~In defense of Laura Ingalls Wilder~

I've written over 1,200 blog posts since I began this writing journey in May of 2011.  Originally I began writing for the sole purpose of letting my family and friends back home in Kansas know that I was safe during the Bike Across Kansas of 2011.  That's what the blog address "peggysbakjourney" refers to.  Once the bike trip was finished, the blog was to come down and I'd go about my life as usual.  Well, that didn't really work out and many stories later, here I am this morning.

I have on purpose stayed far, far away from anything political or controversial in my writings.  I have told my students countless times as I shared my blog with them as a teaching tool in class, that there was one cardinal rule that I always followed when I wrote and that was this.

I never write anything that would bring dishonor or disrespect to myself, my family, my community, my school, or my state.  What I do write will be positive, uplifting, encouraging, and the truth. 
To me, that aspect of writing is more important than making sure a period is never overlooked or a word is capitalized.  In the six traits of writing, I try to emphasize the voice part of it, and when you read my words then you will know me.

Today I choose for the first time to write about something that in 1,219 blogposts before I have never done.  

Recently, members of a library association thought it would be better to remove the name of the beloved children's author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, from one of the prestigious awards that they give each year.  Their reasoning was that in some of her books, Laura writes with racist overtones in reference to people who are different from her.  Several of my parents and friends messaged me yesterday with links to the story.  They know how much I have enjoyed reading Laura's books to my classes each year.  Since 1979, I have shared each of her books with kids in Kansas, Colorado, Texas, and now Oklahoma.  I have always said that Laura's writings were the "meat and potatoes" of children's literature and I always wanted my students to get the benefit of reading her books.  When I first saw the story links for the recent decision to remove her name from the award, I couldn't believe it and my first thought was this.

That's ridiculous.

In my experience as a teacher, I can tell you that children everywhere love Laura.  Children of all backgrounds, races, economic classes, from all across America and around the world have been enthralled by her stories of life on the prairie.  Never once as I read those books, all 8 of the original ones, did I feel like I was sharing anything bad with children.  I would be the first to admit that there were tiny parts in one of the books that I knew kids might not understand, but those parts provided the fodder for conversation between teacher and child, and ended up being a valuable life lesson in the making.  

Laura's writings provide wonderful character education lessons and have done so for well over 85 years now.  Her memories help to teach lessons of courage, determination, fortitude, faith, family values, hard work, adventuresome spirit, teamwork, and most importantly telling the truth.  That is what I feel I am doing today by writing this blogpost.

I'm telling you the truth of how I feel about what in my heart looks like an injustice to Laura's memory.  

As a teacher, I have only so many precious and quite fleeting moments with children each day.  I have to choose wisely what I spend my time on because once that time is finished, I cannot call it back.  I love to read to children and promote what I feel is very wholesome literature.  I will stand by my conviction and continue to use Laura's books this year in my classroom.

On a personal note, one of the reasons I love the Little House series is because her words take us back to a time that was much simpler.  That's a welcome respite for those of us who live in the fast paced and technologically advanced world that we are a part of in 2018.  For 20 minutes each day, I can take my students back in time to that world and let them see how things were before everything was plugged in.  I can show them how a pioneer family had to work together in very meager circumstances in order to thrive and equally more important, to survive.

Although I cannot change the ruling which removes her name from the award that is given, I can sing her praises in this post and in the future as I promote her books to a new class of students.  You know, I was a little nervous about writing these words at first.  Like I said, I steer far, far away from controversy.  But now that I have finished, I'm glad that I did.  I choose to stand for many different things in this world.

Today I stand for Laura. 

~back at the original site in southeastern Kansas where the Ingalls family lived for not quite 2 years, Little House on the Prairie~  Springtime of 2018

~walking forward in faith to find it~

I spent the greater part of the day doing a task that was long overdue.  A huge storage container, one that moved from Kansas to Colorado and then onto the plains of Texas with me, has sat in the corner of the closet in the spare bedroom just waiting for me to go through it.  It's been one of those out of sight/out of mind possessions of mine and this morning I thought it was as good a time as any to go through it and decide what, if anything, I really wanted to keep.

