STORY 1
It was before September 11, 2001.  We were living in NYC.  When John thomas and Tommy were gone I often went down to the twin towers to get half price tickets to Broadway shows.  One morning, I headed down as usual, but I got off at the wrong stop on the train.  That is no problem.  I just decided to walk the extra blocks instead of getting back on the train.

I kept walking but  couldn't find the twin towers.  ( you know those towers that were, for awhile, the tallest in the world?)  Finally I stopped a man on the street who was striding to work, briefcase in hand.  I said "excuse me sir, but could you tell me where the twin towers are?"  With a disgusted look that only a New Yorker can have on his face.  He sat his briefcase down, placed his hands on my shoulders, moved me over a few steps, pointed up, took his hands away, picked up his briefcase and walked away.  Other buildings had blocked my view.  There they were..in all their glory.  I laughed and walked about a block to get my tickets.

STORY 2 
 We were living in an apartment on 99th street and Broadway.  After Christmas, people just put their trees on the street  for the city to pick up.  The year we lived in that apartment, the city was slow picking up the garbage after Christmas.  I can't remember, but it seems like the city garbage people went on a strike.   As I looked out my window, the garbage kept piling up on top of those trees.  Dogs would come by and use them for a bathroom.  Finally I stood it as long as I could and I grabbed some grocery bags and went outside to pick up garbage.  I wrapped my hands with the bags and went to work.

The can was right down the street on the corner, but the people used the trees instead of the cans!  Our door man, Miguel, just stood at the door of our building and laughed at me.  He said "Pat, before you leave you are going to clean up NYC one block at a time!"  I just kept picking up trash and carrying it to the can on the corner which was starting to get full.  

As I walked back and forth, all of a sudden a man in a suit and tie, carrying a brief case stopped beside me, sat his briefcase down and started helping me carry garbage, and stuff it inside the can.  When we finished, he nodded, picked up his briefcase and walked away!

STORY 3
The guys had gone out of town for a gig.  Their plane was delayed and we had a reading of one of the guy's shows that night.  The scripts were at our apartment and weren't bound.  They called me to come and meet them in Union Square and bring the scripts, a hole punch and 3 ring binders. I piled all of this into a briefcase,  jumped on the train and rode to meet them.  When I got there, they came up out of the subway about the time I arrived.  We found a big box on the street, so we sat it up  for an "office", punched our scripts, put them into binders, jumped on the train and went uptown to our reading!

STORY 4
The guys had left to go do their usual weekend gig.  When they got to the airport, Tommy realized he had forgotten his briefcase.  He  called and said "you may not make it before our plane takes off but could you try?"  So I did.  I grabbed the briefcase, ran outside, flagged down a taxi, and said something I have always wanted to say!  "Get me to Laquardia....FAST!"  If you have never ridden in a NYC taxi, it is quite an experience, especially if you tell them to go fast.  They do anyway, but giving them permission makes it even more exciting!  

When we got to the airport, Tommy was standing there waiting!  I made it!  

My driver said, do you want me to wait?  I said "no.  I'll catch a train back."  (Much cheaper)  My driver didn't like that very much. I could tell from the way he screeched away from the curve!  HA!

I've heard this phrase all my life.   This morning, it is gloomy out...very gloomy!  They are predicting bad storms this afternoon and maybe even tornados...at least high winds.  We live in a wind tunnel, anyway, so it could be even worse than usual.

I started thinking about what it is that makes MY world right.  I like order, not chaos, so if I walk through my house and everything is in place as it should be, all is right in my world,  

If I walk through and a rug is crooked, I have to straighten it before all is right in my world.

If my day goes as planned, all is right in my world.

Today, things may not go as planned. Our friend Patsy needs to go to the Dr. at 2.  That's about the time the storm is supposed to hit.  Patsy is the one we took to the hospital on Christmas eve a couple of years ago when the cold snap came and the guys ended up sweeping water out of the church from a pipe until about 8 in the morning on Christmas day.  We also had to pick up Patsy at 4 a.m. from the hospital!  All was not right in my world that day...nor will it probably be today...we'll have to wait and see.

If my children and grand children are well and content, all is right in my world.

If Tommy and I are well and able to work like always, all is right in my world.

If my plans for supper and company go well, all is right in my world.

We recently asked a friend who rents cargo containers about buying one. He normally doesn't sell..only rents.  Actually he is a friend of a friend, but we now consider him a friend as well.  He called today saying that he is going to sell us one, and cheaper than we had thought.  All's right in my world!

As the dark day closes in on me sitting in my house listening to the dryer (a blessing) and listening to Tommy and John boy plan a program with a group called BLOC here in Knoxville (an inner city ministry), all is right in my world.

OK...but what if all that order turns to chaos.  What if my rug stays crooked?  What if the meal didn't go as planned?  What if a storm hit everyday and there were no more beautiful sunshiny days.  What if I no longer had a washer or dryer.  What if I had to flee and leave this home and everything in it?  Would all still be right in my world?

