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In this day and age, living in a small community presents an area some of us find ourselves unfamiliar with – including myself. Especially if you’re a divorced, middle-aged mother of two sons.  Finding a significant other is not an easy adventure. So where do you begin?  The grocery stores? The malls? Sporting events? Bars or clubs?  None of these areas seemed like promising places to me.  For starters, most men I’ve run across at any of these locations were married, someone I already knew or who were just not appealing to me.  And when you live in a smaller community, it’s a very limited field. Everyone knows everyone and the people you do know are married, involved or simply unavailable in one way or another. The dating scene is not what it used to be when I was growing up.  But then again, not much is the same.  We now have social media and within that lies the “online dating” sites.  When these became the rage, there were always laughs among friends and family.  But, with not many other options to choose from, I figured why not!  I did some research and with some common sense, I developed my set of rules and boundaries for my own safety. There are dozens upon dozens of sites out there for anything from friendships, hook-ups, casual dating, to long-term relationships.   The worst part is, you aren’t really sure what you’re getting into until you get on one of the sites for a little while.  But here are the basics on how it works. You join the site (many are free with limited access to certain areas on their sites), give yourself a profile photo and write a short essay about why you would be the ultimate catch for someone.  It’s kind of like “selling yourself”-- like a car dealer would do to sell a vehicle!  Once you post your information and fill out the site’s personality trait questionnaire, the site starts giving you people who may be your match and then you start getting contacted by everyone and their brother.  It’s like a free for all!  And I quickly came to the conclusion that most men did not read my profile, but rather just looked through my pictures.  Most of the guys’ profiles I looked through had the basic essay that every woman wants to hear and what they are looking for in a man.  Rarely, did I run across a profile that actually seemed genuine and potentially worthwhile. The sites provide a sort of chat area for you to contact and be contacted through, so you do this little dance of questioning each other for a while.  Getting to know each other with questions through “text” was a very easy way to start weeding through who is of interest.  Most men, at least for me, would eventually show some true colors just in things they wrote.  If things seemed to be going decently, then I would eventually exchange a phone number.  At this point, I would talk on the phone numerous times. This usually told me a lot about the person.  Were they shy? Did they get offended easily? Did they provoked easily? Did they seem like a doormat? Etc., etc., etc.  If this step went well, a face-to-face was next in order.  This is where the real test came. Did they truly look like their picture? Oh boy could I tell some stories!!!!  I guess I just never understood why anyone would falsify that area of their profile if they truly had any intention of personally meeting someone. When I agreed to meet someone in person, I always chose a place that was full of people and familiar to me.  I drove myself and met them at the location.  Because let me tell you, from personal experience, there are some “different” people out there for those who may be naïve and oblivious.  I ran across some…for lack of a better word…weirdos.  But if the man seemed semi-normal, was someone I had things in common with and he struck my interest somewhat, I would agree to a second date.  After the second date, again, if things were moving along smoothly, a third date would come.  Unfortunately, I had this third date rule in place.  If I did not feel any type of connection or true interest with the gentleman, then I was done.  I wouldn’t waste any more of his time or mine. So, needless to say after many months on a few different sites, I was more than discouraged.  I mean seriously! Come on!  There’s not one guy out there with whom I could get past a third date? What was wrong with me?  Was I being too critical?  Too harsh?  Too picky?  What was my problem?  But reluctantly, with the encouragement of a co-worker (who I will not identify, but you know who you are – LOL), I joined a site I had not heard about.  I truly did not have any hopes or expectations of meeting “the one.”  I had only been on the site for about a week when I was contacted by this man.  His profile seemed genuine, not like the basic ones.  He had one picture of himself, not many with his shirt off puffing up his muscles.  He simply said that he enjoyed reading my profile and then proceeded with commenting on things my profile contained.  This was huge!  He ACTUALLY read through my story.  I thought, “Hum.  Ok.  This guy might be worth something.  He’s a good looking guy.  He likes the country and being outdoors.  He loves sports.  He has sons.  He has a respectable job.  Why not?”  So, we went through the tedious nonsense of texting, talking and then meeting for a date.   Needless to say….he was more than I expected and more importantly, we’ve made it past my third date rule! For all of you middle-aged, single parents out there in our community, don’t give up!  The online dating may not be for you because I never thought it was for me.  But I’m very happy that I found the person I did and if it hadn’t been for that particular site, I might still be single.

