Here, There and Everywhere

By Bettie Witherspoon Wright

Passage from one of my stories.


The train had just entered the last and longest tunnel. We were

allready late for our arrival in the town of El Fuerte.

Suddenly all hell erupted---the train stopped---the engines

stopped! Gunshots resounded from the car in front! Terrified

passengers came running through our car, trying to escape. from

what? What was happening?

My companion and I dropped to the floor. I started praying,

The light of God surrounds us, the love of God enfolds us,

the power of God protects us, and the presence of God

watches over us. Wherever we are God is

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483640617

Bettie Witherspoon Wright

Started in 1981 ‘ Is it enough at my age?’ My life is diversified and busy, but am I accomplishing what I want? In the last fifty years, I’ve given birth and had the privilege of helping three girls to maturity. I was a church soloist for twenty years and practiced singing every day at home and with an accompanist once a week. When my middle daughter Susan was six years old I formed a Campfire-Girls group of ten neighborhood children and was their leader for five years. I taught the singing at Campfire Day camp for four summers. I was known as ‘Sing-a-ling the ‘Singing lady.’ My mother took me to Europe in 1962 for six weeks. When I returned I began Italian lessons from a wonderful elderly Italian gentleman. The lessons lasted for four months. I have also taken Italian from Diablo Valley College in the Acalanes Adult Education Department. I studied jazz piano and real estate in Berkeley and was very happy to find I passed the test in San Francisco and received my license. My Dad had been in the business for forty years and my husband Ed went to work for him. The real estate business was not for me. A friend of mine in the Unity church asked me to be a partner in a needle craft business which I knew nothing about. She thought I could design for the company because I had taken lessons in oil painting but each is different from the other. This adventure was to cost me nothing but after two year the business folded, she walked out and I was left with all the bills. I considered this a lesson from God. I went again to Europe in 1977. This time I took my three daughters. After we returned from our six weeks journey; I started teaching singing and took a part-time job selling women’s clothing at a specialty shop in the mall. Travel interested me so I took a series of travel courses from the adult education department and sang with the Contra Costa Chorus for several months and also sang with them at the Orinda theater. After I fell and broke my pelvic bone I couldn’t do anything for several months. In 1980 I traveled to England to visit my daughter Sarah who was a flight attendant with Pan American Airways, stationed at Heathrow near the airport of the same name. I have always enjoyed singing and have tried out for many musicals. I have performed in three or four and have had some good parts. I auditioned for the San Francisco Opera Chorus and didn’t make it but it was something I wouldn’t have missed. I attended Diablo Valley College for three semesters, taking Music Theory, French, English, drama, piano, singing and Creative writing. I have lived in Berkeley, Kensington, Orinda, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill and in Concord. Just before we moved from Walnut Creek I visited my daughter Sarah in New York and we took a trip to Hong Kong. Next I planned a trip with my church to India to see the Taj Mahal. I attended school Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:00am to 12:00 at Diablo Valley college in Concord, Ca. Tuesday I took Creative writing from 9:30 until noon. Monday night I took a travel course in Oakland from Vista College. I picked up and delivered my daughter Susan in high school, and took her to dancing and piano lessons. I study, write, practice the piano, clean house, fix meals and work part time arranging rips, but I don’t spend enough time at it. My youngest daughter Sydney and I took Tahitian dancing lessons. I performed in Diablo Valley’s production of ‘Damn Yankees.’ I would say I’m busy. I’ve thought about cutting out some of my programs but can’t seem to find any I want to eliminate. There are many more courses I would like to take, it’s just like when I look at a dinner menu. I want to try everything. If I lived to be two hundred I could never be bored. Maybe I answered my own question. Am I accomplishing what I want? As I’ve written another book entitled I didn’t Miss Much, I’m still “at it.” After my husband retired we moved to Arizona and I was in the Mrs. Senior Arizona Pageant. I took Surprise Unity members to Peru, Oaxaca and Italy. I arranged and took my husband Ed to Europe two times. I began rewriting my memoirs and rewriting and having them edited by my good friend and writer Mary Peirano. Now that I am ninety, I have published one memoir and working on the one you are reading now. while still practicing piano and working to sell my book.

Book preview

Here, There and Everywhere

Bettie Witherspoon Wright

Copyright © 2013 by Bettie Witherspoon Wright.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2013908611

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4836-4060-0

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4836-4059-4

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4836-4061-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 10/08/2013

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Contents

HERE

My Home

My Mothers Home

Mary and Bettie

Discrimination

Beauty

Beauty

Through the Glass

Three Pianos—One Musical Soul.

