Part of the Gang

If I ever felt like I belonged it would have been during the days we camped at the F.O. Ranch. We could do whatever we wanted at the moment, whether it was to seek solitude, read, explore or sit by the campfire. If we wanted to have a wine cooler for breakfast, no one judged. No one was offended. There were no outcasts.

We came from different walks of life, whether college student, teacher, scientist, maintenance worker or hair stylist, when we were together, we had harmony and acceptance. We knew how to appreciate freedom from structure. Each person was accepted as is, flaws and all.

Ron cooking breakfast over the campfire.

I often wonder what became of these friends from my young adulthood. Where are they now? What are they doing? Would they remember or even recognize me all these years later?

What has changed? What limits the openness I once shared with these folks who became friends because we lived near one another? Our apartments shared a communal porch where we would hang out between camping trips, planning and counting the days until our next gathering at the campsite.

The campsite, owned by the parents of one of the campers, had an ancient, one-room cabin with a small kitchen where we kept the food. No refrigerator, just a collection of ice chests to keep the perishables and the drinks. In the tiny bedroom was a toilet, partially exposed behind a half wall. Campers were welcome to use it during the day, provided they brought a bucket of water for flushing purposes. There was no running water, just a hand pump outside.

But we made it work.

 Cindy with Snowball and Precious at the Old Cabin

The campfire was kept burning all hours of the day, replenished through treks in the woods to gather deadwood as we explored our surroundings. During one of those treks, we discovered a sinkhole that must have been fifty-feet deep.

By now, a subdivision of tract homes has likely replaced our old stomping grounds.

Yet the lake must surely remain, in all its glory and seclusion, the water on which many of us learned to ski, took our baths, fished and sat together on the creaky and rickety dock. How can so many years have passed and I still fondly recall the sights and smells of those times?

Me and Marsha on the Dock

There were few distractions. There were no cell phones. No i Pods, no laptops or tablets. We had a collection of paperback books which we read by firelight or lantern if the night grew quiet. Otherwise, we circled the campfire and told stories or sang when anyone who could play brought their guitar. No one cared if we forgot the words or missed a note.

How I long for those days that always passed too quickly, before Sunday night came and we gathered the tents, loaded up the small boat with equipment before hooking it to the trailer and heading back to the real world where Monday awaited and our daily work stood ready to greet us the next day.

The Triple FO

Sunburn and bug bites aside, those were some of the best days of my life. And not just for me. Romances bloomed, couples grew together and apart. The saga of life played out with each adventure. Like the time I showed up unexpectedly to find someone else in my boyfriend's tent. That was a night to remember.

From  Memoirs and Other Tall Tales © Peggy Cole

Father's Day 2019

On Father's day I fondly recall the many things my dad taught his three children like how to catch fish, the value of hard work and the joy of learning to do things ourselves. He was big on discipline like postponing gratification and held up the importance of an enduring faith. As a Sunday School Teacher he brought the Bible to life with his well-prepared lessons.

It was during the early sixties he seated a person in the front rows at our church, someone who by policy was only allowed to sit at the back of the congregation. Dad disregarded tradition one Sunday morning when he served as an usher and for a time, we were not welcome at that church. He carried on anyway, teaching the Bible in our living room every Sunday morning until that preacher left for another church in the Deep South. Times were different back then.

The Only Church in Town

Dad was a great story teller and shared many of the stories about his own father who was born in 1880, who raised six children as a single parent while working on the railroad as a mail-carrier and who later worked as a sharecropper.

Stern and strict at times, Dad believed that "sparing the rod" spoiled the child. But he also could be funny and witty. He was a good singer and liked to play the guitar and sing, "You are My Sunshine" and "Red River Valley."

He had a great smile and an enduring love for animals. He taught us that all life was valuable. I'm grateful that he stuck around to raise us after a trial separation before I was born. My older sister and brother were small children when Mom moved back home to Grandmother's house in Texas. He followed his own father's advice and did the right thing staying around to see the children he brought into the world all graduate high school and leave home before he and Mom parted ways.

He's been gone from this world since 2005 but I will always remember him fondly and often replay in my head that last time he told me, "I love you, my darling."

Remembering Paula - 2017

This story is dedicated to my friend of many years, Paula.

Paula and I managed to stay in touch over the years despite living in different states. The calls would get more frequent before our annual week spent together at the beach.

We'd played phone tag for days and I came home to a voice mail from her apologizing for not getting back to me.

When I called her back she told me the worst news possible.

She'd spent ten days in the hospital being poked and run through a battery of tests. They told her the results via an impersonal phone call from her doctor.

Her doctor told her she had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

1983 at the Gold Twin Towers in Dallas

Over the years, our lives seemed to run in parallel. Both of us moved from owning our own hair salons to earning our real estate licenses, to later, taking jobs in the corporate world.

