Song Stories, Quiet Stories

Hello! And welcome! You’re listening to Song Stories, Quiet Stories podcast episode 23, Earth Mom. I’m your long lost host, Carolyn Murset. 

Today is Blue Can Recycling Day in my little town in southwest Utah.  I look forward to this every other Thursday morning event that  began here just a few years ago, so much that I wonder why I haven’t had my picture taken beside that royal blue  43 inch high polyethylene hinged bin. Wouldn’t it be cool if it were made from recycled materials?

My environmentally conscious, almost tree-hugging inclination began with a fire. In 1969, the Taos New Mexico Plaza Movie Theatre caught fire.

This was the place where on Saturday afternoons, my dad would drop me and a sibling or two off at the southwest corner of  Taos Plaza, the town square, with enough money to buy a movie ticket to watch scary movies  and to share a bag of popcorn. 

This is where we watched Edgar Allen Poe’s the Raven, starring Vincent Price and Boris Karloff,  and the Pit and the Pendulum, also starring Vincent Price. Some of my adult issues could be explained by my watching these terrifying classics as an impressionable child. 

Anyway. Because of that Thanksgiving Day fire, we Taosenos were deprived of a movie theater experience, unless we drove to Santa Fe or even Albuquerque, but our family only drove there to buy supplies for my dad’s plumbing and heating business.

So my ambitious dad’s solution, as the  leader of our local church congregation, was to rent old films and turn our chapel’s cultural hall into a Friday night theater. I’m assuming my dad was the leader then because during his lifetime, he had the responsibility of leading our congregation five different times, either as Branch President, or as Bishop. We’re Mormons, members of the Cgurch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Customarily in the early days of going to the movies, before the featured film began, the audience first watched a short film or a cartoon.

During World War 2, the short film was a newsreel to keep the audience up to date on the events of the war. Watching the world events unfold as moving images provided a more reel experience (yeah, that was a pun) than reading about them in the newspaper or listening to them on the radio. Not everyone had a radio, or had access to a newspaper back then.

I was a young teen when I attended the church hall movie theater, which had the best concession stand. People attending brought homemade treats for the bake sale to pay for the movie rental?  and I still remember Mrs. Labrum’s double decker fudge.Sigh.

Again and anyway, my dad also rented short films to project onto the church hall movie screen that hung from the ceiling above the stage, until you somehow grabbed that metal loop and pulled it down.

  One film that made such an impression on my 13 year old mind was  of a family (who  were actors trying to prove a point, and with me, they did.) living at an urban landfill. Their home had walls, and window openings but no roof. They lived among the piles and piles of trash.

That impression of the disturbing images didn’t translate into action until a decade later when I was married and a young mother.

My first effort was waddling with my good sport of a husband to a fabric store on Center Street, Provo, Utah (and there were three of those stores, just on that street) to buy diaper flannel. Once home, we folded and zig zagged the edges of the fabric and made an impressive stack of diapers, that we’d later fold into kite shape before placing our clean bottomed baby on top. Then with two large diaper safety pins, we’d fasten the diaper snuggly around our baby’s bottom, and then cover the diaper with vinyl diaper covering with elasticized leg openings and waist, and hope the diaper would stay dry longer that a few minutes.

Disposable diapers were a new invention in 1979, when our first child was born, and they had no elastic around the legs and  waist. They were folded, and you still had to place those vinyl coverings over the diaper. They were so ineffective that we only used them when travelling. It was out of the question to bring the diaper pail. In that pail,  that we kept next to the changing table, we placed the wet diapers and the other diapers that weren’t only wet in. We had to wear rubber gloves and preclean them in the toilet before placing them in the diaper pail that had water with Dreft safe for babies detergent sprinkled inside. So disposable diapers served a limited purpose when they first came into being.

Parenting and diapering babies wasn’t for the faint hearted.

Design improvements over the years made disposable diapers more effective, but I couldn’t bring myself to use them. Because of that movie. 

And how truly disposable are disposable diapers? Would that hopefully fictitious family choose to live in a dump full of dirty diapers? No…..

I eventually caved in 1995 when my last baby developed an allergic  reaction to any detergent I washed her newly, handmade by myself prefolded diapers with velcro closure in.  The  extra water I had to use to  wash the same batch of diapers more than once didn’t make sense to me environmentally or mentally. Even though I sold my one and only Martin guitar to buy a Bernina sewing machine, just so I could be Earth Mom and sew those fancy diapers.

A few years before that I was in the clothing department at Walmart when I saw a sign attached to one of those metal support beam poles in the store advertising a contest sponsored by Woman’s Day Magazine. Underneath the sign was a pad of contest entries. I tore an entry off of the pad, took it home and in “Fifty words or less”, I mentioned things our family was doing to save the environment.

We recycled our newspapers. My husband, with permission, gathered discarded bicycle parts from the neighbors and put together two bicycles for our sons, who then spray painted them to look like new. I mentioned the cloth diapers, and maybe our house full of only used furniture.

I didn’t mention that we held yard sales frequently, allowing others to use clothing and toys and other things that we no longer needed. We owned a door and window shop and often had odds and ends that people could use.

One hectic day, I was down in our basement gathering things to sell at our upcoming yardsale. I’d forgotten that I’d left something cooking on the kitchen stove.  All of a sudden, the smoke alarm went off, only because our kitchen was now full of smoke. I opened the front door to let the smoke escape, forgetting that our new puppy was in heat. (We’d just had her spayed, but she still carried that special scent that the  neighbor dog caught a whiff of, and ran through the door, chasing our dog up the stairs and following her under our queen bed.)

I angrily grabbed a broom and with the handle, humanely coaxed that male dog out from under the bed, down the stairs, and out the front door, which I’d now closed.

Just then, the phone on the kitchen wall rang. I answered to, “Congratulations! You’re the winner of the Woman’s Day Environmental Contest and the the recipient of a $200 Gitano clothing gift card.” 

So the next day, the kids and I went clothes shopping. At Walmart. All because I watched that film. $200 went a long way back in 1990. 

It’s been a while since I’ve held a yard sale. Could be because we’ve furnished the two vacation rentals in our enormous home with our previously enjoyed furniture. 

I confess to having bought and drunk water from a plastic bottle. I balance it out by wearing t-shirts made from recycled water bottles.

We long ago installed water-restrictive shower heads in all of our showers, I balance that out by enjoying a free flowing shower head while traveling and staying in hotels that haven’t bothered to do that yet.

I fill that blue bin every two weeks with recyclables, but was too lazy last night to  wash off the aluminum foil I wrapped the tilapia and vegetables in, and threw it in the trash!  But that box of foil has been in that kitchen drawer for years because I rarely use it.

I reuse ziploc bags so many times until they become holey with a capital H. 

I wear a handmade apron while at home every day to keep my clothes clean, and so that I don’t have to wash them as often, thus saving electricity to run the washer and dryer, and thus saving water, and preventing my natural Seventh Generation detergent from entering our sewer system. I balance that out by buying more fabric than I could possibly ever use, even though I make a lot of apron gifts with it.

Now, don’t argue with me by saying that the contents of those blue bins on our curbside aren’t always recycled. The number of locations that are willing to handle our plastic, cardboard, paper and glass are dwindling, so the rumors may be occasionally true, but I’m willing to pay for the curbside service for the times that rumor isn’t true.