Sydney My Youngest

My sister Marjorie

My Little Island

My Father

My Best Friend

Mother

Jane Embleton Jones

Bob my Little Brother

Aunt Belle and Nannie

An Adventure of Spanky Rabbit

How I arrived at selling Mary Kay products

THERE

Twelve Powers Song

Witherspoon Tours

Oaxaca Adventure

Trip to Oaxaca October 16 to 23 2007

Unity Truth Ministry and My Politics

The Train Trip

Republican women Presidential Tour

Fun with Daughter Sarah’s Family

Easter Gifts

Beauty

Beauty

The Toiyabe

How I balance my life with my writing.

Walnut Creek, California Unity Church

Dark Lake

If I were a kite.

The Walls Came tumbling Down.

Susan, Susan, Susan

Eileen

Looking for a place to retire

Love

60th Wedding Anniversary

Mother’s Day (a poem)

EVERYWHERE

Six weeks in Europe 1977

Seven Days in France 1982

EGYPT and ISRAEL with Rev. Carol Ruth Knox

My India

Fabulous India

CHINA

Hong Kong with Sarah

‘Is it enough at my age?’

Windjammer

Byzantine Splendors

Yucatan with daughter Susan

Ancient, Wisdom Peru 2005

My three Amazing Daughter

Accomplishments

My Sister Roberta

Roomers

Being Me

I am a spiritual being, living in a spiritual world, under

Spiritual law and having a great adventure in a human Body.

Acknowledgments

My friend, Editor and author, Mary Ellen Peirano, who read and edited all of my spelling, sentence structure and supplied sentence changes in my writings. Mary helped me in many ways. I love and Appreciate her.

My Computer expert and friend Victor Johnson who I have called many times to help me find something I lost or needed to know about my computer writing. All mistakes are mine; Bettie.

HERE

My Home

My home is an interesting wild affair

Colors run rampend.

Characters fight for space

As does the Grand Piano

Pictures from strange places

Hanging Mexican rugs

Angels at the front door

Oil portrait hangs over the fireplace

Cervantes standing on the wall

Colored giraffe by the outside door

Red truck under piano

Famous oil painting; says my lover Edward.

This is our home.

by Bettie

My Mothers Home

I want my home to be something hard to explain—but composed of beauty, space, serenity, warmth of feeling, realness, Integrity, and something one can continue to add to in many ways that so many people have forgotten, A place one remembers not because of it’s richness but because of it’s essence of enchantment in a world of turmoil, of its restfulness in these day of strife.

As a church gives back to one his peace and beauty of spirit, so my Home shall feed the spirit, heal the sick of mind and bring a blessing to all who enter,

by Ruby Witherspoon

Mary and Bettie

While working at Wallace and Wallace in Berkeley, California I met a good friend Mary Chowski. When Ed started going out a lot with his friends, Mary and I would go out together after we finished work at night.

One night while my mother and father were out of town I suggested to Mary that we stay overnight at my folks’ place in Walnut Creek; they were out of town. She said okay and I drove to the two of us out to Walnut Creek where we visited a bar and met a young man. When we left the bar he followed us in his car. We stopped at a restaurant and he came in and sat across from us. He said he was in love with me and he sat looking at me, while we ate,: He said he couldn’t eat and he wondered why we could sit across from him and eat.

He followed us to my folks’ house. While we were getting ready for bed I looked out the window to see if he was still out in front of the house and he was. After we were in bed we talked awhile and I looked out the window again. He was still there. We thought maybe he was going to sit there all night but when we awoke in the morning, I looked out and he was gone.

I had a male dog sit all night outside my house because my female dog was in heat. I had to call the owners in the morning to come get their dog. Interesting?

Discrimination

Eliminate discrimination, May be? We walk into any store; pick one salesclerk over another, someone is rude to you, or you don’t like their looks isn’t just about color or race, it’s a normal reaction everyday we discriminate over one thing or another. Maybe, if it wasn’t written about all the time and more was thought about freedom of thought and freedom of religion, and every person wasn’t put into a box—Senior Citizens-Afro-Americans-Hispanic-Mexican Americans-we have the same freedoms. Minorities, (a terrible word) We’re all Americans, don’t segregate people, it’s the same as racial profiling. Get us out of the boxes and with love and understanding. It might someday stop discrimination, I don’t know. Let your light shine, smile, laugh, have fun. Remember ‘This is your life!’

by Witherspoon

Beauty

Beauty is, my daughters, a mother with bright shinning

Eyes and a voice filled with laughter, an artist at the

Piano.

