Oh my friends;  It is one day when home thoughts abound.  We who are older long for the ones who have left us;  And we thank them for the labors over the stoves where the feast was prepared, and the familiar scents of spice and someone who sheltered us when we were without  blessed us at their table, blanketed us with warmth from the chill of autumn’s farewell, and we never really said a last good bye, for we remember no one can take the picturesque evening climbing back up the hills before  dark, anchored within tender mercy that  soothes us, warms  us, and the wood fire still burns within some spark of endless light..  No one stressed and we  ate with joy the bountiful gifts harvested by hand, and no one worried about their bellies  bulging from the goodness of the yeast breads, the nuts from near by woods, and the ingenious mothers of a home so long ago.

Most of us were lean from the work, and we saw the last table set with pies and cakes;  the orange of homemade pumpkin pies, cakes of coconut, chocolate and Jello with fruit cocktail which tasted wonderful, and if perhaps you got the little red cherry so few and far between or the plump green grapes all spiced;  then you knew that all was well.  Forget the stupid weight loss advertisement, the nutrition plate that Mrs. Obama can fix for herself; and Remember the feasting, and not the want;  The family who shared saw  that you would not go home,hungry and it was a Divine encounter known to us and the Hannahs.

Somehow we thought it was a Holy Day, and when the prayers were said, and the line had formed, It was ours to apologize for those who had less than we;  For those who knew not all children had a Harvest Home;  They look back now and send the message to share justly.  Mrs. Cally Hannah endeavored to see that we were not alone.  Oh,  How I still love them all, and the only times I feared was the attack of the gobbler who was a sire spared because the Mama turkeys would feel the need for his heinous act to bring spring again when winter ended, so the eggs could be layed.  Oh yes;  They were a mean bunch that turkey family, and they jumped on little girls like I was and as were my sisters, so we cried, and the guinee hens screeched, and the old dogs barked and Mrs Hannah was there with a chopping ax if  Turkey Stud Muffin dared bite a chunk of flesh,  and there was comfort in the thought that he’d never be baked to be a golden brown, but boiled in the big cooker, have his flesh ripped from his bones, and come Easter he’d have his comeuppance in a tasty noodle and stew.  He would have had his last peck; and the hell with him;  He tasted mighty fine.

Cycle home old times and sweet years, and remember that along the way there were Christian folk who sometimes just chose to feed children that were not a one her own kin, and there they made a church,, a sanctuary which can be destroyed by nothing but the end of all time.

So hear me this day, and bless you all this  hour.  We are a sorry lot to let wounds impart the gifts of Harvest and Home, and whosoever shall mention; “My diet,”  May you be flogged  by a goose or gander and your tealeaves bear open the truth that once you are old and your heart  is lonely and hard,  and it is difficult   to endure, then you garnered  little after all.  Dare not to feel worry about one bite of  of Thanksgiving’s intent from that which was given, by our angel under the hill   who soon  needed to put on her dressing gown and to rest;  She did not mention how tired, so very tired but she knew more had been fed than bodies;  Souls she  fed would  never forget her face, her words, and the smile which always said; Thanksgivng’s grace for little children, and  when  she would mouth these words as if she marveled at the gratitude of lonely children.  God bless all who lay the family table and spread it a little wider for the children up on the hills and in the hollows. and My;  Sweet children never forget the blessing angels prepared, with “Thanks,” and plenty scribbled across the crescent moon.

Happy Thanksgiving; Pitch a few diet books, for they say what you know anyway, and remember that in the total sum of life you are apt not to know when you are at the table of  a Blessed mother whose seal abides as we await the next event.  In this now, the failure of each of us is the inability to summon Grace placed in our hands to continue the secret and special line of the flour coated hands with the kneaded bread as the measure of where love hides.  It is a 42nd wedding anniversary for my husband and for me.  We met on a Thanksgiving day, and we married that next year at Thanksgiving.  I did not understand the concepts of, To endure and to pass it along whatever was before us, but Mrs. Callie whispers in my ear sometimes when I am in pain in heart or within my body, so I start climbing the same hills of so long ago when that evening sky spoke volumes to me.

“You will be fed said crescent moon, and I am with you always spoke evening star,” and sometimes the darkness will seem insurmountable, and the pain too much to endure, but you shall said the night fall.”  “And whispered the end of such celebration, the quaintest moment spoke the quietest, laid star light at my feet and said; “All may not be well, but I am with you, so wait, and we, all of us will lead you home.” 

Bless you sweet guides who help;  Have mercy on the lost.  Sing sweetly when stars begin to fall, and remember it is Thanksgiving, and from the angels will come the sacred chime.  Bless you, and for those who despise; Let there be mercy, for your way is lost until you see the path of little;  Kindness  spoke last, and invited the lost, and could hardly speak.  “Thanksgiving;”  I end here and leave you the blessing of underspoken love.  It is the gift and miracle that I have known, The cup of plenty filled with evening stars, and the voice Of Mrs.Callie choking on the hour your lamp light danced with farewell.

Blessings To All; Heal The Broken.

Happy ;  Oh Blessed and Joyful Day
Barbara Everett Heintz

I tell you sweet friends, that it sames as if my efforts to improve my behavior and keep anxiety at an arms length is most difficult, for if I do not find troubles this year;  Then it finds me, and I mean every word of that. Look, I am usually a fairly hearty, Kick Ass, sort until I finally am pushed to the edge, and then I endeavor very hard not to fall off of life’s hypothetical razor blade.  This night I helped to keep my grandchildren, although the truth is they just sort of kept me, and my husband was glued to them and the TV while Gabriel nestled is blonde little head into his, “Papa.” shoulder.  Had I been born a cat or remained a kid, I would be my husband’s heart’s desire.  He just likes to hold warm things;  I guess I had better shut this up before it goes too much further, but all was happy, and we are back at the river, and in Ohio;  The autumn leaves are gone, and Thanksgiving is being gathered.  For all of you who are preparing your borscht and tofurkey;  You have my prayers, and it would do well to have one whole big array of your home baked pies, and you are very kind to give that one big old mama turkey to the family with 15 kids.

I just wanted to warn you about the danger of getting involuntary reviews on your Amazon site where your beautiful book is published.  For some reason unknown to mankind, I will hint to the company this way, and spare their wishes for your good night’s sleep, but alias–Sleep Chu-Chu-Chu got into my book site, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and they left a review for my book.  I would almost say for certain that it was done in an Asian country, just because the Indian people are getting this American English down, and on a big red backing;  The review read something like: My name; Then, has written a nice structure to be recalled–Paraphrasing here, but moving on, and it is about where she grew between Appalachia, eatting snake juice, and she hates her own people.” I continue, And she no not write the Washington D.C. but hopes to river cross the moon.”  She is a bookey, art flow he life, kills rodents; hates her drunk people in town Christmas.  Mama Daddy in sky, and proud are we Mountains, no marriage claw compelled toilet.”  Yes, my friends; my bright red backed Sleep Chu Chu, Chu was such a disaster that I have now stayed up two extra hours praying and working and hoping to get it off the internet.

I would suggest that such details could almost be humorous, and obviously;  As I said, I was paraphrasing;  But a certain Sleep comfortably place is knocking at the door of a law suit when they cannot even support the arts better by just paying these folks not to touch the reviews.  There are certain things which need to stay in America.  I could no more speak the language of whomever was assigned to write this little diddy, and my heart goes out to them, for I know they need the job.