That doesn’t mean we can’t change our behavior (I have a hard time with double negatives and don’t know if I said that correctly.)

When your ziploc bags die after reusing them a zillionth time, try those trendy silicone zipper bags that will last forever. Until you yard sale them.

Before I leave, here’s a new song that my kids may very well have sung to me while they still lived at home. Poor things.

Come back next time and learn some facts about the Statue of Liberty. Until then, since we’re experiencing a severe drought, wear an apron to keep your clothes clean longer, take quick showers, and observe fire safety regulations. They’re stricter now.

Thanks for listening. I’m your host, Carolyn Murset.

Hello, and welcome! You’re listening to Song Stories, Quiet Stories episode 22,  Remember 2020? I’m your host, Carolyn Murset. It’s been a while since my last visit here, in April. The new isolated lock down quarantine period here and throughout most  of the world had been going on for a little over a month  then, and was already feeling old to most of us.

Here in the southwestern part of the United States, excluding the west coast, Covid-19 cases weren’t as high in number as they were on the east coast, and in California.

Nevertheless, most of us chose to follow the safety guidelines. At my last visit here, I made a plea for help with the local homeless teen population. Thank you for your support. My grandson completed his Eagle Scout Project of gathering supplies for hygiene kits for fifty teenage girls and boys, and donated them to Youth Futures. He was even featured on the local TV news station.

Wouldn’t you know it, that after I’d been coordinating a local face mask group of 19 sewers, then sewing 25 sets of pajamas for the homeless shelter, I caught the virus! I had let me guard down once as I volunteered at a venue that wasn’t as safety conscious as they’d claimed and ended up in bed for several weeks.  I was wearing a face covering and gloves when I caught it, but the others that I had to come into contact with throughout the night were not.  They were either pre symptomatic or asymptomatic.

Oh well, I feel much better now, and am grateful I didn’t need hospitalization. I’m grateful my husband didn’t contract the virus, and I’m grateful for the showing of love from family and friends.

As a good friend of mine and her husband  currently have COVID-19, with her being in the ICU at the local hospital, it amazes me that people equate being considerate of others as living in fear. I acknowledge that we are entitled to our own opinion about the matter, but do not believe we are entitled to endanger other people’s lives because we don’t want to be inconvenienced. 

It is sad that because of the high case numbers that precautions have to be taken, which often result in isolation, separation, loneliness and not being able to observe the upcoming holiday traditions as we’ve been accustomed to and as we want to.

To me, we can find new ways to celebrate. On social media, I’ve seen many sharing photos of their Christmas decorations already in place. Candy canes appeared on my neighbor’s front lawn last week. 2020 has been an armpit year for me in many ways. It’s been hard on family economics and relationships, and I lost a dear aunt in January. A dear friend’s health took a downward spiral early in the year and our  visits were replaced with phone calls. The last time I saw this friend and his wife in person was March 1st. He passed away in August.

I had also begun the year in rehearsal of a local musical with a theatre company I hadn’t yet worked with. Rehearsals came to a screeching halt when the world shut down mid March, which is when I then saw the need to help sew face masks to be sent around the country, because at that point, they weren’t being sold in retail outlets.  I credit Nurse Mendy Stucki for enlisting my help. She lives thirty five minutes away and had her husband and sister in law deliver cut out face masks.  

After I’d agreed to help her, the first stack of cut out rectangles was over seven inches tall.  That is when I knew I couldn’t do it myself, so I pleaded for help on social media, and 19 of my friends got involved.  It was exhilarating and exhausting compiling kits and leaving them and then collecting them on the porches of my seamstress friends.

After five weeks of doing this, I chose to help with the homeless teen project.  My neighbor who has an online boutique not only donated items for the hygiene kits but also let me buy some of her fabric for the pajamas at a very deep discount.  As I’d made most of my clothes as a teen, and most of my five kid’s clothing and pajamas until they told me not to, I wasn’t afraid of taking on that project.

I’m not good at pacing myself.  I forget to eat. I don’t know how to sleep. At the time I’d let my guard down volunteering for that other event, I’d made myself susceptible, and my case of COVID-19 lasted longer than most other cases I’ve known of.   I’ve  become what is now termed, a Long Hauler. Those of you who think this is a made up pandemic, I wish you could read the posts of the two Facebook groups for surviving long haulers.  I was the recipient of skeptical and critical and ridiculing remarks while sick in bed for so long, so  I chose to join the two support groups to offer validation, love, encouragement and support. 

I forced myself out of bed a couple of minutes a day to sew a wall hanging with fabric scraps from the facemasks. I sewed a cloth doll and dressed her in a skirt, a sash and crown (because Corona means Crown in Spanish.) I stuffed her with the scraps that were too small for anything else. I named her, la Caldera and fashioned her salt and pepper hair to spew out of the top of her head, representing a volcanic eruption. I was very angry lying there in bed for weeks, and these creations were my therapy. My daughter and friend sent me Survivor pins that are just the right size for la Caldera.

Hello, and welcome! You’re listening to Song Stories, Quiet Stories, episode 21, Homeless Teens in Crisis. I am your host, Carolyn Murset.

Who would’ve thought as 2019 drew to a close that in a few short months our world as we knew it then would  be turned upside down and almost unrecognizable. Not unrecognizable due to a natural geological or weather related disaster, but unfamiliar due to public buildings, places of worship, national and city parks, schools, and higher institutions of learning  being closed to the public.

Unfamiliar with new phrases such as Social Distancing, COVID-19, Stay Home, Stay Safe, CDC, PPE, Wash Your Hands, Don’t Touch Your Face being spoken and heard several times a day.  We now know the difference between a surgical mask and an N95 mask. Having a televised news conference every afternoon from our nation’s capitol and our state capitol. Unemployment rates are skyrocketing. Stock market trading, plummeting

As the daily squares on my over-scheduled dry erase calendar, became empty and I began to sigh with the relief of fewer commitments and obligations to fulfill, I became aware of ways to help the mounting numbers of victims of the Corona Virus and the healthcare workers on the front lines striving to save the lives of the patients while trying to preserve their own good health.

Little did I know that my days and nights would be filled managing a local group of 17 volunteer seamstresses sewing face mask covers to be sent through one of many .org and .com groups to locations around the country low on supplies but high on serving those in need. My hands ache from feeding several layers of pleated fabric through my not as powerful as I’d like sewing machine.

Little did I know that people would be thanking me for giving them an opportunity to serve. I’m not a lifesaver. Through  sewingforlives.com I may be a life helper. Watching others’ willingness to help, even by using their own fabric, and elastic has brightened my days and helped to lift my anxiety.

Watching the news mention the plight of the homeless during this pandemic reminded me of my grandson’s Eagle Scout project of providing 50 care kits for homeless teens in our southern Utah communities. 

I asked Nathan how he came to know about these teens in our area. He told me that when he was working on the Citizenship in the Community Merit Badge, he was required to interview a government official. His friend’s father, Utah State Representative Walt Brooks talked with Nathan about problems in the community, and one of the problems was homelessness, and homelessness in teens. 

We live near St. George, a red hilled desert community with moderate winters and scorching summer weather. Population is 85,000, and with the surrounding smaller communities, you could say a little over 100,000 call this winter snowbird haven their home.