We have lived in this house for well over 2 years now.
It was about time.

When I took the lid off this morning, I wasn't sure what I would come across inside.  I do recall the day back in Hutchinson when I was trying desperately to get the last of my things packed and moved to Montrose.  I came across the contents of the tub in my bedroom back there in the house on East 14th Street.  I knew that I really shouldn't keep it all, but I didn't have the heart to throw it away that day.  So I did the only thing I knew to do when faced with little time left.

I just put the lid back on and took it with me.
In 5 years' time, I'm not sure I ever really opened it, let alone went through it.

As I dug through the layers of stuff inside, plenty of memories came back to greet me.  Pictures, letters, cards, newspaper clippings, obituary announcements, and a variety of trinkets that really had no other place to go could be found nestled deep inside.  Little by little, I took everything out and sorted through it, stopping to read the messages that had been left over the course of the last 40 years or so.  I couldn't believe all the things that I had deemed important enough to keep, and much of it really had far outlived its usefulness.  The kitchen trash can had to be emptied 3 times before I finished but at last I was done.

As I was getting ready to put the lid back on the storage container, I happened to notice an envelope on my desk that hadn't been taken care of.  As I reached for it, I caught sight of the return address written in a scrawl I recognized as my very own.  Reading the words that I had written was a sweet memory of a young girl from "the land of long ago, and far, far away."

It's been a long time, as a matter of fact 42 years of a long time, since I was called "Miss Peggy Scott".  To see my name there, a reminder of who I was before I got married and started out on my own was kind of strange feeling.  For the life of me, I cannot tell you why.  It just seemed strange, that's all.  The return address of Rt. 1-Haven, KS  67543 reflects where home always was.  Our family lived on a country road just south of town in an old 2-story farmhouse that only 3 weeks after I got married in 1976, burned to the ground.   It was a great house to live in all during my high school and college years.  My bedroom was upstairs and faced back to the north.  In the late evening hours of the summertime, I'd lay in bed at night and listen to a portable radio that always brought in KOMA out of Oklahoma City or WLS out of Chicago nice and clear.  The songs of the '70's played into the wee hours of the morning but my mom and dad never cared about the noise.  My folks were just that way.  Oklahoma City was a good 4 hour drive from home in south central Kansas but with the radio on, it was as if I was right  there. I'd imagine what it would be like to actually go to places like that when I was older, and I dreamed about what life would be like in my future.

Little did I know the places it would take me.

I found a picture earlier this morning as well, one that I'd forgotten having, that was actually my senior picture in high school.  45 years have gone by since I posed for that photograph over in a portrait studio in Buhler, Kansas and the young girl that I used to be looks so much different than the 62-year old woman I am today. 

The 17-year old girl that I used to be was quiet and kind of shy, with waist length long brown hair that was perpetually parted right down the middle.  My blue eyes were set in a gaze somewhere across the room.  I'm not sure why I wasn't smiling for the picture.  Perhaps it was one of the somber and serious pose moments.  There were no wardrobe changes or your own choice of different backdrops or props like is the practice of today.  You just walked in, hoped your hair looked decent, and the photographer took your photo.  There wasn't any need for me to check my make-up, because I never wore it then nor do I today.  Long ago, my dad told me something that ended up saving me a whole lot of time and whole lot of money.  To this day, I remember his fatherly admonition and thank him for telling me.

"Peggy Ann, you are pretty enough without putting that makeup stuff on.  You don't even need to wear it."  And since my father said it, I believed him.

Finding the picture and my name in the return address on the back of an old envelope took me way back in time.  That young girl who would not get married for 3 1/2 years after high school was completed, had an interesting life ahead, but she had no idea of where it was taking her.  At that time,  I couldn't have imagined being a mature woman who was nearly 63 years old.  I'm sure that back then I would have likened my current age to "wow, that's old."  

