Just because I really like this picture.
My gang and me in front of Tiffany elevator doors in Chicago's Palmer House.
That trip was seven years ago right about now.
This morning dawned dreary
again, and I thought we were in for a day of rain. Wishful thinking. I knew the
Burtons had plans most of the day—Jacob’s golf tournament, a football game
tonight, etc., and I had no plans, so it promised to be a long day. I wasn’t
even sure what I wanted to work on. Drifting, you might call it.
I’m not sure what changed the mood
of the day, but I found myself purging files. I have a rack of file folders on
the credenza (a much fancier word for what it is) by my desk. It’s overcrowded
and messy, and somehow, I found myself pulling folders, sorting old papers. I
had a file labeled “Pending” where I stuck everything I didn’t know what to do
with. As a result, there were receipts from 2019 and precious little that I
needed to save today. Several files could go to the “inactive” file—a disorganized
drawer in the bottom of a cabinet beyond the pretentious credenza. No, I did
not alphabetize—I just stuck them in wherever they would fit. That’s one thing
the kids will someday have to deal with—I can’t get down on the floor to be
orderly about it.
And then there are recipes—four
folders of them, though I sent one folder, labeled something like “Lean and
Green” into the house for Jordan. And I sorted through the others, some with
recipes I’ve kept since the seventies when the kids were little. It wasn’t the
old recipes I purged—they are like treasures—but the countless new ones I print
on impulse and then later realize I will never cook. I have now filled two
wastebaskets, mostly with culled recipes.
While I sorted and discarded,
I had the TV on, watching for a Paxton verdict. When it came, it was at first
agonizingly slow—for each article of impeachment, a clerk read off the way each
senator voted. Call me Pollyanna, because I honestly thought the vote might go
against him. But as the words, “the Senate cleared him” came up more often, I
lost heart. At first, I thought maybe the more serious charges would come later,
but no. That bunch of cowards acquitted him on all counts, when it is clear to
anyone who’s been following the proceedings that he is guilty as sin. One
national news source called him “impressively corrupt.” Let me right now give a
shout-out to my senator, Kelly Hancock of North Richland Hills, one of only two
Republicans who consistently voted to find him guilty. I quickly wrote Hancock
a note of appreciation.
There’s not much consolation
to be had, and I won’t rehash Paxton’s corrupt career nor the proceedings,
though I thought it impudent and imprudent of Dan Patrick, at the end of proceedings,
to blame it all on the House who should have not impeached in the first place.
Talk about impartiality.
I am angry. I am furious. I am
dismayed that I live in a state where corruption and greed rule. I don’t intend
to be silent, but I feel helpless, and I don’t like it.
My day was brightened,
however, about two o’clock when the phone rang—a number I didn’t recognize so I
didn’t answer. It quit ringing, but whoever it was called right back, and I saw
that it was a call from Omaha. Normally the origin of the call doesn’t mean
much, but I answered just in case. And it was one of the people in this world I
most treasure: Martha Andersen, who I’ve known since the early Sixties.
We were in graduate school,
working on master's degrees, at Kirksville State Teachers College (now Truman
State University) in Missouri. Our fathers knew each other, which was our
initial contact. Her fiancé and my soon-to-be husband hit it off, and the four
of us spent a lot of time together, until they left as Dick’s work took him to
Kansas and then Nebraska and we moved to Texas. But we kept up, and they
visited. After my divorce, I spent a lot of time on the phone with Martha, and
in later years the three of us went to Santa Fe and they made a couple of trips
to Fort Worth. When they sublet a condo in Hawaii, Jordan and I flew out to
spend days with them.
It was and always has been on
of those friendships that just clicked. We can go weeks, months without talking
and then pick up right where we left off. She is sometimes a beta reader for
something I’ve written, and she’s good—I take her ideas and comments seriously.
Today we talked about my kids and hers and where they are today. For most
people, that’s idle conversation, but we really care. She talked about
gratitude after all we’ve both been through—and I had to stop and think for a moment.
I worry about her health, but I don’t think of myself as having been through a
lot. But then there was divorce and cancer surgery years ago and in recent
years the hip, and I realized she has always been there for me.
Bittersweet: neither of us
travel these days, so I doubt we’ll ever hug again. Makes that phone
conversation all the more precious. I have her number in my computer, and I
intend now to all often and a lot. Email isn’t enough.
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