Those poor One Percenters. Sure the wealthiest one percent of Americans own 40 percent of the country’s wealth, have multiple homes, cars, planes, yachts, even the newly minted legal defense of “affluenza” to exonerate them from killing people. But they have never been able to enjoy the benefits of social welfare organizations like Doctors Without Borders, the Humane Society or the Wounded Warriors Project. Until now that is. To combat this gross inequality that has been perpetrated upon these poor souls, the One Percenters have formed special social welfare groups and petitioned the government for non-profit status.  The poster child for such groups is Crossroads GPS, spawned by none other than Karl Rove himself. Crossroads GPS has spent every dollar it has collected, approximately $330 million, not on helping those in need, but on politics that benefit the uber-rich, either by funding its own campaigns to smear candidates or organizations who have the audacity to stick up for ordinary Americans or to fund other front groups who employ similar hatchet-job tactics. Now, thanks to a five-years-in-the-making ruling from the Internal Revenue Service that declared Crossroads GPS a nonprofit social welfare group, the injustice that has long befallen the One Percent shall be no more.  No longer shall Crossroads GPS be required to pay taxes on the hundreds of millions it collects to influence or outright buy elections for the benefit of the one percent (non-profit social welfare groups are tax exempt). No longer shall it be required to disclose its billionaire donors’ names, which inform ordinary Americans exactly who is behind the effort to destroy the very ideals (of liberty, justice and equality for all) upon which this country was founded (non-profit social welfare groups are donor disclosure exempt). Thanks to the IRS, the One Percenters can now bribe, err make “political contributions,” in total secrecy and remain completely insulated from those pesky repercussions that sometimes come from trying hard to undermine democracy.  Now all the CEO has to do is give that money to Crossroads GPS, who can funnel it to that candidate with total impunity. It would take the average American about three minutes to understand that groups like Crossroads GPS are just about the furthest thing from social welfare one could ever imagine.  It’s not providing support to wounded soldiers, abandoned children or abused animals.  On the contrary, Crossroads is nothing but a political group whose money goes entirely to people and organizations that work to actively undermine, or outright abolish, all kinds of social welfare. But these people want to hide in the shadows while doing it, and the IRS has just served them up an invisibility cloak on a silver platter. Of course, the groundwork was laid for this sort of thing by the U.S. Supreme Court’s democracy-killing Citizens United decision, which licensed the purchase of elections by Corporate America and has opened the floodgates in the current election, which has never seen this much money flow into a presidential campaign this early from so few donors ( $176 million from just 158 One Percenters). Political organizations should never receive the sort of benefits that are provided to groups that serve society by delivering food and shelter to folks ravaged by natural disasters or who work to provide clean water to poor communities or mentor foster children. I am sick to death of living in a country torn apart by runaway inequality.  We desperately need someone who is willing to fight against the rigged economic system, political corruption and the public/private revolving door. This election season there is exactly one presidential candidate who is speaking out about the absurdities and inequities of campaign financing, who has made ending this sort of thing one of the centerpieces of his campaign. His name is Bernie Sanders, and seeing decisions like Crossroads surely has me paying very close attention to his campaign.