From a farmhouse on an old Reno County country road to a home along the Red River in northern Texas, I have to say it's been a great life.  I'm closer to the end than to the beginning these days, but that's not a concern.  The future is still ahead of me and I walk forward in faith each day to find it.  

~for when the time comes for a change~

It's the early morning hours here along the Red River, and save for the whirring of the fan in the living room there is not a sound to be heard except for the clicking of the computer keys as I write these words.  Used to be that Sally the Dog would wake up when I did, doing her best to coincide her early morning bathroom break with mine.  I'd take care of my own business while Sally took care of hers.  By the back door I would wait for her until I saw her coming to greet me.  She'd wait patiently for her treat by the washer and after she got it, would promptly head back to the floor by Mike's side of the bed and return to sleep.

We lost little Sally several weeks back now to the effects of old age.

Life changed around here.

There has been so much change for me in the last 5 years since Mike and I got married in May of 2013.  At first the differences were pretty unsettling and ones that I wasn't sure I could get through.  For a Kansas girl to be ripped by the roots from the prairie of the Sunflower State and transplanted into the mountains of southwestern Colorado was quite a shock.  Homesickness and extreme loneliness nearly got to me and many days I wondered what on earth I had done by leaving my home of well over 50 years.  I liken my first 4 months there to the way my geraniums look when I transplant them into new containers during the 100 degree  heat of a midsummer's day.

Wilted.

But that changed too.

I grew to love my 2 year's time in the mountains and a new life with Mike.  It took a community called Olathe, Colorado to save me, but they did just that.  My teaching position for two years in that rural town just 10 miles north or so of our home in Montrose was the very best thing for me.  It was great medicine for my lonely spirit, and as long as I live I will remember them for that.  When the time came to leave in May of 2015 for a new life here along the plains of Texas, it was with sadness that I bid a farewell to them.  One thing I have learned from the experience was this.

God puts people where He needs them to be.  Those two years were my time to teach there, and the relationships that were made were done so for a purpose.  There was a reason for it all.

And so now here we are in northern Texas, only 5 hours south of the place where it all started for me so very long ago now.  Change has followed us here as well.  People that we have loved with all of our hearts are now gone, folks who were some of the very reasons that we chose to move to this part of the world to begin with.  As for me, I have taught for 3 different school districts since we arrived here 3 years ago.  Although I was able to teach many children and grow to know and love their families at Petrolia, Texas and Randlett, Oklahoma, those two schools were not the ones that God intended for me to remain at.  Once a very good friend of mine told me something that I won't forget.  Her words actually explain how I was feeling about the constant moving of classrooms for 3 years' time.

"Peggy, it's like God intends to use you in a whole lot of places.  He sees where the need is and sends you there.  You might only be needed for a year and then He will send you on to the next place."

And actually I have grown to believe that is just the case.

I have written about change many times over the course of this blog's inception back in May of 2011.  Today in this the 1,218th post that I have made, I write of it once again.  You know, I don't think I ever really considered all that much before now just how much life has to change in order to get to where you are going before your time on earth comes to its completion.  Always before, I just kind of went along for the ride.  Now in the summer before my 63rd year, it looks me square in the eyes and reminds me every day that I'm not in charge of things.  

Thankfully, someone much wiser and way more omnipotent than I will ever pretend to be takes care of that.  Nothing is a random act of this crazy universe we live in.  It's all planned out, and when we take the time to open our eyes and hearts to see it, life gets a whole lot easier.

It's very heartwarming to realize how people are put into your lives at just the right moments of time, folks just like our dear friends LeRoy and Anne.  I took care of Anne's mother when I was working as a CNA back in Kansas.  They became my friends and it was LeRoy who walked me down the aisle and gave me away when Mike and I were married in 2013.  They are such good people, ones who have saved us from ourselves at least once since then.  

Back in Montrose, we used to take daily walks near our home just outside of the city limits.  Once when we were walking, Mike made friends with this beautiful horse who acted like he was going to just come on home with us.  Mike has a gentle spirit and is good with people and animals alike.  The last 5 years since we were married have been fraught with change, both good and bad.  We have made it through some tough times because of one thing we promised each other to do.

We stick together.

These dear children called me "teacher" last year at Grandfield and even though I will sorely miss them, it was the time for them to go on to 3rd grade in just a couple of months more.  Change is inevitable but I'm grateful, truly so, that I get to return there for this upcoming school year.  I believe it is where I was destined to be.  

~as we remember to be thankful~

We live in the "land of plenty".  As a matter of fact, most days I think that Mike and I live in the land of more than a plenty.  Recent stories and happenings at the southern border of our country make me realize more than ever that I should give thanks for everything I have and even more importantly~

Give thanks for what I have not.

As a teacher for the past hundred years, (ok, ok really only 40), I've tried to teach children in the best way I knew how to be grateful for the things they were given each day.  Mike and I buy snacks for the kids to enjoy at school because there is no way to fill up a child's mind with knowledge when their belly is sitting at "E".  But before those snacks even leave my hand, I expect surely to hear the words please and thank-you.  It's a given.  I've encouraged the kids as they go through the breakfast or lunch line at school, to remember to acknowledge to the kitchen staff led by Miss Bernita, their gratitude for a meal.  By the way, that's all the time and not just when it's their favorite menu.  One of the ways I like to teach the polite act of using good manners, utilized when I don't happen to hear a child say "thanks",  can be taught when a child needs a pencil sharpened, a shoe tied, a new piece of paper to start over on, or any one of the thousands of requests a teacher might hear during a school year begins like this.

"Ok, there you go!  That will be $12.79 or a ........."
And they always reply with gratitude.  They get in the habit and it comes naturally.

Once, and I just love to remember this moment and the expression on a sweet unsuspecting child's face, I helped one of the kids in another class open up something on their lunch tray.  When I had finished, I looked at them and said......

"There you go sir!  It's open now.  That will be $5.00 please."
That poor little kid looked at me with such a shocked expression on his face.  He wasn't sure what I meant or what to think.

"But Mrs. Renfro I don't have $5." he said back to me.
One of my own students who happened to be sitting near by gave him a gentle nudge, and with the cutest little grin, whispered something in his ear.

"Oh....  thank you!", he said back to me with a smile on his face.
Sometimes, well probably better stated many times, all of us take things for granted.  I stand as the line leader in this matter more often than I ever would like to admit.  This upcoming school year, my plan is to lead my children in many discussions of what we should be grateful for during the school day.  A guy doesn't really think of it all that often, but it does come to mind when all of a sudden it's no longer there.  A good drink at the water fountain, restrooms that work every time you need them, library books that can be checked out and taken home, a school building that is kept neat and clean like ours at Grandfield is because of Miss Mary, a principal like our own Mr. Longoria who is a fine role model and exemplary leader, bus drivers who get us safely back and forth each day like Miss Lucy, lights that come on at the flip of a switch, teachers and support staff who genuinely care about kids, and a gazillion other things are those which I intend to talk about with my students.  Fodder for the acquiring of life lessons, my favorite of all to share with children, is rich and ready for the teaching on one of the most important subjects of them all.

~giving thanks~

From 2011~summer school back home in Kansas and spending time doing the job that I love so very much.  I'm thankful to be a teacher.

~and it had everything to do with lemon drops~

Miss Irene Thompson was my second grade teacher back when I was just a little 7-year old girl attending a small rural school in Burrton, Kansas.  I know that she was a great teacher and that I must have learned many things from her but to this day, now 57 years later, my fondest memory of her had nothing to do with academics.

It had everything to do with lemon drops.

Miss Thompson was what we referred to back then as an old maid school teacher.  Once we kids asked her, and I remember it pretty plainly because only two years prior we foolishly asked our kindergarten teacher the very same thing, a question that was pretty blunt and to the point.