Come on supporters, reviewers, small town everywhere;  I will send your paper a book with a written promise that you will feature it in your best seller’s list.  I need you people to come on board; and I would live to supply your gift shops;  your shop shops, and your home with my book.  Until then, I wish you with cotton woman sleep, and no dung happy drunk mule plow bit time for success.”  Rest well.

I would like to say something happy this day;  And I think we are going to have some cackling laughs that my KDP is yours and Amazon ready for Christmas, for I know all good Xangans realize that most people do not know it but they have been awaiting my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” for most of their lives, and that is about how long it took me to get the courage to write it.  I wish that we could go to lists and find out what Xanga folks are marketing outside of just their social connection on  Xanga, for we are looking at gifts that people can use, that have some stamp of love on it and where they are edible, candles, scented oils, fine writing paper, or the wonderful garment you have been waiting all your lifetime;  Then it is nice to know places to look at that are sensible, not big corporations;  A for instance; Were I broke, I think that I would be creating small to humongous flannel white gowns, with old romance and ribbons on them everywhere, and I would think of making white baby garments as was worn in the old days when you brought the children home from the hospital.  We can put our minds to it, and we can crearte things which are not just throw away material.

All questions about gifts are;  What do we need, and I am hoping this one year that Americans will look at local artist purchasing everything from furniture to pottery bowls for the new bride, and special beads from bead shows just to have something pretty to hold within your hand.  By this time, I usually have all things bagged up;  but when you have been washed out from pulmonary embolisms, not to mention all of the things one comes back to when they are planning months away from the other home;  Energy is at a smaller quotient than once it was, but we can turn people’s small businesses in to jobs, for we have ingenuity, mind set, and the understanding that when our citizens suffer; then all people over the earth suffer.

I do get really hacked off at ssome of the food companies who are sending you what is supposed to be their best and most choice seasonal tastes, and then you read how much they are asking for their Grandmothher, “Melt Aways Best Christmas Cake Ever,” and then you wind up handing your hostess something which should be two cupcakes.  Fruit is another example, for once you got a box of fruit, and now you are going to get a box with  some fruit in it, and it is not necessarily special.  My mother-in-law gave me all the cookie recipes from her Danish background, and on today’s market;  They would cost sereral hundred dollars, but she had it down, and it is not like making a big batch of toll house cookies;  You are endeavoring to cook the food the spirit left behind, and it just does not work for you.

My family now treats me as if I am a total loon for wanting to make Christmas materialistic;  and the kids who celebrate Hannukah like to have sort of a gift competitive week where everryone endeavors to shine brighter than the Mennorah;  But I have this idea that we are encouraged so much to look beyond ourselves that one day of a year of total indulgence should be mandatory;  Just do not go in to debt for it, for then you are inflicting pain upon your family.  My friends, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” is a story where Holiday was a word we did not know, and Mom and Dad just progressed in to ill behaviors to get through it, so if someone sees you are down to a few shirts, and they pick out something you do not like; then say, “Thank You,”  Anyone who does not teach their children that gifts can satisfy a need should inherently bow their heads and rethink the task, for clothes that the inner city child struggles to have or the alone children in the country; For them, it would be a great kindness to open a box of something which is theirs, and theirs alone.

I give everybody gifts, because for the first time in my life it is not a financial burden.  I also receive clothing; and my tiny sisters need to chain me to a door knob and measure me, because their minds do not go beyond extra large;  And mammory glands on grandmothers have spent their days being a place to lean in to;  So you might think of visiting a large ladie’s shop and learning what makes larger women feel special inside.  None of us wanted to be overweight; and it goes away as time moves on, but large men and large women are worth looking at the garment and asking someone in the store of similar sizes.

Lord I did see one page of British women’s under garments, and those ladies must have callouses from those wires;  God Bless them, and I hope Playtex sends them something other than torture devices that look like they were made to advertise a candy store.  But, now that you have read the most boring weblog I think that I have ever sent, then I will tell you that I could write no more.  After all the weeks of being ill, I learned that a beloved friend had just blown me off;  One of those friends you LOVE, and they have professed the same for you.  There is no gift worse than anguish and being forsaken;  So perhaps the best of all gifts is to keep giving until it hurts;  At  least from your heart, because some things will never mend like the flannel gown made in my dream world, laid out for all to get warm before large arms hold them.  Care for someone somehow and someway;  And we might get close to the idea that love above all will sustain you.

So come light of lights, eight for certain; Come good shepards, kings, paupers, and ladies of the evening, Know that you are loved;  But your package might need to be filled with a can of crow;  For we find no peace when love is absent.  We find no peace when love becomes the farce, and we find no peace if we are bitten by those we thought loved us who ground us with a stone in to a heart that has no peace.  But, I shall wait for the cradle, wait for the magic, and slumber joyfully if only I can give the best of me, and it is ladeled with a silver spoon in to a jar called, “Sacrifice,”  and one touch of it makes you know that the time given was time taken.  What sacrifice will sooth the soul.

I am waiting for the signal that all is well, and I may go home on a winter;s night when the fires were warm, and sweet apples were the gift; An orange was like gold, but we knew that somewhere the days made many heaarts glad, and Charity came with Grace from the worm winter’s fire;  And that, my friend; it was enough just enough.

Pinkhoneysuckle Blogger & Author: “Pinkhoneysuckle on Amazon, and Create Space, Soon at Dog Earred Books in San Francisco.

On this Sunday, the  last thing in the world which I should do is to be writing on Xanga, but I am looking for a moment of courage. to walk out of this door fresh, sorrows washed away like the hush of falling rain, words I have stolen from a poem a long time ago, but had I not felt better than I did today, then I am going to have to  struggle for the energy to get out on time for my flight;  The, “Now The Parents Come Home For Christmas,” and I am asking the Angels who come to lift me up a little bit here.  My side hurts from the gall stones which people used to save for some very odd reason, just like kids used to save tonsils, so I will first decline any notion you have that you could put my stones on E-bay, from which they can  be blasted by the alchemist to look like pieces of gold;  No I will not drop that low.  But my greater fear is the pain in my side with more than 5 hours of flying time, and I fear if I announced to them that My health history at the moment places me in the level of, “Wrecked Train,” and that it is feasible they may have to fly over a cornfield in Kansas to drop me off to have these stones blasted, much less the possibility that if the pain is interfering with my oxygen needs after my pulmonary embolisms of two months ago, I could wind up going no where.  I just know that you wanted to hear about this tragedy of my life which was made known Friday.  Oh sweet friends;  It is there though, if I can just get up, throw these packages and bags together, and;  “Get on board,” as the old hymnal called out to the children.  Yes, “Get on board.”

KINDLE NEWS;  STILL IN DRAFT — OUT SOON, AND I SO DID NOT MEAN TO MISLEAD YOU OH BELOVED AND TRUSTING FRIENDS.  I WILL SWEAR CREATE SPACE AND AMAZON LED ME TO BELIEVE IT WAS OUT.  I  BEG YOUR ENDURING SUPPORT AND FORGIVENESS.

