Evelyn Gonzalez @ FHH Mardi Gras

Why You Don't Jump on Trampolines in Van Halen Co.

ICE STORM SETTLES OVER FAIRHAVEN HARBOR & VAN HALEN COUNTY

Well, the ice storm is now history and the Harbor has electricity again. Last week was a different story as temperatures dropped and the rain turned to freezing rain. Everything in the Harbor was covered with an inch or more of ice. Power poles and trees snapped under the added weight. That second night, it sounded like a battle was raging outside with the shotgun blast echos of branches popping and breaking away. Roadways were covered with ice, trees, and downed power lines. It was a sight to behold. Somewhat reminiscent (though on a smaller colder scale) of the tornado which dropped in on us a year ago today.
My job is being the Office Coordinator at the Fairhaven Harbor Community Club's Public Work and Wastewater departments. We do not get snow or ice days. I reported to work only to find the power was out there as well as at home. Our wastewater plants and lift stations were running on generator power as was the coffee pot in the main shop. That was it. I spent the day answering the phone by lamplight. I left my gloves on.
Keep in mind that all the roads and driveways are covered in ice. I got lots ( and I mean lots of phone calls ) with people wanting to know if the garbage truck would be running. I was tactful. I really was. What I wanted to ask was, "Can you get your bony old butt to the end of the drive to put your trash out? No? The trash truck will not be running."
I had calls of people wanting to know when the power was coming back on. I had to explain repeatedly that we were not the electric company and assure them that Little Jean Electric was out in force and doing the best they could.
One man called to ask where he could get a cup of coffee.
Another caller wanted to let me know that it was a terrible time to be working on the power lines with all this bad weather and all. It took me awhile to get her to understand the weather caused the power outage. She said, "Fine, but I'm freezing and shivering in my own home. What do you want me to do?" Hunker down, lady. Wait'll the sun goes down. No, once again. I was tactful and suggested options for her to stay warm or to find accomodations elsewhere.
One lady called because she was out of bananas.
A property owner from Houston called because she had called the Main Office to let them know about her new mailing address, but no one answered. She just kept called Club offices until someone answered. I explained to her about the ice storm and that the Main Office was closed and asked her to try back next week. She said, "No, I'm calling you." She proceeded to give me the new information. She then told me to pass it on to Owner Services when the office opened again and to call her local condo association and give them the information, too. Then she hung up. Did I just pretend to write it all down? No. Did I promptly throw it in the trash after she hung up. No. I thought about doing both, but hey, I was here. I forwarded the information this week. I am just way too nice.
We also had lots of calls from folks on the sewer system with grinder pumps. When the power goes out, it is a good idea to stop flushing the toilet. Each pump has a fifty gallon tank. After more gallons than that, the "liquid" has to go somewhere else, usually back in your home. The problem is, one doesn't know how many gallons were in the tank when the power went out. (Kinda like the Russian Roulette of the poop world). It can get a tad messy.
Our guys had to stop some folks from driving around road barricades. One lady said, "Oh, I didn't think that was for me." Another said, "I was just moving this thing someone left in the road out of the way." The elderly man who couldn't get out of his car (which was in a ditch) without his walker said, "This is nothin'. I'm from Nebraska. I know how to drive on this stuff." Apparently not, Mr. Omaha. There are lots of people in the Harbor from Nebraska and Minnesota and Illinois and Iowa and Michigan and New York, etc. etc. etc. They all know how to drive on "this stuff". They just forget that the roads from wherever they were from were relatively straight and flat. We're in the Ozarks now. That ain't the lay of the land. Add to that, "this stuff" "at home" would be snow. Here, it's ICE. No one knows how to drive on ice.....not when the roads are winding and steep. But hey, I guess that's just my simple Southern opinion.
I felt for each and every one of them. I did. (Okay, well, not all of them) I did, however, thank the powers that be that my home is on a septic tank....And for the gas fireplace.... And that the Water Company had generators on the water tanks. Tap & I were good. Mom (Evelyn Gonzalez) lost power for only a couple of hours total. Tap & I were out for about 36 hours. Others persevered through four days.
Little Jean did an amazing job getting all those poles and lines back in place as fast as they did. Our Public Works guys were genuises at clearing roads of ice and trees. Our Wastewater guys managed to keep the poo flowing and out of people's homes.
And me................I was the voice of all of the above and managed to make most (if not all - you just can't please them all) of the callers feel better or solve some problem or just let them know we were all in the same boat and that this too would pass. No, really. I did. I DID TOO. Whatever!
The sun is starting to come out and warm us up again. This weekend is supposed to be in the 60s and the Harbor folk are happy once again.
We like it when the Harbor folk are happy.