"How come it is that you aren't married and don't have any kids Miss Thompson?"
And in a sweet voice, she replied back with the very same answer that Miss Josephine Marmont had told us as kindergarteners.  

"But I do have children.  All of you are my children."
So, ok then.  
We were her children.  
End of questions.

Miss Thompson's old wooden teacher desk was always kept at the front of the room, and to the best of my memory it never moved from that spot all year long.  I know it wasn't bolted into the floor but you would have thought so because it never changed locations.  In the bottom drawer on the left hand side, she always kept a cellophane bag full of lemon drops.  When kids got to coughing during cold and flu season, Miss Thompson would slowly pull the drawer open and reach inside to retrieve one for whatever kid was ailing.  Those sweet yellow candies coated with sugar, also came in handy when a kid did well on a spelling test or was missing their momma and wanted to go home.  Our teacher knew full well the enticing power of a piece of hard candy to the little kids we all were back then.

One of many things you could say about Miss Thompson was this.
She was very smart.

I've been a teacher for 4 decades now and had the chance to see hundreds of kids come in and out of my classroom.  For some reason today, I've been wondering something.  I wonder what it is that kids will have remembered about me in the years to come when they no longer are young.  When they sit back in the summer of their 63rd year, what will they remember most about a teacher named Mrs. Renfro?

I hope that they remember first of all the most important thing that I wanted them to know.
Their teacher loved them.

                              For all the teachers who loved a little girl like me, thank you!  

~and that was what the planting was all about~

The scraggly green plants had little to show for their more than two months' growth.  Certainly when I pulled up the first plant from the straw bale it had been growing in and found little more than a mushy mess instead of a clump of new potatoes, the inevitable seemed to have happened.  Plant after plant told the same sad story.  Our venture into straw bale gardening had come up short.  Really short.  Months of watering, watching, and waiting for a bumper crop of potatoes had not worked out.  We tried, but in the end one thing was for sure.

It was our successful failure.

Back in the early days of March, Mike lost his job as the manager of the local hardware store here in town.  The day that the door closed for the last time and the store went out of business was the beginning of a different pathway in life for us.  To go from having two paychecks coming in each month to a time of learning to get by on only one, was a brand new experience for us.  Immediately Mike filed unemployment papers, started the online job search, went to interviews for possible positions, and waited.  For well over 5 weeks, there was no prospect really in sight and it was unnervingly scary to be sure.

In between looking for work and refiguring our life here along the Red River, we both took to the backyard to make some improvements we'd been planning on all along as well as get our garden going for the spring.  Last year Mike had made a series of raised garden beds, all from scrap material that he had accumulated throughout our time here.  The only thing that was lacking was good soil in order to fill the bed up to a reasonable level.  All along we had figured to spend the $500 or more that it would take to finish adding enough soil to get the planting started.  That was before Mike lost his job and now we were faced with the prospect of limited funds for the unforeseen future.

We made the decision to go ahead and get a single load of soil and build up one corridor of the garden area.  It was disappointing, really disheartening to think that our plans would have to be altered in such a way.  We had been talking about getting enough soil all winter long and I found myself dreaming of how wonderful the garden would turn out this year.  I remember kind of moping around out there, wondering what on earth could we do to make it work out.  For a moment, I felt like just giving up, and then came the idea of using straw bales to grow things in.

Mike had picked up 20 nice bales this past fall over in Haynesville and brought them home to be used as part of the layers in the garden.  They were arranged neatly in one of the corridors just waiting to be utilized this summer.  I remembered seeing that someone had used that kind of technique before, this growing things in straw bales, and had great luck.  I began to think.

Why not us?

Couldn't we give it a try?

And so we did.

With about $10 worth of seed potatoes, Mike and I set out to try and plant them in the straw bales.  It worked out great with 9 bales and 3 plants inside each one.  As we placed them in, my sullen disposition began to lift.  No longer was I fretting and worrying about whether or not we'd make it until Mike got a job.  Instead, I felt like we were taking control of the situation and not letting it control us.  I was happy and as I patted some earth around the last one, I felt such satisfaction in knowing that there is always more than one way to do something.