Lo
rd, Love A Duck;  As my old friend used to say at work;  I am not certain I can handle much more of this kind of stuff.  This same day a friend of mine sent me a picture of an old, “Love,” and I mean that;  For he is older now, no less wonderful to me, except he is a Southern Methodist, and undoubtedly;  Help me out with this one, that if you are brought up that way, then what you do is fall in love with someone;  “Me,” I was the someone for many years, and he has never seen me without clothing, nor I him;  but he has such a mean spirit every time we are apart for a while that he then decides to ignore me and to pretend we never loved at all!  On top of all of my other physical and mental assaults of summer, I am dealing with this again.  He has pulled the last daisy petal, and I am out again;  The affair which isn’t the affair, and the shared fact that we would always, “Love One Another;”  Those are broken by him, for HOlLY COW;  He is a psychiatrist and has a professional standard to uphold, so, even though he has not been my therapist for mega years;  He hides himself in church, his work standard denies his own promise and words that, “He Loves Me.” So once again, I have to accept that I am some kind of harlot, and he wants all of these years to just pass over.  I have a special relationship with him, and without the benefits you expect, and my husband will be for whom I must give all that I own, but he just has not been able to give the conversation, the friendship, and the hint of romance which is like soul food for many of us. 

If you read my writings;  You know that I do not care particularly if you agree with me;  But this is alright with my husband and me, for he enjoys his life as a musician who can now just go and enjoy the concerts whether I am well or not.  People?  I’m fishing for words here;  but am I crazy to believe that a person means it when they tell you they love you?  Do they mean it when they say they will not disappear again?  Get off your Sunday asses and help this sister out, for I am a damned mess.  That is our total affair of 25 years thus far;  “I love you,” some affection, but please people we are 62 and 72, and not once over those years have we crossed that line of wanting.  He thinks he is the holder of all the cards,  and my deck is filled with only choices he makes.  I want to hear about others experience with psychotherapist, even when they are not your psychotherapist;  And what in the heck gives  them the idea that they have some kind of immunity from their own feelings.

I am whining people, for I am a dog right now, a beaten one, for I have had more on my plate than I could handle then to have the disappearing act played again.  Pardon you for beating up on the poor Southern Methodist, but it is in a northern state, and I think many go there for the refinement, and the, “Sensibilities,” which they left behind in dear old Dixie.  I am just at my wits end, for the truth is I love with my whole heart, and I believed that all people were like that, but the worst men I have ever been involved with, and I could say this for my sisters also;  I believe, are the Southern Protestant men.  It is as if they can just charm your ass off, but when it comes down to truth;  They are lying through their teeth.  They even have the gaul to think they have some kind of superiority over you, because;  “They are just too sweet,” so whatever they say;  It sounds like gold, but you could buy it with a farthing;  In other words;  Who can you trust who loves you, “Their words, my friend;” and then at the lowest point in your life;  they bail on you, and for many of us from the south, we know that they believe their good manners will just charm it all away.

I have some packing to do, so we will pick up on this later.  When, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” gets its break, then I am going to definitely do it about the war of the southern man’s spirituality, and how hurtful they are, for the good old boy still gets away with a lie in one pocket and your tear drops in the other.  But most, I want to talk about psychiatry over the past years and what people are doing.  My first thought is that you need a psychiatrist when you have a chronic condition which requires serious medication as in bipolar states and schizophrenia off the tip of my tongue, and for the rest, my friends,  Find your best friend and fall into their arms, and talk and cry until you know the tears are wanning.  You will loose friends like this, for some just listen and disappear, so your other examples are clergy, hospital ERs if you are suicidal, but get to someone.  Psychiatrist came into my life in the most sinister of ways which I describe in my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and when I finally think I have the truth from one of them that anything is heart felt;  Then he disappears.

This sounds like;  “Oh poor me,” and maybe I deserve a “Poor Me,” day, but the suffering that is going on leads me to believe that I am just a moron.  Our country and this world are overwhelmed with killings, dead babies, addicts of every kine, and children who are suffering an ear ache, for we are back to mid-century medicine where the poor are turned away in so many places.  I know that it is my whining moment, not my shining moment, but my relationship with psychiatry is so bizarre from the beginning that I cannot be the only person vexed and confused by this community.  I will see you after my journey if I can breath, and my stones do not get in to the ductal area of my liver, pancreas, stomach; All those vital organ places, but wish me well, and I will endeavor to befriend another Methodist.  God bless.  BEH, Author, Pinkhoneysuckle Blog and Book.  Check Amazon if you are interested in the book.  I’m worried about too many other things.  Bless You;  I have new writing in Revolution Earth, for the rains are beginning;  The tents must go for now, so read why on RE. Many Thanks, Barbara Everett Heintz/ Author

Now that I have your attention;  Let us talk about sex, for sometimes we make mistakes, but a mistake which I have made in telling you about my writing is that you are going to be holding your breath at the end of many chapters of “Pinkhoneysuckle,” available on Amazon, at Create Space, and soon other stores across the country.  You can order it directly from Amazon or Create Space, or go to your favorite bookstore and ask them to order it. I did not want to make this a headline for the book sales, but the old rule that money and sex sell is aparently a reality which I should not avoid sharing.

First had I advertised this with sexuality as a number one theme, then I would be failing to tell you that even now  that I know this book is absolutely, as the kids would say, “Simply Hot,” then you would not have read on to the parts which are most important to me at this phase of my life;  Lifting up the poor, introducing the 3rd world America along the Appalachian mountains and valleys, and to show you how pathetic it is that class structure still exists in this country so deeply that we who tell the truth simply confess that a class system has existed from the day of the Founding Fathers of America, and that it is as nasty as it has ever been, seriously absolutely just getting even more stratified as a middle realm of white collar America is now considered to be disposable.  Manufacturing in America was sent to the peons of other countries, a word that does not get kicked around a lot, because in The Good Old United States, we did not want to show that we had a side that was so evil that it kept crushing the poor and tightening the pockets of upper class America, for that sounds really naughty does’t it;  Just the ideal of bulging zippers, so I would have failed myself, and I would have failed myself if I did not put in to respectful terms that padding the pants of bankers, corporate America, the old wealth which takes many generations to dilute the pool of wealth, and the absolute Wall Street crooks who popped up like Bernie Madeoff — Yes had I shared with you the humaness of my book, then I could not have told you what needed to be said by them.  I wanted, as near as I could possibly get the historical line straight, so I endeavored to match life events with the times in history which needed to be shown to younger readers who saw only Woodstock, and Haight Ashbury as defining a period of time.  These are at the heart of whom the book is to draw interest, those who do not remember when a college education meant a job, or when you could work your way up ladders of success.

Meanwhile, I am failing myself and others who need to know that, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” is a book which deals with a young woman’s leaving behind a world of innocence, and shows you what a change mid-century brought to the rules governing sexuality in this country.  Sex consummed that era in so many ways that it broke the mold of what it meant to be pure.  It is selling myself short to act as if I am not progressive enough in thought to use the word; SEX, and I have a headache just endeavoring to explain it to you now.  I did not know that I was among the few of the untouched and among the last of what the good girl was supposed to be.  I envisioned myself on my wedding night as coming out in a Victorian white dressing gown with roses embroidered around it as such it touched my feet, and where it touched my feet and showed my wrist, about all that was exposed would be porcelain skin flushing with the excitment of a first time experience.  I would take my long dark hair down looking into my husband’s eyes of Danish blue which were large and captivating.  He would be partially dressed, and I would fumble with the ribbons on my beautiful gown with the anxiety of a child when they believe they have lost their safety net and finally are petrified and alone in a shopping mart.  How frightening, and how very new.