I’ve had a lot of people ask what Barley and Guinness have been up to over the past few months. It’s funny how if I don’t write a blog for the boys people text, e-mail or call me to see how they are doing. Both the boys are great and have been very busy outside this winter and are now getting their spring fever on. The mud they drag in from the 10 acres they get to roam on, is unreal. Muddy paw prints everywhere (inside and out). Speaking of which, I better call my pals from Panhandle to get the carpets cleaned. Over the winter, we added a sunroom onto our home and put a doggy door in for the boys. I can’t tell you how much they love this door, in and out, in and out all day long.  Recently, I was down with a funky virus that led to an upper respiratory infection, so I was home most of the week and the boys took care of me. Of course I took care of them when it came to opening the door to let them out every time they saw a squirrel, deer or any other creature outside.  Barley is our hunter and Guinness is the pointer, these brothers make a great team, except for when they bring their prize to me and show me what they’ve caught. They can stay out as long as they like because we have an underground electric fence that keeps them in our yard. So, no worries Bordas Dog Nation, the boys are doing fine and enjoying the nice weather. They are happy to hear that everyone enjoys seeing them at the office and misses them when they are too busy to have me blog for them. They would also like to remind you to adopt an animal from your local shelter if you are look for a furever friend. Adopt, don’t shop. Bark on, Bordas Dog Nation, bark on!

On Wednesday evening, I attended the Marshall County FFA Ham, Bacon and Egg Sale at John Marshall High School. For the second consecutive year, I was able to purchase the Reserve Grand Champion Bacon, which I then donated back to the FFA Scholarship Fund.  This marked the fifth FFA event I have attended over the past two years, and with each event I am even more impressed with the young men and women I have had the pleasure of meeting. Let me take a minute to give you some insight into why I am so impressed with the FFA.  Shortly after I entered the school building and began looking over the 100-plus items up for auction, I was approached by John Horner.  John had the Reserve Grand Champion Bacon that I had purchased at last year’s event.  He greeted me with “Hello, Mr. Artimez.  I appreciate your coming.  I’m John Horner; you bought my bacon last year.  I just wanted to say thanks again.”  He looked me straight in the eye, firmly shook my hand, and walked away.  Next came Jack “JJ” Cain, the son of the principal at Cameron High School.  “Hello, Mr. Artimez.  Thanks for coming.  I have the Reserve Grand Champion Ham this year.  Hope you can bid on it.”  Another firm handshake. I walked from the display area and into the auditorium where the auction was going to take place.  After I sat down, I was approached by several other FFA members, most of whom called me by name.  Each of them thanked me for being there, told me of the items they had up for auction, and asked if they could get anything for me while we waited for the auction to begin.  One by one, the young men and women walked proudly across the stage, holding the items they had up for auction.  Local businesses and their owners, all eager to support the FFA, snatched up item after item.  Senate candidate Lisa Zukoff purchased the Grand Champion Ham.  Missy Knight of Knight’s Farm Supply bought several items, as did Carl Boso from Boso & Son Towing; John Hart of J&R Excavating and Mike Merinar, President of the Marshall County Farm Bureau.  The Reserve Grand Champion Bacon I purchased was the work of Hunter Aston, whose father owns the Pleasant Valley Store.  Hunter shook my hand and expressed his sincere gratitude, as did his father and grandfather as well. The FFA is in the business of preparing our young men and women for life in the real world.  Modern farming is a business, and FFA is preparing its students to run a business.  They maintain very detailed logs about their particular projects.  They maintain notebooks that include a journal of their daily activities, itemized income and expense reports, a detailed business plan and profit/loss statements for each project.  Students from the Cameron FFA have set state records for the number of awards received, and several students recently achieved national recognition for their work. Beyond that, kids who participate in the FFA are quite obviously taught the right values:  respect, courtesy, hard work.  In a society where we too often see our young people with their pants hanging halfway down their rear ends, hats on sideways with their heads buried in their cellphones, it is encouraging to know that in Marshall County, some of our children are still being taught about professionalism and respect.  Kudos to John Lockhart, Hattie DeBolt and all of the children, parents, businesses and individuals that support the FFA.

