here's something that mr t put together...words,that is.
Grandma's 117th Birthday
Just from the number in this title, one can tell it has been a long time, and our "boomer" generation is now aging, like a ship getting farther from the shore. It is quite an accomplishment to have lived to be 93 and have your grandchildren still remember you 24 years after you are gone. Or is it just good luck? Perhaps it is out of our hands, this fate, predetermined or not, called life. People pass away at an old or young age, as seen in the recent news about celebrities' deaths. Others live a long time. We have relatives who have done both (Pat Mickle - too young!- for example, and recently, Olive Allen at 92). What is more important is not what you accomplished in life, as so many in our culture and others would have you believe. Rather, it is how you lived your life, and did you love your family. Your job is for survival, what is all this other stuff about careers? Your family is your career, if you follow Margaret Allen's life, even though it was a different time and era.
Margaret Allen, "Grandma" the most important thing in her life was her family. Too often we get wound up in the survival or accomplishment routine, and forget the simple things mean more. We all wish we had that house and park back, but only because we wish we had that time or era back to go with it. "Don't it always seem to go, when you don't know what you've got till it's gone" the song says. That goes for people and places important to us that we knew, that shaped our lives, or tried to, like Grandma Allen. We are trying to "Get Back to where we once belonged" and that is why we remember Margaret Allen and the Old 27 house and all those who go with it. We honor her on her birthday today and reflect on her life.
I had the privilege, no, the blessing, of being one of the few who saw and spoke her more often than others in my generation. I bet her influence has pulled me out of more potential scrapes than I can imagine, even today. The fact that her house still exists after 55 years (yes, 55!) brings me comfort as a symbol that she is still alive within us all. In my mind, I can still see her waving from the window or from the outside on the front porch, the same as she always did, as we left late around 4 pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the summer to go back to Lansing.
Here's to the matriarch of the "Old 27" Blog.
Just from the number in this title, one can tell it has been a long time, and our "boomer" generation is now aging, like a ship getting farther from the shore. It is quite an accomplishment to have lived to be 93 and have your grandchildren still remember you 24 years after you are gone. Or is it just good luck? Perhaps it is out of our hands, this fate, predetermined or not, called life. People pass away at an old or young age, as seen in the recent news about celebrities' deaths. Others live a long time. We have relatives who have done both (Pat Mickle - too young!- for example, and recently, Olive Allen at 92). What is more important is not what you accomplished in life, as so many in our culture and others would have you believe. Rather, it is how you lived your life, and did you love your family. Your job is for survival, what is all this other stuff about careers? Your family is your career, if you follow Margaret Allen's life, even though it was a different time and era.
Margaret Allen, "Grandma" the most important thing in her life was her family. Too often we get wound up in the survival or accomplishment routine, and forget the simple things mean more. We all wish we had that house and park back, but only because we wish we had that time or era back to go with it. "Don't it always seem to go, when you don't know what you've got till it's gone" the song says. That goes for people and places important to us that we knew, that shaped our lives, or tried to, like Grandma Allen. We are trying to "Get Back to where we once belonged" and that is why we remember Margaret Allen and the Old 27 house and all those who go with it. We honor her on her birthday today and reflect on her life.
I had the privilege, no, the blessing, of being one of the few who saw and spoke her more often than others in my generation. I bet her influence has pulled me out of more potential scrapes than I can imagine, even today. The fact that her house still exists after 55 years (yes, 55!) brings me comfort as a symbol that she is still alive within us all. In my mind, I can still see her waving from the window or from the outside on the front porch, the same as she always did, as we left late around 4 pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the summer to go back to Lansing.
Here's to the matriarch of the "Old 27" Blog.
i had this post ready to go , on autopost . but apparently i didn't do it right .
anyway , here it is , a day late , but definitely not a dollar short...
steve
3 comments:
Thanks for putting up comments and photos of dad and of course gramma. Here is one poem I have in my files that I like that I think somes up alot of my feelings in general. This would be my blog comment.
A Psalm of Life - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffle drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle;
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant;
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, -act in the Living Present;
Heart within, and God o-erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
My Friend The alligator
By Henry Gibson
(with flowers in hand)
My Friend the alligator,
He could be your friend too,
If only you could understand...
That he's got feeling's too!
(Oh well, just trying to lighten it up, I guess Gibson's not as good as Longfellow..made ya look anyway)
actually i like them both...
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