Category: traveling

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Escaping From Irma and Other Thoughts

This year’s hurricane season has been awful! Houston was slammed by Harvey in August and sustained severe flooding. Houston received up to 52 inches of rain in just a few days. A month later, Irma wound up the Caribbean and was forecasted to travel up the west coast of Florida. It was one of the biggest storms on record: over 3oo miles wide with wind speeds up to 175 miles per hour; and as I write this and less than two weeks later, Puerto Rico is presently under assail by another category five storm, hurricane Maria.

I planned to stay home during hurricane Irma and hope for the best, but a friend talked me into evacuating. Of course, all of my Facebook friends were urging me to do the same, so the choice between facing down a possible direct hit from a category five hurricane versus leaving along with 7 million other Floridians was an easy one. Evacuate.

The highways were packed by 7 million evacuees
New Orleans trolley ride
Fortunately, I only sustained downed tree limbs. The larger ones were caught in the tree.
Breakfast at the hotel

The drive out of Florida was arduous. The highways were packed and until we reached Tallahassee, for many hundred mile stretches at a time, we could drive no faster than 25 miles per hour. By midnight we looked for a rest stop to sleep a bit and recover. At the first rest stop I had a wonderful experience; a Déjà vu of memories more than fifty years ago when things like Woodstock, love, and peace reigned. Dozens of people representing every age, gender, economic status and many races stood in groups sharing their experiences. A white man in designer clothing was talking to a Latino wearing faded jeans and a worn shirt. A young woman with several tired and cranky children allowed an old couple to share treats with their children and speak words of comfort to them. The storm was a great equalizer. Skin color, income, and education level did not seem to matter to people sharing a common threat. Unfortunately, George thought this rest stop was too bright and loud and believed that he would not be able to sleep, so we moved on to the next rest area.

One more thing. Florida state troopers (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) patrolled the rest stops, welcomed evacuees to stop and sleep, and directed cars to available parking spaces. They were kind and helpful. In addition to the standard restrooms, every rest stop had many portable toilets set up to reduce wait times.

Finding a hotel room was as difficult as the long drive. Millions of evacuees meant that there were no hotel or motel rooms available in Alabama or Mississippi. We ended up driving all the way to Metairie, Louisiana, a city about ten miles from New Orleans.

Two days later, we drove back home. Many gas stations had either no power or no gas, and the traffic was heavier than when we exited. I was fortunate. The storm veered east. Tampa was not hit by the eye of this storm but suffered only strong winds and heavy rains. I sustained just a few broken tree limbs. While we lost power in my neighborhood, it was back on by the time that I got home.

There are so many other things that I do not know how to talk about. I received a lot of love and support from family members, and I keep wondering why my son never called or texted me to make sure that I was ok. Before we evacuated, I asked to talk to my grandsons, but my son replied by text that he was too busy with meetings and soccer to arrange that call.

Yesterday was Tod’s birthday. He is my youngest son who died nine years ago. I miss him. Tod cared about me and often called me “just to talk” and to let me know what was going on in his life. He enjoyed talking to me and sometimes called for no reason other than to relay a story he knew I would enjoy. I know Tod would have called me before Irma because in 2004 when Florida had four hurricanes, my son came to stay with me to make sure that I was ok. Storms are traumatic events and many times these past weeks, I thought about him. Happy belated birthday, Tod! Fair winds and following seas.

 

 

 

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Looking For My Grandmother

The first big scandal to mar my family was the death of my grandmother.  Anna Nix Riley was only 22 years old when she died Feb. 23, 1918. She had already given birth to four babies, two of whom died in early infancy. At the time of her death, my father was three years old and her youngest baby, Grace, was eight months old.

The scandal: my grandmother, Anna Nix Riley, was killed by an older man known to the family, William Beck, who had fallen in love with her. Quite possibly they had an affair. My grandparents lived in Covington, Kentucky, and Anna took the trolley to the Grand Hotel in Cincinnati to meet Mr. Beck where she told him that she would not leave her husband and go to St. Louis with him. She had her eight-month old infant, Grace with her.

Anna laid down on the bed with her baby girl and fell to sleep. A mother myself, I can only guess that she drifted off while coaxing her baby to sleep. Mr. Beck wrote a seven-page letter explaining how much he loved Anna and did not wish to go on living without her, shot her in the head while she slept, and then shot and killed himself.