When I was a young girl (many, many years ago), I took piano lessons from a woman in St. Albans. I had not been taking lessons for very long  before she told my parents they might as well not waste their money, I was never going to be able to play the piano. I believe we always had a piano in our home.  My dad played by ear as did his sister, my Aunt Mary.  I wanted to play!  I sat down at the piano often, picking things out and really wanting to be able to play. So I decided I would learn how to play on my own.  My technique was terrible, my fingering horrible, my timing not too hot, but I kept it up.   I used a song I knew to see what the 4/4 or 3/4 notations I saw meant.  I realized it meant that between the bars, you should have four beats.  But sometimes I would look at the music and there were more than four notes in between the bars.  What was that all about?  I don’t remember how I figured it out, but I finally realized that a dot on a note meant hold it longer.  Little “flags” meant the note was played faster - the more flags, the faster you got off that note!  Now I know about whole, half, quarter, eighth notes, sixteenth and even 32 nd notes, but the first hymns I learned to play mostly had quarter notes or I could play it because I knew the  song and wasn’t worrying about how long I should hold the note. I was learning to play using a hymnal (of course). The first song I attempted to play was “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.”  Trust me on this - it didn’t sound like the song we sang at church.  So I was playing the correct notes, but something was wrong.  So then I saw these little things by the 4/4 time.  They were flats!  I was to hit the black note to the left of the note when I saw those.  Of course, my first song was in four flats.  Now I had to figure which notes I was supposed to flat.  I just played the melody line until it sounded right.  Later I learned that the flat was placed on the note in the key signature you were to flat. Next problem was I wanted to play with both hands – soprano and alto with my right hand and tenor and bass with my left, but all four at the same time!  Remember, I didn’t really read music.  I sat there playing with my right hand until I got the hang of that.  Then I tried with my left hand.  To this day, I have trouble playing just the left hand.  It seems my left hand was dependent on my right hand and I feel very awkward playing just the tenor and bass. I just branched out from there.  I would pick a hymn and pick it out with my right hand and then add the left hand.  I didn’t know one key from another, but I had the flats down pretty well.  Then I tried a song with a sharp.  Playing a sharp meant moving my finger UP to the black note, not down like a flat.  For years the most sharps I would play was two. I began playing for a little mission church in Nitro, W. Va.  They had no one at all, so I was literally better than nothing, although marginally!  Frankly, I was terrible!  Probably as many wrong notes as right ones, but eventually I got better. I practiced at home, always out of a hymnal.  To this day that is mostly what I play.  I could only play one sharp for a long time and then graduated to two.  But three sharps???  No way!!!  But I figured something out!  I could play the same notes, but play four flats instead of three sharps.  I was onto something!   I figured four flats and three sharps equal seven, so I tried it with four sharps and three flats and two sharps and five flats!  And now, I don’t care how many sharps a hymn has, I can do it in flats and no one is any wiser. When Clayton and I moved to St. Clairsville, we went to Thoburn United Methodist Church and I was interested in the organ.  They let me practice on it some and I listened to my friends, Carol Poston and Joyce Crouch to hear how they played the organ.  It is a totally different touch.  On the piano you can pick up your fingers and play.  On the organ you slide from note to note to make the sound even.  If you are reading this and you play organ, please excuse the incorrect descriptions of organ playing.  I didn’t take organ lessons either! So when Clayton’s office closed down and we needed additional income, I actually took a job as organist at a Lutheran church in Benwood.  I didn’t realize that a liturgical church service was very different from a Baptist church service, but the pastors and members there were very gracious and encouraging to me.  So I played there for several years and got some experience. I now play for First Baptist Church of Wheeling.  I feel I have a good sense of worship and play hymns well (most of the time). I don’t try to play “over my ability” and the church is very kind when I mess up. I had a strong desire to play the piano and the determination not to let it beat me.  Some would call that a hard-headed West Virginian.  They would be right.  But I love to play and am glad I stuck with it and learned.  I don’t claim to be a “pianist”.  I claim to be a woman who loves to play and loves the hymns I play every Sunday.  I don’t even care what key they are in now.