Patterns of Intrinsic Beauty

Patching together dissimilar pieces of loose individual materials from worn out clothing and cloth into patterns of intrinsic beauty that butterflies into a quilt is what my mother has done all my life. One Christmas a few years back she sent to each of my children a quilt she had made uniquely for each one of them. She started working on them after each of them were born years before. As the youngest got to around six and it was pretty obvious that we were “done” having more children, she shipped ‘em our way. Included was a quilt she had put together for me. It was made up of pieces of material she put back in a bag since I was a little boy.

I find myself gazing at the multiplicity of designs on each piece of cloth that make up the members of that pattern. As I scan my eyes back and forth, I find myself zeroing in on a particular pattern here and there that position me back into a different place, setting, and time. Each singularly possessing a unique memory: “Oh – I remember that shirt!”; “Hey… those are my jeans!”; “Wow, I forgot about that table cloth!”; “Is that my old sheet?” Every recognition has attached to it recollections wrapped around a journal of times past with family, friends, and relationships long floated down the streams of my mind.

Every family has its own way weaving and stitching together the treasure and the trash of those memories. Some are extremely precious, others are overtly perilous; some are exuberantly happy, others are extremely and overwhelmingly sad; most we want to remember, a few we would just as soon forget. Patiently with time and wisdom, we forgive and forget, acknowledge and honor – then we sew it into intrinsically beautiful patchwork quilts in our mind.

The Fruit of the Christmas Spirit

As a father, I find myself reliving nostalgically in my mind parallel experiences to what my children are living today. Being a tightly budgeted family of six with limited income we have to be committed to not dousing the spirit of Christmas by worries of affording the season. All four children find themselves most excitedly and with great anticipation shopping at the local Dollar Tree. Each child is assigned to buy a gift from them to the other three siblings and two parents. A grand distribution of $5.00 each ($20.00 total) is divvied out. The joyful hunt is on that doesn’t neglect the whole spirit of giving. It makes Christmas morning package opening a grand round of joyful expectation and satisfied anticipation.

Years ago, back in the day (as my oldest son Joel likes to say), our mom (Evelyn) dropped us off from an older model metalic blue Oldsmobile station wagon at the Whitehaven Plaza to do Christmas shopping with money that my brother saved from his neighborhood paper route. It gave her time to do some other Christmas shopping that needed to be finish up. Mom had given me a little bit of change and a bill or two to spend at what was even an obsolete name back then … the "Five and Dime store". Our sister (Elizabeth Ann) was still too young to go along.

At the local McCrory’s in the plaza we would shop in the downstairs basement. The staircase was right at the front entrance as you stepped through the inside door. It was just fun to run up and down the stairs (this was before malls). I remember looking everywhere making “little kid” suggestions out loud to the almost irritation of my older brother (didn’t want to mess up the whole Christmas spirit thing). We’d go up one aisle and down another.

