On a stormy night in early October

On a stormy night in early October, a shadow crept up through the window of the bedroom. As the wind picked up it sounded like someone was going rat a tat-tat on the window where the shadow grew long.


With the wind picked up it sounded like it someone was knocking like crazy with the rat a tat-tat with a lot of force. After a little while the wind started to howl with the ferocity that it whipping around that almost sounded like someone just outside the window that was struggling to be heard.

The person in the room, slowly trying to gather the courage to see what was out at the window, hid under the covers shivering with fear, wishing that someone would come in and whisper that everything would be alright. Slowly she got the courage to slide off of the bed onto the floor and slowly crawled over to the window.

As she crawled over to the window, she noticed that the shadow was not as big as she had thought but the howling wind was worse then ever and the rat a tat-tat on the window was almost non stop. When she got to the window she slowly got up first easing herself up onto her shadow box that she regularly used as a bench to perch herself on as she looked out the window, trembling in fear from not knowing what was out there.

As she unlatched her windows they flung open letting in the wind and a whole mess load of leaves that had come loose from the trees. As the wind gusted even harder she, seen something blow towards her forcing her to duck and as she ducked she let out a loud gasp and scream of fright. When she turned back towards the window she, seen that something and it looked like it was trying to come in.

She then did her best to crawl back to her bed so she could turn on the lamp on her night stand and as she turned on the light she heard a loud cracking sound. As she was listening to the cracking she, seen that something coming thru the window even further and she quickly turned on the light to see what that something was.

When she turned on the light she let out a loud gasp that was a mix of fright and surprise for that something that had been going rat a tat-tat was just a that large branch that she had seen earlier that day that had started to lean as if it were going to break off from the tree nearest to her house.

After she calmed down she realized that it must have started to come off the tree as the wind picked up and had gotten close enough to her window to start tapping on the window with the wind and was relieved to know that the cracking she heard was actually the branch starting to come free from the tree.

In Memorium

Remembrance

Remembrance

We cannot let ourselves forget the lives that were lost on that fateful day. Our way of life was changed that day when almost three thousand people died. We need to memorialize those that were lost on that day to help ease the pain of the great loss of innocent life.

We also need to honor those who we regard as heroes that died who if were able to talk would say that they were simply doing their job like they have done like any other day. They need to be honored in ways that reflect our desire not to let them have died in vane.

Those that were lost, their names forever will be whispered on the winds and will not have died in vane as long as we do fear those who would want to scare us into cowering by attacking us from the shadows.

Those who ran in to save people and paid the ultimate price need to be revered by making sure that everyone knows that a great many more people could have and would have died if it wasn't for the first responders.

Where there were hundreds of people from all over the world in the towers when they came down that day, it is not just an American tragedy, it is a world tragedy where many died thousands of miles away from their families and the places they called home with their families not being able to do anything to find their loved ones or to help those people that their loved ones called friends and today may still not have closure.

The last tragedy that the U.S. has had to deal with anywhere close to this magnitude is Pearl Harbor which brought WWII home for us and both events will forever live in infamy.

Like when John F. Kennedy was shot the one question that will be asked of those who were alive when the towers fell will be where were you when it happened.

With all the questions that have been asked the one that stays with me is the one my niece who turned seven that day which was "Why did those bad people kill all those people on my birthday?"

How do you deal with the hurt

How do we know who's telling the truth,

about themselves when everyone is acting
like they are chicken little with their personal
lives while expecting others around them
to be truthful with their personal lives.
When do we know that the actions taken
are not a reflection of what is being said
When the two contradict each other to the
Point out that the individual can not be
trusted to show the real person.
How does one deal with having someone
who has said that they are your friend
come out and say that they never did what
you know for a fact that they did in a way

That indicates that they are unwilling to
admit that they said and did things that
made them appear in a way that he doesn't
want to be seen in?

When do you know when a person's contradicts
are designed to hide something from specific
people or trying to keep from dealing with what
he or she is hiding?

How does one deal with the contradictions when
there is evidence that backs up what has been
done and the individual would rather ruin a
friendship than admit to having done what the
evidence shows?

In Rememberance of D-Day

Today we remember those who during World War II fought in the battles on D-Day.


On June 6, 1944 both sides showed their dogged determination in the multiple landing beaches that the allies landed on by not backing down when all seed lost until the battles were one.

The sacrifices made needs to be remembered so that no nation or groups of nations can make the same mistakes that caused such a war that produced such carnage.

We have teach people what happened and about the horrors of war, especially to those who don't want to believe that carnage like that can and does happen.



We cannot ourselves forget what has happened, and we cannot let our veterans who fought in the war in particular the battles on D-Day down.