But this virginal young woman would be fresh and new, and we would have some soft rose petals just to plac  them on our skin, my hair, and his beautiful body. For those moments I would be known as Desire, and we would both feel overwhelming desire for one to the other. It was the perfect dream, and then my newly married love would come to me, breathing in my sweet scent of soft scented spices and a touch of rosewater here and there. I would be unable to move, but he would begin to help, walking across the room, stopping to give kisses along the way, tight and wonderful hugs, and we would turn back our smooth white sheets, again, only with us to adorn them, and he would love me and whisper, and take his hands and begin to help me with the French ribbons which held my warm garment over my shoulders. One by one he would slip the gown over my shoulders, and it would fall, and fall, and I would know that wonderful had just begun, and when he took his top off and we were together, the fear began to go away. Oh; How I wanted to be that new girl, the first girl.

I liked to feel that his clothes had become  too tight, and his breathing so very rapid and soft that finally I could help him as he had helped me, and he would embrace me, and then there were no clothes, only he and I, two bodies, then slowly, so slowly but surely;  For the first time, I knew that we were not apart, but that we embraced and were together.  I felt the slight removal of all that separated my love and I, the tiny pain which was wonderful, and then no pain, just he and I and rosewater with a touch of spice, Porcelain, warm, blue eyes, and a little more rugged skin, and I would feel this, and I would dream this again and again.

The book must take you in to some erotic places, and I can believe that you catch your breath, and the morsels which I have written for you to phathom innocence , and a girl not broken open in a car like an apple cored.  No, I tell you of romance as it genuinely was in the hours ago of my youth,  Some of it is so vial that you must understand that this is not a book for children.  Vial can never be beautiful, not even the word vial, and into my life villans came, and you will meet them, and you will know they know nothing of love, and they are as foul as the animals in the wild who can only make small ones by brutally acquiescing one to another.  That is the kind of sexuality that is verbotent, has no justice for the small one of the pair, and is often done with her after the male of the species is finished the dark dance they must do to put forth one more of the wild and dangerous.  I can trust it is animal lust, but for humans it should never be so that kind of carnage, but I will have to share with you that such was the way of some who endeavored to be master of girls who were perceived as objects of their despicable desire.  I would like to stoke their ovens in hell for every woman and chiild which they have layed waste to.

Their is the innocence, the rosebud and the spice, an ocean that has stayed in my senses all of these years.  It was the time of restlessness when one wants to let the body go, but the spirit is holding on to old values, and those who force embrace up on one in this period are uncivil, know nothing of romance, and certainly are not interested in the soul.  They will never make love;  No, they will take it and lie like some wasted sire, fat, and fed with no regard to the others at the table.

But I will also take you to lovers, sweet lovers who endeavored to get it right, and waited for that special moment for when you, a lover was ready also. The tenderness will become a mix of sweetness, a little rage, for love is like that, for it is such carnal meets rapture, and both are satisfied they have known something wonderful. “Pinkhoneysuckle,” my book takes one deeply into the depths of love and love making, because women were for the first time being seen as something besides pathetic whores, as once they would have been called, but partnerships are forming with men and women that said; “I will love you;” in spoken words and actions, and marriage was a thought, but not the first realization, because so much more had to happen to take that step. Step one, my sweet; Step two, my love, and tomorrow we will know betteer who we are together.

Yes, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” on Xanga and at Create Space is about love, romance, powerfully sexual, all of these things, for it was a part of life. Now that we have crossed together over the great importance I have placed on so many things, then I am going to tell you that; Yes, deep and lovely passion, sweet breath stirring the wantonness of human beings;  Absolute love making are described in my book.  For the mongrels who were perverse; they must be in there too, for you will know them by name, and if you can forgive them;  You are better than I.  They walk over the earth and are the demons who feed upon the most helpless. I must write about them, save other children and wish them only perils, for they and mercy will never be perceived as love; Never.

I have bought books, because they were sensual, but I am only telling you now that mine is finished that it is a book which includes temptation and sex, and with pride I will say that up until this point, I have not shared that as the hallmarks of my book, but if you are looking for a love story, and the deepest ways not to love;  Then I invite you to read, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon and CreateSpace, Kindle ready by, your’s Lovingly, Barbara Everett Heintz

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Dear Friends of “Pinkhoneysuckle,”

It is again with a grateful heart that I can now advise you that Pinkhoneysuckle is now Kindle ready through Amazon and the Publishing Arem, Create Space will gladly help you find the book.  To Independent and larger Distributors who may be interested in carrying, “Pinkhoneysuckle;” Again I am certain that you may make arrangements with Amazon and/or Create Space as they combine their already megalithic  movement in to the new E – Publishing world of the community of book lovers.  At the same time, Amazon begins these changes and has them well underway, we do not forget the individuals who seriously enjoy a home library, so “Pinkhoneysuckle,” can be purchased hard back from Create Space; and if you have any problems with such a purchase, which you should not;  Then please email me through Xanga posting, and I will endeavor to solve your problems.  It is suggested that I hold a book launch, that it is absolutely necessary, and I had hoped to do so while still here in our Bay Area residence, but as many of you know;  The unnatural event of suffering a pulmonary embolism has created great havoc in my life in slowing down this entire process…  There is good news though;  Ladies and Gentlemen;  I lived.

I am asking all of my readers of the weblog through which I created the book,  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” that you now risk enjoying or seeing what a woman who began this book at age 60 and finished a little over two years later can actually do, for many perceive that writing a book is something which only individuals trained in the summer workshops, which are extremely desirable, please understand, and those people who have hired large marketing agencies can do with a book.  Most home published books look like, “Home Published Books,” and though you may not find my book to your taste;  I am going to dare to convince you that it is literature, and the story will last, because it is the compilation of facts regarding an America which has been hidden from the mainstream to keep it off the pages of time as well as to fear, make fun of, and deprecate among America’s most independent people.

You have read Appalachian stories before, and usually they are side splitting, hound dog in the chicken coup while old Grandpa hides the las underdrawers of Grandma before Sunday meeting, or the old Beverly Hills take on this region with the daughter showing off her new double barrelled slingshot, her bra which she had never had before.  I am old enough to remember when that show aired, and when that next Sunday at church one of our elders laughed himself to tears, because to even say the word, brazier in public then was something whispered in to the hand between women, though most people had them if they could scrounge up the money.

The idea of an innocent and lost people is not wasted in this story, for there is a plethora of beautiful modest traditions by which many in The Bible Belt of Appalachian Mountains and Valleys endeavor to show more grace and more integrity about, and small things are sacred even among many  less than modest others who live around my old places of home, so the gentility of the people and understanding is not lost on my interpretation.  But out of my travel bag of literature and life, I pull from those Appalachian Springs some more troubling realities, the lost agrarian families, lost autonomy, the newest addictions which turn ordinary people in to criminals, for they do not see the wrong, for sheer southern independence is abundantly a portion of what has made the Southern United States of America legendary in the minds of people who, like me, grew up there, or who lived there long enough to tell the story.

Historically, there are times where my love of history seeps in, and you might want to throw paper wads or to spit gum, because I get in the teaching mode and take kids back to the mid-century, and can you believe it;  This white girl wants to share some things about white and black Americans in the South that you did not know about, for when we lived close together, pulled our cotton sacks together, and laughed together in those fields, then we were a bunch of happy kids that played whenever and however we could, Together, my friend; Together.