Though we got a little something for everyone, Mom’s gift was pretty much the priority. She collected salt and pepper shakers of all types, styles and shapes. “Oh look over here!” I’d bellow out in excitement. Big brother (Jimmy) would make a considering short gander for a quick contemplation, but – ultimately (over and over) would say a thoughtful “Umm-naahh! Uh-uh”. After getting nearly to a point of total frustration … finally – as if by divine calling, we both wide eyed a whole aisle (both sides) dedicated to every kind of realistic looking fake plastic fruit you ever saw. This was almost as fun as the toy aisle, but not.

We carefully selected just the right bowl that we thought “fit” mom. We didn’t even verbally agree that this was it, but … this was it! So we collected and threw into this perfect round basin just the right bananas, oranges, green apples, red apples, green grapes, purple grapes with leaves on a vine, a lemon and a lime ... and then the final touch – the coolest looking pineapple (at least I thought so) we’d ever seen. Now to pay for it, Mom was waiting upstairs out in the car.

When we made our way to the counter with our bounty of booty it seems that we were a little short of the cost of our synthetic Christmas surprise for Mom. The cashier, after carefully counting the loose wadded bills and various change we dug out of everyone of our pockets, informed us that we “… didn’t have enough”. It was Christmas time; we were cute; we were sincere; and it was the late 60’s. She reached under the counter and pulled up her purse paying the remainder out of her own money.

With a great deal of humble thank-you’s, we scurried off with our various paper bags to meet Mom upstairs who was waiting in the station wagon with a few Christmas surprises of her own behind the back seat. You know ... Mom kept that bowl of artificial fruit for years and years as a center piece on her kitchen table even after we both got grown. The fruit was fake, but the love that brought it together wasn't.

Merry Christmas!

Who Is This Guy?

Son, Husband, Father, "Big Brother", Friend ... Hero!

You know 'em ... you love 'em!

From Your Little Brother

When my brother was in the fifth grade, it was he that took me to my first adventure to school as I began first grade. We traveled quite an adventurous route through dangerous terrain from my “younger brother” perspective. We traveled down a set of railroad tracks jumping from railroad tie to railroad tie straight down the middle. This would have been 1963.

Wandering thoughts would drift to the stories our parents told of how dangerous it was to do this. What if my foot got caught in the rail or stuck under a railroad tie leaving me helplessly waiting for an on coming train? Visions of our neighbor across the street, that survived the loss of his arms up to his shoulders when run over by a train, came rushing into my brain.

We were supposed to cross over the tracks at a designated point, but I don’t ever remember him following the prescribed path. If there was a train resting on the track, we’d risk life and limb to scale the crumbling slopes underneath a small wooden bridge that supported the tracks. I don’t remember having much of a choice in regard to following my fearless leader. I could actually see the wheels of the train close enough to touch them seeing my own reflection on the shiny edges; but he would warn me that the train could move at anytime.

Once we crawled our way through to the other side, I recall always seeing a ledge along the top of a drainage concrete ditch through a cyclone fence. I’d remember some kind of story or rumor of a boy who slipped off that ledge and drowned in that very ditch. I envisioned him every time wearing a striped short sleeve tee shirt and shorts lying face down at the bottom.

Any doubts that I might have had in regard to following his lead were erased by his big ole “Jimmy” smile (full of confidence and assurance) and that outstretched fifth grader hand coaxing me to “Come on!” Safely on the other side of the tracks, we would walk along the back yard fences of people who lived next to the tracks.

Hopping over the peeled back corner of another cyclone fence attached to someone’s backyard we would stumble through a set of semi rusted trash cans. We’d then sneak pass the side of a worn out looking rental house toward our destination. Crossing over a street shaded with old trees led us over to the next street to where the crossing guard was located. She helped us safely across the busy four lane highway to our school.

The next year our parents made a decision to move south of Memphis out of the city schools to the county school system. A new school meant new adventures. We didn’t live across the railroad tracks from the school any more, but rather to its modern equivalent – across the interstate bridge.

