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Please click on Posts by Topic in navigation to read postings and columns about the many humorous (in retrospect) events encountered by my family, friends and me. The above drawings by son Greg (way over qualified for that task) illustrated a couple of my books. You may click on each to enlarge if you wish to see more detail. And, yes, I really did hit an owl on the highway and unknowingly drive all over town with him hanging from the grille.
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Click on the cover to buy or read excerpts from the book.
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Darlin' Ray's
Whenever I introduced Ray at a gathering, I said he was as essential to me as breathing. I said it because it is true. How do you let go of someone who has been the biggest part of your life since you were fourteen years old? I have no choice but to accept the fact that he is gone but I feel the best part of me went with him.
I wanted to have Ray’s Celebration of Life at the home we designed and built together and moved into in 1995. It was an invitation-only event for an eclectic group of people Ray especially liked from all aspects of his life: family, school, work, neighbors and people he encountered along the way. The weather cooperated (rain had been predicted) and we had a beautiful celebration of Ray’s wonderful life outdoors. Inside we had food and allowed guests to tour the home we built and encouraged them to go downstairs and see Ray's stained glass of Canada geese in the solarium and the antique bed in one bedroom {more about that in the caption of a photo later in this post). We did not have tables and chairs for everyone so some stood. I am sorry so many had to leave early and missed the program. Those who stayed loved it.
Our friend Lanny, a psychiatrist in Washington who could have had a successful career as a concert pianist, recorded Ray’s favorite song accompanied by his violinist friend. If you'd like to hear it, click here. Lanny performed as Liberace, complete with Liberace wig and candelabra, several times at the Guardian Angle fundraiser I chaired for JAAA in Topeka and Ray always asked him to play "Edelweiss.". Lanny’s beautiful rendition was followed by our good friend Bob, an excellent and popular Elvis tribute artist, who sang “Love me Tender” to Ray’s and my dear friend Katie who is 101 years young. This was in the program only because Ray and I had planned a huge surprise birthday bash for Katie’s 100th birthday last year and Bob was scheduled to entertain in full Elvis regalia. Unfortunately, Covid shut down plans for that party so we decided to give Katie a little sample of what she would have heard if we could have had the big party we planned for her. Ray would have loved that Bob sang to Katie. He and I met Katie when I was commissioned to write an article about her service as a Rosie the Riveter during World War II. My editor told me I must call her before 8:00 a.m. or after 5:00 p.m. because she would be working in her yard between those hours. At that time it was August and very hot. Katie was 95. We absolutely love Katie and Pat, the woman with whom she lives, and have since the first day we met them. And they loved Ray. They often said he was everything a man should be. Greg and I went to Katie the day before so she could record her comments about Ray and recite a lovely poem she had written and copyrighted after her mother died. Her recording was played after Bob sang "Love me Tender" to her. Although there is a little extraneous speaking before and after her comments (there will not be as soon as I learn to edit audio), you may listen to Katie's comments and poem by clicking here.
Next on the program was Bob, a classmate and good friend to both Ray and me, who sang “Memories” and a beautiful song he wrote entitled “I’ll Walk with You in the Sunshine.” If you would like to hear Bob sing that song, click here. Ray loved to hear Bob sing and we rarely missed one of his events. They had become such good friends that Bob called him “Elvis, Jr.” That is because if they were at an event together and Bob went into the venue out of costume, people invariably asked Ray if he was Elvis. I am grateful to Bob for singing at Ray’s Celebration of Life and to Brian Cooper, Bob’s song manager, who managed the program and brought a boatload of equipment including a standup mic for people to use when speaking about Ray and for me to use while emceeing. My brother-in-law Dick died eight years ago but his beautiful voice lives on in a recording of “Peace in the Valley” that he recorded at his mother’s request. That recording was the last song on the formal program. If you would like to hear it, click here. Gabe, Sammi and Zoe spoke of their memories of Grampy. They were very unique memories each had of him and it was interesting to see what they remembered of him. Grandson B.J. also spoke. There is no picture of him doing so because as he approached the mic, a man who had stayed inside yelled help and half a dozen people, including the videographer, rushed inside. Happily, the gentleman's walker was just out of his reach. Ray dearly loved his sons and grandchildren and they all responded in kind. A number of other people spoke. One woman said, "Two words: rum balls!" which was a reference to the many different candies Ray made each Christmas and shared with family, friends and the staff at JAAA.