When my grandson Nathan told me a few months ago that his approved Eagle Scout project was to gather 50 care and hygiene kits that include pajamas, underwear, socks, a comfort blanket, food and self-care items, I cried, especially when he told me there were 1,000 homeless teens in the area! 1,000. I had no idea.

Nathan with much needed help, especially with the sinking economy during this COVID-19 pandemic crisis, will donate these 50 care kits to 

Youth Futures which provides safe shelter, collaborative resources, respectful guidance and diverse support to homeless, unaccompanied, runaway and at-risk youth in Northern and Southern Utah.

I invited Nathan to tell you a little about his project.  That Eagle Scout project email address again is, [email protected]. Go there with any questions you may have.

He initially set up an online Sign-up Genius account in which people could choose and sign up for items they wish to donate. Now that folks are staying home and away from stores as long as possible we thought it might be easier to receive monetary donations help, so that Nathan can buy the needed items online and fill the kits by the end of May.

Would you like to help? There are two ways you can donate: paypal.me/carolynmurset or venmo.com/carolyn-murset.  I will collect the money and get it to him. Really. I’m honest. I am his grandma. You can also find those links at my website, mycarolynmurset.com. Many thanks to those of you who have already made contributions. My neighbors at shopwithrnb.com, an online boutique that has daily live sales via Facebook, have made a generous donation. Check out their website or their facebook page and become one of their 17,000 followers.

I sang with a local gospel choir for seven years. A few years ago we brought dinner and music to the homeless shelter for families. It was such a moving experience, and I’m grateful we made another musical visit. With food. We both live a Sheltered Life. (Play a Sheltered Life.)

When I wrote the song you just listened to, the policy of the homeless shelter for families was that they were allowed to stay at the facility for thirty days, while they attended training to help them re-enter the job market.

Nathan’s dad was our first baby. A few months after he was born our young family found ourselves in between residences for a few weeks. You could hardly call that being homeless, as all we had to do was drive twelve hours to New Mexico and stay with my parents until the eighty year old home we were buying was ready to move into.

About a decade later, my husband and I had four children, and became aware through members of our church congregation, of a lady who was new to the area living in her car with her cat. I agreed to take them in with us, as we had a spare bedroom.

When I was a kid, my compassionate parents set the tone for me, when through my childhood and teen  years, we had four different women living with us. (One at a time.) These women ranged in age from mid twenties to our eighty year old adopted “Grandma Schaffer”.

Even before that time, when my parents and siblings relocated from California to Taos, New Mexico, we lived with my maternal grandparents, Juan Manuel and Domitila Trujillo. My ambitious dad converted their chicken coop into his plumbing and heating office, then remodelled a house for us to move into. I don’t know where the chickens went. Now that I think about it, I don’t want to know. 

At the end of Grandma Tila’s life, six years later, she spent her last few months in our home.

It’s handy to have family nearby, to help when help is needed, if you get along with one another and are compatible. That isn’t always the reality for these local teens, so that there is a local refuge for them is a God-send. Especially during this time of pandemic crisis. Our local facility, for privacy concerns, couldn’t give me an actual number of teens staying there. But they are there.

Any help you could possible give to this project would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks to those of you who already have.

Stay home. Stay safe. Write about how your life has changed since the beginning of March, or whenever it was that your world began shutting down.  Do you know anyone who has caught the virus? Pray for them. Do you know anyone working on the front lines or behind the scenes saving lives, or to puting groceries back on our shelves? Pray for them. Do you know of anyone who isn’t taking necessary precautions to keep themselves or others safe? Pray for them.

I’ll be back, hopefully soon. Until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for contributing. Subscribe to this podcast at mycarolynmurset.com or with your smartphone app and you won’t miss an episode. I am your host, Carolyn Murset.

Happy 2020!  (Instrumental Guitar music credit: Chris Richter)

Today’s the very last day of the year. If you’re familiar with the Christmas song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, according to the original tradition, today would be the seventh day of Christmas. Many, including retailers have taken this 12 day tradition and used it as a countdown before the beloved holiday. Many have used it as a challenge to find 12 people or families to secretly leave gifts for on the doorstep. Every year, including this one, my husband and I have found gifts on our doorstep from givers who identify themselves and from givers who don’t. Thank you all. We appreciate your thoughtfulnes!

My mom, Nora Trujillo Chatwin, would be 91 years old a few days from now. She grew up in the 1930’s in the northern New Mexican town of Taos,  where most of the residents were Catholic. Her family, even though they were not Catholic, observed with everyone else El Dia de los Reyes, on January 6th.. In English, it’s called Three Kings Day, or Epiphany. They celebrated with each child leaving an empty shoe with a note inside, under their bed or on the porch on the eve of January 5th ( the twelfth day of Christmas) to be filled with gifts from the three wise men who gave gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the Baby Jesus, centuries ago. Typical gifts that my mom and her siblings received were fruit and nuts.

I also grew up in Taos but by the 1960’s and 70’s, my brothers and sisters and I hung  hand sewn stockings on our fireplace mantle on Christmas Eve, for Santa to place goodies inside. Most of the homes during my mom’s childhood were heated with a cast iron wood burning stove, which I think heats a room much better than a fireplace does. But you wouldn’t hang a stocking from a wood burning stove for obvious reasons, but an empty shoe under the bed worked well.  Early Christmas morning we’d find an orange in the toe, and nuts and hard ribbon candy filling the rest of the stocking. If we were lucky, our Santa would put chocolate bon bons with cream centers inside too, instead of eating them all himself. Our Santa Claus was a chocoholic, so on some years, I’ll bet Mrs. Claus rode in the sleigh with him and protected the bon bons from the Jolly Elf. 

Back to Twelfth Night and the twelve days of Christmas….one common tradition is to place the statues of the three kings in the nativity set, representing the visit to the Christ child. Another fun tradition elsewhere in the world is to bake a pea and a bean inside a cake. When the cake is served, the  man who finds the bean in his slice becomes king for the night, and the woman who finds the pea becomes a queen for the night, no matter their social position.

Shakespeare wrote the play, Twelfth Night to be performed as a Twelfth Night entertainment. The first known performance took place in 1602, on the Christian Holy Day of Candlemas,  February 2nd, which celebrates the presentation of the infant Jesus at the Temple.

Hello, and welcome! You’re listening to Song Stories, Quiet Stories episode 19, Mary Lee Bland. I’m your host, Carolyn Murset.

Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers arrived into the Salt Lake Valley of the American West, on July 24, 1847, where the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints settled after being forced from Nauvoo, Illinois, and other locations in the eastern United States.

Before I continue with Mary Lee’s story, I will first explain: Following the Mexican War which ended in 1848, Utah became an official territory of the United States in 1850, and in 1896 became the 45th state to join the union.

Pioneer Day is an official holiday in Utah commemorating the arrival Brigham Young and that first group of Mormon Pioneers. Celebrations include parades, rodeos, fireworks, dressing in pioneer clothing, and re-enacting a trek.  If you’re a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and live outside of Utah, your local congregation probably observes the holiday, too.

My dad was raised in northern Utah, and his ancestors crossed the plains shortly after Brigham Young did with that first group of saints.

There is a monument at the mouth of Emigration Canyon named in honor of Brigham Young’s famous statement, “This is the Place”, honoring the Mormon Pioneers as well as the explorers and settlers of the American West. 