I was, at this point, in the second grade and my brother was in the sixth. He was now taller, bigger and seemingly the brightest of any of his dumb friends. To me he seemed adult like. The school was about a mile from our home, so we walked or rode our bikes to get there.

Early each morning on our way to school, we would maze our way through the intersections of our neighborhood along the sidewalks. The crossing guard, who just happen to be our next door neighbor, would help us across the small highway; but not before she would complain to us about the kids further down the highway cutting across the two-lane. She would smile, greet us, stop traffic and have us walk our bikes across. Mounting our bikes as quickly as possible, we would dart straight toward the beaten path through the tall uncut grass that led us underneath the interstate bridge.

Beneath that bridge were huge slanted slabs of concrete leading up to the steel girders that supported the weight of the interstate traffic above. At the top of those slanted slabs was a platform of concrete tucked right below the bridge giving about four feet of head room between the steel girders. I could feel the vibration and hear the traffic above whizzing by with drivers on their way to work. Perched up there was like sitting on top of a tree overlooking the whole world from above. Graffiti left evidence that we weren’t the only ones to brave this adventure. Our parents explained to us that we weren’t supposed to go up there because it was dangerous.

Did our fearless leader lead us to safety? – Of course not. Parking our bikes or just laying them down in the overgrown grass, he would lead the charge scaling up the slant sideways. The best part was quickly scooting down the cement slide in order to not be late for school. We generally repeated it on our way back home after school. Mom had to put a lot of patches in the seat of our pants due to the fact that they simply couldn’t afford to buy us new ones. I’m sure she knew how those pants got so worn out.

After bedtime, I would occasionally sneak over to his upstairs bedroom to sleep and play around with my “big brother” before going to sleep. It was located right above our parents’ bedroom. He would tell me some crazy story and then tickle me afterwards. Somehow he could bring my favorite stuffed monkey (D.C. – Danny Civilized … named that because they called me “Dan, Dan, the monkey man”) to life. “Pop” (our dad) would mysteriously appear in the doorway to let us know that we were being too loud as we were jumping around. Flicking on the overhead light for a moment he would say “Settle down and go to sleep boys”, but he never would send me back to my bedroom. I’m sure he knew the value of our limited bonding.

Our family spent many good days and time together at Fairhaven Harbor growing up. Actually, we were at the lake water skiing, camping and swimming while Fairhaven Harbor was being developed. Mom and Pop tried their best and succeeded in providing for us wonderful memories of our childhood at the lake.

In later years, our little sister and I went to a different school than our big brother did, so I was never over shadowed by being “Beach’s little brother”. She unfortunately had to deal with being “Beach’s little sister” because of me at our school.

The ultimate and ever big brother grew up and left me when I was in the 8th grade. Often times for years afterwards it seemed that he still “left me when I was in the 8th grade”. I grew up too, but traveled a different road. As he liked to tell folks on a trip here to North Carolina a few years back, (tongue and cheek) “You see, you have to understand … my brother – he’s the white sheep of the family.”

We have had our own adventures in life that have brought about both joy and sorrow, successes and failures … both separately and together – with our families and each other. Despite the limited time, circumstances, and distance we have remained loyal to our love, care and concern for each other.

It’s always good “to hear from Jim”, my children’s favorite uncle and my only (and favorite) brother. It’s particularly good to hear that my brother is, as he puts it, “lucky”, but I might categorize it as “blessed”. Even a massive heart attach becomes an adventure for him. I am especially blessed (and lucky) to have him as my brother – I love you bro’.

To My Big Brother

Bien, el hermano mayor, yo estoy agradecido también. Yo no puedo imaginarme un mundo que no tiene usted en ello. Bueno, puedo, pero chupo. Usted siempre ha sido mi héroe. Su tiempo y la aceptación y el amor han ayudado color que soy. Usted es quién yo siempre deseo en mi rincón. Te quiero, el hermano mayor. Permanezca afortunado. Permanezca sano. Permanezca.