Beautiful homes I’ve had many, each unique.

Rain and dew in the early morning, leaves sparkling with silver

I see beauty around me day after day.

The sunshine, green grass, the cactus covered mountains of

Arizona

I awake each day to a world filled with Gods beauty.

by Witherspoon

Beauty

Beauty takes me to Lake Tahoe.

Leaving Placerville, the pine trees are larger,

Taller as we drive up the Sierra-Nevada’s

Air is crisp, smells of, wood smoke, pine, and fur, stronger

Lovely driving in the twilight, just before dark.

Moon appears between thick and shadowy tangled trees.

I dart into this maze; my lover chases me until the soft pine

Arms of trees cover us, and pine laid earth lies beneathe us.

Through the Glass

There was a private driveway to our home. After driving up past the Orinda Country Club we had to drive across the road after a sharp curve in order to get into our driveway. Before arriving at our carport we passed a large vacant lot. Leaving the car we walked down a path to our front patio. The front of our house was all glass, framed in redwood, with a tar and gravel roof.

That night I was in the kitchen standing at the sink in front of the window. It had been storming all day and I was tired of staying inside, listening to the rattle of the windows and the blowing of leaves around the trees. It was just beginning to get dark. I had already eaten my dinner and was washing the dishes. When I glanced out the window, everything was still swishing around and it was hard to see; then I saw a flash of light coming from the vacant lot next door.

I looked away for a second and then looked back out, Something caught my eyes a little ray of light that went on and off like a person clicking a flashlight. My husband hadn’t come home from work yet and I was nervous about going outside in the rain to investigate, but I knew I’d have no peace of mind if I didn’t go out to look. There was something wrong next door, I could feel it.

I walked to the hall closet took out my raincoat, put it on and when I opened the front door a blast of rainwater hit my face running down my neck to my toes. I walked out and looked across at the vacant lot. Through the rain I could see a large object sitting below our driveway on the vacant property next door. I walked closer, Oh my God, I exclaimed. Acar has run off the road above. I was very reluctant to go see what had happened, what would I find? I told myself, Bettie, you must go over and see if anyone’s injured, Bettie go, go now! I walked over to the vacant lot; I could see that the car was sitting right side up, just as someone had parked it there. It looked like a little red sports car with a canvas top. I had difficulty seeing because of the rain. Then I heard a voice, Hello, I looked over behind the car and saw two people standing there. I walked closer and called, Are you hurt, should I call an ambulance? Then I heard a male voice say, No, we’re not hurt, my wife and I slid off the road above while making the turn; we landed in the car just as you see it now, then we got out to see if we were hurt. We bounced very hard when we landed. We might have a few bruises and will no doubt be sore tomorrow. What a miracle, I was thrilled to find them alive. They walked with me to my house and called a friend to come pick them up.

The next day a tow truck came and lifted the car out of the vacant lot to the road above.

I was so very happy to have this situation over.

Three Pianos—One Musical Soul.

To Mother music was like religion, and religion was like music, they both needed perception. Music could become a consolation for lack of many creature comforts, such as food, clothing, shelter and of course possessions. Music was nectar and ambrosia to Mother’s soul. It was her comfort zone.

Mother’s family consisted of her parents, plus eight brothers and sisters. Her father and her Uncle George built their home. It had only four rooms and no inside plumbing. Their home was southeast of Bakersfield, California in an area called ‘The Weed Patch.’ The area consisted of silt flats, where the meandering Caliente Creek overflowed the plain, the ground was partly sand, where nothing grew but wild tall sunflowers and tumbleweeds.

Sarah Kassan was the name given to mother at birth but after her older brother started calling her Ruby that name stuck for the rest of her life. Blond green-eyed little Ruby was the youngest girl in the family, the darling of her five older brothers. She would make up songs and hum or sing while dancing around the room. It seemed she was born without inhibitions. ‘was she my model?’ Maybe!

Ruby was the only one in the family who danced and sang to music. At six years old she wanted to take piano lessons after hearing the church piano. Her older sisters were all farm girls and music didn’t interest them except for barn-hall dancing with the boys.

Ruby’s father was so taken with his daughter’s love of music that he sold ten acres of homesteaded land in order to buy a Kimball upright piano so his daughter could indulge her love of music. Ruby began playing right away and had help from her Sunday school teacher.

Ruby’s mother was a strong, hardy woman of pioneer stock, while her father was tender, caring and never very strong physically, but he had been to college and was called upon by the neighbors for information such as getting the schoolhouse built, supplying teachers and starting the Sunday school He died when Ruby was twelve years old.