Son Ray, Jr. spoke of the many things his dad taught him and said the most important was that when checking out mechanical trouble to always look for the simplest thing first. An IT, he gave this example of applying it in his work, "When someone has computer trouble, first ask, 'Is it plugged in? Is it on?'" Son Greg spoke of his dad's gratitude for the simplest thing done for him. Indeed Ray expressed gratitude and took joy in almost everything! He would even thank me for a meal of hot dogs and potato chips. I love the joyful expression on his face when Greg and Gabe cleaned out the water garden and turned on the pump causing the waterfall to flow again. When Ray's mother was in her 90s, he went in town every day to be sure she had taken her medicine. During her last illness, he was so sweetly patient and loving that even when he helped her dress, she wasn't embarrassed. I think he acquired his love of gardening from her. I told the crowd at his Celebration of Life that every tree (except for some cedars which he transplanted and those in the tree line) was planted by Ray as well as the hundreds, if not thousands, of flowers. He loved unusual trees and flowers.
In case you are interested, I am posting a few pictures of the house Ray and I designed and built. I warned people not to open any closed door or something might fall on them. My friend Bill's home was on a Christmas tour of homes one year and he confided that it was going to take weeks to get things they swept into drawers "back on top of something where it belongs." Below are photos of a few of the rooms the friends attending Ray's Celebration of Life saw. Ray and I were proud of this house we designed and built. It was a lot of work, but worth it. Every once in a while when we'd be reading in the evening, he would look around and say, "You know, we did a pretty good job!" and I would respond, "We make a good team." Indeed we did! ![]() Although it doesn't look like it, this bathroom, like the bedroom, is a restful shade of blue. Ray did the tile work in all three bathrooms, the solarium, the laundry room and two entry areas. I, who took lessons on how to lay tile, actually placed four tile in the middle of the solarium before Ray took over and I became a go-for. He also did the kitchen tile work.
![]() This antique bed has quite a story. In 1946, my parents bought a fully-furnished house at 528 Walnut. This was in my parents' bedroom until my mother, then a widow, required a hospital bed with trapeze. She tried to give the bed to me but I declined because I thought one of my three sisters might want it. Then one day my mother-in-law Christina told me that the bed had been her mother's and her husband (AKA Christina's father) sold it without permission for a paltry $10 to the people from whom my parents bought their home. At that point, I told Mom that Ray and I would take the bed because we were destined to have it.
I received three unexpected gifts so thoughtful and sweet they made me cry. Brian and Bob who had already done so much to make Ray’s Celebration of Life special, gave me a CD of the program with Ray’s and Bob’s picture on the front. My niece-in-law Erin made a very special book about Ray with pictures and graphics that also contained letters from people expressing their memories of Ray. My sister Vicki gave me an ornament which I will hang year round. One side has a picture of Ray and me taken before Greg’s wedding; on the other side is a recent photo of Ray that I especially like.
Another gift came in the form of my friend Ann and her husband Rick flying in from Cleveland to honor Ray and comfort me. Their gift of love and friendship means the world to me as does the love expressed for Ray, my family and me by all those who attended his Celebration of Life or expressed their caring and concern in other ways.. Things were happening quickly at Ray’s Celebration of Life and someone (I am ashamed I cannot remember who) brought me a lovely Siberian Iris to plant in Ray’s memory. I will surely do that just as soon as it quits raining and hope I can remember who gave it to me so I can properly thank them.. Ray’s Celebration of Life was indeed special for all of us. We tried to do him justice. I hope we did. His life had ups and downs like all our lives do, but I believe he had a productive and wonderful life. It just wasn’t long enough.
My little Ford Edge SUV was innocently sitting at a red light with my foot on its brake when it was hit from behind and pushed through the two southbound lanes of normally busy Topeka Boulevard. This business of me having a wreck when I’m sitting still is becoming a habit that has to stop.
