Hinds county Gazette: Christiansen's Coments March 12 2009Traveling by bus

I will not be keeping you long today, I know, I sometimes tell you that, then commence to ramble on and on…but today I truly will not be long. I have to get packed for my magnificent adventure. Remember? I am taking the bus to Florida?

This trip will not be a long one… I will be back before most of you read this…this is the trial expedition, just to see how I like traveling by bus. I hope I like it…I would love to go more…ride around and see the USA and not have to do the driving…let the bus folks drive me where I want to go, then rent a car…Grand scheme don’t you think?

I am not the only one who is waiting to see how my trip goes…I met several people while in Terry at their First Saturday Flea Market that are less then comfortable driving long distances too, and had not considered the bus until I mentioned it. So depending on my return report, they may contemplate taking the bus for future travel.

By the way we had a grand time in Terry…I didn’t sell as much as I have in Clinton…Terry is more of real a flea Market, and less arts and crafts. There were lots of bargains …I bought a wicker bed tray…The day was worth it just to get the bed tray. I thought I had bought it just for decoration…I had planned to spray paint it white and place it carefully on the old white iron bed in the back bedroom… with a pretty napkin and a nice china tea cup and saucer. But it has turned out to be a functional item. I drink my morning coffee in bed…and now that I have the bed tray, I am also eating my oatmeal in bed…I feel quite elegant and sophisticated…I must get a prettier bowl for my oatmeal…and a prettier coffee mug too. Maybe I will find one when we go back to Terry the first Saturday in April. We had such a good time we are going back.

There were few booths with crafts, the lady in the booth next to us, had birdhouses, pie safes, benches etc…very nice, But, the most popular booth (craft wise) was birdfeeders made out of old tires…folks were wagging them out of there just a grinning…the feeders were so colorful ….they made you happy just to look at them. I am going to get one if that booth is there in April….would have bought one this time but we were half way back to Edwards when I thought about it again. There was a booth of aprons too…very pretty.
Don’t forget cemetery day March 21.

Love to all, call if you need me.

Christiansen's Comments Hinds county Gazette March 5 2009

As most of you know the Clinton Brick Street Players just wrapped their production of Smokey Joe’s Café. I am a great admirer of all the talented folks who work so hard to put on the shows, Naomi Barnette is an Edwards girl, so of course ,we from over this way are all a great fans of hers.

I read in the Community Calendar section of the Hinds County Gazette this, “ The show includes nearly 40 songs” When I read that, I said right out loud “Yikes! 40 songs That will take all night!” I did not think I could sit through 40 songs even if they were some of the “ greatest songs ever recorded…..”

You all, Sunday mornings, I am one of those people who instinctively knows when the big hand and the little hand on the clock are just about to point to straight up 12.…I go to fidgeting, I do all right for a hour….then I am pretty much done…my attention goes to waning . But, Let me hasten to say I have learned something from nearly every sermon I have ever heard…even though I believe I have heard one version or another just about all of them…but each sermon is delivered from different view points and at different times of our lives.

And I have sat through some very long sermons and was totally engrossed and did not take note of the passing time.

I believe as I have gotten older my attention span has gotten shorter…I think I have the OPADD…Old Person Attention Deficit Disorder or easier to say Op Add. I don’t go to movies because of my OPADD …that sounds peculiar coming from someone who is fixing to get on a greyhound bus and ride for over 20 hours….but on the bus I will be able to get up and stir around, pass out my homemade cookies…talk on the phone, if I have bars…look out the window, talk to my fellow passengers… all such as that.

I said all of that to say, lots of my friends, Buddies and acquaintances went to see Smokey Joe’s Café the first weekend. …I did not…….. my friends came back with glowing reviews.
So I did attend this past Friday…It was wonderful! 40 song are not too many!

The cast was of curious ensemble….Peter James, very talented, fun to watch performer and I would say of the original rock and roll generation….The others in the cast and the band members, I am guessing most of which are on the fast track to mid life….Then there was the Finch brothers, Austin and Trey late teens, early 20s…fabulously talented…young, full of energy and oh, so, agile. A reminder of the way I was, back in the day, when these songs were topping the charts…..Austin and Trey could have stole the show from their less nimble, more arthritic co-stars….But they didn’t, they respectfully watched and learned. It was a beautiful thing to watch the three generations on that stag…And they, with great enthusiasm, confirmed, once again, “Rock and Roll is here to stay!”