The best history lessons come from those who have experienced the ordeal and it would be wise to have their stories preserved as part of historical records both as written accounts and as audio and video to show the human side of what they are experiencing as they tell their stories.

Without the people who stood up and fought when the world needed them the most, our world would be a scarier place than what it is now. For this they need to be honored and revered for what they did, we cannot forget the sacrifices of those who returned home draped in our flags letting others know of the sacrifice made for us.

When the last of the veterans who fought in World War II we will no longer have anyone alive for a living memory to teach us, so we must let them teach us what they have learned and explain what they have experienced for there is no higher way of honoring them other than taking care of them in a manner that let's them know we have not forgotten them or what they have done for us.

Memorial Day

Today is a day that we honor those who have honored our country or any country when the country has had need of them.

They served without regard to their own lives and during time of war they have served with distinction to keep what we hold dear in place for all to see.

Those who served in the Military regardless of whether it was in the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines, deserve our recognition regardless of whether or not they feel they deserve such reverence.

Those who have earned our respect and we should show them that respect by being there for them when they need someone there even when they don't feel comfortable asking. 

We need to honor them by standing beside them and when needed stand there with their families when their families need comfort if the need should arise.

We have to show them that we still care by being there for them and showing them that what they have sacrificed for us actually means something.

We need to show our active duty military and our veterans that their sacrifices have helped us become who we are and that their actions can never be forgotten since they have helped to reinforce the foundations of our beliefs in our nation as a whole.

Our military and our veterans deserve to be saluted for their efforts and for the respect that they have shown.

At the end of the day as they try and relax we need to whisper in their ears good night the day is done we are here to watch over you.

I wish you could have stood by me

I wish that you been there for I would have shown you that you need not be afraid of you cannot yet see

I would have been there beside you, to guide you if you would have stood by me

Now I feel like the night has come and that I am stumbling there in the dark by the moonlight which now makes me feel afraid and have shed tears knowing that you are not there to stand by me

If only you could have let me show you that you need not be afraid of what looks to be your world crumbling down and that you have no reason to be afraid

I wish you could have been there to stand by me where I stood by you when you let me and would have would have stood by you any time you needed me if you had let me stay instead of saying goodnight to our friendship due to being too afraid of the crumbling of your world around you

I would have been there anytime you were in trouble instead you were too afraid of how it would look in the only light you can see and for that I have shed a good many tear knowing that you no longer want me to stand by you

Now all I have is memories of our friendship, and heartache over the fact that you didn't want to take the chance and stay friends regardless of how your other friends and your family perceived our friendship and until you said good bye you appeared to be a stand up guy who went after what he wanted regardless who said what

april fools snow

snow snow go away for I can't help but think that it is all just an April fools days joke played on us by mother nature.

snow snow go away, I keep waiting to hear on the wind April fools and it be all gone.

snow snow go away, the april fools joke is definately on me since I have to walk in it and get my feet soaked as I do my errands.

More of the story I am working on after some reworking

After Carol seen it she was more than a little freaked mostly due to the fact that somehow the carving in the pumpkin seemed to know about it but John would not let her dwell on it for long even with having the picture of the pumpkin with the carving. As October turned into November, just as the realtor said the pumpkins were gone. While the season changed and got colder John made the house feel like a home with all of the cooking he was doing and as he cooked he ended up creating some new recipes for all of the pumpkins he had to work with.




With out realizing it before long he had himself a cookbook a couple hundred pages long full of recipes that one of the placed he had been donating the food to was pushing him to see if a publisher would pick up. With a little luck in no time he had a publisher for his cookbook and even though small it was another source of income for him and the lady who put it all into the house. They did this since the good luck seemed to happen after they moved in and so that the house would be ready when their baby arrived.



As autumn turned to winter the house went from the wreck that they walked into back in early autumn to a beautiful home and it was the first time in a great many years that the neighbors were happy to see the house there. Even though there was almost no one in the neighborhood that ever recalled there being someone living there let a lone having owners who actually took care of it, all those years of seeing it in shambles became a blur to them and slowly faded from their memories.



In early January, it was unseasonably warm for about a wee, so they went out and started clearing the land with the neighbors help everyone helping worked into the early evening each day to help clear the land. After a few acres were cleared, they realized that there were a number of good acres to work with in terms of growing their own food and figured they would let the neighbors who helped clear the land use a few acres of their land for a neighborhood farm as payment for their help if they wished to try their luck with growing a garden. While planning how much land to let their neighbors use and where on the land the community garden would be, they were approached by one of their neighbors about the scarecrow.



The neighbors had noticed that the scarecrow had somehow moved from the place that it had been in, on the day they started clearing the land and by the time they were done a few days later, it had moved a good distance towards the house unnoticed. They also noticed that it had a cloth banner that appeared to be very badly weathered and stretched from outstretched hand to outstretched hand. They wanted to know if they knew who did this where it happened while they were busy in the fields clearing the land, even though everyone was too busy to move the scarecrow or to hang the banner.