The first time it happened, I had backed out of a parking spot in the Post Office lot and was stopped preparing to shift into drive when I saw the backup lights flash on a truck that was parked perpendicular to me. I hit my horn just as he hit behind the rear door on the driver’s side of our dark blue Lincoln Town Car. His insurance paid for the damage and I thought it was just a one-time fluke that I was hit while sitting still. But on a snowy winter day a couple of years later in the same car, I had pulled out of Kohl’s parking lot onto the street when I was stopped behind a line of traffic right in front of Walmart’s sloping driveway. Uh-oh, I looked to my right and a pickup truck was sliding down Walmart’s exit with only my car to stop it . . . which it did. The guy jumped out of his truck, inspected it, then looked at my car and said, “I think we’re both OK, I don’t see any damage.” That was when I saw the big crack in the front passenger side’s bumper. “You have no idea what this is going to cost,” I said. No worries. His insurance paid for repairing my car’s damage. Sure, there were inconveniences, like driving rental cars which were paid for by insurance of the parties at fault as was all the damage our car sustained. You could say I was spoiled. The first thing the driver responsible for the most recent wreck said to me when she pulled up behind where I had parked after crossing the other two lanes of the boulevard was, “I’m sorry. I hope my car is totaled. I hate that car!” I noticed two little girls sitting in carseats in the back seat and asked if they were OK. She replied, “Yes, but I ruined my coffee.” I do not know if she was drinking coffee when she hit me or if it was in a cupholder, but I would bet cold, hard cash that she never hit the brakes before hitting me.
Long story, short. Her car was repaired and back on the road before mine even got into the body shop. Once they disassembled it, they totaled it because the frame was too badly buckled to repair, making me wonder if the damage would have been less if my foot hadn’t been on the brake. It took some real force to push me through two lanes when I was braked. I liked that car for many reasons but especially because Ray so much enjoyed driving it out at the lake. The bad news is — oh, wait, that the car is totaled is the bad news — well, the worse news is that Kansas law does not require her insurance company to give me the cost of replacing my vehicle. The good news is that no one was badly hurt in the wreck. The bad news is that, even though my little car and I were not in any way culpable, it is going to cost me money to replace it as well as worry and inconvenience. That’s not fair, Kansas! Are you legislators listening?
I wish I could say it was Valentine’s Day, but it probably wasn’t. The weather was nice enough to discard jackets and 16-year-old Ray was giving me a tour of the Goff farm (now the Reserve at Alvamar, Fountain Villas and the south half of Corpus Christi Church). We had roamed far from the farm house and I didn’t have any idea where we were.
I know we came down one or more hills. The house wasn’t in sight and I didn’t know in which direction it was. In short, I hadn’t a clue how to get back to it. But no worries, Ray did. Soon we came to a small lake called Yankee Tank (now Lake Alvamar). Ray picked up a good-sized rock to skip across the water — or perhaps only to make a big splash — gave it a heave and disappeared. That is, Ray disappeared, not just the rock although the rock did, too. Where did he go? I called his name over and over. Finally, I yelled, “This isn’t FUNNY!” Suddenly, a crimson-faced Ray was beside me tugging on my hand, pulling me up a hill to the North. At the top of the hill, I could see the house quite a distance away. He said not a word as we waked back through the wheat field and pasture. It wasn’t until we were married that I learned why he disappeared. When he heaved the rock, he said he accidentally let out a thunderous toot. It couldn’t have been as loud as he thought because I didn’t hear it but he was so embarrassed, he ran away, leaving me alone and lost. Still, he gets credit for coming back and rescuing me. “I thought you’d hate me,” he said. Of course, that was before he knew that girls also tooted. You gotta love a sweet, innocent guy like that. I did, I do and I always will.
The two times we went to Cancun with my sister and brother-in-law, we didn't hang around the resort or sunbathe beside the pool or ocean. We were on the move all over the Yucatan Peninsula! That is Ray at the very top of the crumbling pyramid at the Coba ruins. Those figures below him (that's as high as they went) are Lesta and Dick. Guess who is taking the picture with her feet firmly planted on terra firma? I made it to the fourth step before I retreated and chronicled their climb in pictures. Someone had to do that.