One of these explorers, Don Bernardo Miera y Pacheco is my fifth great grandfather from my mom’s Hispanic family, and was the map maker for the Dominguez Escalante Expedition in 1776. This multi talented renaissance man drew the first map of Utah. My next podcast episode will be about him. 

Now, today you’ll learn about Mary Lee Bland my well loved Great, great, great grandma. She told her remarkable story  to an unnamed grand daughter who later transcribed and typed it, thus making it easier to read, copy and share. I first enjoyed reading it when I perused the stacks of family records and histories that I inherited a few decades ago. Listen to this story!

1817- I, Mary Lee Bland was born to Sarah Caldwell Lee and John Bland Jr.  in Kentucky

 Years after my 3rd great grandma Mary Lee told her story, a well written 40 page history was found which revealed many more details than what I have in my three page account. These are a few of the new details:

Mary Lee had blue eyes and blond hair. 

Mammy Chloe was wet nurse for Mary Lee at the same time as her own son, Sammy. 

William Fletcher Ewell practiced medicine among those who had no money. 

Mary’s life sized portrait was in a gold frame and was saved from destruction by her brother; Zachary. 

Have you started writing details about your life? Are you making progress. What questions do you wish you’d asked a family member or friend before they passed on.

Family historians have encountered road blocks in verifying Mary Lee’s famous relative claims. It’s no doubt she was patriotic, though. How do you show others your patriotism.

Come back next time and I’ll tell you about a family member from my Hispanic mom’s family who ventured across the American Southwest from Santa Fe and back in 1776, while the 13 original colonies on our eastern coast were declaring their independence from Britain. 

Until then subscribe to this podcast on your smartphone podcast app; or at iTunes or google play. Please Leave a five star review and a comment. Here at my website; mycarolynmurset.com have a look at my events page and my digital store. Thanks for listening. Thanks for writing. (The writing prompts are in bold lettering.)

I’m your host, Carolyn Murset. 

Update: Mary Lee Bland is not a descendant of Richard Henry Lee, signer of the Declaration of Independence. They were third cousins, thrice removed. She was more closely related to Thomas Jefferson, as a second cousin, twice removed.

Hello, and welcome! You’re listening to Song Stories, Quiet Stories, episode 18, Silver Curls. I’m your host, Carolyn Murset.

Every night for years, Tom, my father in law sat at the head of the dinner table. And every night after eating the last bite, he scraped the plate with a fork. And scraped. And scraped, until his wife Mary, who wore the pants in the family exclaimed, “Thomas! That’s enough!”

Even though one doctor had told him he was diabetic, he managed to eat a quart of vanilla ice cream every night at bedtime. He scraped and scraped that bowl clean, too. It was one of the few little things he did to..  delight her.

We often wondered how this diabetic could eat all of that without affecting his blood sugar. It never occurred to me that he never checked his blood sugar like my diabetic mom had to a couple of times a day. When I’d visit her, she’d insist on checking mine, too, just for fun. But was it fun, for me? No. I digress.

Then one day, his doctor retired or died, and Tom went to another physician, who after examining him declared, “You don’t have diabetes!” Miracles happen. And so does malpractice? And Tom continued with his nightly quart of vanilla. He needed those extra calories because he worked so hard during the day maintaining his Sherman Oaks, California apartment complexes on Woodman and  Moorpark.

He had a tan on his face and his arms and if you didn’t know that his parents were Swiss and Irish, you’d think he was from somewhere more mysterious and exotic, like the middle east.

His wavy hair was completely silver by the time he was twenty six. My husband inherited the waves and the gray tresses and started graying the day after we got married. He was twenty two. Hmmm.

At the beach at Santa Monica, or boating with the old Glaspar at the lake near our house, Tom wore a buttoned white terry cloth short jacket over his full set of clothing. Bath towels are made of terry cloth. He didn’t mind the heat.

In the late 1990’s his brain function began to decline. The Alzheimer’s disease frustrated him when the mental clarity came through on occasion. He’d often say, “I just don’t know what to do! I don’t know!”

Mary did all she could to take care of him herself. In 2002, she was determined to get away to Denver for five days to attend her granddaughter’s wedding, so my husband went to California and took care of his dad.

Mary was already so run down from the 24 hour a day caretaking, that while in Denver, she came down with pneumonia and was in the hospital in very serious condition for three weeks. She missed the wedding, but the granddaughter, Dana and her new husband, Ryan came to the hospital afterwards in their wedding gown and tuxedo so that Mary wouldn’t miss out on everything.

Once Rich and I saw that his mom wasn’t going to be coming home soon, he brought his dad home to live with us in southern Utah until he died nine months later.

It took all five of us who were at home to watch Tom 24 hours a day. I don’t know how Mary did it on her own and can easily see how she ended up so close to dying for so long.

After three months of being in our home, Tom’s insurance transferred and we took him to daycare at the rest home a few blocks away from us.  He’d eat a couple of meals there, make friends with the residents and staff and then we’d come and bring him home for the night.

Our youngest child, Megan was eight years old, and  very bashful. She’d memorized the entire musical soundtrack of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and entertained her grandpa by singing it and acting it out for him.

We were so happy to watch her make her grandpa happy that we encouraged her by buying  an Egyptian Pharaoh hat, a Carmen Miranda fruit hat and a camel mask. She gathered other costumes from our stash in the basement.

Once Mary recovered from the pneumonia and returned home to California, she’d come and visit Tom every few weeks.  She was always pleased that he recognized her and remembered her name.

A few days after Christmas vacation our kids who were at home returned to school, and Rich and I entered Tom into the rest home full time. It’s at once hard to admit  that you aren’t able to give a parent in need the required full attention and have to place that parent in better hands, AND not feel guilty that you aren’t equipped to handle it yourselves.

Hurricane Rehabilitation Center was Tom’s home for the next three months, until the capable and loving nurses recognized he would no longer hold on. They called Rich and I to be at his side as he quietly and hopefully, painlessly slipped away to the other side.

Tom was the first of our four parents to leave. It’s been 16 years and we miss him still.

Twenty five years ago, my husband, taking inspiration from his father, wrote the lyrics to this song, Silver Curls. Recording it yesterday was my Father’s Day gift to my husband:

(Silver Curls)

Until recently, I didn’t know much about Father’s Day other than that in the United States, we observe it on the third Sunday of June. It didn’t surprise me to learn that Mother’s Day became an official holiday before Father’s Day became official.

Don’t ask me why, but five kids times nine months of pregnancy plus fifty hours of labor and delivery and weeks of recovery and  at least fifteen years of interrupted by my children’s sleep might have something to do with my needing that bag of Dove chocolate and vase of flowers and sentimental greeting card, ….

before he gets his umpteenth necktie and beef stroganoff and carrot cake dinner for all of his property and financial management and weed killing and lawn mowing  and trampoline bouncing and bedtime story reading with the young kids and back rubbing and guitar and amplifier wrangling for the musician wife.

The nation’s first Father’s Day was celebrated  in the state of Washington. According to history.com, a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, who was one of 14 children raised by her father, William Jackson Smart, who was a twice married, twice widowed Civil War veteran, who oddly, had fought for both sides in the war. Sonora tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents and to honor her devoted and selfless dad.

She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to gather support for her idea, and she  succeeded: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on June 19, 1910.