*     *     *

Mother received her second piano from my father. The secretary in Father’s office knew of a Steinway grand piano for sale. The owner was asking three thousand dollars but the price was out of reach for Father. He made an offer of five hundred dollars. Ruby had seen the piano and was embarrassed by the price her husband offered. The compassionate piano owner knew Ruby longed for his piano and would treat it with love and respect. He sold it to father for his offer of five hundred dollars. Ruby was thrilled when father told her the piano was hers.

She started piano lessons again and practiced many hours a day. She took courses in music history, theory, and harmony from the University at Berkeley.

Ruby instilled a love of music in her children and for a couple of years we all sang in the Messiah chorus at Christmas held at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley. We all took piano lessons and music filled our home. Every holiday Mother would come into the kitchen singing, Today’s a holiday today’s the Wedding of the Painted Doll Mother sang and played the piano for her children and their friends.

One of my cousins who had camped in the mountains with Mother and us girls told me later that she never got over the delight of seeing Mother walk down the hill from the outhouse, throwing flower petals as she sang, Where my caravan has rested, flowers I leave thee on the ground. My sisters and I as well as our friends loved those moments. Our cousin said, Your mother is without inhibitions.

*     *     *

The third piano, an eight-foot Steinway grand Ruby had been looking for, was found in a music store in Palo Alto, California. Father purchased it for Mother. He loved her very much, and realistically knew the piano and her playing meant more to her than he did. The lessons and playing brought her greater enjoyment than almost anything in her life. So dedicated was she that she traveled to Los Angeles for her two-hour lessons. In addition she bought herself a silent piano keyboard that had the action of a real piano. When she was away from her grand piano she could practice on the keyboard and keep her fingers limber and strong. In the twenty years she owned the Steinway she gave recitals and kept practicing three and four hours a day. The piano and her children brought her more enjoyment than anything else in her life.

One evening when my sisters and mother were being silly, singing and dancing around the house, Father met me in the hall and said, Your mother was out when I received a message that her piano teacher had died suddenly. I don’t know how to tell her. You must tell her right away,

I said, Daddy I can’t tell her. You must just tell her!

He told her and all the joy she was feeling was instantly lost—Ruby’s teacher, the professor of music at the University of Southern California, her mentor, music companion, and music lover! Now what would she do, could she find another teacher as excellent, devoted and compassionate?

A week later she began to look for a teacher but her heart wasn’t in it. She finally found a teacher, only to find he was taking a year to study in Europe and if everything turned out as he hoped it would, he could give her lessons when he returned.

Music consumed Mother along with her children and her strong faith in God. She practiced on her beloved piano until the day she went to the hospital to have a brain tumor removed. She died five months after the operation.

After she died I found this poem in her handwriting.

Listen World

Servant and master am I, servant of those dead and master of those living. Though no spirits immortal speak the message that makes the world weep and laugh and worship. I tell the story of love, the story that dimmest I am the incense upon which prayers float to heaven. I am the smoke that falls over the field of battle where men lie dying with me on their lips I am close to the marriage altar and when the graves open I stand nearby. I call the wanderer home, I rescue the soul from the depths. I open the lips of the lovers and through me the dead whisper to the living. One I serve as I serve all, and the king I make my slave. I speak through the birds of the air, the insects of the field, the sighing of the wind in the trees and I am ever heard by the soul that knows me, in the chatter of the wheels on the city streets. I know no brother yet all men are my brothers I am the father of the best that is in them and they are the fathers of the best that is in me; I am of them and they are of me for I am the instrument of God.

I AM MUSIC

Anonymous

Sydney My Youngest

Two girls was not enough another one was needed

A precious little beauty that warmed our heart

Trying to walk in high heels a boss at nursery school

Lowell smaller than her, When I grow up I’ll marry him.

Romper Room

Getting off the bus at Walnut Lane not able to walk home; crying

And stopped at neighbors. Mother is called, come get your daughter

Ballet and Piano lessons, then only piano, she wanted.

Played excellently, until love happened; then a frightening experience having her upper and lower jaw wired together after tooth surgery. wanted mother by her side.

Not interested in College but Mother wants the experience for her.

College visit two, farmer boys at one, Chico the other.

Leaves for school In love again and at school in name only.

Wanted to get Married. Met new lover and bells start ringing, lovely gown, grand dinner reception. A cruise in the Caribbean then back to work at Chevron.

Later, three beautiful children, then a divorce, what happened?