We had each become instant stepmothers to five-year old boys through marriage. We shared the heartbreak of those failed relationships and our bankrupt businesses. We also shared the joy of coming back from darkness to better times.

In 1983, during the heyday of the TV show "Dallas" she came to Texas for a short visit. Naturally, we visited Southfork Ranch and the Gold Twin Towers where JR's fictional office was.

September of1988 we spent our first week together at her timeshare on the beach. We shopped at Publix for the week's groceries, cooked on the outdoor grills and enjoyed spectacular views of the sunset, before staying up all night laughing and watching old movies.

1996 North Reddington Shores, Florida

Every year, we'd spend 7 days walking the beach, baking in the sun and swimming in the pool. We'd pack up with sadness at the end of the week and drive back to her house spending our last night together watching reruns of Star Trek. We dreaded the early morning flight when she'd drop me off at Tampa Airport. When I called to tell her I was home safe, she'd say she'd cried all the way home. She felt things deeply and wasn't afraid to show her emotions.

We shared numerous meals at the Village Inn Pancake House, Houlihan's, Friday's, Puerta Vallarta and Café Pepe where we ordered paella with sangria and homemade bread. We shopped the thrift stores for stuff to sell in my antique store and we drove around the neighborhood where parrots from Busch Gardens roosted in trees near her house. My old house was only a few blocks from hers and we'd do a drive-by.
During the 90s we'd meet in Orlando at my dad's house to share a family meal. Dad served as the father figure she'd always wanted having been raised by a single mom. We called each other sisters. 

1995 at my Dad's house

When Dad passed away, she made the two-hour drive from Tampa to Le High Acres to be at his funeral and take me home with her. She was a source of comfort and friendship during my grief.

In 2009, she was proud that she finally got into her first pair of size 10 shorts. Not the kind with elastic waist, either. These were the button and zip shorts she'd always dreamed she would wear. She'd finally conquered her life-long battle with weight control.

2008 North Reddington Shores

She'd already been through agonizing pain and a long battle to find a doctor to do hip replacement surgery. She was still in her fifties. Her osteoarthritis had destroyed her hip joint making it nearly impossible to walk. Our shopping trips to favorite places like Donation Station, Goodwill and other thrift stores met less enthusiasm from my friend whose every step radiated pain.

1993 Kongfrontation

In 2015, she underwent spinal surgery, fusing five vertebra and several vertebra in her neck. The symptoms of numbness in her hands, the unexpected falls and other more disturbing side effects lessened. She looked great. I was proud of her resilience and resolve.

Our last beach trip in September 2016, grocery shopping was different than the years prior. Instead of several desserts for the week, we got half a Key Lime Pie. The variety of breads we usually picked out were missing, too. The potato chips, ice cream, cookies, apple strudel and chocolate candy had shrunk to just a couple choices.

I was proud of her restraint and mine as well. I usually went home a few pounds heavier after our vacation. I had no idea that something was going wrong with her digestive tract. Something very wrong.

My friend was in Stage 4 of cancer, too weak to take the chemotherapy which might prolong her life a few months, maybe a couple of years. But she was resilient, still hoping to beat this disease that made her look as she described, "like a skeleton."

I wanted to fly down there immediately but she wanted me to wait until she started chemotherapy. At that point she had stopped eating because of the gastric reactions she'd have after any kind of food.

I'll never forget her words. "Don't think the irony of this disease is lost on me. All my life I've struggled to lose weight and now I'm dying of starvation."

Even to the end, she remained grateful for the small comforts and blessings of life: friends who loved her dearly; two precious dogs whose awareness of her situation was clear in their actions; a mother who never expected to outlive her daughter after her own critical illness the prior year. Paula had spent months helping her mother recover a near fatal infection in 2015.

I treasure my photos from forty years spent with my friend. Her house was always welcoming, warm and casually inviting. I have fond memories of her cockatiel, T.C. Wilson, who talked to the dogs that came and went over the 20 years he lived. We shared mutual losses of beloved canines, felines, birds, relatives and friends over the years.

1995 with Nevy and Chloe

I recall our many talks over cups of coffee in her living room watching out the front window as her neighborhood changed with time. She was a friend who could put you instantly at ease whether watching TV or just hanging out. We could be comfortable reading books, silent for hours. There was no pressure to follow a schedule or do things. We were there for each other.

She was a friend who remembered to call on birthdays, holidays and in-between, always sharing the latest news and listening and sharing the ups and downs of our jobs.

She had an amazing recall of my family, the names of aunts and cousins, stories told over the years. When our roles expanded to caring for our aging mothers and their live-in partners, we often shared the joys and difficulties of being caregivers and about the day we might lose our mothers. We never imagined that one of us would go first.

