Pat Bertram's Blog, page 118

Bone Deep

As I’ve been updating my house, I’ve been updating this blog with all the weird (or potentially weird) things we’ve found, thinking these bits will eventually find themselves in a book.

First, there was The Dark Underbelly of Home Ownership, a post about my creepy basement, an all too trite scene for a murder mystery. Next, when the floor of the enclosed porch was taken up in preparation for putting in a new foundation, we found an old cistern that seemed to be perfect counterpart to the basement. Then, there was Something Nasty in the Wooden Shed, which turned out to be not that nasty, but it could have been.

About that same time, I found a bit of fabric in the dirt, but it wouldn’t give when I tried to pick it up. So I got out my shovel and dug. And dug. And dug. Finally, I got the thing out of the ground. It turned out to be a red-stained shirt. Although the stain wasn’t blood, and perhaps it wasn’t even a stain but part of the design of the shirt, it still seemed mysterious to me that someone would bury the shirt.

The oddities stopped for a while, though when the contractor was trying to figure out why the garage floor had a huge crack in it, he thumped on the floor and it sounded hollow. I had to laugh at myself and my reflexive “maybe someone is buried under there,” Because of course, it was just my brain delighting in the macabre.

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Well today, finally, they came with a jackhammer to break up that old concrete floor.

Under the floor, they found another concrete floor.

And under that . . . bones. Just two of them, but still — bones!

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This mystery seems to be writing itself, which is actually is a good thing since I am not writing anything at all.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Joys of Planning

I still have scabs and scars from the multitude of mosquitoes that feasted on me this summer, but I’ve already made plans for protecting myself next year. For example, I bought some khaki pants (they love the black pants I normally wear) and I intend to soak them in permethrin to make them abhorrent to the little monsters. I’m also collecting long sleeve shirts I won’t mind wearing for gardening or painting or any of the myriad outside chores that come with owning a house. And even though I do not like bug killers, I will spray my yard in self-defense. I tend to be allergic, and do not get small bumps and short-lived itching that apparently are the norm; instead I get immense lumps that itch for weeks.

Despite what it might sound like, the issue here is not the mosquitoes, but the planning. It’s been many years since I could pretty much count on being in a certain place the following year. I have lived on the edge of uncertainty for so long, that it’s a real joy to be able to plan on being somewhere and to know that, with a little luck, I will be that “somewhere.”

I have planned, of course, but always in the back of my mind was the qualifier: If I am here.

This need to qualify the future started long before Jeff died. His health was iffy for so long that we never knew from one day to the next if we could follow through on any plans, never knew if he’d even be around to put those plans into action. It was the same thing when I went to take care of my dad. I never knew from one day to the next if he’d be around and if I’d have a place to live. After he was gone, I traveled, never quite knowing where I’d be the next day, and when I returned to my dad’s town, I rented various rooms, and again, never quite knew how long I’d be there. I knew I couldn’t stay in California — didn’t want to stay — but with no compelling reason to move, I just . . . stayed.

Besides not being able to plan, I couldn’t buy anything big even if I wanted to because I didn’t know if it would fit whatever lifestyle I might have. Would I be forever a nomad? Would I move to a city? Would I bunk with a friend?

Well, now I know. Now I can plan.

And I’m planning what to do next summer when the mosquito invasion begins.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Putting the Pieces Together

Today is my twentieth straight day of blogging. So far, I am honoring my commitment to blog for 100 days straight, though I almost didn’t make it today. The note by my computer reminding me to blog got knocked over (during a wild game of solitaire) and without the reminder, it was too easy to let the day go by.

Not that the day was easy. It wasn’t particularly hard, either, just . . . well, let’s call it a rerun. When I first moved here, much of my stuff was stored in the enclosed porch, but when the workers came to redo the foundation of the porch (there were only two small columns of concrete on either end of the 20-foot room, and since that wasn’t enough to hold up the weight of the house, the porch was rapidly sinking), I had to move all the stuff into the garage. At the time, I thought it was the final move for the camping equipment, tools, and things I wasn’t ready to throw away — there’d been a huge crack down the center of the garage, and the patch seemed to hold. But then came a freeze/thaw cycle, and that was the end of my pretty floor. Now the crack is bigger than ever.

The workers are planning on coming later this week to redo the garage foundation as well as the concrete floor, and so all the stuff had to be moved. I’m hoping by the time I get it all back in the garage, it can stay there.

There are so many bits and pieces to putting together a home, it seems like I am forever moving the pieces around, trying to get it right — and to get my life right. I seem to manage not to do things I should, like exercise, and I seem to manage to do things I shouldn’t — like eat unhealthy things.

I’m sure there are also extraneous pieces that will need to be set aside one day, but that’s not a problem for today.

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(I found this quite disturbing piece in a puzzle of featuring a cardinal in a cottonwood. It took me awhile to realize I had it upside down and that it was not part of the bird but a face. It took me even longer to discover that it is part of Chaz Palminteri’s face from a movie puzzle.)

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Apple Season

Jonathan apple season used to be my favorite time of year. The apples — crisp and juicy, tart and sweet — were not year-rounders like the appalling “delicious” varieties, which are anything but delicious. The delectable Jonathans came once a year in the fall, and every year, I looked forward to seeing them.

But no more.

I can’t remember the last time I had a Jonathan apple. Ten years ago, perhaps. I do remember it was a surprise — and a joy — to see them piled in the produce section because even then, the apples were hard to find. It must have been a bumper crop that year since those Michigan Jonathans managed to find their way to Colorado.

The apples were wonderful that year, and that, too, was a surprise because when the apples are good, they are very, very good, but when they are bad, they are truly horrid — mealy and tasteless.

Jonagolds — a combination of golden delicious and Jonathan apples — are the fall staple now, and though they appeal to me better than most apples on the market, they fall vastly short of the true Jonathans.

So I’ll eat the Jonagolds I bought today and pretend I don’t remember better apple days.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Don’t Fence Me In

Oh, wait. Do fence me in! At least do so if you are the people putting up my new fence.

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I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of fencing myself in — I worried I would feel a bit like a prisoner, and I worried it would cause problems with the neighbors since the fence would cut off some of the access to their vehicles. But I do like the safety factor, even if it is mostly an illusion.

This town is a mixture of the good and the iffy, with less than 50% of the houses owner occupied. The street where I live is wonderful, though there have been instances of people walking off with stuff that doesn’t belong to them, more homeless are moving to the area, and the drug dealers are quite blatant. One drug dealer lives on the corner, and a couple of drug dealers supposedly got in a gunfight in the rental across the alley right before I moved here. (The rumor is that one of the guys killed the other, but the dead guy has been seen on the streets of a nearby town, and the killer was never arraigned. They say he could have been a cop or agent checking out the local drug situation.)

To my surprise, I feel good about the fence, and not just because it will protect against impulse theft, keep dogs out, and deter the reprobates. I think my neighbors have come to an acceptance, not of the fence, but of my need for the fence. (Whew!) And I don’t feel at all as if I’m fenced in, at least not in a bad way. It feels as if I am claiming my territory, and expanding my home into the outside.

When I moved here, only a fraction of the backyard was fenced, and originally, I liked the idea of a small yard, but it turns out I like the big yard even better. Although it’s only about 1/6th of an acre, this property feels quite substantial with the little fence out and the big one in. It will feel even more substantial when the garage is done and the carport out. (Right now, it sits in the middle of my backyard.)

I’m so looking forward to planting flowers and bushes and whatever else I can think of to make my outside “room” as livable and homey as my inside rooms.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Shortest Adventure

Yesterday I discovered the shortest highway in Colorado, and one of the shortest in the USA. It runs exactly one mile (1.6 Kilometers).

It seems odd that such a short little country road would be termed a highway, but it leads to a national cemetery and what was once a VA hospital, so apparently, it was an important road, and from what I can gather, is under the jurisdiction of the state rather than the county.

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What you see in the above photo is the highway in its entirely. Cool, huh?

It wasn’t much of an adventure, to be sure, but it was short. Nothing actually happened to make it an adventure, other than the thought of such a short highway makes me smile.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Grateful for Peace

[image error]Peace. Even if we aren’t beauty pageant contestants, most of us at one time or another have professed to want world peace. We march for peace. We blog for peace. We pray for peace. When we see photos of war in far away places, our hearts go out to the victims. And yet, and yet . . .

All this stated desire for peace makes it seem as if we live in an uneasy world, but according to researchers Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, deaths caused directly by war-related violence in the 21st century have averaged about 55,000 per year worldwide. Compare that to 1.2 million traffic fatalities per year worldwide. Or 295,000 deaths from natural catastrophes worldwide in  2010. Or compare it to 300,000 USA deaths from obesity per year. Or 30,000 USA suicides per year. Lots of dying going on, and very little of it from a lack of world peace. (Though it seems as if we could use more inner peace.)

Still, even with all the “we want world peace” rhetoric and all the war talk and heart-rending photos in the media, we take peace for granted. Most of go to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that unless we were to have a health crisis or get hit by a natural disaster or have a car drive through our bedroom, we will wake up in the morning and be able to go about our daily lives without soldiers sniping at us.

So today (and every day) I will be grateful the peace that is. Which is why I blog for peace every year with Mimi Lenox. She started the Blog Blast for Peace because words are powerful, so blogging for peace is important. If you’re interested in joining us this November 4th, you can read all about it here: I’m going to Blog for Peace. Will You?

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

More Murder Mystery in the Museum

Thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas to the murder mystery game we have planned for the local museum. Although I was able to use only one or two of your ideas for the game, I will keep the rest to help me with the book. (I’m thinking that my next book should be based on this museum experience, though instead of a fake body, we find a real body.) The book will be in the present, so I should be able to make use your ideas such as time zone variances and medical conditions; unknown twins, seamen, and parrots.

Meantime, I’ve been researching Clay Allison, and I found suspects in the history of the times. (After all, it is an historical museum event.) I’ve figured out how to present the clues for everyone except Colonel Mustard and Mrs. Peacock, but if I don’t, I don’t suppose it matters. In the end, it could come down to a guessing game. This, then, is what I have written so far:[image error]

Spur of the Moment Murder Mystery

It is Monday, March 5, 1877. Rutherford B. Hayes has just been publicly inaugurated as the nineteenth president of the United States. Hayes lost the popular vote but won the most electoral college votes after a ferociously disputed ruling by a Congressional committee. Citizens of the town are out late, some celebrating the victory, some drowning their sorrows at having a Republican in office.

Revelers discovered the body of Clay Allison outside the jewelry store at 9:00pm. There is no lack of people who want Clay Allison dead.

Mrs. Peacock, born in 1842, is the married sister of Deputy Charles Faber. Clay had gunned down the deputy after the deputy had demanded Clay and his brother relinquish their guns. Mrs. Peacock is not only grieving the loss of her brother, but is fuming that Allison went free after the judge ruled Clay Allison’s actions self-defense. She claims to have been home alone with her husband.

Colonel Mustard, the blacksmith, born in 1832, was at the garrison at Gainesville Alabama when Clay and the others in his Confederate unit surrendered at the end of the Civil War. Clay claimed he’d been pardoned, though Colonel Mustard maintains that Clay had escaped the night before he was to go before a firing squad. Twice Clay had escaped justice, and that does not sit right with the Colonel.

Mrs. White, schoolteacher, born in 1824, was overheard telling a friend that Clay Allison deserves to be shot for mangling the English language. Clay had bragged that he was a shootist. “Shootist?” said Mrs. White. “He just made up that word.” Mrs. White claims to have been at a suffragette meeting that evening at the schoolhouse. The suffrage referendum had just been defeated in Colorado, and she and other women in town knew they’d have to form a political coalition to work on getting suffrage for women in Colorado.

Professor Plum, a professor at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, born in 1878, is writing a book about Clay Allison. He came to town to talk to Clay, though Clay seemed disinclined to tell him the truth of his life, which enraged the Professor. Professor Plum was seen in the vicinity of the jewelry store around the time of the murder, though this seems to have been a nebulous sighting at best.

Miss Scarlet, dance hall girl, born in 1860, hated Clay Allison for promising her marriage and a life of respectability and then reneging on the deal. She claims to have been with Mr. Green when the incident occurred.

Mr. Green, bank teller, born in 1847, says he was not with Miss Scarlett, had never even met her. He claims to be an upstanding citizen with pretentions to being bank president one day, though he does admit that Clay Allison tended to play fast as loose with the ladies in town, and should be shot on general principles.

Rules:

Look for clues in the above history, in the various exhibits, by talking to the characters. Check off the characters as you learn they didn’t do the dirty deed. Whoever is left, then, must be the killer.

o Mrs. Peacock.

o Colonel Mustard

o Mrs. White

o Professor Plum

o Miss Scarlett

o Mr. Green

So who killed Clay Allison? How was he killed? Why was he killed?

And there you have it (as of right now anyway), my murder in the museum scenario. It’s subject to change of course, if I come up with more history or better ideas.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

 

Collect For Club Women

I was a guest at a local women’s civic club luncheon, and quite inadvertently I became a member. Not so odd, that, since I find myself going along with most of what people suggest — it’s how I’ve managed to get so involved in the community so quickly.

At the beginning of the meeting, they recited a non-denominational prayer, creed, or collect (as the author, Mary Stewart, named it). Although I was taken with the sentiment of the collect, I hesitated to print it here, not wanting to infringe on anyone’s copyright, so I researched the piece.

It turns out this “Collect for Club Women” was written by Mary Stewart, a principal of Longmont High School in Colorado, in 1904 because she “felt that women working together with wide interests for large ends had a need for special petition and meditation of their own.” This must be true for the Collect has found its way about the world, especially wherever English speaking women get together, such as the United States, Canada, and Britain. It was even read into the Congressional Record in 1949.

The collect below is as important today as it was 115 years ago, not just for women, and not just for those who believe in God, but for anyone who strives to spread light in a troubled world.

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Keep us, O God, from pettiness; let us be large in thought, in word, in deed. 

Let us be done with fault-finding and leave off self-seeking. 

May we put away all pretense and meet each other face to face — without self-pity and without prejudice. 

May we never be hasty in judgment and always generous. 

Let us take time for all things; make us to grow calm, serene, gentle. 

Teach us to put into action our better impulses, straightforward and unafraid. 

Grant that we may realize it is the little things that create differences, that in the big things of life we are at one. 

And may we strive to touch and to know the great, common human heart of us all, and O Lord God, let us forget not to be kind. 

–Mary Stewart

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

A Murderer at the Museum

I’ve been trying to figure out how to set up a live murder mystery evening sans dinner, sans skit, just a simple game similar to Clue. The best way I’ve come up with so far, is to finger six or seven suspects, tell why they hated the victim, and offer alibis for each. Visitors will be given this brief history, along with a check list of suspects so they can cross off those they know couldn’t have done it.

I spent the afternoon at the history museum trying to find a mystery and decided to kill off Clay Allison, a self-proclaimed shootist, ten years before he actually died. (He died at 45 when he fell off a wagon —literally — and a wheel ran over his neck.) Considering that Allison killed a deputy in this county and was never prosecuted (the killing was considered self-defense though the deputy had been doing his job as a lawman at the time of the gunfight in the saloon), I figure a lot of local folk back then would have liked to dispatch the evildoer.

Or maybe he did himself in — after all, he’d once shot himself in the foot as evidenced below.

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Although it’s easy leaving clues and red herrings, the difficulty comes in proving which of the alibis are correct. (It’s much easier proving them wrong.)

At the suggestion of one writer friend, one of the suspects will be out of time/place (he will have been born after the shoot-out), and the only clue of his innocence will be his date of birth. One woman, a dance hall girl, will say she was with the local chiropractor, and though he will deny it, a photo of the two of them will be hung somewhere in the museum.

And that’s as far as I’ve got. One suggestion I considered was to use the time zone change. Although today it would work since the dateline is only an hour or two away, back then, it would have been a couple of days hard ride, so I haven’t been able to make that work.

Since this is more of a scavenger hunt than a live Clue game or skit, the clues to who didn’t do it need to be visual so they can be scattered around the museum. Luckily, I still have a couple of weeks to figure this out.

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[image error]Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.