With spring just around the corner, thoughts of road trips and vacations have muddled my mind. One of my favorite vacation destination for years has been Niagara Falls.  The first time I visited Niagara Falls was in 1957 on the New York side.  I was 5 years old.  Though the falls were a miraculous sight to see, the thing that stands out in my memory is The Niagara Falls Museum.  I have been unable to find the exact location of the building in Niagara Falls, New York but I remember it was in a large older building with many steps up to the front door.  There were quite a lot of historical items about Niagara Falls, many Native American artifacts, skeletal remains of a mastodon and then within a room that had an eerie atmosphere were several glass display cases.  I walked up to one and gazed closely into the glass.  There it was, in all its creepy glory, bony human remains with arms folded across its chest, wrapped in what looked like dirty gauze.  A real live mummy!  I was mesmerized.  The sight was awful and yet fascinating and I think I stood there for as long as I could before my family pulled me away to the next section.  The memory of that sight stayed with me for many years and perhaps contributed to my fantasies of becoming an archeologist.  Which, by now, we know did not come to fruition. Recently, I went online to try to locate a picture of the building where the museum was located in the 1950s in New York.  Though I was unable to find anything about the building, what I did discover was so interesting that it prompted me to write a blog to share it. In the 1820s, Thomas Barnett built a museum by the Horseshoe Falls in Ontario, Canada.  Apparently the first museum was located at the base of the Horseshoe Falls, but then was relocated across the street from the falls.  Barnett was a collector of taxidermy and this is where he displayed his collection.  Barnett’s son also made several trips to Egypt where he purchased several mummies to add to the museum collection from a family who robbed a tomb filled with mummies in Luxor.  Stealing and selling mummies was a lucrative business in 1800 Egypt. In 1888, the museum had to relocate when the Niagara Parks Commission took possession of its location to develop the Queen Victoria Park.  Having no other suitable venue in Canada it relocated to the American side of the Falls.  I was unable to nail down the exact date when this happened but I know that it remained in New York until at least 1957, the year that my family was there.  Ironically, eventually the owners of the museum had to find yet another location when the U.S. Parks Authority assumed possession of the land on which the museum was located.  It then returned to the Canadian side and relocated in the building on Ferry Street in Ontario where the museum remains today.  However, it is not the same museum. In 1999, most of the Egyptian artifacts, including the mummies, were sold to the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, Georgia.  This is where the story gets interesting.  (Finally, huh!)  The museum had a team of medical experts at the Emory University examine the mummies and with the aid of CT scans, X-rays, skull measurements and radio-carbon dating tests discovered that one of the mummies, specifically the one whose arms were folded high across its chest, was the remains of Pharaoh Ramesses I, founding pharaoh of ancient Egypt’s 19 th Dynasty.  After identification, the remains were then returned to Egypt in 2003 and are now on display at the Luxor Museum.  What a thrill it is to know that one of the mummies that I was so enthralled with so long ago may have been Pharaoh Ramesses I! Does anyone else have any memories to share about visiting The Niagara Falls Museum at Niagara Falls, New York during the 1950’s?  I would love to hear the stories.

Last year, I wrote to you about what it’s been like celebrating my birthday every year with the world on St. Patrick’s Day.There are many pros and cons, but it’s generally been a good day for all. Not only has the St. Patrick’s Day holiday been an extra special holiday for me and my family, in my younger days, I used to think the world was celebrating along with me because everyone was so happy and shouting --“Erin Go Bragh!”  After all, it was my very own cheer.  I did realize a few years later that my birthday being on St. Patrick’s Day did not necessarily entitle me to ownership of the holiday. Aside from the St. Patrick’s Day theme being my birthday signature, at some point in my teen years I became curious about astrology and horoscopes as many young people do.  I found that being a Pisces over the years and many of the stereotypical characteristics associated with the sign seemed to apply. We are compassionate, accepting, devoted and imaginative people.  We tend to be oversensitive and bit dreamy.  Admittedly, we sometimes need others to help keep us from dreaming too big. We will help others and be loyal, but we tend to want to fix others situations which many times can take a toll on the Pisces. We tend to be creative people and often try too hard to use that creativity to inspire others to fix their issues. Our surroundings tend to influence our moods.  What this means, is because we are made up with such compassionate feelings, we often take on the pressures of the world and it’s occurrences which ultimately can lead to emotional distress many times because how we feel about the matters, our desire to fix and this can be a very detrimental attribute. We are known to be very intuitive and a Pisces will always trust their gut feeling. So, this Pisces will make a prediction.  My gut feeling tells me you all will have the Luck of the Irish and a very Happy St. Patrick’s Day in 2016!!!