Love to all, call if you need me

PS. I am soon as I finish up here, I am going to the post office, to mail my check to reserve a booth at the first Saturday Flea Market, in Terry this weekend I will be selling my cement leaves…if you are over that way stop and say hello…Please, don’t feel like you have to buy…Because you don’t…In fact, you can come to my house this summer and watch me make leaves, go home and make’m your self. But I must warn you, first of all, making concrete leaves is quite a messy process and addictive. I believe it is quite possible this hill, before I die, will be fully paved with concrete leaves.…

Hinds County Gazette I am Taking the Greyhound Bus to see the USA!

Mother getting a pedicure.

John with his 4 wheeler .

John has been gone two years, mother died over a year, my two old dogs passed this past year….So right now it is just one dog, Charlie, the golden retriever, two cats, Harper Lee and Scout,, and me living on this hill… even with the changes, my life seems to be on the same track, pretty much as it has been on for over 40 years. My schedule was shaped by others much of the time… staying home is not without responsibilities…the daily, the weekly routine of seeing that things get done, and the home runs relatively smooth…cooking at a certain time, shopping , and being home just in case I might be needed …I am not complaining, I enjoyed my life and would not have traded it for a “Real Job”.

But, I am slowly coming to realize, I have 24 hours to do what I want to…even more slowly I am losing those feelings, that I am suppose to be tending to something or somebody.
I can run vacuum at 2 Am… if I want to I am not disturbing anybody…my life has changed…but I have been reluctant to change my life.

So now then I said all of that to say…you all I have mashed the reset button on my life…instead of wandering around wondering what I should be doing…I am going to “DO”! Recently on C-Span’s Book TV they had a lady, Kath Weston, a professor at the university of Virginia, on talking about her latest book, Traveling Light; On The Road With America’s Poor…. This lady traveled all over the united states on the bus!

I am going to try it! A short trip first, to Florida, Mid March,…. yeah, I am going to grab up my backpack, strap on my camera and hit the road with Greyhound and leave the driving to them. My bother, and his family are in Florida. If I like that trip, I will go to North Carolina in May, to see Grandson Philip graduate from high school…if that trip works out…I want to take the bus back to Nebraska in late June…to take pictures…lots of pictures of the wheat harvest., And of the places of my childhood…Just in case one day my kids or grand kids get curious about where John and I grew up….so far they have shown little to no interest.

Traveling by bus is very economical…round trip to Florida is not but $120. Air fare is quite reasonable now too…but you do not get to see anything. Some of my friends are speculating , that before I get off that bus in Ft Myers Florida, I will have seen a whole heap more then I wanted to see….So Taking all of their concerns and warnings into consideration…I will be boarding the bus in V’Burg, and if I don’t like the way the trip is going…. I can get off in Jackson.

I did not tell daughter Angela until I had already purchased my nonrefundable ticket. Angela is a lot like her dad…some things you just do not mention until after you have carried out your plan. So, when I bought the ticket I Emailed, her the itinerary, I had no sooner I hit the “send” button on the computer… my phone went to ringing….It was her, she did not even say hello…it was “do I even want to know where you are going on a Greyhound bus?” there was a tone to her voice…she didn’t say too much.. not really…. But I could tell by her tone and her breathing, those long breathes and audible sighs…. she was not excited as I was with my latest scheme to add some adventure to my life.

I of course I heard of Muscadine grapes…But the first muscadine I ever ate was one of Hugh Allen’s …his vines are on his fence so close to the road, that when they began to ripen they became an irresistible temptation to the walking group…. we sampled them every morning during the season…..we would try to pretend he cared, but he didn’t…if fact this past fall Peggy Ann and I stopped by to admire the muscadines…there wasn’t any… Hugh from inside, must have seen the disappointment on our faces…because he came out and lifted up some leaves to reveal bunches of the prettiest muscadines, you ever saw…”Here, the birds didn’t get these”
When ever I see a muscadine in the grocery store or the farmers market, I always think of Hugh Allen…

My sympathies go out to Hugh’s family, Mr. Allen passed away this past Thursday afternoon.
Love to all
Call if you need me