Even if there's not much money to go around.

In April, Mike found a new job and went to work immediately.  We took turns each evening keeping the straw bales moist and hoped that the potatoes would do what potatoes are supposed to do.  A couple of days before the hailstorm in late May, I noticed that they were beginning to bloom.  When the first hailstorm of the season hit later on in the week, most of the plants were mowed off by the wind projected ice pieces.  They never really came back from it.  

At first I felt like maybe this had all been for nothing.  We'd spent more than our fair share of time out there as we tried to nurture little Yukon Gold potatoes to sprout and to grow.  Water came down from Heaven and out of the garden hose spout.  Weeks and weeks went by.  

Nothing happened.

I began to realize something this morning as I walked out into the garden to see how everything else was doing.  I walked past those straw bales and in my heart I got a message and the message went something like this.

"God must have known we would not need a bushel of Yukon Golds in late June near as much as we needed hope that everything would work out ok in mid March.  That's what the planting was all about anyways.  We just had to wait a while before we saw it."

For the record, we made it just fine.

Thanks be to God.

In May of 2015, Mike and I took out from our old home in southwestern Colorado, climbed over the big mountain, and came down upon the plains of northern Texas.  We had no jobs and no home to live in.  We had no earthly clue of what the future would hold for us here along the Red River.  The past 3 years have brought some sad moments as well as many wonderful times.  We vowed to stick together, no matter what and that's our plan still.

   

~to be missed and still remembered~

Come tomorrow it will be a year now that Sherry left us, and this morning as I sit and reflect over all the changes that have happened since then, one thing remains for certain.  She is missed and still remembered.

A year ago today, I was over in Altus checking in on her at the hospice care area of the local rehab center.  I remember that it was the last time her eyes were ever really fixed on me and she acted as though she knew who I was.  I looked down at her, my big sister, and told her with tear filled eyes something I'd said many times in the months prior to her death.

"I love you."

And Sherry looked up at me with a half-smile on her face and mouthed back the words that she too had said so many times, not only to me but to countless others that she cared about.

"Love you more."
Sherry's eyes never met mine after that.  Often during that morning that I was there with her,  I would hold her hand and feel like maybe she was actually aware that someone was there with her.  Towards the end of the day though, I could tell that her grip was loosening up and was sure that the time would soon be at hand.

By the late evening hours of June 16th I received a call from my brother-in-law Wes who told me that she was gone.  You know, I didn't cry.  Instead, I rejoiced that the Lord had seen fit to just take her home once again.  No more COPD.  No more CHF.  No more breathing issues.  No more medicine.  No more bouts of anxiety and despair.  No more hurting.

No more.

The days that followed her passing on June 16, 2017 were ones fraught with uncertainty and loss.  Mike and I tried to be sure and check in on Wes as often as we could throughout the week. We knew that he would be lonely and lost after living with my sister for well over 40 years.  I prepared to go to school for the first time in 4 decades without her there to lend an ear when I needed someone to listen to me about how I could better do things in my classroom.  Summer passed and autumn came, followed swiftly by winter.  By late January of this year, Wes too had died and the feeling of profound loss never really went away.  Although it was quite a shock to lose them both so close together, in a way it almost seemed fitting.  

They were two hearts who had been together for so long.

We buried my sister on the Kansas prairie and honored Wes's wishes to be buried at the Ft. Sill National Cemetery.  One thing I am sure of, regardless of the fact of where their earthly remains shall lie in peace, is this.

They are together in Heaven now.

Tomorrow on the first anniversary of her death,  I refuse to sit around and be sad.  I am instead choosing to be happy.  I'm going to do things that are good for me, things that are fun and up lifting.  I'm not sure what that entails exactly but I figure I will soon find out.  I knew my sister for a long time, more than 60 years of a long time to be exact.  I know what she would want for me and for all others who loved her beyond compare.  It would be her desire and I'm sure Wes's too, that the living go on doing just that.

Living.