While this would be headline news in any year, in 1918 it was a newspaper sensation that ran for several issues in the Cincinnati Enquirer and other local newspapers of the time. My grandmother became an anathema. She was never spoken of again and my father grew up knowing nothing about her. He learned early on that he could not ask about her; could never mention her or her name. I cannot imagine how that would damage a child’s self esteem since so much of our self image is a reflection of our parents.

Baby Grace? No one alive knows what happened to her. My father was raised by his father and paternal grandparents. Baby Grace disappeared. Another family must have taken her in but 100 years later, we do not know who that family was.

Anna Nix Riley was buried in Evergreen Cemetery south of Newport in an unmarked grave. No headstone marks the site, just a lot marker in section 42 lot 306 that is grown over and hidden by decades of shifting soil and grasses. Her grave has disappeared as did baby Grace. What I know of my grandmother I learned from census records, historical documents and newspaper clippings. It saddens me.

Evergreen Cemetery, South Gate, KY where Anna Nix Riley was buried in 1918
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Preparing for My First Adventure

Bear in Fall-rev-5w-web

My sleep patterns are off. I am awake all night and sleep all day. It started while Karen was in the hospital and I remember talking to her about it. I attributed it to anxiety, and I think that is the major cause although there might be other reasons. What troubles me the most is when I cannot fall to sleep until seven o’clock in the morning even when I force myself to bed before two o’clock. I lie awake “buzzing,” I don’t know how else to describe it. What that means is that I accomplish very little during the hours when I am awake because I am simply too exhausted.

What I have accomplished so far: I cleaned my porch and put everything back that was displaced by painting three months ago. I sorted out and filled three large boxes with stuff to donate and pitched the equivalent amount of assorted “stuff” into the trash. I arranged to close out my IRA account and am waiting for those funds to be deposited in my checking account and ordered an alarm system to protect the house while I am away from home. Once the alarm system is installed, there are no more excuses for not taking to the road.

I worked a few hours on my manuscript and need to do more before I leave. I have so many paintings, not all of which are worth keeping and in the process of sorting through them I ran across one that I thought could be salvaged. Lightening the water and creating more depth to the foliage in my bear painting was another small accomplishment. So much to do and so little energy! I just wish I could get back to more sane sleep patterns. Hopefully, a road trip will help to that end.

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Looking Back-Looking Forward

My mind has been a little strange lately. All kinds of memories come to me, sometimes in long streams like videos, and other times just snippets like photographs that describe the moment but leave out what happened just before or came right after. I know what has opened this stream of consciousness. I am at that age when my friends and contemporaries are dying off routinely. My Christmas card list grows shorter every year.

Karen-Dottie-2004Karen, my friend of over 30 years, died May 1, 2017. Another hole in the fabric of my life. I can’t explain our relationship. Once, I was closer to her than to any person alive. She lived with me for three to four year stretches at a time. She would be here and then move out without warning. Sometimes she had a good reason. She bought herself a townhouse in Tampa, but she could not bring herself to tell me until three weeks before she moved out. Another time she moved to Springfield, Pennsylvania to live with her sister but a few years later, asked if she could come back when that didn’t work out.

There were also periods of silence that could last years. When she did not speak to me it was never because I did something to Karen, but rather because of the guilt she felt for hurting me. A perfect example is the months before she died. I last saw Karen at Christmas when I stopped by to drop off a Christmas gift for her. I didn’t hear from her again until she was last hospitalized in April, two weeks before she died. She told me that she was embarrassed because she did not have a gift for me, and because she could not invite me to her home over the Christmas holidays. She lived with her oldest son and he resented me.

Losing Karen was a shock. I have been aware of my mortality for some years, but that really brought it home. How much longer do I have? Is the life I am living all there is? Do I have anything except broken relationships to mark my life? I am estranged from nearly everyone I loved. I cannot remember the last time someone touched me. Was it Karen when she kissed me goodbye?

That same night I resolved to change my circumstances. The volunteer organization to which I belong eats up 70 percent of my waking life and leaves me little time for anything else. For that reason, I resigned from all of my offices. Now, there is nothing to stop me from traveling cross country, repairing old relationships, making new friends and enjoying new experiences. I need to do this. I must do this or I will drown in self-pity and self-contempt.

Photo: Karen (seated) and me, 2004