2016 at the beach

She passed away on July 21st, 2017, just two short months after her diagnosis.

I still reach for the phone to call her, even after these years. I still think of us sharing a cup of coffee in her living room with the dogs, cats and T.C. Wilson.

She loved the Lord and had a strong faith. I hope she's had a chance to meet Him and reunite with her pets that have crossed over: Chivas, Aramis, Nevada, Spunky, Chloe, Zoey, Hansel, Gretel, Dakota and TC Wilson.

Paula is gone but not forgotten. She lives on in my dreams and memories.

For the Good Times

The heartbreak isn't over but I'm beginning to see the light. I've never lost a best friend before. 

Yesterday I was measuring the refrigerator for a replacement. After eighteen years, the old one has finally given up on making things cold. All of a sudden, a magnet jumped off the side wall. When I fished it out from the narrow space between the counter and the appliance, I realized it was the magnet my best friend gave me many years ago. It seemed like a sign to me that she's still with me. I smiled for the first time since Friday when she passed away.

The magnet reminded me of the time at her house when I was raiding her refrigerator and slammed the door too hard. Her little ceramic angel magnet fell off and broke in two. The head rolled underneath and was lost in the dark kingdom of dust bunnies. She'd had to leave town unexpectedly, following the loss of her grandmother and my return flight was not changeable, so I waited alone to go home. I wrote her a short, sorrowful note of apology with an offer to buy her a new magnet to replace the one I ruined. She forgave me with no hesitation and the matter was closed.

My next trip to her house, I was amazed to find the angel magnet hanging proudly on the front of the refrigerator door. She'd found the lost piece and glued it back together. I carefully closed the door on the cold realm of leftovers and sodas and smiled.

My friend will never call me again. We will never walk on the beach looking for shells. Or watch the glorious beauty of sunset we like did so many times on our vacations together. Somehow, I cling to the hope that we are still together, even if separated by life and death, and that one day we will again walk along the shore in awe of God's handiwork.

5 Hours in the Emergency Room

Sitting in the ER on the day before a holiday can be frustrating. Truth is, it can be frustrating anytime, any day. A visitor tends to notice the small, bothersome things, like debris on the floor or black scuff marks on the wheels of the gurney. The patient, on the other hand, notices only the delay in getting the proper care or pain medication that they are screaming for at the moment.

The constant bleeping noise of the blood pressure monitor, left running while the patient is taken to some mysterious location for CT Scans and Sonograms becomes the heartbeat of the room.

The wail of other emergency transport vehicles sounds loud as they echo down the deserted hallways, first a siren, later only flashing red and blue lights before the transport team makes their way past us to one of eighty rooms in the ER.

A lonely housekeeper pushes the hospital equivalent of a Swiffer down the linoleum tile. I almost asked when our room will be swabbed as well, but I didn't. Instead, I concentrated on the blaring volume of the TV where the soap opera plays its own version of drama. My companion, the patient's mother, stares without blinking at the screen catching up on her stories so she can relay updates to her daughter when she returns.

Minutes tick by on the clock in the room, the hands moving ever so slowly as we wait for some sort of results or decisions. After an hour, I go out in search of my missing friend.

"They said she'd only be gone a few minutes," I tell someone kind enough to stop.

"Oh, the techs have no idea how long it takes," the radiologist informs me as I'm pacing the halls under the x-ray sign. "I'll find out what happened to her." He asks her name again. I tell him.

At that moment, a door opens and they roll her back to the same location on the dirty floor of the ER room where it rested before. Someone else comes in the room with the same questions that have been answered a number of times. I wonder what is the point of entering data into the computer when no one can find it again.

The doctor on staff, who's substituting for the regular doctor who's on holiday, who is filling in for the patient's primary care physician, asks if my friend has an Advanced Directive and a Living Will. Although expected, this brings to light the severity of the situation and the possibilities of the outcome.

Five hours of staring at the photo on the wall opposite the ER room, the nurse finally tells us that a room assignment has been made. They roll the patient down the hall, with a brief stop in front of the nurses' station to add Dilaudid to the IV drip We follow the gurney through two buildings and up an elevator to the south wing on the fourth floor where we settle into an ice cold room, thankfully, a private room with a window, where the questions resume with a familiarity that is unnerving and redundant.

"What is your name and date of birth?"
"Do you have an Advanced Directive? A Living will?"
"What is your level of pain on a scale of one to ten. A ten?"
"What prescription pain medications do you take at home?"

An hour later, the shift changes and the night nurse comes in with the same list of questions. By now, we're preparing flash cards with the answers to save energy.

My friend is in Stage IV of Pancreatic cancer, unable to eat, barely able to walk, and each question answered requires serious effort at speaking. We turn the air conditioner setting warmer from 65 to a more pleasant 75 degrees, take our positions on the hard folding chairs provided and wait.

