Friday, December 2, 2016

Living a Part of My "Afterwhile"

Good morning, folks. If you have been keeping up with the wildfires in Tennessee, then I am glad to report that the fires are out in Sevier County. That is the county where Vacation Resorts, Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge are located. Some hotspots do remain and firefighters are keeping a close watch on these. The rains ended the five months long drought and put the fires out as well. Thank the Lord.

Here is the continuation of the true story started on yesterday. Yes, it is a true account of a difficult time in my life, but I persevered and am now living in a part of my afterwhile. Why did I say part of my afterwhile? Well, I can't answer that because I would be giving you the answer to the question that I posed to you on yesterday. So, you still have time to think on that one because I wont be giving the answer until tomorrow, if the Lord is willing.

“One day,” Alicia thought, “I'm going to be somebody; see if I don't,” she muttered to herself. Alicia was so cold that she wished that some of the cars passing by would stop and offer her a ride. She did not mind the three mile walk on most days, but during the winter, it was rough.
She settled into her walking routine being sure not to step on the loose pebbles on the sidewalk because she had learned early on that loose pebbles hurt quite a bit when your feet are nearly numb with cold. Alicia quickened her step. She was thinking that she would be glad to get home so that she would be out of the wind. Whew, it was cold!

She had to pass a local consumer store every day on her way home and she passed it today, she saw a mound of shoe boxes piled up next to the dumpster. Alicia crossed the street and started going through the mound of shoebox trash. Lucky day! She even found a shopping bag with two handles almost intact. She left that dumpster with a hefty shopping bag full of smashed shoeboxes, their tops and the accompanying tissue paper inserts. She wished that her brothers had been with her; then they could have brought all of the boxes home. Alicia sighed and was thankful to have been able to get the ones that she had gotten.

(Rip-p-p!) The loose handle on the shopping bag ripped just as Alicia has started across her front yard. She tried to juggle books, boxes and her pocketbook. She lost the battle with all three. Alicia was only a little bit embarrassed to have dropped her boxes. “So what; they see the empty boxes,” she thought. “They could be for a school project couldn’t they?”
But Alicia knew that she was not fooling anyone. She knew that everybody knew that their lights were turned off, in fact, probably had been peeping out of the window when the MLGW truck pulled the electric meters and turned the water off at the curb. They always made so much noise when they turned off the water. It was almost like they enjoyed clanking that long metal thing against the water cover like it was a gong.  “Boy, they must really enjoy their job,” was what Alicia had thought on more than one occasion.

She was glad to get into the house out of the wind. She was also glad to rid her aching arms of her cumbersome burden. She looked at the little gas stove in the living room and wished she could will it to come on.  “Your daydreams are not going to get this charcoal bucket going,” she thought.


Now that she had the charcoal bucket lit, Alicia reached over to put the rice in the small sauce pan that Momma had named “the rice pot.”  Well, wouldn’t you know it; the water canister was empty.” Leave it to her brothers, drat them! Well nothing to do but get the canisters and get down to Auntie Bessie’s house before it got dark and get some water,” she thought.  Back out into the wind she went. The walk to her aunt's house was about a block long on one street and about a half a block long on the other street. “I'm going to be somebody one day; see if I don't,” she thought. “See if I don't!” (cont. tomorrow)


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This the second of December and this is one of the times of the year that loved ones who have passed on to the other side are missed the most. Having said that, I am sharing this from my morning Tweet from this time last year. Hope it blesses someone's spirit.

‬For those family circles
That have waxed incomplete
To ease the pain of the ones left


Is the request of this Tweet.

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Doing What I Can, While I Can,
Alma Jones

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