Back at chevron met Jeff. Big Wedding at Winery and trip to Tahiti

Beautiful home, loving husband, Great, happily married.

My sister Marjorie

My sister Marjorie, five years older than I Always had parties at our home in Berkeley. We had a stairway that led from the kitchen down to the basement. In the basement was a big oil furnace room. (In 1942 we would go down there during a practice air raid. Also we had a large playroom down stairs with doors opening out to the back yard. A half bath was next to the playroom.

One afternoon my sister Marjorie asked me if I would like to go to her party down stairs. I was fifteen and most of her friends were in their early twenties. I thought it would be fun and said, Yes, I’d like to go. I got dressed up with high heals and a fancy hair do, met some fellow named Howard who danced with me all evening. My sister always had punch in a punch bowl and that night someone spiked the punch. I found out later that they always spike the punch and leave the empty bottle of booze out at our back door. with the milk bottles. Twelve or fourteen people came at the party, all dressed very nicely. There were more parties and I started going out with Howard.

This same group of people, all went to Lake Tahoe one summer for three or four days. I don’t know where they stayed at night but they were around our house during the day. We all stayed on the beach most of the day and I was there with Howard. I went with Howard for about a year and then I met Ed and that was the end of Howard.

My Little Island

We had sold our house and needed a place to live. I saw an advertisement in the paper for a house I thought I might like. Ed wasn’t really interested but he drove me to take a look. I loved it right away. But it didn’t appeal to Ed at all! The house needed lots of work. At the present time, it was being used as a school. It was difficult to see the inside because there were bookshelves all around the walls.

The property was right around the corner from a carpet store. The house sat at the end of a gravel road. Upon entering the gravel road an old house was the first thing you saw on the right side and on the left side was a similar to the one I was interested in.

I was interested in the house at the end of the road. Behind it was vacant property, owned by the furniture store Breuner’s. The Breuner store faced the same street as the Carpet Store. I loved the house because it seemed like I was on my own little island.

After touring through the house, I said, This house will be zoned commercial soon and then we can sell for more money. My husband Ed ‘The Realtor, ’ didn’t like the house at all and wasn’t convinced that it would become commercial. Reluctantly, he made a low offer, only because he knew I wanted it. To his dismay the offer was accepted. When the school moved out we moved in.

The house had a shed roof that slanted down on the entrance, a fireplace side of the living room. Bookshelves lined each side of the fireplace and extended the length of the room. The room was about thirty feet long included the dinning room. The floors were worn, but were hardwood plank. All the walls and ceilings were redwood. My grand piano had a wonderful place to sit, at the end of the room near the hallway that led into the bedrooms. Our only heat was a hot air blower in the hall. My girls used it to dry their hair

The house had three bedrooms. Susan’s room was about twelve by fourteen feet and had floor to ceiling windows looking out to the back yard, the room was lined with redwood but needed some work to make it look finished. Then there was a smaller room for my younger daughter, Sydney. Ed and I had a strange master bedroom. The only reason I called it a master bedroom was because it had a tinny bathroom with a shower and toilet.

At the end of the hall, passed the bed rooms a door led into an unfinished part of the house. This room was probably ten by twenty feet and had a door leading out to the back yard and another door leading out to the front yard. The kitchen had an old free standing stove and a large cupboard that stretched the length of the wall, between the kitchen and the dining room. The dishes and glasses could be taken out from either side. A carport for the car was at the side and a small room in the back of the house had a pump and a well.

Talk about interesting, this house had it all. We did have a problem; we couldn’t afford to spend the money to fix it up. It was difficult getting used to the hard well water.

When I played the piano my back was to the hall and it always felt like someone was watching me. I thought there were ghosts living in the house.

When daughter Sarah came back from school in France she fixed up the back room to use for her bedroom. She put large pictures on the walls, rugs on the floor and had it looking very nice. My upright piano was in the room for her use and I taught singing lessons in there in the evening.

Ed and I were sound asleep in our room one night when I heard Sarah’s SCREAM from the back room. I ran to the door, stopped in the doorway, listened and walked in. The light near her bed shone brightly. She was sitting up in her bed; she looked at me and said,

‘Mother, feel the heater." I thought, Why should I do that? Then she said again,

Feel the heater. There was a small electric heater at the end of the room. It was off. I walked over and put my hand on it.

Is it hot? she asked,

Maybe a little warm, why? I said, as I walked over to her bed and sat down.

"Oh—Mother I am so scared, I saw something in the door way, a white robed figure walking toward me. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, I thought I might be imaging it but when I looked again it was still there; coming closer. The heater