We four were the only humans there 21 years ago and we had to walk a long way through the jungle — with troops of monkeys chattering overhead — to reach the pyramid. But wait, there was one man quite far away from the pyramid who charged Lesta and me to use the most primitive and least sanitary bathroom that I have ever seen. I've always been envious of how much cheaper and cleaner it is to answer a call of nature when you are male. ![]() As we left the ruins, we stopped at a roadside vendor where I purchased a relief carving for Greg envisioning it hanging in his office at work. The artist himself told me it was El Morte eating a slave. I didn't question why he was eating him rear end first but that is why Greg didn't hang it in his office, explaining to me, "I could just hear someone asking, 'Why is that big guy biting that little guy's butt?'"
Driving back to Cancun, we passed Tulum without incident but near Playa del Carmen, we were pulled over to the side of the road by a guy waving an AK-47. He had a bunch of friends similarly armed. I knew we were in trouble when he approached the car and asked, "Mexican or American?" When we answered American, he demanded our passports. Back then one could travel to Cancun with a birth certificate. Lesta's, Dick's and my birth certificates were back at the hotel in our room safe. Ray had one there also, but he also had taken the precaution of having me make half a dozen copies of his birth certificate, one of which was in his billfold. As Dick, who spoke fluent Spanish after being stationed in Panama for six years, explained that a passport wasn't required, Ray, seated in the front seat with Dick, handed over his birth certificate. The guy pointed at Ray and said, "He no problema," then he pointed in turn at the three of us and said, "Tres problemas!" while banging the butt of his gun on the highway for emphasis. When Dick asked for his ID, the man said he's show it for 500 American dollars. Ray thought he was asking for $500 to let us proceed. Later he said, "I only had $300 dollars and I thought I was going to have to go back to the hotel and get more out of the safe and I didn't know where the hotel was or how I'd get there." The guy, who had jewelry — much of it feminine — around his neck and up to his elbows on both arms, eventually settled for 40 bucks which Ray quickly handed over. Dick, however, started to argue but Lesta, sitting behind him in the back seat with me, silenced him by smacking him in the back of his head. Driving back to Cancun, we decided if his victims didn't have cash on them, he accepted jewelry instead. I insisted that we go to the American consulate to complain and report him and, once we had explained why we were there, the woman in charge there said simply, "Happens all the time." That was our last trip to Cancun. Ray said he wasn't going to any country where he didn't fluently speak the language and wouldn't know when someone was saying, "I'm going to knock this guy in the head and take all his money."
Look who is standing beside me in Miss Black’s homeroom photo. I don’t even remember that hairstyle. No wonder it took me so long to convince him that we were meant for each other. But by 18, we both knew.
Seven years ago, I wrote the following for a contest but missed the deadline so I showed Ray what I had written.
Lovin' Ray Not every woman falls in love with her future husband at the tender age of 14. I was just lucky. From the minute I saw black-haired, blue-eyed Ray — tanned from a summer on the tractor — in Miss Black’s English class, I decided he was the one I would marry. I wasn’t even deterred a couple of years later when he proudly showed me his parents’ brand new silo. Inside the empty space, I spied a bird’s nest on a ladder attached to the wall. “Why don’t you climb up there and see if there are any baby birds in that nest?” I asked. Ray scaled the ladder, reached over his head into the nest and pulled out a snake. Which he dropped. On me. I once wrote that when someone drops a snake on you in a silo, there is no place to run except in tight circles. Trust me, I know. Today, with two sons, four grandchildren and too many snake encounters to number, I am confident that — at age 14 — I made the best decision of my life. Ray is as essential to me as breathing and, at 58 years and counting, I think our marriage will last.
Even if I dyed my hair black, the folks who work at Hy-Vee would know I’m a blonde (once natural). Why? Because last night I got out to the car to load my groceries and realized that I only had an 8-pack of grape Gatorade straddling the cart edge; I had left two sacks on the cashier's counter that contained 3 tomatoes, 4 snack packs of butterscotch and tapioca pudding, a loaf of blueberry bread and the item I had gone there to buy, 1½ pounds of pricey DiLusso Black Forest ham.
