Patsy Cline and Old Memories

Today we took the girls to see a musical at the TAMU-C University Playhouse called Always, Patsy. It was basically a concert, with a little acting in between. I was entranced the whole time. It washed me with wonderful snippits of memories of being a child growing up in our old house. Some of being in the kitchen, where we had a radio that played from the time we woke up to the time we went to bed. Unlike some homes, our kitchen was USED. It's where we spent most of our time. Cooking, cleaning up (no dishwasher back in those times,) sitting around the dining table eating, playing cards or dominoes, reading the newspaper, doing homework, watching my mom sit with her caboodle in front of her carefully putting on her makeup. She had this little tool that has a black handle and the top is a metal spike about toothpick sized, that she would use to seperate her eyelashes after she applied her mascara. I was always so scared the was going to jab herself in the eyeball! She never did. Memories of being upstairs when my mom and dad were turning part of the attic into a bedroom for me. They worked SO hard on it and I was SO proud. I remember being up there when they were painting. They actually LET me pick the color, it was such an honor! My favorite color at the time was yellow, so that's what they painted it. I had a little tape player that was red, it looked kind of purposefully 80's style and had yellow balls on top for knobs. I played our Patsy Cline tapes over and over in it while they painted and I danced around. I can so vividly see my mom on her hands and knees painting close to the door and he was painting close to my built-in desk while "Walkin' After Midnight" played. Memories of helping my mom clean the house, spotless, before she had some friends over. Like I said, the radio was ALWAYS on, so we were singing along to all the old goodies. I remember that day Ricky Skaggs came on a lot. She was working in the livingroom and I was in the hall dusting the antique washbasin stand, and I remember talking to her about my cousin, who was coming in from college to visit my for the weekend. My cousin used to buy me these small red heart stickers from the campus store and I remember saying how I hoped she brought me some. Memories of camping in the summers with the radio the whole time. It took my mom days and days to pack up to go camping. We took everything! We had camping fridges, camping fans, camping stoves, every utensil we could ever need, etc. I used to sit and watch her wondering how she had all the energy to do all that work just to go camping for a few days! Was it really worth it? ha! I remember one summer they let me take my friend Lacy along. We went out on the boat for awhile and Lacy and I got SO sunburned. Back at the campsite, we used my Noxema cream to ease the pain. My mom saw us and told us that was probably keeping the heat in and she was right...ouch! My mom had these blue flip flops that she wore during the summers, seems like she had the same pair for my whole childhood. Memories of being in my clubhouse my dad built for me (when I was about too old to use it!) But I carried my tape player out there and we listened to Patsy Cline up there, too. My dad used to sleep underneath the clubhouse on one of those lounge lawn chairs. I didn't know he did, until I was older, but my mom told me he did. Momma painted a sign for me to hang on the outside of the clubhouse. I remember sitting at the dining room table watching her paint it and she painted the words 'Dos Amigas' on it and telling me that it meant 'two girls that are friends.' As wierd as it was, I could almost imagine her sitting on my left side at the play today. I really could, and I wasn't even consciously trying to. People say that loved ones live on in you. I can believe that because she is everywhere I am, in every special occasion, in every conversation, in every home project we start. Once my kitchen is done being remodeled, she will be there too. Everytime I look at my cabinets, I will think of her. We use to sit and try to plan how my cabinets would look once we got new ones and what neat features we could include. What we really tried to figure out was how to work in a double oven but my kitchen just isn't made for one. I think she would really, really LOVE what we have picked out. That makes me so glad. I came home tonight and almost immediatley programmed a Patsy Cline station on Pandora. Right now, "Crazy" is playing. It's not playing enough Patsy for my taste, so I may go dig out my cd. I guess I have to wrap this blog post up because it is time to haul out another cabinet (Daniel is taking down our old ones.) FYI - Loretta Lynn is now singing and that brings up a whole other set up great memories of my mom! ha, I guess I will write those down another day!