The mid-south and up through the Appalachians had their clans, their sins, their inexcusable moments, but we were not acting out down in Mobile, not out there on the bridge in Selma, and we sure as hell were not sitting in any lunch counters or drug stores, and if we had to void going between through Paint Rock Valley, and on out to Sand Mountain;  I never saw those bathrooms which said;  “Blacks Only,” or “Whites Only,”  No Sir, and No Mam, because the stores and gas stations didn’t have any flush toilets, and somebody’s out house was apt to be a lot nastier than when Daddy would stop for us all car sick, getting out, vomiting on the ground, and if you had other business to do;  Then you crawled behind some tall weeds or little shrubbery that grew in a natural way along the side of the road,  and you did what you had too, but you never said nasty stuff rude city Yankees were used to, like: Pee and Shit, for your Mama was going to smack you in to the next Sunday for talking about your body parts putting out your private stuff.  We were clean people, and body fluids and excrement was not a matter for decent people to be saying in the eyes of the Lord.

Oh God;  We heard it all as the years went along, and for every black family that had the effigies of hate and violence brought to your door or taken to your school;  This is one Honkey that is going to fall on my knees, and beg you to forgive those whose hearts were as black as the grass burnt cross on your yard, and I want to sit with you, cry with you, and let’s talk about our suffering together, because the same society that threatened you were the same bigots who wanted to keep us in the third world, for you had decided that you were men and women done with the masters who found new slaves by that mid-century, so they started grooming us to take over to clean their houses, slop their hogs, clean up their kitchen and keep their kids out of their hair.  Some of those people were very decent, but some were the most useless no good excuses for souls.

 The good people looked us in the eyes, and they asked for help, and then made us part of the family, and their children of the same age were expected to carry a load of wood for the fire, and then you all sat down together.  A weekend of work seemed so happy, and for years I would keep in touch.  They gave me ten dollars for the time, but for some I felt ashamed to take their money, for they gave me more than money could buy, the sweet love where I was a kid at the table too;  Oh my friends;  I never forgot you, and our bond will neveer be broken.

No you haven’t read a story quite like mine before, because to do so meant persecution even by those you are trying to defend, because they have been called Hillbillies, Crackers, and  Rednecks so long that they are impervious to the question; “Why would you use that label  on any of us?”  Black people got rid of the N word, but poor whites of The Bible Belt still think you just bear the vial words and wait for Jesus to make it right.  Worse they do not even question what people are insinuating about them which is that they/we are about as smart as a jackass who thinks he’s an ugly horse.  Awake my people, for you are better than the sloth which has labeled you, and I can reassure you from personal experience that the negatives are far greater than the positives of letting your history be made with these labels.  Brother and Sister;  It is our day and it is our time  to  slam the door on our alignment, and it is time to bless our selves with a Homecoming of sorts, a time when we look at our roots and ask ourselves; “How did we get in this shape?” “Who in Jesus name made me any kind of specialist risking speaking of the land and the people who do not like people putting on airs” considering  I left it all behind,” and I would tell you clearly that we learn what we live, and my old friends and loved ones are still there or they are gone, and I became an expert when I stayed up nights wondering how to tell this story,”  So would you bless me and join the hour when people anywhere touching the Appalachian valleys, mountains, and roads, rise up and reclaim the independence and the self reliance of their birth, and bring the crops home, for no one can do it better than those who have loved the land bought in blood, entrusted to you to care for, and that you have a total responsibility to considering the  mass removal of Indian families, the native populations displacement was so shameful that your only touch of thanking them for the ground is to care for it, to pray for those from whom it was taken before your time and to accept the responsibility that honoring the land and the water, even the air we breathed together asks us to abide by the deepest of respect with Thanksgiving those from whom the lands belonged.

Thus show mercy on the gift you have inheritated.  Envision the credible farmers of the field and the earth who recycled all things, who blessed most things,  and who looked up with arms stretched out to the great Fathers.  “Behold our Mother of Creation,? and give thanks for it all from the water to the earth to however long a man may breath, and lifeBless our Harvest,”  Consider your dignity of the elders so long ago, and some spring in Appalachia;  Smell the Pinkhonysuckle. and taste the drops of water within the tiny bloom, for you are that beautiful all tied within the hour of creation.  We are so much more than America/s only politically appropriate last
laugh.  Author of “Pinkhoneysuckle,” book, blog, Kindle ready novel; Via Amazon and Create Space for direct shipment.

Public Media Will Be Accomodated To In Whatever City That We Are In; So please let us know if you are going to need accomodations.  Obviously for this more formal type; Cities and surrounding areas  must have a population of greater than 300,000 people, Appropriate Press Credentials, and I only have a narrow window of stay in San Francisco for this vacation time here; But interviewers of Newspapers with circulaitons of up to 500,000 people in target areas still have time to receive lodging for no more than two nights in one of San Francisco’s more tawny areas.  But again, this would have to be a last minute arrangement  With a firm conviction that my book would be reviewed by a major National Newspaper within a city/suburb area no smaller than 450,000.  It cannot be smaller, but it may be larger, thus we would still have one weekend left hXaere to accommodate you as the first among book reviewers of my book.  A call from your publisher; Authentic Press Credentials, search of sound reputation; and police report would be mandatory.  Please contact me through
Xanga, and you need not contact me if you are not:Known Television and Radio Channels, Pure And Older City p.Newspapers with a paper circulation meeting sizes giiven above, American Cities would be appropriate for this request, since we have little prep time, but you are receiving the chance for #! for 2nd review is already set up.  Again, Please do not contact me unless you have appropriate credentials, intend to do a review, and can pass security clearance.  You must be fully English speaking for now as well, and this is a one time opportunity.
PBS is also dependent on number of circulation.  Pinkhoneysuckle
 

I sit in my warm and comfortable spot across the Bay; And not making excuses, but after blood clots in my aging lungs, I could not pitch a tent, but we in San Francisco know about the danger which mainly younger people and people who plan to make the gesture of calling out to our fellow countrymen have come from many places — I, like you, am asking for clearer statements of purpose and what we as a country together can do have begun to get more answers.  Today, once again, we heard more tragic bankruptcy and problematic organizations with our money, for it affects all of us one way or the other, which waited too late, looked at the books, and then;  Oh my gosh!  There is no money left, and that which was entrusted will be lost to the people who had entrusted it.  We learned from 60 minutes that the Madeoffs are still in the million dollar realm, and as a cousin today said, “If Ruth Madeoff was making a statement waring no jewelry, and if you think that she does not have it stashed away; Then I have a bridge to sell you.  The living son who says that he made his seven million or so through his own hard work.  I am sorry , but that family is entitled to be renting rooms at a derelict motel and to lining up in lines at the local soup kitchens.  The one of them who may have told the truth killed himself, and we feel sorrow for the desperate any where and any time that a person kills themselves, and many of our faiths label suicide as a sin.

We have all had agonizing heartfelt pain, but the sadness of that man’s shame was somewhere in the deceit of a psychopathic family whose associates were as greedy as they were.  Outside of the entitlement to money which the truly rich seem to possess batting in the cage of psychopathic behaviors of needing wealth so great they must hide;  Madeoff and family had few differences.  People in this upper 4% have left so many people in the dust that some of us who thought we would be well off in old age find ourselves paying up to twenty thousand dollars per year to insure ourselves for the thrity seven thousand dollars we rack up within a twenty four hour hospital stay, and then we go to ICU.  People used to buy houses for what our hospital stays cost in a forth eight hour period, and for that money, our kids back east could desperately use a new car.  We are making it though, and when we first came back to this area, our house was my husband’s mother’s house ten years ago, so we would go house looking and see sweet younger families looking at affordable property across the bay; and in place like Vallejo, particularly heartbreaking;  People thought they had affordable homes at a reasonable price somewhere around at around three to four hundred thousand.  The children smiled, and the parents cried, for they had the first home.