You had better believe it!  "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.  I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name.  On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.  All other ground is sinking sand."

​If you could see me now! I have a bandage on my head.  My cheek and eye are swollen shut.  My tooth is gone and my arm is taped to my chest.  

I have written my congress person, my state senator, the governor and yes even the president.  I think all of the culprits should be eliminated from all of the stores in our nation.  NO ONE and I mean NO ONE, should be able to purchase one of these dangerous weapons.  It's only a matter of time before you come face to face with it yourself...in your own home!  It's downright scary.  

I believe that you can lead a fairly safe and peaceful life if you don't have these in your home or in your life.  

We need more common sense throw rug laws before more people get hurt.

Time for me, started speeding up my freshman year in college.  Before that, time crept.

I remember sitting on the hillside beside my dorm, Hardin Hall at Milligan college, listening to my best friend's brother, who was a senior, give us our first orientation to campus life.  Joy was not my best friend then...I hadn't even met her!  She became that pretty quickly though, starting that first week!

The day I graduated, it seemed as if that orientation had just happened the day before,  I remember driving away from college thinking...now what?

I knew I had to make my own way now and that my parents would no longer support me financially.  That was pretty scary by itself!  I also knew that my parents would not be here forever to back me up and that was very sad for me.  It had never hit me before like it did then.

Now that that sad day is long gone, I look back and wonder, where did the time go?  So much has happened in the 62 years since that spring day in 1962, that sometimes it doesn't seem real.  It's almost as if I watched a movie of someone else's life.

I thought that surely I could never be as happy as I was in college, but of course I have been...and guess what?  Even happier!

Meeting and marrying Tommy far surpassed those 4 short years in college, and we have had 57 of the happiest of years!

Having my children, John thomas and Jason Amos has made Tommy and me more blessed and happy than we ever imagined in 1966 when we married.

However, once again, I look back and think, as Mother used to say, "Backward Turn Backward, oh time in your flight.  Make me a child again...just for tonight!"  

I would add to that, make my children, children again..just for tonight.  Let me hold them, smell them and rock them just one more time. 

Give Tommy and me the energy we had all those years ago to go from sunup till sundown and still not be tired.

The last question I have been asking myself lately is,  "Why is it that I have just sort of, kind of, started to figure it all out now that my time here on this earth is almost up?"  Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over again and maybe this time I wouldn't make so many mistakes.  Maybe I would cherish the moments more.  Maybe I would have put aside silly stuff like sweeping the floor to roll around in that floor with my husband and children.  I don't know.  Maybe not.  

I do know that now that I am at the end, I see a bit more clearly, that the things I thought mattered, didn't.  And the things that I felt didn't matter, or at least could wait until another TIME, did.  

Here's a hokey bumper sticker quote for you.  "Only one life, will soon be past.  Only what's done for Christ will last."

After Tommy and I got married in 1966, I continued to teach until 1968.  He was in college and even though he worked, I made more money!  After I quit teaching, it seemed that we were often working with only a stick!  It was a wonderful time for us though because we learned just how little someone can make and still be happy.  A couple of times I got a "stick" job to try and help out and they proved disastrous. 

We had moved to a church to preach and our salary was $50 a week. I think they gave us a raise to $75 a week right before we left.  I decided to get a job driving a school bus.  BIG MISTAKE.  

My training?  Get in the bus and drive down this road.  I did and it was a dead end!  I had to back out!  The men were standing there laughing.  They said if I could do that I could drive the bus! So I did.  For a year.  I got that route because none of the men wanted it.  (I was the only woman driver)  It went up one hill called "Nanny Goat Hill"  I burned out 2 clutches on that hill!  (Nanny Goat Hill was the reason none of the men wanted that route.)

My bus was a 60 passenger and it had 5 forward gears.  It also was not power steering.  My kids told me that year that the other drivers didn't come up off their seat when they turned a corner!  HA!  The hardest thing about that year was going out on mornings when the temperature was below freezing and scrapping the windshield.  I had to crawl up on the front of the bus to scrape it.  It was always dark out, so hard to see.  I made $300 a month but they took out about 50 of that, so it was hardly worth it.

My next "stick" job was to work at Perkins as a waitress.  I made $2 an hour plus tips, but I worked the slow shift so didn't make much on tips.  I think the most I ever made was $30.  Most of the time it wasn't even $10.  I do have good memories though and don't regret the hard work.  John boy was working at Little Caesar's at the time (he was 15) so we had a lot of "stick" stories.

I am thankful for all the experiences I had working.  Even though I wasn't digging for jewels in the side of a mountain, I did have lots of shiny experiences during those days,  learning how to live in a world that doesn't always make it easy.  Sometimes you have a shovel to dig with.  Sometimes you even have a back hoe.  

​But a lot of the time, all you have is a stick.