It didn’t  become a nationwide holiday until 1972, 58 years after Mother’s Day became official. 58 years!

Mother’s Day as we know it in the United States originated soon after the Civil War in the 1860’s  when activist Ann Reeves Jarvis, organized a “Mother’s Work Days” celebration in one divided West Virginia town that brought together the mothers of Confederate and Union soldiers.

Decades later in 1908, Jarvis’ daughter wanted to honor her own mother by making Mother’s Day a national holiday. After a department store in Philadelphia sponsored a service dedicated to mothers in it’s auditorium, other retailers saw the profit potential in the holiday, and Mother’s Day caught on right away.

History.com mentions that in 1909 45 states observed the day. Well, New Mexico and Arizona became the 47th and 48th states in 1912, if I remember my 8th grade class in New Mexico history, so that means 45 out of the 46 United States observed Mother’s Day that year, but I digress.

In 1924 President Woodrow Wilson approved a resolution that made the second Sunday in May a holiday in honor of “that tender, gentle army, the mothers of America”.

In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane, Washington when he pressed a button in Washington DC. a distance of 2,485 miles away! In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day.

Now, you fathers: how do you feel about this holiday? Does the commercialism disappoint you, especially when the money for your proverbial necktie or pair of dress socks oftentimes comes out of your own pocket? Do the kids in your church congregation sing a Father’s Day anthem for you on the third Sunday in June? Do the women distribute at least a token gift of mini loaves of banana bread when you’re trying to eat a ketogenic diet? If you don’t typically attend church, try going on Father’s Day and see what happens.

The perfect father or mother may not even exist. If your life experience with either parent has been less than stellar, try anyway to acknowledge one positive thing about them, and recognize that their own parents may not have been a shining star in their constellation, either. Write your thoughts down, either in a letter or a card.  Let them know of your appreciation anyway, whether or not you think they deserve it, whether they’re alive, or not. They’ll hear you.

Come back next time and we’ll talk about patriotism. Until then, subscribe to this podcast here, at mycarolynmurset.com, or on your smartphone podcast app  or at iTunes or Google play.

Check out  my online digital music store, also at my website, and on my events page, read about my upcoming performances of my original one woman biographical musical, Tales of Tila. I’ll be performing it at Brigham’s Playhouse in Washington, Utah on Mondays and Tuesday, September 9, 10, 16, and 17th, and at the Family Roots Conference at the Dixie Convention Center in St. George, Utah, Saturday September 28th.

If you can’t attend either of those events, come watch me in Man of La Mancha, also at Brigham’s Playhouse, Thursdays, Fridays and twice on Saturdays, August 22nd- September 28th.

If you didn’t catch it, I’m going to be super busy on that last Saturday of September, with one Tales of Tila in the morning and two Men of La Mancha’s later that day. Pray for me and my guitar on the 29th. And the 28th. You can buy play tickets online at brighamsplayhouse.com or by calling 435-251-8000.

Thanks for listening, thanks for writing. I’m your host, Carolyn Murset.

(Your writing prompts are in bold lettering.)

Memorial Day Chrysanthemums are  now on sale at my local grocery store. It seems like the day after Mother’s Day, retailers stock their shelves with potted plants or, silk and plastic flowers and wreaths suitable for placing on the graves of loved ones. But the original meaning of the holiday, to honor those American men and women who died during combat.has become somewhat lost over the years.

The holiday, was established in 1866 following the Civil War, when General John A. Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic,  called for a holiday commemorating fallen soldiers to be observed every May 30. It was first known as Decoration Day and was set aside to remember both Union and Confederate soldiers alike. Soldiers would decorate the graves of their fallen comrades with flowers, flags and wreaths. Memorial Day became the official title in the 1880’s, but didn’t legally become Memorial Day until 1967, when Lyndon B. Johnson was President of the United States.

In 1971,  Memorial Day was moved to the last Monday of May, so that we could have a long weekend. The Uniform Monday Holiday Act since then has also applied to our national observances of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, Labor Day and Columbus Day, but not Veteran’s Day, which will always be observed on November 11th. As a side note, it was originally called Armistice Day and honored the official end of World War 1 in 1918.

After World War I, Memorial Day commemorations honored not just the Civil War dead but soldiers who had died in all American conflicts.

At the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington, Virginia, the President or Vice President of the United States gives a speech honoring the contributions of the dead and lay a wreath.

Each year the 3rd U.S. Infantry places a small American flag before the gravestones and niches of service members buried at Arlington National Cemetary (and the U.S. Soldier’s and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery) just before Memorial Day weekend.

The soldiers put flags in front of more than 260,000 gravestones and about 7,300 niches at Arlington. (Another 13,500 flags are placed at the Soldier’s and Airmen’s Cemetery.) It takes them about three hours to place them all, and then they stay at Arlington during the Memorial Day weekend to make sure the flags remain at each gravestone. I admire this  respectful and honorable practice.

When I was a kid growing up in the northern New Mexico community of Taos, I attended Taos Elementary School. Physical Education, PE  Day came once a week, and since the school didn’t have it’s own gymnasium, my class would walk to the Bataan National Guard Armory and use the gym there. The enormous olive green army vehicles parked in the connecting garage  fascinated me.

It would be several decades later while interviewing my mom  about her childhood and extended family that I learned about our two cousins who died while serving during World War 2. She mentioned that  cousin Moises Miera died as a prisoner during the Bataan Death march, and that another cousin, Manuel Jaime Garcia had died a few weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and was listed as missing in action. My interview with her was more than 20 years ago.

It took me a few more years to make the connection that the National Guard Armory, which later was sold to the town of Taos and made into a convention center, was named after the soldiers of the 200th Coast Artillery Battery H of the New Mexico National Guard who were deployed to the Phillipines in 1941 a few months before the Japanese bombs flew into the Pearl Harbor naval base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. They were among the first Americans to engage in combat with the Japanese armed forces.

I hadn’t studied the inscriptions below the memorial cross that had stood in the middle of the Taos Plaza since 1960, made possible by private donations through the War Mothers organization.

After intensive training at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, these Hispanic, Anglo and Native American troops were sent to the Phillipines. Once there, they were issued outdated guns and ammunition, some of which dated back to World War One. This may have been because the prevailing sentiment was to get Hitler first, so the better equipment was sent to Europe while soldiers in the south Pacific had to make do with what they had.

The shared heritage of these men held them together while defending Manila, Clark Air field and training Filipino forces.  Soon after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese were also attacking the Phillipines. The 200th fought during those constant attacks, without any sign of reinforcements and successfully covered the evacuation of forces, equipment and suppilies in Bataan.

By April 2, 1942, the Japanese, after having recieved enough reinforcements, started the final drive through the Bataan peninsula. The defenders had resisted the enemy for three months, but were now surrounded, outnumbered and running low on food and medicine, and suffering from malaria, with many casualties. General Edward P. King Jr. reluctantly and formally surrendered about 75,000 Filipino and American soldiers to Japanese General Masaharu Homma on April 9, 1942.

In intense heat, the prisoners were forced to walk the infamous 65 mile “Death March” from Mariveles, on the southern end of the Bataan Peninsula to San Fernando. From there the groups of about 100 men were transported by train to prison camps. On the way, they were beaten and denied food and water. Many were tortured to death. The atrocities and depravation  spanned three years. This was not made public in the United States until years after it happened.