I wanted to tell some of them then;  “Go East,” and you can find work somewhere and these houses on slabs will cost you about a third of  what you are paying for this,” but they loved California, many black families, and somewhat lighter skinned HIspanic citizens, who had worked for that house;  The American dream – house.  We had developed some concerns, and we had always known from parents not to keep all ducks in one pond, though after purchasing California housing;  Our chance at wealth sort of flew away like a beautiful butterfly, but this was the family, and my husband wanted to save it, so money went really fast; but again, we are careful, and we sent two more daughters for education and helped for most of it.  We, the pay as you go people, were the luckiest people on the face of the earth when the economy went to hell, but the poor families in Vallejo and in Oakland struggled, and most lost, so Oakland is a perfect place to start telling bankers, brokers, people who gamble in stocks with other’s money that you have gone too far this time Mr. and Mrs. rich;  You have gone too far, and the banks and brokerage houses, free handed mortgage persons who should have endeavored with marginal buyer’s money and should have told these happy families;  “Save your money for a while,” and watch, for the economy is getting dangerously high.  Many of us were suspicious, but the loans kept being handed out, banks endeavored to save themselves, first — and the people last, and for every home that was torn up, boarded up, every family that had clothes on the lawn, and copper pipes torn from the empty house now locking them out;  It is them that Oakland is about.  A time has come in this country to give homes away, to give what is left of them back, and let the bankers count change for awhile.  Wednesday in Oakland California, November 2, is the time that American citizens plan to walk to the water of the shipyards, a very symbolic place, for it brings more traded goods in from other countries than most shipyards in the entire nations.  Those who gather are asking the banks, and know this yourself;  Banks and lending are done for the wealthy to get wealthier, and they were safe places, at lease that is what every person who lost their last dollar thought.

I do not condone any violence, zero.  I believe that if the marchers break what is not theirs, then they too are criminals if they destroy even more, but if you get the country to moving toward the goal of making banks, those who profit off the backs of state teachers funds, and used the poor for their private shows of how they can come home in three piece suits, swanky store labels, new polish on their shoes, and they are a CEO who even takes a bonus in the hundred thousand dollar range this year, because you could move around rich people’s money;  Then you are who the people are going to the water of the shipyards to say you are greedy;  Your salaries suffice;  and it is time for the people to have that money for creation of other jobs.

So, American citizens have fallen in wars with the belief of saving loved ones from tyranny.  The tyrants who said American’s spent their way in to this mess are fully misinformed, for Americans did not buy anything on credit that the banks did not give them a card called a credit card, and they did not buy a house with someone taking a balloon in blowing a few up and showing them what was going to happen to their mortgage after we built neighborhoods that are ghost streets now.  With America’s level of higher education where it measures and performs at extremely low levels compared to nations of similar values;  I believe we were running somewhere around 17th for mass and sciences, so considering most of the first time buyers did not get the papers they were signing as they pass them three per minute at a house closing, those people did not understand without a credible person explaining each note.

So I pray for the symbolism of Oakland, California tomorrow, and I pray for a nation that has sunk to the depths of paying CEOs bonuses this Christmas, and yes;  You say, you work hard for your money.  Trade places with a yard crew for one week next year, or the movers of your furniture, the buther in the slaughter yards, and the toilets after a young person’s music festival, or if you have already done this, then we admire you. I am the last person who wants more give-a-way programs added, but we need to phaze things out resonsibly, and begin in seventh and eighth grade:  Academic or Occupational, both honorable forms of education.  We can only begin to rebuild, but what we have already;  Put people back in them, and this is the Barbara Everett Heintz mantra.  Please would the upper 4% of this nation give ten percent of your wealth back to this country right now to begin these kind of programs.  Then you can have parties and say; “We’ve done God’s work,” and extended our hands to the poor.  Hear us, people of great wealth, for when 1000 Oaklands rise up, then our country is in danger.  I pray with all of my heart that you will hear this, and Oh my Lord, I pray for those walking to the shipyards tomorrow, for people are on edge;  It has been hard here, so here what they say, and Marchers walk and sing together, and if the newest preacher is Michael Moore or The Bishop of Oakland;  Call up on the Lord, for you are called to ask for the mercy and justice which some are too broken to ask for. Pinkhoneysuckle Blog And Author of “Pinkhoneysuckle” A  book of fact and fiction of the have and have nots since midcentury.

I asked myself this question about, “Pinkhoneysuckle,”  and I began a new thread to embroidery further who might care about this book, me,  and the thousands, really millions who would become the towns, the villages, the expressway exits which would lead one off to a broad swath of American poor.  No one cared before, so to paraphrase many a family along the way regarding the rest of America and us, “Who would give a damned about a book called, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” when it is even hard for many of us to care about ourselves, because we have gone for the large part of a century when we did not matter; and then through another period of history when we did not matter much. Get on board, old friends, for we are breaking some chains.

I would begin first with comedians, for what would become of humor if the terms, Redneck, Hillbilly, Crackers, and Holy Rollers became inappropriate.  God knows humor was almost lost after black people were eliminated and you had to give up the N word, and the white words which meant pretty much the same were then elevated to the top of politically correct jokes to make.  Black people are going to say all of this wasn’t about us and them, for they have seen pictures of themselves picking the cotton, waiting on the white dilettantes, scrubbing white people’s floors, and being Nannies to white folks children.  My black brothers and sisters got lucky, because the Kennedy and Johnson administrations decided to show the poor black families doing this for white folks. Praise the Lord that some hope came alive for people of African decent, and I could apologize dozens of times that in American history some rich Americans had black slaves; But I want to ask you how many knew that white children of no means were treated with equal disrespect.  My grade school was all white, and I knew about flush toilets, but in and around Lexie Crossroads, I had school mates who were afraid to flush our two holer bathroom, because they were afraid they would break something.  We are now talking about the second half of the 20th century, and children had never seen flush toilets, and some of us got to feel mighty important, because we showed them how to use the lever on the tank.

I would see the news about the poor little black kids down south and the freedoms which they did not have, so I know my fellow citizen that it was hard being black in America.   We believed that it was people worse off than us, but later on we would learn that, in poverty, we were just different colors.   Where did the pictures go of all of us white children out there pulling our cotton sacks, picking up after richer white folks, standing next to our mama’s with a pair of flip flops on if Mama had 50 cents to pay for a pair.  They did not show the white poor eating their beans and wieners from a can in the cotton fields with the same dirty hands they started out with in the morning, with no toilets in or near the field, and the one bucket of water we all drank from;  It did not seem to make national news, and sometimes I had to wonder if it was because the black folks were such good singers that the news folks stopped.  We  all sang sometimes to, but usually we just picked that cotton heading up that row, and the goal for even the youngest kid was a hundred pounds a day.  Five of our family together could probably get that much in a two or three hour period, for we worked hard!  We just didn’t sing that much.

White Trash,  maybe that is the bunch who would want to read, “Pinkhoneysuckle,”  but you know what they say about White Trash now, that all we want to do is smoke crack and steal people’s welfare checks,  Any of you who tried to better yourselves, which was most of us, we’ve got some burdens to bear and songs to sing, but do not let the news get out that you were from folks set apart as White Trash, and there are still useless, good for nothing up standing citizens who are going to look the other way;  So this book is a struggle for you, because people might find out about white slavery, how it began after The Civil War, and many had their best years then, because one actually could go to the mountain tops or the deepest valley, and they could hide where their tears could grow like sap from a tree and fall on the ground with nothing but a shirt tail to dry them up.

