Intermusings

By Shirley ReNae

There are several poems on different subjects to help and uplift those who are struggling with different phases of your life. To help you understand that sometimes hard things happen to good people. However, if you keep trying to do what’s right, those hard things can be a blessing and help you in your life. There are also some short stories and essays to lift your spirits and imagination. Some are based on true events, and some are total fiction. See if you can tell which are based on truth and which are fiction. Enjoy reading all the events and enjoy life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781633389878

Book preview

Fight or Flight

Aturning point in my life came after I had been arrested on a DUI and was taken to the police station to be put in jail for the night. My friend, Patty, was with me. She said I ran the red light, went around the corner on two wheels. Then when the police started after me, I tried to ditch them over behind the flour mill. That night was the only time I had ever been drunk.

When they stopped us, they told me to get out of the car. What made them angry was when they told me to walk a straight line for them. I thought to myself Hello! I’m drunk, I know I can’t walk a straight line, so I’ll just do a cute little dance for them. Now they were really angry. They put me in their police car. Patty drove my car to the police station. I just couldn’t spend the night locked up in jail. I had four children with a sitter. It was a very frightening feeling, one I hope never to repeat. They said I could go home if I put up $150. I didn’t have quite that much, so Patty gave me the rest and I went home. I wasn’t supposed to be driving, so every night when I went to work at the bar, I had to park my car a few blocks from work and walk the rest of the way. Whenever anyone bought a drink for me, I had 7 Up because the police popped in once in a while to make sure I wasn’t drinking the hard stuff.

I had hit bottom after my second marriage turned out to be a bigger mistake than my first marriage had been. There were four children for me to take care of, with no help from their fathers. I had no education since I had quit school the beginning of the tenth grade and started my family at fifteen. Job opportunities were limited, so I was working as a cocktail waitress after years of driving truck, operating heavy equipment, and working in potato factories.

My parents came to my home Saturday night as I was getting ready to go to work. My mother informed me that if I didn’t stop working at the bar, they were going to take my children away from me. This was a very disturbing thing to hear. I made up my mind right then, that was not going to happen if there was any way I could prevent it. My mother had been trying to get me to let her have my children before they were even born. She begged me to sign them over to her. She did this until they were married or killed. My oldest son was killed in a train-car wreck when he was nineteen. My other children got married as they became old enough.

I didn’t have the money to fight my mother, so I had to make us disappear so she had no idea where we were or even if we would ever come back. I had no idea what I should do to keep her from taking my children. I found my answer in a most strange way. When I went to work that night, there was a guy there that really could have used a hose from the bar to his glass. He had really gotten smashed. After we closed, I was walking to my car when I heard someone behind me call out my name. As I turned I saw that it was the guy whose glass I couldn’t keep full in the bar. He hadn’t made arrangements for a sleeping place for the night. Well, I felt kind of sorry for him, so I told him he could sleep in my recliner. He was too drunk to do anything but sleep.

The next morning, he took my children to the store to purchase food for breakfast and to fix a nice picnic lunch for all of us. We spent most of the day with my children. That evening we took the children to a sitter, and Bud and I went to the movies. When he took me and my children home, he told me that I probably wouldn’t see him again. Well, what could I say, I had only known him a day. True, I did like him, and he was great with my children, and they sure did like him. However, I was sure we would get over him.

I was cleaning my house Monday morning when I heard him drive into the driveway. Now this will sound totally absurd to most people, including myself. He came to my door and asked me to marry him. I was just sure that was an answer to my prayers. I said yes. We took the kids and the dog to the sitter and hit the road for Las Vegas. We were married on Tuesday morning.

We each found a job, and we rented an apartment. It was small as it only had a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and one bedroom. There was a huge walk-in closet that we fixed for the children to sleep in. It was all we could afford, but although it was small, it was cozy. After getting married, finding jobs, and a place to live, we headed back to Idaho to get the children; even though we had only been gone for a short while, I missed them more than I can express. We picked up the children then we went to my home and got some food, bedding, and clothes. We had a Nash Rambler car, so we weren’t able to get much in it.

I felt safe in Las Vegas even though my husband was a perfect stranger to me. He took good care of my children, and we grew very close. We bought a house a couple blocks from the school. Bud went to work at a catering service at the airport that furnished food and drinks for the passengers of the planes. The next day, I went to work at the Westward Ho motel. They didn’t have a problem with me coming to work after I got my children off to school. They also agreed to me leaving early so I could be with my children after school as long as my rooms were cleaned properly. Sometimes one of the customers would ask me to go out with them. I’d just tell them that I would call my husband to see if it would be a problem if I went out with them. They didn’t want to go out with me that bad after I told them that.

I’m pretty sure it was a big shock to my mother when she went to our house and found everything was there except me and my children. I didn’t let my mother know where we were for about nine months. She never threatened to take my children away from me again.

The End

Ketchum Wagon Days Parade

It’s been called the world’s largest nonmotorized parade although that might be a little stretched. It is all man or animal powered, no cars or trucks in this parade. However, it really draws a crowd, ten thousand extra people into a town with one traffic light. People who like big crowds in a small place will love this parade. The judges are placed throughout the parade route, then it starts with a shoot-out in the middle of the town.

The parade is very well rounded with different categories, sometimes six or seven, depending on the number of entries. Some entries include miniatures pulling two-wheel buggies, beljuims pulling stagecoaches, plus goats and people pulling wagons. One year there was an ox team pulling a two-wheel cart. Contestants come from all parts of Idaho to show off their horses and wagons, all of which are cleaned and shined to the hilt. After the fancy coaches and old-time hay wagons comes the main attraction, the ore wagons, six all hitched together, with twenty dark Percheron horses pulling them.

Along with the wagons, coaches, carriages, and marching bands are some very brave people standing while riding horses, Indians in their native costumes, Mexican rancheros with their wives in their long, beautiful dresses, groups of dancers riding stick horses, square dancers, little girls in their outfits, mule teams, outfitters with pack strings loaded with supplies, furs, and trade goods are a few of the entries.

Close your eyes and imagine the sounds of many people mingled with school marching bands, fiddler bands, along with the neighing and clipping-clopping of over a hundred different horses, plus the rattling, squeaking, and rolling sounds of the coaches and wagons; what a mixture of sights and sounds. Another sound before the marchers’ march and the dancers’ dance is the fire department which arrives with the super-duper-pooper-scoopers, which are actually men with scoop shovels used to clean up after the animals. I sure wouldn’t want their jobs. They wisely have water in their super soaker hoses to cool the crowd, which causes lots of screaming.

A few years ago there were some other noises. A runaway stagecoach full of cowboys and hookers really got quite a ride. A few spectators got a real rush when two, big, black Percheron horses came straight for them.

The main reason so many participate in the parade is because of the prize money. One mountain man, John, that I know got a hundred-dollar