The death date on the tombstone of my cousin, Moises Miera coincides with the  October 24, 1944 sinking of the Japanese Hell Ship, Arisan Maru, which was transporting 1781 American and allied and civilian prisoners of war from Manila to Japan to be used as forced labor. Hell ships had extremely unpleasant living conditions and had reputations for cruelty among the crew.

This happened during a typhoon, and the Arisan Maru carried no markings or flag, indicating that it was carrying Allied prisoners.  It was torpedoed by a US submarine, the USS Shark II which was also lost with all 87 on board in that same action. The Americans had no way of recognizing the Arisan as a prison ship.

No POWs were killed in the torpedo strikes and nearly all were able to leave the ship’s holds, but the Japanese did not rescue any of the POWs that day. Many prisoners swam towards the Japanese destroyers hoping for rescue. They were pushed and beaten away with poles. The men climbed on whatever wreckage they could find to stay afloat for rescue. There were eventually eight or nine who survived. Five miraculously sailed to China and were taken to Allied forces and returned to the USA in December 1944. The remaining four were recaptured by the Japanese.

My husband and I interviewed my Aunt Lula Cantu three years ago. She’d told us how Moises and Manuel had come to visit my grandparents to say their goodbyes after enlisting and before leaving to Fort Bliss, in El Paso for training. They were close in age to her brother’s: my Uncle Ralph who’d joined the Marines, and my Uncle Arthur, who’d enlisted in the Navy. My Aunt mentioned that after Moises had  marched in Bataan, and was being transported on a ship to Japan, that the ship had sunk after being attacked by friendly fire!

After many hours of research, I found two rosters of the casualties, and was confused when his name was not in the first one I’d come across.  I then found an article by William Bowen at (west-point.org,) a son of one of the POW’s who’d died in the tragedy. His roster was more comprehensive and included my cousin’s name. In the last column, Moises was described as, “MUTE, suave.” His World War 2 enlistment record says he was 65 inches in height and weighed 114 pounds.

Cousin Moises was born to Moises and Pilar Miera. His older sister, Evangelina died at one year of age. He was born a few weeks later, and was named after his father. A year later, his father succumbed to typhoid fever, leaving behind Pilar and the one year old Moises. Almost two years later, Pilar married Lino, the younger brother of the elder Moises, and raised his nephew as his own.

By the time Moises enlisted in the National Guard with his cousin Manuel, in January of 1941, his mother had been deceased for almost three years and Moises was essentially an orphan. At the time of the 1940 US census, he was 23 years old and living with his step parents. His stepfather Lino had remarried by then. Moises is listed as a house building laborer and had earned $100 the previous year. I wish I had a photo of him to show you. I only have a photo of his tombstone. His body and Manuel’s were never recovered. Their headstone’s were placed in the Miera Family Cemetary in Taos years after their passing to honor their memories.

Manuel’s  family had no word of his status in the war until it ended. The military wasn’t able to provide any information until then, and was listed as missing in action. One or two survivors of the Bataan March returned to El Prado, where the Garcia family lived near Taos, and unofficially told his parents that he had died at the very beginning of the war.

The Department of the Army, sent an official notification to his parents on January 18, 1950 declaring that Private Manuel J Garcia had been killed in action on January 24, 1942. With the letter came a Purple Heart Medal and certificate. By this time, his mother Jacinta had passed away. I imagine that Moises’ stepparents also received a Purple Heart and certificate to honor their stepson.

January 24, 1942, the death date inscribed on the headstone issued by the Department of Veteran Affairs, was just  forty five days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The National Guard 200th Coast Artillery had already been in the Philippines  for a few months.

I researched events that occurred on that specific date, trying to find how this cousin of mine was killed.  Several military events happened on that date, the closest but still too distant at 1800 kilometers away to seriously consider was the Battle at Balikpapan. Manuel Jaime’s military enlistment record states his brand code as Coast Artillery Corp or Army Mine Planter Service. Planting mines does not sound like a safe assignment to me. Do any of you relatives know exactly how he lost his life?

The history of the New Mexico National Guard dates all the way back to 1598 when Don Juan de Oñate brought in the first large group of colonists. … Centuries later when Pancho Villa attacked the community of Columbus, NM in 1916, it was New Mexico Guard troops from Deming who were first on scene.

Battery H of the 200th Coast Artillery, along with other National Guard Units in the long run may have helped delay and prevent a Japanese invasion of Australia. Many of these Taos soldiers were fluent in Spanish and English. This fluency in Spanish was useful because Spain had previously ruled the Philippines for 333 years, until the end of the Spanish American War in 1898.

Now, back to the Memorial Cross on the Taos Plaza. The week after the installation ceremony, theTaos News ran a front-page story declaring, “A simple cross, the symbol of a man who sacrificed his life to save all humanity, was dedicated…as a memorial to Taos County men who died and suffered that their neighbors might live in freedom.”

Following World War I, as mentioned earlier, it was decreed that the May 30 remembrance be expanded to include all Americans killed in battle. Soon after, red poppies became associated with the holiday through the efforts of both American and French groups who took inspiration from the poem, “In Flanders Fields,” written by John McRae in 1915. Memorial Day was, in its earlier days, marked by civic parades and patriotic observances, as well as ceremonies at veterans cemeteries.

So, if you visit  a store on Memorial Day, to buy flowers to place on a loved one’s grave, make sure you have  cash on hand to also buy a red crepe paper poppy being sold by a member of your local American Legion Auxiliary sitting at a table outside the store. Their Poppy Program began in 1921, and on Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day millions of the poppies, all handmade by veterans as part of their therapeutic rehabilitation are distributed across our country in exchange for donations that go directly to help disabled and hospitalized veterans in our communities.  

Why is this so important? Although millions of soldiers have lost their lives in battle, many who return home alive after serving their country, either because of post traumatic stress syndrome or injuries incurred while serving, continue with the battle, physically, mentally, or both. To them, and to all who now serve we will be ever grateful. Thank you for your service.

Do you have a family member or friend who has lost their life while serving in the military? In what branch of the militia did they serve and where?

Come back next time and we’ll talk about Father’s Day. Until then subscribe to this free podcast at mycarolynmurset.com or at iTunes or your smartphone podcast app. Check out my online digital store on my website, and my events page. My one woman play, Tales of Tila will be playing this September 9, 10, 16 and 17th at Brigham’s Playhouse in Washington, Utah. Tickets are now on sale at 435-251-8000. Thanks for listening, thanks for writing.  I am your host, Carolyn Murset

A granddaughter of mine recently celebrated her birthday. My husband and I emailed her an animated Amazon gift card. Our daughter sat her soon to be six year old in front of the computer and told her “Pick out some things you’d like with the gift card that Grandma and Grandpa sent you.”

Forty-three pink and purple items totaling $1800  later, our daughter luckily caught her little one’s excitement before that “Buy Now” button was clicked on, and trimmed the shopping cart down to three sparkly choices within our gift card amount. Phew!

If I have to buy something, I enjoy shopping for it online. I’m a homebody, and would buy groceries online, but my supermarket is only five blocks away from my house, so…….except for the six years I lived in a larger college city, I’ve lived in a small town for most of my life.

Before the advent of  computers and online shopping, I poured over catalog pages of merchandise, picked out my kid’s birthday or Christmas presents,  filled out the paper order form, folded and stuffed it and a check inside the included envelope, attached a postage stamp to the upper right hand corner, and mailed it in.  If I was in a hurry and feeling bold, I’d actually call the 1-800 phone number and place my order with a customer service rep. I’m bashful, and had to drum up a lot of courage to speak to a complete stranger. Calling people on the phone is still hard for me, whether I know the person or not.  What can I say.

(Homebody Song)

I was seven years old when my family moved from the California San Fernando Valley to Taos, New Mexico, where my Hispanic mom was raised and most of her side of the family was living.  

Taos was home to about 2500 residents, one stoplight, two grocery stores, a lot of art galleries, and a gas station on each corner at the intersection of north and south pueblo roads,  Kit Carson road on the east, and the road circling the plaza on the west. If you couldn’t find what you needed at JC Penney where my cousin, Bernie Garcia assistant managed, you’d go to the Montgomery Wards catalog store and place an order. (See? I learned how to shop from my parents!)

Bernie’s daughter, Bernadine, was my age and I was lucky enough to be in the same second grade class with her and our cousins, Jeanie and Sharon.  Bernadine and I were also in the same Girl Scout Brownie Troop, which met in the cafeteria of the Catholic School across the fence from our elementary school. After our troop meetings, I’d walk with her to JC Penney which was just around the corner from the plaza, and wait for my dad to come and get me.

    Her dad, Bernie was always friendly, and didn’t mind my roaming the shoe and clothing aisles. And, my dad was always so busy and most of the time didn’t come for me right away, so…. It was really nice of Bernie to let his eight year old relative linger.

After working there for thirteen years, the company wanted to transfer him to Texas, and he and his wife, Connie were just about to do that, when they decided they didn’t want to raise their three kids there and that they’d open their own store.  So, they did, fifty years ago. Connie had grown up living close to the plaza with her family, and for five years had managed a store there, called Fry’s. She sold my mom some beautiful heavy ceramic dinnerware called Frankoma, that I didn’t inherit when mom passed away, come to think of it. Which one of you five siblings got the Frankoma?…

Where am I going with this? On April 30th of this year, 2019, the Taos Plaza experienced the end of an era. The store that Bernie and Connie Garcia opened  decades ago at 110 North Plaza, which they named the Village Shop closed its doors. But the plaza wasn’t the first location of their family business. They first  rented from (the late) Rumaldo Garcia, next to Michael’s Kitchen, a very popular restaurant owned by another cousin of ours.

The Garcia’s sold, at their first store, The Pueblo Shop, dry goods, clothing, furniture and appliances. This was while Bernadine and I were in junior high and high school.  She was always the best dressed girl in our grade, if not the whole school! The red, white and blue polka dot dress that I wore for my 10th grade school photo came from the Pueblo Shop. Don’t go and look it up. I still had braces on my teeth and didn’t know how to smile for pictures until I married into the Murset family, so, just don’t!

Anyway, the business continued to grow, and the Garcia’s moved it to the plaza, and renamed it the Village Shop. They paid close attention to their customer’s needs and adapted and changed inventory  as the times continued to change through the decades. They were blessed to be able to raise their children, Bernadine, Mark and Janette at their home away from home place of business.

You’ve heard how those big box retail stores coming to town can impact your community and its retail businesses? One of those mega stores arrived in Taos, and Bernie and Connie, with the aid of another wise cousin, Felix Miera, who taught me New Mexico history at the junior high school, shifted the clothing inventory to include discounted jackets, pants and shirts for school children through a special federal program at the Taos Municipal School District.

Let me tell you about the dress codes while I went to school during the 1960’s and the 1970’s: girls were only allowed to wear dresses. We could wear slacks, not blue jeans,  only on PE days in elementary school, or on Fridays in junior high and high school. Boys wore pants and buttoned down shirts that had to be tucked into their pants. If their shirt tail was hanging out, the assistant principal, Mr. Selso Martinez reprimanded them. T-shirts were  underwear. I’m not kidding.

Once dress standards loosened a bit and wearing T-shirts became the norm, Bernie and Connie sold them, and included custom t-shirts to outfit town sporting leagues. Once other businesses caught on and followed suit, the Garcia’s once again changed focus this time, to a completely different offering.

The town of Taos had become an art colony in the early 20th century. The Garcia’s decided it was time to sell southwest and Native American art, and feature only local and New Mexico artists, and cater to the art community. People from all over the world have purchased their ceramic nativity sets and other wares. Connie worked on the creative end and Bernie worked on the business end of the business. Bernadine, Mark and Janette spent after school time, holidays and vacations at the shop, but as they grew up, they became an active part of the business. I’ve enjoyed visiting with Bernadine at the shop during my visits to Taos.

Read Kathy Cordova’s in depth article about the Garcia’s closing their fifty year old family business in the weekly Taos News, probably the second week in April issue, and learn how they have been very involved assets to the community.

Now that the Village Shop has officially closed, will the Garcia family become homebodies like their cousin, meaning, me? Nope. They’ll go fishing at the lake as often as they can.

In order for me to get myself out of the house, I have to be in a play, or join a band or a choir or agree to a solo gig. These activities give me a social life. I make friends, and improve my brain function by forcing myself to learn how to play a new instrument or memorizing a song or script.

While acting in a theatrical production a couple of decades ago, I met Lauretta, who I introduced in my podcast episode #15, Paint Me a Picture. We became fast friends and learned that we had many interests in common. About a decade after we were in that play, she invited me to join a Gospel Choir that was just giving their first concert. My parents had recently passed away, and I was taking a theatrical break, and needed a new diversion to take my mind off of my grief.

I sang with John Houston’s Gospel Choir for six years, and it was a blast, especially when I got to play lead guitar for a couple of the songs. During my choir years, Lauretta and her husband, Pat were forming a band with their friend, Wayne, and needed a mandolin player to join them. I owned an $80 mando, knew a few chords, and joined them.  I also brought a guitar and a cajon with me to our practices at Lauretta and Pat’s house, and later, Wayne’s garage. We were a garage band, and I was the youngest member at 55 years of age. In a minute, I’m going to have you listen to one of my songs that our band played. In it, Lauretta sings backup, Wayne’s on lead guitar, Pat’s on rhythm guitar and I’m playing cajon percussion and singing.

During the next couple of years, we played at various venues, either giving concerts or participating as continuous entertainment for various events or festivals. One concert was at the Hurricane City Pioneer Park, which bordered a home with chickens in the backyard, and another home with goats in the fenced backyard.

We were in the middle of our first set when we heard bleating in direction of the audience. There was an accidental, (I’m guessing) opening in the fencing which allowed the billies to escape and wander around  the camp chaired and blanket seated audience. Was it funny? Yes. Did they bleat on pitch? Once in a while. Was it memorable? I wouldn’t be telling you about it if it wasn’t. We were probably singing one of our bluegrass numbers, “I’ll Fly Away”, and the goats may have thought we were giving them permission to escape. Who knows.  One advantage of being a goat is that when they do want to escape, they don’t have to pack a suitcase first.

(Suitcase Sorrow Song)

Have you ever been unexpectedly  interrupted while performing or speaking in front of an audience, like my band having to compete with the goat distraction, or like the time I was in a Christmas play, had a huge monologue, but one of the audience members was wearing a large jingle bell necklace that kept well, jingling, and I was so distracted that I skipped an entire page of the script?  If so, what did you do? How did you handle it?

Come back next time and learn about Memorial Day, and how it’s much more than placing a wreath or flowers on a loved one’s grave.

Look for the writing prompts in my podcast episode notes at my website, mycarolynmurset.com, and check out my digital music store and my events page.

My one-woman musical, Tales of Tila is returning to St. George, Utah this September 9th, 10th, 16th and 17th, 2019, this time at Brigham’s Playhouse. Those are Monday and Tuesday nights, by the way, when their production of Man of La Mancha is dark. Showtime is 7:00pm. Tickets will be on sale shortly, and season ticket holders will get a discount! Let me know if you’d like for me to bring this somewhat easy to travel production to you.

Until then, subscribe to Song Stories, Quiet Stories either at my website, or on your smartphone podcast app on iTunes or Google Play. Thanks for listening.  Thanks for writing. I’m your host, Carolyn Murset

Meet my guest and friend, Lauretta Swansborough. We met almost 20 years ago, when she and I were cast in A Man Who Came to Dinner. In this 2001 community theatrical production, I played the nerdy resident nurse, and she played the neighbor with the jar of pickled pigs feet. She had one line, and I had two lines, “Yes, sir!” and “No Sir!”, repeated at least twenty one times. I  got to wear comfortable nurse shoes and stuff a Whitman’s chocolate bon bon in my mouth before my character’s final exit. She got to wear a fur coat.

As Lauretta and I  spent more time off stage than on, we became good friends and learned about  the musical interests we had in common: songwriting, and singing….we continued acting, and her husband and their young son joined her on occasion. She started directing plays. I’d stopped doing that a decade earlier.

She convinced me to join the band that she and her husband, Pat and another friend were forming, because they needed a mandolin player. She played the bass guitar, Pat played rhythm guitar and their friend, Wayne played lead guitar. In addition to mandolin, I also played percussion with the cajon because I don’t own or play a drum kit. We called ourselves Evening Sunrise, because none of us are spring chickens.

When the band disbanded after a couple of years, Lauretta talked me into joining John Houston’s Gospel Choir. She was a founding member and I joined the choir after the first concert. I stayed for six years and left last year to pursue and prepare for the  premier of my original

one-woman musical, Tales of Tila. Take a wild guess as to who I had direct me?

She did a fantastic job of it, and hope she’ll be able to resume that role when I revive my play at the venue, Brigham’s Playhouse this September  2019.

I use the word “Hope” for various reasons: Lauretta stage managed a local production of “the King and I” earlier this year, and is currently directing The Pajama Game, all while continuing with the gospel choir, doing standup comedy, dabbling in oil painting and managing a serious health concern that almost took her life a year ago.

Do you have fond memories as a school child bringing a shoe box to school in mid February, covering it in red or pink paper, then gluing  on heart shaped paper doilies, or cut out paper hearts, then having your teacher or parents cutting a rectangular slit on top of the box for your school mates to insert their mini Valentine envelope treasures? I do.

And, if I was lucky, a conversation candy heart would be tucked inside, saying, “Be mine”, or “You’re far out.” Is it obvious I grew up during the 1960’s and 70’s?

That was a few decades ago. My own kids did the same thing in the 1980’s, 90’s and on, and their kids probably ask their parents for an empty shoe box to take to school at the beginning of February.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Valentine’s Day, February 14th, when lovers show their affection with greeting cards and gifts  is very popular in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and in many other countries where English is not the official language.

Speaking of chocolate candy, listen to this story of my husband’s parents,

Tom and Mary met the first day they attended Los Angeles City College. They sat next to each other in their English class where they were filling out papers.

Mary glanced over to see what the name of this good-looking, dark-haired man was . . . and saw it was Irwin Thomas Murset. She said to him, “What name do you go by?” He said, “Irwin.” Mary answered, “I will call you Tom!” He said that he never did like the name Irwin, but he never thought of changing it. After that, everyone called him Tom.

Tom was a soft spoken, quiet man, which could explain why he courted Mary for seven years before popping the question. (Tongue Tied)

This next Valentine’s Day story is from my side of the family: Ida Dayton and Sylvan Chatwin, my paternal grandparents, were born in Utah, United States, in 1905.

Sylvan was born in the town of Santaquin, where his Mormon Pioneer grandfather William Chatwin had settled in 1875 and had become a school teacher. In 1851 he’d  emigrated from Lancashire, England to the United States and crossed the plains with other pioneer companies.

By 1920, Sylvan was 14 years old and living with his parents and brothers and sister in Provo, Utah. He was the youngest of five children, four who lived to adulthood. His brother, Wallace Wayne lived to the age of 17 and died in November of 1918, during the height of the Spanish Flu epidemic, and as World War 1 was ending.

Sylvan was attending Provo High School, during the early 1920’s when lovely young Ida Dayton convinced her parents to allow her to leave their home in Vernal, Utah to go and live in Provo with her Aunt Kate, her mother’s sister. I imagine Ida was a great help to her Aunt who lost one child at birth in 1923, and another in 1924.

Ida was the sixth of eleven children. Only five of them lived beyond the age of three!

It was at high school where Sylvan and Ida met and fell in love, courted a few years, and a couple of years after graduation married on Valentine’s Day.

This choice of a wedding date doesn’t surprise me. Grandma was a romantic.  Most of the inside of her home was painted her favorite color, a bright pink. All of the sheet music tucked inside her piano bench was romantic music of the 1930’s and 1940’s. I tried playing one of those pieces for her before she passed away in 1986.  I don’t sight read music well, and after playing a sorry rendition of “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”, she pathetically said, “Carolyn, that didn’t sound anything like the first time I heard it!”

Grandpa died at the young age of 59 from emphysema, because he worked as a boiler tender at the Columbia Steel Mill.  Boilers, which are used to generate steam, are wrapped in asbestos. The body cannot break the fibers down or remove them once they are lodged in lung or body tissues, and this results in permanent lung damage.

My last memories of him as a child visiting him and Grandma in Utah with my parents and siblings was of him in the second bedroom,  connected to an oxygen tank, because he couldn’t breathe on his own. This was in stark contrast to my earlier memories of him helping my Dad, Wally, with his various house remodeling projects. Yes, my Dad was named after his Uncle Wallace.

Grandma was widowed, also at the age of 59, and never remarried. She often said, “I’ll never love another man man as much as I loved my Sylvan.”  Listen to episode 11, Winter Brown Noel, to learn more about the remarkable romantic, Ida Dayton Chatwin.

You’re probably listening to this episode after the holiday. Keep the love going. Do you have any family Valentine’s Day stories? How did you celebrate the holiday as a child? As a teen?

Come back next time and listen to my remarkable and talented friend, Lauretta tell he unforgettable story.  She’s currently so busy stage managing a popular local theatrical production that she hasn’t been able to pull herself away from it and her other worthwhile activity.

Subscribe to this podcast at iTunes or at other venues, including my website, mycarolynmurset.com, where you’ll find writing prompts in bold lettering in the podcast notes.

Thanks for writing, Thanks for listening.  This is your host, Carolyn Murset.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart instrumental was performed by Acoustic Guitar Songs, Relaxing Instrumental Music and Chillout Lounge.