It’s funny how you meet people throughout your life. Some stay and some go, and some become your friends. I deal with all of the court clerks in the tri-state area and know each and every person by name. There are four counties that I have really good relationships with the girls. One weekend, the clerks from the Ohio County Circuit Clerk's Office in West Virginia and I went up to Seven Springs, Penn. for an extended weekend. It was a blast! We laughed to the point of tears, we talked about how we all met, we danced to a local band that was performing, we played games and laughed some more. Of course, we ate.  We had been trying to get together for a few years for an all girls weekend trip and we finally had a weekend that worked out for everyone. It was amazing and so much fun. I can’t thank them enough for the great time. I can’t wait until the next time we head out on a girls weekend. I’m truly blessed to have these ladies in my life. I am looking forward to picking a weekend for the next trip! The Springs are waiting for all of us! Special thanks to Freda, Janine, Tammy, BJ, Tracy and Janessa for making the weekend so much fun. Rock on people, rock on!

Do you need a DAYCATION? Well, I have the place for you.  You can travel to “Fallingwater,” located on Route 381, in Mill Run, Penn., and tour the home that Frank Lloyd Wright designed for the family of Pittsburgh department store owner, Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr. There are several amazing things about the home that was designed in 1935 and built in 1937.  The Kaufmanns ORIGINALLY requested Mr. Wright build the home to face the waterfall on the property.  But Wright went the extra mile and built the home to rise above the waterfall - thus the name “FALLINGWATER.” The Kaufmann Family used Fallingwater as their weekend home from 1937 thru 1963.  In 1963, Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr. entrusted the contents and grounds to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.  This home is the only major Frank Lloyd Wright work to come into the public domain with its setting, original furnishings and artwork intact.  Fallingwater was opened to the public in 1964. The concept that a home can be built over a waterfall and survive is quite remarkable.  Granted, Mr. Wright, of course, thought about the dampness and compensated for it.  The home was constructed of sandstone quarried on the property and was built by local craftsmen.  The stone serves to separate reinforced concrete “trays” dramatically cantilevered over the stream.  A guest and service wing was added in 1939 and it is located behind Fallingwater. You can visit www.fallingwater.org for additional details or you can call 724-329-8501 to schedule a visit.  The visit usually takes at least two hours on site.  Expect considerable walking because there are more than 100 steps.  If you require special assistance, just call ahead.  Good advice is to purchase your tickets at least two weeks in advance.  There is plenty of parking and then a short walk to the holding area.  In this area, there is a museum store with merchandise related to art, nature and architecture and a café with seasonal soups, salads, sandwiches and baked goods. There are bathroom facilities as well. The Winter Hours are:  the first two weekends in March, 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. --weather permitting.  They are even open on Easter Sunday from 1 – 4 p.m. The days and hours of operation are Mid-March through Thanksgiving weekend (from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.), but they are closed on Wednesdays.  Fallingwater is closed in January and February, and on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Fallingwater is located close to Ohio Pyle as well, which includes restaurants, shops and the Youghiogheny River. Have fun on your DAYCATION!!!