John and Carol were just as perplexed as their neighbors regarding this since they themselves had put the scarecrow up the day they moved into the house and made sure that the bracing for him would not be going anywhere. They figured that someone played a joke on the neighbors as they worked and moved the scarecrow with everyone being too busy to notice that someone was messing with the scarecrow but didn’t know how they would have gotten the banner would have gotten there without someone noticing.



After a few days everyone put the whole thing with the scarecrow behind them especially since it wasn’t worth making a big deal of it where no one would own up to moving him. What John and Carol did notice as they laid out the boundaries for the community garden was that the cloth banner did start looking less and less weathered as the days went by.



A week before their baby was due they noticed that a faint phrase started to appear on the banner that the scarecrow was holding. About a week before the baby was due, the words became legible enough to make out “we welcome the new baby” which freaked out both of them and they even went to their neighbors who helped clear the land to see if they new anything about it. Each neighbor in turn swore up and down that it wasn’t them and that they didn’t know who was doing the stuff with the scarecrow, the guy and lady knew that their neighbors were telling the truth but yet they wanted to believe otherwise.

A couple days before Carol went into labor her and John started hearing voices on the wind whispering a name almost like someone was calling the person but not wanting to be too obvious about it. A week to the day that the letters on the banner that the scarecrow was holding Carol went into labor, to the surprise of both the everyone the baby came quicker than what they had expected given the stories that they had heard about how bad labor can be for first time mothers.



When it came to naming their new baby, they were tossing names back and forth then out of the blue John said the name that he had heard blowing in the wind a couple days earlier saying that he hasn’t been able to get the name out of his head since he heard it the other day. Carol stopped trying to think of names and thought about the name. After a few minutes, Carol unexpectedly said, “why don’t we give him that name?” for which John agreed and with that they gave their new son the name which was Timothy.



After a few days in the hospital, they were able to bring their new son home. When they got there they found a few of their neighbors outside waiting for them and found the scarecrow out in the front yard with the banner that he had been holding now saying welcome home Tim. At first they didn’t notice the scarecrow until they were done with all of the welcomes and well wishes from their neighbors. When they did notice the scarecrow they went to ask who moved it out here only to be stopped by a neighbor who said that it was already here when we came here to wait for you.



John asked if a couple of the neighbors could put the scarecrow back to where he belonged and said that everyone was welcome to come in for a short time. With that everyone entered the house. While Carol brought Tim to their bedroom which was just off of the kitchen and put him in his crib, John went into the kitchen and started putting together a few appetizers for their neighbors. The neighbors all wanted to help with making things to eat so they more or less kicked John out of his kitchen so he can relax a little.



Inevitably while talking, the subject of the scarecrow moving seemingly on his own and how getting the banner got there came up. No one new how it kept on moving, who gave it the banner or even how the banner was able to write the lettering on it by itself. Carol while settling Tim in his crib ended up mentioning what had, happened with the pumpkins, more specifically the little pumpkin that ended up with the face of a baby with in a couple days of them moving in even with no one in the neighborhood even knowing them or that she was pregnant.



As everyone was talking, little bits and pieces of the property came out with not one person knowing a lot but what everyone did know came from stories and rumors from older people in the town and few older couples that had been in the neighborhood for many years that had only moved away or died months before the couple bought the house.



All anyone knew for sure was that there were strange things that happened in the past in the house and on the property that the old timers would never speak of in any detail. Every time anyone would try to get what had happened on the property, the old timers would just say that it’s best left in the past and would not say anymore. Each time the property came up with old timers around they would get this look about them as if they were horrified, and if they could they would go out of their way to change the subject.



Carol after coming out of the bedroom asked, how come the house had been on the market for so long. She was told that it was do to the old timers scaring potential buyers away with stories that no one could back up, which is how the rumors and stories were spread. Carol did go into detail about the strange happenings that occurred over time in the house, but it was more like the house almost coming out of a deep sleep and shaking off all sleep. She mentioned the fact that as time went on even on the first day there that the house almost seemed to fix itself enough to be livable when no one was looking, but nothing else inside the house.



John then asked if anyone knew the realtor that had sold the house to them, for which no one could say that they did. They said that she didn’t start coming around until the last of the old timers was gone from the neighborhood and even still she would not stay long she just looked like she was there to check out the place and that was it. They went on to say that this you guys were the first people in more than a generation to look at the house due to the old timers. With that they all just agreed that the rumors and stories concerning the property was just a little to weird to keep talking about, let alone thinking about it and changing the subject to something more entertaining.