Robbery in Progress

Bait Sandwiches, our Specialty

Shopping at a convenience store can sometimes bring drama. This is a true story told to me by the person involved written from his point of view. © Peg Cole.

"The management of the disk duplication company where I worked was doing their best to make me quit," he paused for a moment of reflection as he told the story. 

"All the signs were crystal clear with their cruel tactics of isolation and denigration, but their latest effort was the one that nearly got me killed." He scratched his head and continued.

"Things at work seemed like an ongoing battle between the old school faction and the young entrepreneurs who owned the business. They wanted us to believe that they knew it all. You couldn't tell them anything. That was just they way it was where I worked. That's just the way it is...

"Of course, these guys probably never tested a component to the board level in their lives. It all came to a head that day I repaired their outdated duplication equipment which served to add fuel to the growing animosity. The owners had apparently told everyone the machine was beyond repair, which naturally, put them in a bad light when I got it running better than before. 

Rather than being pleased with my innovative solution that cost them pennies, my repair didn't set well with either partner.

Old SEAC Computer, Wikimedia Images, Public Domain

Sure, I was probably as arrogant as either of these dudes that seemed dead set on running the company into the ground. They were quick to mock those of us with a few years of experience under our belt, calling us geezers and the like. The way I saw it, they couldn't diagnose their way out of a paper bag.

Their vendetta began almost immediately after my repair job and escalated from there.

To begin with, they removed me from all tasks having to do with technical or computer related equipment. Instead, they put me on a special project assembling wood cabinets in the blistering hot warehouse. The task was easy but I certainly wasn't putting my years of computer experience to use.

That wasn't important. I'd taken this entry level job out of desperation following a layoff at the computer company where I'd been working for twelve years. I had started working there right out of tech school, after graduating at the top of my class. I never had to look for a job - they had recruited me. 

Still, I was grateful that this new job provided enough money to pay the basic household bills, although my confidence and my ego suffered a bit during the transition.

Vintage Disk Duplication Equipment

Isolating me from the other workers by putting me in the warehouse apparently wasn't enough to suit them. When that wasn't enough to make me quit, they decided to up the ante and have me report in to work at four in the morning. The normal first shift clocked in at seven am.

I was headed to the warehouse to work my new schedule when I stopped by a Seven-Eleven to pick up some coffee and a snack. The store was quiet, empty at that time of the morning. It was still dark outside, so that came as no surprise. I helped myself to a large regular coffee in a Styrofoam cup and went up to the register to pay, but there was no cashier around. While I was looking at my watch and growing impatient, I heard a noise coming from behind the counter. Someone was moaning.

"Help me," the nearly inaudible voice whispered.

Now, that is definitely a sound that will get the heart pumping and the blood flowing. Then, I noticed the telephone was off the hook, its cord dangling to the floor. My eyes followed the twisted wire downward where I saw the receiver lying next to a body. He'd been shot.

Frantically, I looked around the store seeking who knows what - a doctor, an ambulance, better yet, some indication that I was still sleeping quietly in my nice warm bed at home. Instead, my eyes rested on an array of automatic weapons pointed in my direction.

The entire parking lot was jammed with patrol cars, their flashing lights sending eerie rays of red and blue strobes into the darkness of the early morning sky. Officers held their positions behind the cover of their vehicles. They had arrived on the scene silently with sirens turned off.

"Put your hands on top of your head and don't move!" the officer closest to the door shouted.

I managed to raise my hands above my head when the lead officer told me to sit down. There were cases of canned Coke stacked behind where I stood. Legs trembling, I took a seat on the display. In one hand, I still held the steaming cup of coffee whose purchase had taken me on this detour. Hot liquid dribbled down my arm from my shaking hand. Beads of perspiration covered my face. I felt like I might faint.

"It took little time for the officers to secure the building and confirm that the robbery suspect was not on the premises. They wrote down my personal information, asked me a few questions and told me I could leave. I was shaking so badly all I could do was sit in the car for a few minutes, saying a prayer of thanks to God.

"When I finally calmed down enough to drive, I headed to my workplace, arriving about the same time as one of the partners who was there to see if I showed up on time. He entered the building and stomped across the wooden floor with his muddy boots.

"You're late," he yelled, inches from my face.

"Yes, boss, I sure am." Before I had a chance to explain the reason for my delayed arrival, he screamed.

"You're fired!"

" 'Thank you,' I said, and I genuinely meant that. It was all I could do to leave the warehouse without hugging him. My mantra of Thank you, Jesus carried me all the way home where I counted my blessings and smiled at the brand new day ahead."

1 Old Computer equipment that used punch cards, By Tshrinivasan (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

2 By National Institute of Standards and Technology (National Institute of Standards and Technology) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons