one of my early t-shirt designs.  I designed it and had them printed around 1976, when I was eighteen years old.  Last year I found a few of these old shirts in storage and my daughter started wearing one.  There she was wearing a shirt I designed when I was her age.
The design hasn't really dated, and still quite fashionable.  I printed four different designs with that batch of shirts, hoping at the time to start a t-shirt business, they were: Abide in Love, Praise God for His Love, Return of The King and Lady Wisdom.  The first two were simple, playful images and the other two were more involved pen and ink illustration,  I think I still might have a sample of Praise God and the Lady Wisdom shirts.  I have the original art in storage somewhere.  One day I'd like to revisit the Abide In Love and the Praise God for His Love shirts.  They are still good designs for today.

I rarely do t-shirt designs, but they represent my first foray into the graphic design business.  I thought that I would end up having a silk screen shop, aimed at doing original designs...but that never came to pass.  It's nothing that I'd do now, but there's nothing like the feeling of taking an idea, sketching it, inking it and then seeing it in print.  It's especially nice when folks like to wear your very own design.  How cool is that?

One of these days I might revisit and refresh some of these old designs.  I can do better work than this now, but I still pretty much like what I see all these years later. 

the ordeal in the rearview

A few weeks ago while traveling back from Huntsville, the Buick Century I was driving died.  While stranded off the highway, I called AAA.  I was told that a wrecker would be by within the next 20 minutes and then offered a discount on a rental car.  I still needed to get home that evening, so I said I'd take them up on it.  I was assured that a car would be delivered to my location within the hour, so everything would be fine.  But all was not fine, an Enterprise Rent A Car representative of the 11803 Memorial Parkway SW never showed up.  I waited and waited and no rescue, no car, no such luck.  I had let the tow truck driver leave earlier because I had been assured twice that Enterprise would deliver.

As it turned out, by the time I could reach Enterprise, the Enterprise had closed for the day.  By nightfall, my wife left Gadsden (84 miles away) in my old '73 VW Beetle to bring me back home.  I enjoy  tooling around Gadsden in my VW, but don't quite trust it on long trips.  We were in a pinch that evening and puttered back home at 45 miles an hour. Thank you for nothing Enterprise.

Well, the 2002 Century's block was broken and it was going to cost us $3,640.00 to put a refurbish in it.  Gina and I decided to let it go and sell it for junk. My Malubu had been in the shop getting a paint job from the hail damage in early April. We were down to two cars.  Gina was driving the VW on the home-front and I was using Katie's 2003 Century to make my daily out of town excursions to and from work.  While at work, I got online to see if I could find a place that would take my dead Buick Century.  I found www.junkcars.com and gave them a call.  They said they would pay me $150. dollars for it and I agreed.  I regret having ever called them.  The 2002 Century's title was in Gina's name - so Gina took off work and drove up with me on Friday to meet up with the representative to sign over the title, and close the deal. 

All phone contact with the junkcars.com representatives over the phone were rude.  We had all day Friday to finish the deal and the junkcars.com people kept saying they had sent an email to the local guy and to call back.  They kept asking us to call back, until they finally told us that it was too late for anyone in the area to do anything about it.  The people on the phone were rude and kept talking over me.  I had to raise my voice and to talk over them.  I won't bore you with the details, but they treat their customers terribly.  My wife and I were inconvenienced throughout the day, lied to and insulted until we finally got through to someone higher up in the company.  I remember my last call, being told that the situation had been resolved and that the order to pick up the car had been canceled.  Canceled?  Resolved?  Dealing with those folks was like stepping into The Twilight Zone.  Where do they hire their phone reps?  I kept asking the lady on the phone, April, that I wanted to speak to her supervisor, but she never did.  She kept saying everything wasn't her fault and I told her that it was her fault if she didn't really resolve the issue by getting someone to meet us where the dead car was.  I don't recall ever being treated so rudely over the phone by so many representatives.  None of them seemed trained in their jobs or friendly.  Unfriendly and rude must be a job requirement for that company.

What a fiasco!  Most folks that know me know that it's hard to get my dander up, but push me, talk over me, blame me, lie to me, and I will give you both freaking barrels.  Next time I have a dead car, I will veer away from junkcars.com.  Next time I find myself in need of a rental - I won't count on Enterprise.

I just picked my Malibu up from Drummond Auto Finishing.  He did a great job, great service.  He did what he promised and is such a nice fellow to work with. It was refreshing to do business with someone dependable and friendly for a change.

We still need to find a car for Gina.  Even though that VW was the first car she learned to drive, it's not the one she wants to continue driving throughout the Summer.  I am glad to get this ordeal behind us.  We still need a car, but the worst of our troubles are behind us.

P.S. www.junkcars.com = TROUBLE!
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Arlington

This song was written almost twenty years ago, after having visited Arlington National Cemetery for the first time. I don't sing Arlington much, rarely in public.  Pardon the sound quality, I recorded it on my iPhone 6.  I just thought I'd share the song here on Memorial day.

brothers

i know the river came first
but the ancient rails
that curve along beside her
seems as if they were born together
running there since time began