A darling grade school young lady that I know recently had to do a social studies project. The project took her to the state finals.  This was done on a subject that many of us know to be true, especially those of us in the legal field.  It’s a subject in which focus groups have been performed time and time again to support the theory that eyewitness testimony can quickly become a distortion of one’s memory.  I was quite impressed that this grade schooler was able to accomplish supporting such a study by performing her own focus groups. Live eyewitness testimony coupled with credibility can slam-dunk a case, but not remembering correctly can be destructive.  What if this is a criminal matter?  It might just send an innocent person to jail.  What if this is a matter as small as one child being mistaken for another that took the cookie out of the cookie jar?  Small as it may seem, that child being wrongfully accused may suffer some serious emotional damage feeling that they are untrustworthy and persecuted unfairly. Either way, incorrect eyewitness testimony can be harmful and hurtful. It has been proven that as soon as we start processing and interpreting from our mind, the distortion begins.  This can occur based upon original memory, personal experiences, personal thought processes and others influences and opinions.  Not intended to be deceitful, just human. What can we do to ensure eyewitness testimony? There are some steps you can take to safeguard what you may have witnessed. ·      Take action.  Write a statement immediately about everything you remember.  Even if this is not a formal statement you have given, write it for yourself. ·      Keep a log about any conversations you have and the details that transpired that may have an effect on your recollection so as to ensure another person has not influenced or impacted your memory. ·      Rely solely on what you saw. ·      Do not be let anyone else shape what they think you may have or should have seen. ·      Never add anything or take away anything just because you think it may fit the story and make more sense then, it becomes false. ·      Have confidence that without any fabrications or incorrect additions and/or subtractions, the truth should prevail and you have done your best to have no doubts of your own.

In 2008 I lost my dog, Molly. She was 14 when she passed away. Originally, I got her for my children thinking that all kids need a dog. Well, that wasn’t in Molly’s plan. She was a one-woman dog, and she made it very clear from the beginning that woman was me. She played with the kids but she would always come to wherever I was for a cuddle or the last bite of whatever I was eating. We were together every moment I was home. Where I was, she was. She slept with me, ate with me and followed me everywhere. In fact, she would follow me so closely, that the back of my calf would be wet from her nose. Molly would wait for me to sit in my rocker and jump up and lie down in the crook of my leg while I read or watched TV, or in many cases, with a child in my lap. She didn’t mind sharing. Molly was such a special dog, she even used the cat litter because she thought she was a cat! She even helped me clean, or at least she thought she was helping. Molly would follow me from room to room with a dust cloth in her mouth and wait patiently for me to finish. She would growl if anyone tried to take her cloth away. As funny as Molly was, she also loved oranges! I couldn’t eat one without her begging for a slice. The kids enjoyed that so much because I would throw her a piece and she would jump up and catch it mid-air. The only thing that she hated was getting a bath. On bath day I swear that dog was psychic! I would nonchalantly gather things for her bath and ignore her so she would think one of the kids was getting into the tub. She would just stare at me and then when I started to work my over to grab her, she would take off and hide in the smallest place possible so it was hard for me to get her out. I loved that silly dog so much! The day she died was so hard and unexpected. She was seemingly fine one moment and gone the next. Even after all these years I grieve for her still. Over the years I have thought about getting another dog but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Currently, I have three cats, and although I love cats, none of the ones I have were chosen by me. Two of my sons gifted me with them because they didn’t want cats. Jasmine’s (Minnie for short) mother abandoned her when she was just a couple of weeks old. My daughter-in-law nursed her with a bottle until she could be weaned. She is snow white and so cute that I just couldn’t say no when they asked me to keep her. Then, my oldest son gave me Twinkle (aka Fat Girl) because he said they were never home and she wasn’t getting enough attention. She is a multicolored gray with long hair and, you guessed it, fat. Not as fat as she used to be though. I put her on a diet so she’s slimmer now. Minnie’s benefactor also found a stray cat behind his grandmother-in-law’s house that was meowing pitifully in the dead of winter, so Pumpkin came to live with me, too. Yes, Pumpkin is orange and a rotten little boy who gleefully torments the other two and feels no remorse before, during or after his exploits—much to the disgust of the other two. From my earliest memories, I have always had dogs and cats and have loved every one of them. Although I miss Molly every day and only have cats now, somewhere in my future is another dog. I don’t know when or what kind, but someday I will get another dog; not to take Molly’s place because no one could, but perhaps one that needs a loving home who will be able to burrow its way into my heart and find its own place in my family.

