A Wall Of Paintings/Photos Of Life Colors Your Days With Emotions

When my husband served in the Korean War in 1953, he was in a group of soldiers that had played professional football before being drafted. One whose name was Joe Skibinski became his friend and called him Clay. He had been a former offensive guard in the NFL.They were stationed in that time in Camp Gordon, Georgia When they went to eat their meals, the football players went in first before the other guys. Since they liked my husband, they let him come in with them to eat together. He felt very special being among these talented athletic people. Joe would say “come on Clay, come with us.” When they got out of the service, Joe was playing with the Green Bay Packers and they came to town to play against our Baltimore Colts. Since Jerry was an avid fan and went to all the games, he met Joe for a getting together again event down at the hotel where the players were staying. It was a nice reunion as most reunions are and I just heard this story for the first time in the almost fifty-five years, I have known my husband. It is an interesting story and Jerry has been a devoted football fan since he was young man. He went to the Sudden Death game in 1958 and told me he could not see me that weekend because he was going to a game in New York City. I thought to myself, why a young man would rather go to a football game than be with his girlfriend that weekend. He went and it was a historic game and he has not stopped talking about it for all these years. I am glad he was able to view this unusual game that made football history. Sometimes in life, we do things out of the ordinary and then it becomes extraordinary in our memory list. We are happy it happened and that we participated in it and had the courage to accomplish the Mission, I call it. Once, something like that, though maybe not as exciting as football, happened to me. I went to my first dance completion in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, not as a participant, but as a viewer. I went to see what it was all about and to see if I would want to be a competitor with my professional teacher. This was about 1980 or so and I had been dancing for about three years. I wanted to earn one trophy and to place it on my shelf and to be able to stare, gaze, love and adore this metal piece of a statue of sorts. I went with some friends and they too were going to view only, not to participate in the actual competition. It was fun and I got an idea what it would be like to be a participant. It was so exciting to see the ladies all dressed up in their sticking out crinolines, they wore in those days. The crinolines were stiff and very hard for the man to dance against. Years later the men complained and the women felt them too rough to continue on wearing and plus they made even a slim lady look a bit plump; they stopped wearing them. It was a relief not to wear one with the stiffness protruding out and rubbing against your body. I did wear one of them for my first competition dress in about 1982. We often want to try things out before we commit ourselves to doing it. I did win trophies, medals and certificates in my competition days. A total of fifty-eight (my magic number) stands displayed on my shelves in the kitchen. From that first competition viewing only, through all the competitions I danced in and now this Saturday night at the Pikesville Hilton competition held by The Atlantic Ballroom, to me becoming a commentator on the computer about it on the following day for Hunt Valley-Cockeysville.Patch.com, I have traveled a dancing road of happiness, contentment and rewards. Dancing has colored my life with joy, and email friends all over the country who love dancing as I do, and delightful hours of exercise, stimulation and happiness. There is a saying that states “No matter how gray the storm of life makes things; you can always color your life with love and joy.” This is what is categorized as a positive saying and it sounds good as it is written. However, sometimes, we cannot use a palette to color something different than it really is. We can try to color it with words and feelings and perhaps it can help some. I had a step-aunt who always said something sweet. She married into the family after mom’s oldest sister passed away from Leukemia in about 1938. She married my uncle who was left with a son about five years old and a daughter about ten. She had never been married and was happy to have a nice husband even if he had two small kids. She liked me a lot and when I was fourteen, she invited me to spend a month with them in Miami Beach, Florida. I took my first train ride down there and it took twenty-four hours and cost my parents about sixty dollars round trip which was a lot of money in those days. I had fun and she treated me nicely and made good dinners and she did not sleep well at night. She was one of these ladies who went to bed around one in the morning. She would be baking a cherry pie at that time and have it freshly made for all of us to eat for lunch. She always had a sweet thing to comment about somebody and I never heard her utter a mean word about anyone we knew. I liked her and when I married and she was widow by then, I invited her several times to my home for dinner. Her name was Aunt Eve and she was one of these persons who could find something kind to say about anyone and give them a compliment. Many times, these persons really did not deserve her words; but it was nice to know someone like that. It is easier to be around someone like her than to be in the presence of people who make disparaging comments about everyone, whether they deserve it not. We were always taught at home if you could not say something nice, say nothing at all. We had a ‘yenta’ (gossip) person in our neighborhood who knew everything about everyone even though she worked all day and was not home. I was home and she knew more about the neighbors and gossip about them and how she knew it when she was downtown at work and I was right here, I could never figure it out. There was no email then, so she could not have learned it from the computer. Dad had a cousin who owned a small grocery store and his name was Cousin Will. It was during the war and so much was rationed and you needed coupons to buy these special items. Bubble gum was one of them and he gave me a box of one hundred pieces of bubble gum. I stared at it for days and would not unwrap the cellophane covering. I knew I was rich and did not want the richness to disappear because I chewed it up. I loved that Cousin Will and when my daughter married twenty-five years ago, I looked him up in Alexandria, Virginia and found him and his wife Cousin Dora and they were instantly invited to the wedding. They came all the way from there and were quite up in age by then. He said “why did you invite us, I have not seen you since you were a little girl?” I said do you remember giving me a box of one hundred bubble gum pieces way back then? I never forgot you for that wonderful gift. That is why you are invited and you represent my late Dad’s family and I loved you for it for a long time.” He smiled and said he remembered my joy and the light in my childish eyes. Remembrances such as my husband and the football player and other players from 1953, this bubble gum event from about 1944, Aunt Eve from about 1948, the crinoline dancing dress from 1981, these all are things that color our lives. So when the day is gray, you can color it with the colors that brighten those moments. The dress was rose colored, the gum was pink colored, and the football uniforms were blue colored and Aunt Eve loved Chinese food, so the rice was white colored. All these colors mixed together form a painting. Paintings are “silent poetry” said by Simonedes, “A poem without words” said by Confucius “ a canvas of life to hang on the blank wall with a hook and the room is transformed into beauty” said by Elita Color your days with bright moments, eye catching thoughts, and make your life a kaleidoscopic arrangement of happy times, sweet memories and bright thoughts of the future. The future starts with tomorrow or the next week; make it your canvas of a shining light and a filled canvas of delightful happenings and joy and hang it on your wall of life. I have a wall in my living room set aside for some special photos in fancy frames. The top photo is of my husband and me on our wedding date in 1960. The next one is of my daughter and her husband on her wedding date of 1987 and the third one is from my son and daughter-in-law from 2000. The next ones hopefully, I will have there, will be from my four grandchildren and their spouses. I call it the Wall of Weddings. You can make any wall a wall of whatever you want. The main theme will be that it is a wall of happy times and special events. A good name can be Wall of Fabulous, Fantastic and Fine Firsts. Another could be Wall of Life. You have colored your walls and your life with brightness and light and your home and your heart are now shining from all of this. elita sohmer clayman More from Hunt Valley-Cockeysville Patch Osprey Cam, Heroin Ring, Target Evacuated