After all of these years, in spite of what you have over come;  You are still afraid of being back there, and back there you were in the fields with me suffering and worrying about what  your folks had on their plate.  Maybe your neighbor would want to hear about your trials and troubles; How you could make use of the smallest of natures gifts, and pretend that you could be among the stars someday.  I am so sorry that you are scared to death to be found out, for you want to be buried in the sand of time which will be all of our fates in the afternoon of human existence.  Do you really want a book around that shows the courage, the dignity, the faith that it took from you from the time you were young enough to have memory;  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” might open some wounds, and if you leave it alone, then you can let another group of children of Appalachian families feel the distress of living in another America.

We agrarian kids didn’t know about the coal mining kids, for had we all known each other, then we would have been a mighty political force.  There is a fountain that needs unclogged to let the spirits of the poor, your own to flow out over those years and to tell you  that the story had to be told sometime.  Maybe in their old film libraries they have  a picture of us sucking our fingers hanging onto our Mama’s dress after she broke some field peas which with the corn bread made the nicest of dinners.  The coal mining kids usually had a store a little closer, because it was owned by the company that owned their house, that owned them body and soul, and I would like to see their pictures, and maybe they would like to see mine in, “Pinkhoneysuckle.”

Religion is still strongly a part of southern life, but my book contains some graphic sexual maturing as well as a bad word here or there;  So wonder if the religious folks could understand that the book is written mainly about poverty, one of Jesus most eloquent sermons to return to;;  Him along with Presidents of The United States around election time, so wonder if those religious folks can bear some truth about birthing and pain young poor women along The Appalachian trail went through, because their Mama’s had to teach them that any subject about their body was a sin and disgrace until you got yourself married.  Jesus went out of his way to help a prostitude more than once, so can religious people dare to read about what other so called religious people did, took from the poorest any way they could.  I fear that people do not want to read about our dads who were not local got worked way more days to get one day of shared labor than the locals who could sit around and make jokes about him after the day’s work was done.  That happened among men who were on their knees come Sunday morning, and it was a bigger sin to treat our daddy that way, because he would have given you his last button if you would give him a safety pin.  But, I am leaning on you Jesus to bring my book to the people, for how I felt all through the years kept coming back to you.

Oh Wounded and Sacred Head, I am not a woman of perfection, but we never gave up on The Cross, and we would learn later in life even more how symbolic the Cross was.  We pictured Jesus, who should some day save us all from that is  wordly as if he was hung in our Pinkhoneysuckle and amidst our Dogwood trees, but it turned out they put you in a place full of the stench of death where only wounded mother’s could stand, and we cannot, in our worst hour understand why he was given over to such, but we are told that it was for us, for the likes of us, so thank you;  I thank you as I have all the way.  Maybe some people who have sought out comfort from somewhere can find it from you, so some of my book is scriptural, The rich were not called your most beloved; No, it was the souls like us.

Who will purchase my book, and who will open that door for me;  I am not certain, but it took me 62 years to finish it, and it is out there awaiting the Create Space and Amazon sales.  I wanted to tell a story unlike any written before it, and I have, for most did not want Americans to know its poor whites and blacks and how we got along back  then, how we treated each other better, for so many of us were on the same bridge.  I am hoping the people who have felt their lives  had to be kept secret will find my book, the social workers, the psychologist, those who remember wounded mothers and fathers, and when you find it;  Buy it or not, but take the blessing with you that you have, through my story, opened an understanding about what I wrote as being, “The Shame Of Conversation,” for it held us back for too long.  It is pathetic to me that particularly southern whites have decided to accept this banner as if it was an honor, but it is our honor, our humor, and out time.  It is a sorrow to me that we cannot speak better of others and of ourselves, for we came from proud people, quiet people, who believed that a day was done when the broken hearted and downtrodden were taken care of. 

Maybe that is who should buy my book, those who have failed to realize their worth, and to glorify a new path where we forbid the label of ignorant to be bestowed up on people, because they are or once were poor.

Late October finds me still in San Francisco, and all of the visitors are wrapped up for the season — Each to their own place, and fittingly;  This year ended with a favorite niece and three of her friends getting together at my house.  During their stay I had begun leaving the oxygen behind, for my husband, I kid you not;  Did not like the way it appeared in our home, and “He,” wanted things back to normal.  Thus far, he has decided what I should ear, when I should leave my oxygen behind,  and made certain that I saw the nutritionist to put me on a diet for weight loss, but it was, “I,” his wife who had the pulmonary embolism.  He, however, got tired of our place, “Looking like a nursing home.”

Out side of an exceptional view, the only way this place, except for the remodeled lower flat which we rent out would not feel like a nursing home would be if the Hayward Fault decided to remodel the entire Bay area, and that is going to happen;  We just do not know when, and it will be a very frightening event, for we had a quake on it this past week that was a 4.0 which gave us the hardest jolt that we ever remember, and it is because we are just across the Bay where it was centered under the UC Berkeley campus, but it was short and our reenforced house felt as if we were about to have to run outside if we could get out.  Since quakes are geometric in strength;; I do not  want to imagine a slip/slide quadrupled by a factor of ten for each fraction of a point on the 4.0, so mathematicians out there;  Give me some help, for I do not know exactly how it works;  But an 8 is not double a 4, but is more near a very large bomb being dropped, so I will allow you to take the Richter and show your stuff.

But, back to my husband;  Have you ever met anyone that all of your friends presumed that he hated them;  Well, that is my man, only he feels that his brilliant mind works better here in his mother’s home, and to explore why I have never run all of these years, then you may just have to read the book;  Now won;t you, for he becomes a part of it.  We did not run back in those  days, and I am not going to advise you to start it now;  For even grown children have issues after such change in their lives much less younger children.  I am so sad to tell you that you should never get married just presuming that it is always going to be about being happy, and for those of you who want to be warm at night, and that is all that you all want;  May I suggest a teddy bear, good quality and an electric blanket, for if that is your only though of how marriage is going to be;  Then I ask you to think again.

When it gets really frightening is when the conversation goes away,  the next thing, the art of having someone making sounds of a chomping horse, the day when fiber taking is out of synch with over active gastric activity, sleep apnea machines for one or both, and then the agonizing moments of endeavoring to figure out which kid needs the most and how much your retirement funds will be affordable for them.  In other words;  The aging partner, and the countless hurdles which brings one to those moments when you used to whisper wonderful things in the night, and a voice came back;  Now you are just lucky to share any time, especially when eating becomes instead of a pleasant time;  there is that silence which allows you to hear every bite like chalk on a black board, for the lack of conversation makes echoes of everything as if a wood chuck is in your home under the table.  It takes courage to open your mouth and to say the first words to clear the silence;  But do not stop talking whatever you do, for if you do;; Then you are failing the relationship yourself.

I have only had one other near death experience, and that was when I had my twins;  I almost bled to death, and this time it was a pulmonary embolism.  Up until this point, I cannot list what all and when I have taken care of my husband, but I can reassure you that any nurse who ever took care of  him would reassure you that he is the worst patient on the face of the earth; and score one for me;  They usually feel that I am the best patient they ever had, because I was a nurse, and I do not want to make their lives miserable.   Frank, himself decided I had been in care long enough for this pulmonary embolism;  So he decided the breadth of my care.  He was able to hold out until the week before the hospital was going to finish home care, so he was nicer to me than usual for those seven weeks.  Tomorrow or the next day, he will decide my exercise regimen, and it is because he deeply loves me;  Wrong, my friend;  It brings me back to better health as such he has zero responsibility to me, and I go back to care taking him.  It is just his nature, and I married him when I was 20 years old, thus he is weary with the whole thing.  He does not see it as being a less than kind manner to act, considering I go without the osygen that has rested and helped my lungs to heal..   He did not marry me to become a nursing home  devotee;  No, he married me to be a wife, a wage earner, and to have children.  What is love anyway?  Is it a about feeling good or feeling dutiful;  You cannot get around it;  It is both.

I think this is all called issues of aging, and no one prepared us for them, but they are here, so I advise you to have a plan, for you too will make this journey unless you perish young.  Just know that anything which makes you uncomfortable about being around aging citisens;  you are one breath, a few shawdows, and the best  you can be until them time comes, But;  At least let the physician decide when the oxygen needs to be taken away, for otherwise you are left uncertain that it is not a desire to see you in death, or a ploy for you to just come back and see how llong before round Two.  I have made the discovery that being Hard of Hearing might be routed in the definite need to close out much that irritates one.  Love any moment that you can, but marry the whole package, for sometime it is going to be wrapped with bailing wire instead of the soft ribbons of early romance.

We did not know how to leave it all then, and now some of  us try to count the little things;  He makes me coffee when I am out here, and he took care of me for almost two months, because I had blood clots in both lungs.  When I scalded my leg this summer accidentally with boiling water;  He did not offer to come back to Cincinnati, and now I have the worst scare that you have ever seen, because I just treated it how I knew burns got treated in the ER, and he was enjoying his Bohemian club out here.  Of course he would have been useless anyway for that, because he cannot stand the sight of blood much less baseball sized blisters, so I just cried sometimes, for I had no help.

My friends who have successful marriages, the proud, the few, seem to enjoy doing things together just as a natural consequence of things they enjoy; hiking, travel, planned meals that suit both; And all such things.  Our lives are my husband’s forethought of what is important and how things will work.  He is where he wanted to be in retirement:  In his mother’s home.  He control’s the money, and I am informed what is and is not important.  This week he told my house help to come every other week, knowing specifically that I had asked the gentleman to come each week, so I will just have the man bring help, work twice as long and to keep the place clean that way.

After a pulmonary embolism, the way you know if you are going to have more;  If you get short of breath and make it to the hospital on time.  I will feel safer one year from now if no other has developed.  Meanwhile, may you be blessed and wiser than my generation, and if you get married, just make certain that you know these days are coming, and I pray for you blessings and love to carry you over when just being pretty is not enough.

Pinkhoneysuckle

Hello Dear Friends,

I finally have straightened every thing out with The Amazon Store and The Create Space Store as such people will not get directed to similar things which are not my book, so it is now much easier for you to order.  I have worked very hard to make this book one which is easily read, and do not be frightened away by the number of pages, for there are picture pages, and blank pages between chapters, for I wanted each chapter to fall conveniently of the right hand side of the book with my deepest of apologies to the left hand oriented community.  Your dissatisfaction without more  consideration in mind shall be well understood, but out of five children, I have with dominant left sides, so it was a hard decision to make.

I would so appreciate if many of my blogging friends would show some interest in the book, and if you have questions along the way in  the reading;  Just message me, and we can talk about matters which cause you concern.  Just please understand that this is the story of many collapsed in to the pages of the book, so I serve as the story teller as well as to share parts of my life, and knowing that lives are as imperfect and we are all flawed in one way or the other; Then I ask you to note that many graphic parts of the book illustrate lives, and it is in no manner an advice book, nor is it a denigration of Appalachian souls, for I have walked with them, and they are my extended families, and where the heart of these precious souls lie to rest this very day.

It has been my continuing work as I recover from the pulmonary embolism,  and I have been blessed to have these printed copies to send with them to take out in to the world and to show that there is trouble somewhere outside of the big cities.  Small cities and towns are disappearing, because people, once again, do not know where to go.  I tell folks to understand that ahead of you may come a better tomorrow, and these days will pass away; But there will always be groups of citizens who need where others have, and it is not a shame to be poor, but it is a greater shame when you just throw up your hands.  Fear was at our back door every day of my growing up days in The Bible Belt,  and there were certainly ways that places like The University of the South that, had they used sociology and had endeavored to partner with Franklin County, Tennessee and Jackson County, Alabama–to become aware of people’s needs and the quality of life many in the valley below them suffer from;  A great difference could have altered the outcome of both the college as well as the people of the valley.

I cannot remember an occasion when The University of The South contributed to the needs of schools in the valley through student teaching, hands on workshops, or just coming and telling us about their homes in other places, for even The Episcopal Church placed blinders on when it came to our valley and to the poorest people hidden back in the counties in hovels where rain and cold could come in.  Easily the needs of the country people could have been placed on a higher goal just by having people come down off that mountain and strike up some conversations.  I would ask ever pastor who trained there;  “What were you taught to do to help the people of our counties?”  No, you could not have come down in fraternity evening out clothes, for you would have screamed, “Out Sider looking in with no solutions, but had you made times to just give a hand to struggling farmers in the valleys, had your mothers box up clothes, send them in to the schools, or volunteered in the school cafeterias to see that kids who had nothing might have mere bread and beans to take home at night;  Then the people of the agarian towns and schools below could have felt that you had interest in us in the smallest way, and you would have had a place set for you at the table come dinner time.

Again, this is an example of the class structure we were stuck in within The Bible Belt, is that you labeled us as being white trash not worth your time, and hostility grew heavily as life moved on, and you would not reach out to us in any manner.  I shame The Episcopal diocese which included Franklin and Jackson counties that you set yourself apart the moment you came from ever believing that we were needy;  We were without, and in essence we were Jesus most beloved, but you could not bear to break the social barrier to know that we were worthy of your time and attention.  In this season when Jewish friends celebrate the season of Sukkot, the symbolic building of houses and the bringing in of the harvest, all things which you would have studied from the old Bible chapters, not to mention Jesus absolute commandment to go among the poor;  Then I will ask you what kind of pompous people were studying to become Priest within your churches, but you could not even go out among God’s neediest people.  Other colleges have enlarged as well as have been built such as Motlow in and around the Moore County area.  The University of The South I am holding you to a higher standard to begin work with the people down in Winchester and Huntland, and know that real people with genuine feelings are just below you, and if you are going to meet with Jesus;  Then you need to get down from that mountain and begin missions to provide hope for the hopeless.  In this book I wind up thanking two boys that made such a difference in the lives of my friend, Berry and my own life just by being willing to talk on the phone, so the least help is better than none.

My book is going to tell you about these boys, and many other relationships, because I thought we had to be women the minute we left high school, but I had that dream that Dr. King was talking about, and many of my fellow students had the wind so knocked out from under thm by class structure  declared by, “The Haves,” compared to we who had not that they could not get back up again.  I am so sorry for all who suffered from this madness, because I saw the shame and hurt reflecting from your eyes back in to my own.

“Pinkhoneysuckle,” dares to ask some folks who talked about Jesus on Sunday but separated people off the rest of the week, and look around to see that you spent most of a century all encased in Oxford and Cambridge like college facilities believing that the heathens in the valley, Me, our family, and others could not touch your arrogance or standard on the social scale.  It is time to take down the ladders and to start building some bridges, my friends, and my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” is going to ask the question of, “Where have you been all along,” for certainly you were not out among those who needed and had not.  I call you to action, my friends, for people are broken and broke again.  Begin to plan the bridge to lead you to God’s people.

Barbara Everett Heintz, Author, Pinkhoneysuckle