It's the Little Things that make life worthwhile

Today, starts and ends with a question – what became of the little things?  You know what I’m talking about.  Sitting with a good friend in the shade of the yard in rockers on the front porch.  Maybe even sitting on a creek/river bank talking about everthing - but talking about nothing at all.  I’m sitting here rocking, watching nature and crocheting.   Crochet – that in and of itself is becoming a lost art   Most people today have to ‘go’ somewhere to appreciate nature.  I sit and look out my windows or take my coffee to the front porch.  We are fortunate to live surrounded by over 100 acres of pasture, creeks, orange groves and small thickets or bayheads of trees.  The house in which we live was built in the summer of 1941, before Pearl Harbor.  No central heat or air conditioning in those days, but lots of windows on all sides and a generous front porch.  Before we moved here, we visited the neighbors and one activity was watching the crazy people who lived in THAT house.  Shooting at each other, chasing one-another around the house with their two little boys in tow, screaming.  Cookware, pots, pans, dishes and other small appliances would sometimes come flying out the doors looking for a target.  The kids weren’t targets although sometimes they became collateral damage and we didn’t see them for a week or so.

When they were persuaded to leave, we had a month to pack our old place, clean the new (?) place and get it ready for habitation and also make the actual move.   We knew all our neighbors like family.  There was PawPaw and wife Helen to our east side.  Next door to PawPaw was his oldest son and his current lady and his 3 boys from his previous marriage.  Across the street were the operators of Gwen’s Market, about ¾ of a mile away.  On the other side of the property, but the same side of the road were the Lastingers and some Guthries.  All of these families had life in the community for YEARS.  PawPaw and his wife were the first people over to help clean up.  The grass in the yard was up to my shoulders – a little over 4 feet.  Hidden amongst the grass was flatware, car repair tools, pots & pans and probably could name a dozen other unusual items we found and put in large trash bins.

My front porch has the required 2 rockers.  I also have some of my hand tools for gardening on a shelf my husband built just for that purpose.  We placed it at eye level because of our cats.  Most years that we’ve lived here, passersby on the highway that run by the front of the property drop of cats and or kittens which they don’t want.  So, we feed them and care for them and we become their people.  However, the birds do not appreciate the kitties quite as much as we do.

This last spring, a mated pair of Carolina Wrens decided the shelf would make a lovely honeymoon cottage in which to raise their young.  Now you see the importance of building it at people-eye level.  Unless we inadvertently leave a chair sitting underneath the shelf, it’s difficult for the cats to harass the birds.  But sometimes, things happen. 

The shelf is just a couple of feet from the front screen door.  One day while Daddy Wren was bringing nesting supplies to Momma Wren, my husband opened the door and Daddy Wren took a wrong turn  . . .into the house!  That wouldn’t have been so bad, except we have a house-cat and she LOVES the birds.  She chitters to them and seems to be saying, “Come a little bit closer so we can become acquainted.”  Well, when Mr. Wren came in, she saw opportunity and had him before we could even think about helping him to return outside!  I caught the cat and when I did, Mr. Wren got loose.  Now, he’s excited, the cat is excited and we’re excited, trying to keep them apart and catch the bird to release him back to his family!

After locking the cat in the bedroom, we were finally able -after about an hour and lots of running from room to room – to get Mr. Wren under a towel and safely release him outside.  It all ended well.  The baby wrens hatched and safely moved out.  Mama and Daddy Wren left until it’s time to start a new family.  And after snubbing us for 3 days, the cat finally forgave us for taking her prize.  She still sits in the windows and calls to the birds and we sit and enjoy the view where it’s not as exciting, but more pleasing, over all.

Try to learn to appreciate the little things.  Sometimes, they’re actually the big things!

Auntie

Scarcer than hen’s teeth – that’s something you don’t hear much anymore.  Maybe it’s what your Grand-parents or Great-Grand-parents said when things began to disappear.  I think we should start using it again.  So many things are becoming ‘scarcer than hen’s teeth’. 

I got a letter from our bank recently.  We’ve been with them for about 12 years now.  We had been with our previous bank for over 20 years.  We had opened an account as a young married couple.  Through good times and bad, we had stayed with our bank.  I guess the main reason was, we liked the people who worked there.  They were pleasant.  The employees at the two branches we used regularly remembered our names and were very courteous.  It wasn’t because we had lots of money – quite the opposite.  We were like many couples of our generation.  We were living with our parents until we married and started our household.  We were both working, but neither was making bundles of money.  But, we could afford to eat out once or twice a month and went to the movies every so often.

Then, one day, we got a letter from our bank.  It seemed that they were ‘merging’ into another bank – larger, more services – and nothing would change for us.  All the same friendly employees and the branches we used would remain open.  So, we stayed on.  Not many years later, another letter arrived from the new bank.  Again, they were merging into another, larger bank – with more services.  But nothing was to change for us.  Well, a couple of things changed.  We had to start using another location because they closed some branches.  The larger bank already had branches in some areas, so the ones we went to closed and we began using the other established locations.  But our account stayed the same and some of the employees moved to the other offices and there were familiar faces.  And so we stayed.

I guess you can see where this may be going.  One day, we decided to buy a car.  We’d never had a car loan before.  We had just saved money and traded in whatever we were driving and paid for the next car, or truck.  We found a car we thought we could afford to make the payments.  And so, I went to the bank.  Our account was well established.  They could see how much we could afford to pay and we were steady, hard-working people.  No problem.  Except, there was a problem.  The Loan Officer said “I’m sorry.  We can’t approve a car loan for you.  You haven’t been with our bank long enough.”  I was stunned.  “What?  We’ve had this same account for 20 years.”  Her reply sent my temperature through the roof!  “Yes, but you’ve only been with us 18 months.  I’m sorry.”  So, at that moment, I told her to close the account and give me my money.  They weren’t the people I thought they were and I didn’t want to do business with them again.  I walked out and went to the bank next door and opened a new account.  The car dealership arranged for a loan for our car . . . through the same bank at which I had just closed the account.

Back to the latest letter.  No, the bank is not merging with a larger bank.  They are the larger bank.  But with the country in its current state, things have to change.  The government has told banking they cannot charge ‘loan-shark’ interest on credit cards.  More people are defaulting on the cards they had.  Mortgages are failing.  So, because banks NEED money to operate and it’s not enough that most people have some type of account and our money is there for them to loan to others and make interest money on it, things have to change.  No more free checking or use of your ATM check cards UNLESS you have a boatload of money anyway, then it’s free.  Fees for printing a statement – gone up.  Fees for NSF checks – gone up.  You name it, the fees have gone up or there are new fees if you don’t write bad checks or ask for copies.

Customer services, pleasant employees, convenient locations – all are getting scarcer than hen’s teeth.  What would grandma say!?

Introduction

Welcome to my first entry of my first blog.  I will be hitting on a varied palette of subjects, mostly with a Southern trend. 

Some will wonder why “The Sandspur Patch” as a title.  I wanted something that would evoke memories for the others of my generation and similar background.  I also wanted something that would entice new readers to wonder what it could be about.  As a Baby-boomer Southerner, a sandspur patch is something wedged into my memories, between farm work and school.  Any kid who has gone barefoot in Central Florida outside of manicured lawns or parks has probably encountered a sandspur patch.  It’s not something you forget.  The initial pain is unpleasant, but the worst usually comes from removing the sandspur from your foot.  As a child with lots of siblings, there were occasional disputes.  Ok, fights, but none fatal.  Sometimes, as brothers and sisters can tell you, playing will escalate into a fight.  One sure way of accomplishing this was to have a ‘sandspur war’.  You checked the sandspur patch for the longest stem ending in the largest, most vicious cluster of spurs.  Holding by the safe end, you proceeded to swing at your brother or sister to inflict a painful sting.  These battles usually ended in someone calling “Mama!” and the aggressor running for cover.  I hope our sessions don’t end that way!

There are lots of people blogging and so I hope you will find time to read mine after today.   My hope is to get you thinking.  Then I hope you will recall memories of your own growing-up time.  They may be happy, sad or bittersweet.  I hope you will find it entertaining.