Well, sure I have left a sack or two at Walmart hanging from their turntable (OK, once ALL the sacks until the guy in line behind me ran to catch and tell me before I left the store wheeling my empty cart). But at Hy-Vee, they usually have a sacker who places the sacks into my cart for the trip to the car. No sacker last night though. Funny, how quickly I get used to being spoiled. I rushed back to the store, passing in the parking lot the woman who had been behind me in line. She was headed to her car with a cart piled full of sacks. I approached the cashier and said, “I left my groceries,” just as I noticed there were no sacks on the counter. “The lady behind you probably took them by mistake,” he said. “Do you have a receipt? Take it to Customer Service and they’ll give you a refund.” That told me that it had happened before to other dummies. But I wanted the ham so the lady at Customer Service told me to go get the items on the receipt except the Gatorade which I had loaded into the car. I managed to get everything on the receipt except the ham because, as the lady behind the deli counter reminded me, “You got all the Black Forest ham that we had.” Of course I did. As I was pushing the cart sans ham back to Customer Service, I met the lady who told me to get the items on the receipt and return to her. “I told Chloe about you,” she said. “She’ll take care of you.” Wheeling the cart up to Customer Service, I asked the young woman behind the counter, “Are you Chloe? I’m the idiot.” Chloe gave me a refund for the ham which I would much rather have had than the money. I thanked her and told her I was sorry for her trouble. “No problem,” Chloe said sweetly. “Have a nice night.” I just wonder what the lady behind me thought when she unpacked her groceries and found almost $30 worth of groceries that belonged to me . I hope she enjoyed the ham. That’s a big fat lie. I really don’t.
Driving home on a dark country road tonight, an owl swooped down to enjoy a juicy piece of roadkill. Unfortunately, the roadkill was right in front of my car and the owl was so intent on its dinner, it didn’t even notice the approaching vehicle with its bright lights on. SPLAT! No, SPLAT AGAIN! This is beginning to become a habit.
The only difference was that tonight’s owl didn’t get caught in my grille and I didn’t drive all over town with it hanging from my car. So far, my personal roadkill count is two owls, one chicken and one squirrel. I have written about all of them. If you'd like to read "Plea to roadkill: stay on the road," click here. If you'd like to read "Why, oh why, did that chicken cross the road," click here. If you'd like to read "Requiem for a squirrel," click here.
![]() )We threw in the towel on our 65th LHS High School Class of 1956 Reunion because COVID knocked us out. But the virus can’t keep us down for long because we are already planning “66 for ’56!” for next year. So no getting together this year with classmates and reminiscing about the good old days, no trips down memory lane
. . . but wait, while decluttering in the basement the other day, I found an article I had written about those good old days at LHS. Ray and I were on the Parent Advisory Council at LHS when our sons were students there and apparently some retiring teacher had written an article for the Budget — the high school paper I worked on long ago — about LHS in the 1950s and succeeding years. I evidently wrote this article from the view of a student of that time. I had to protect from embarrassment whichever son was in high school at the time so the byline reads P2-23 (I presume the P stands for parent; 2-23 is my birthdate). I guess I never sent it to the Budget for publication. Why? Who knows? Perhaps I couldn't stand the thought of being rejected by a student newspaper. ![]() Hopefully, this article will invoke memories of your high school days. And in case you wonder who the teacher was who told me I could “do better” than the “farm boy” I was dating, it was my Spanish teacher Miss Irene Smith. She was also my father’s high school English teacher in Sabetha, Kansas. Small world. And that “farm boy?” He turned out to be a great catch as a husband and father to our two sons. Click the images below to enlarge for easier reading. Enjoy!
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![]() For 15 years, I wrote a humor column titled Jest for Grins for my local Lawrence, Kansas Journal-World
newspaper.While I stay busy with speaking engagements, writing articles and books and serving as editor and primary writer of a newspaper for a non-profit agency, I really miss writing about the funny things life throws my way. This website allows me to do that. I freely admit to being a control freak who wants to do things on my own, but my good friend Ruth has been a tremendous help to me. I kept trying to make this website perfect before publishing, but finally decided that was like waiting to have children until you can afford them: it will never happen. So here it is; you'll get to watch it improve. If you develop into a frequent Jest for Grins visitor, you'll quickly become familiar with my usual cast of characters: husband Ray, sons Ray, Jr. (aka Butch) and Greg, daughters-in-law Linda and Valerie, grandchildren B.J., Gabe, Sammi and Zoe, sisters Lesta, Bette and Vicki, as well as a host of family and friends (not one of whom is boring). If the topic has the potential to be embarrassing to them, be assured that they read it and gave it their OK (otherwise, sister Lesta has threatened to sue me). Marsha |