When my daughters were teenagers, they both enjoyed playing in the fast- and slow-pitch softball leagues that are so popular in northern West Virginia. I’m sure my granddaughters will do the same.  It was certainly good for them--keeping them active and teaching them important lessons in sportsmanship, teamwork and commitment. But when I was growing up, these kinds of leagues were almost nonexistent.  That’s why sandlot ball helped to fill the gap. My best friend had a large, open field next to his house where we played ball.  I say “open,” but that’s not exactly true.  There was an apple tree in center field.  There was also a driveway that cut its way through almost all of left field.  But everybody quickly adjusted to these obstacles. Why?  Because your survival depending on avoiding low hanging branches and keeping your footing when you stepped onto the asphalt. There were plenty of kids in the neighborhood who enjoyed getting together for ball games.  We would play for hours and hours in the summertime.  Most days we wouldn’t leave until sunset.  Then we would grab our bikes and head home, looking forward to another game the next day. For many years, I was the catcher.  I don’t think it had anything to do with my talent.  I owned a catcher’s mitt, and as far as everybody else was concerned that meant I was fully qualified.  Home plate was only a few yards away from the garden that was faithfully planted and cared for every year by my best friend’s dad.  What he didn’t know was that I spent a lot of time in his garden.  Ostensibly I was looking for baseballs that had been foul tipped and found their way into all of the greenery.  But inevitably I would find myself in the strawberry patch, sampling handfuls of the choices berries as I searched in vain for the missing ball.  Home grown strawberries are the best! There were other adventures in store for us.  To the left of our sandlot was a pasture.  Needless to say, there were plenty of foul balls that veered left and ended up in the pasture.  As you probably guessed, the pasture wasn’t empty.  Thankfully, it was only used by milk cows.  But the patties they left behind made every trip into the pasture fraught with danger.  Occasionally, one of the cows would get hit with a ball, but nothing more would come of it than a startled cow and a loud, confused “moo.”  The worst thing was when you heard a loud, sloppy, “splat” when the ball hit the ground.  Then you knew somebody was going to get stuck with ball cleaning duty! As we grew bigger and stronger, we soon began to outgrow our sandlot.  Rather than quitting, we decided to switch from baseball to softball.  That way we couldn’t hit the ball quite so far. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.  I’ll admit that when we played baseball I was a pretty lousy hitter.  Striking me out wasn’t really rocket science--two fast balls, followed by a curve ball.  That’s all it took.  But when we switched to slow-pitch softball I found my groove.  I seemed to have a knack for putting the ball exactly where I wanted, and I could even hit for power.  We managed to squeeze several more years of play out of the old sandlot, and began dreaming of the big leagues. Then came that fateful day in the summer of ’77.  For reasons I can’t remember, we decided it would be a good idea to switch back for the day so we could play a game of baseball.  I was playing in the outfield, and somebody hit a high, high fly ball.  Too high.  It would never had gotten so high if we had been playing softball.  But there it was, and I ran as I hard as I could to get under it.  Alas, another fielder was running under it too.  We collided, and I broke the tibia in my right leg.  Everybody swears they could hear the snap of my bone breaking.  I honestly don’t remember.  I just collapsed.  Like a brave young lad, I tried to “walk it off.”  But my leg literally wouldn’t hold the weight and I fell back to the ground. I know this sounds like a sad ending to my story, but kids see things differently.  Here’s what I actually remember about the whole ordeal.  I was carried off the field to my best friend’s back porch.  While I waited for somebody to pick me up, my best friend’s mom brought out a tall glass of iced tea and homemade (yes, that’s right, homemade) donuts that she had just finished making in the deep fryer.  I don’t have any memory of the pain or disappointment I may have felt.  What I do remember is being surrounded by good friends and eating home-cooked delicacies that couldn’t be beat. Years later I played in a men’s league and had some exciting experiences, especially in tournament play.  But what I remember best is the sandlot.  That’s where friendships were forged and a young boy grew up.  That’s where lasting memories were made.  I still miss it, and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything!