Book Reviews

By Betty Eilerman on July 21, 2017

This is a "down to earth", real remembrance of how it was to grow up in a complex family, made more famous by her brother.
Marcia's unique perspective and sense of humor make it a very enjoyable read and an important memoir for all of us as we reflect on our own life journeys and how we are marked by every twist and turn, even when we are unaware at the time.

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By Laurie E. Erickson on September 29, 2017

Marcia has a gift for story telling that made me feel like I was with her on her journeys. I highly recommend this to anyone who is interested in her life and times, plus the side stories along the way.
You'll be glad you met her, I know I'd love to hear more from Miss Hippie in the future. She sings a rare and different tune.
A no brainer, if you are Into the Dead

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By B.T. Raven on May 25, 2017

There is some sort of rule, cardinal? ordinal? not sure, about rock 'n' roll drummers that their last names should have but one syllable.

Buddy Rich, Pete Best, Levon Helm, Charlie Watts, Mickey Hart, like that.

Then there's Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann who not only hogs the syllables but also half the consonants.

On Billy Kreutzmann's 14th birthday in 1960, he received a gasoline powered go-kart. Two months later his little sister, Marcia, was born. He probably really enjoyed the go-kart. Marcia was less reliable.

But Marcia is still around and has authored 'Miss Hippie in Mississippi' 50 years after the birth of the San Francisco sound, of which the Grateful Dead is the longest survivor and arguably the most famous.

Miss Hippie is a highly readable and entertaining cultural history of the last half of the 20th Century both in California and the deep south, where, if the cupboard was bare (often), one could go down to the back bay of Biloxi and fetch up a crab or flounder or something for dinner.

"Boats were as common as Buicks," the author writes, and "bars were as common as boats."

Miss Hippie's voice is unpretentious, but full of humor and tragedy. she asks no pity from the reader and reminds me of Joan Didion, who has patented the queen-of-cool narrative style.

Miss Marcia is not Didion but is almost as much fun. The book is a mere 100 pages. I've read it about a gazillion times and never tire of it.

I was given the opportunity to see this book in manuscript, and watched it take shape in galleys and finally result in a book. That's why I've read it so many times and still do.

It's well understood that the Devil dwells at the crossroads of Mississippi and is the place were bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul.

I'm of the opinion that Miss Hippie was sent down to the sultry territory to keep the Devil down in the hole. Of course, the official explanation is that Marcia's mother and father divorced in California and Marcia made it to the south in the custody of mom.

That's just a cover story. After Miss Hippie was through with Satan, she returned to California to undertake more serious challenges among the north coast counterculture. The Grateful Dead make many appearances in the book but Marcia Kreutzmann introduces us to many more interesting folk who did not share the Dead's celebrity and who, through this story, may perhaps not be forgotten.

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By d'Philip  Chalmers on July 1, 2017

There is been much written about The Grateful Dead, the hippie culture and the lifestyles and experiences of the rich and famous who have been in the limelight...but rare is it that an author with a truly unique perspective comes along to give a reader (or fans of this amazing sub-culture) a peek into both the history and the psyche of The Grateful Dead universe. Marcia Kreutzmann, the little sister of the famous drummer Bill Kreutzmann, does exactly this in her debut novel "Miss Hippie in Mississippi", a delightfully easy to read memoir which shares both delicate secrets and personal insights with a healthy dose of both realism and emotional fortitude. I found myself laughing aloud at times, holding back tears in other moments and overall just cannot recommend this book enough...It's an awesome read!

Check out "Miss Hippie in Mississippi" today.

 

The Story of the Story-A Mystery

"Put your John Hancock right there." Did Mr. Hancock really sign the Declaration of Independence or was it photo-shopped in, asks historian B.T. Raven.
Of course he did, they did not have the digital foolery we have today, which brings me to my present mystery, the letter from the Grateful Dead to their fans.

 The show at Deer Creek was a disaster, even the police said they were not going to risk the human stampede again for the second night's show. The show was cancelled and a letter written up and sent to the fans, threatening to end all tours by the group if the rioting and destruction did not stop.

The Prologue of my memoir, Miss Hippie In Mississippi, states, without question, a letter was signed by the band to their fans asking them to stop the anarchy (25 sec. film clip) ruining the good vibes of a Grateful Dead concert.

But did Jerry sign the letter? Some Deadheads say yes, some say no. His signature could easily be photo-shopped in. I've seen a digital copy on Flickr.

 The newly released documentary movie  Long, Strange Trip is in the "no" camp. The reason makes perfect sense too, Jerry was anti-authoritarian, so to tell people how to behave was against his nature. A live and let live kind of guy. Hell, he didn't even want to be front man, but Ron McKernan's death created a void someone had to fill.

So, until I see a actual physical piece of paper containing his signature on the letter-which can also be forged-my jury is still out. The mystery remains.

Band Letter

The Big Bill Chronicles-Carmel Woods

Photo taken in  2011.  House looks neglected.

A simple wooden box with hinged lid sat inconspicuously on Dad's large oak desk.
It could've held paper clips or other office type items. Hidden in plain sight, Dad's box held loose leaf marijuana ready for rolling.

When the cops knocked on the front door, Dad wasn't nervous, he was sweating bullets. A lawyer, he could lose his license to practice law if busted. I don't know how he managed to stay calm and answer their questions about an attempted burglary in the neighborhood. They were just canvassing the area. The three  8-foot-tall plants in the guest room  closet were safe for now.

 Happy Hour started real early that day.

Dad and Gale's new home in Carmel was  different from previous residences.  You could say they went suburbia, Carmel-style, meaning every house and  street was on a hill, shaded with pine trees, flowers and ornate fences. Beautiful but a far cry from the country house in Santa Cruz encircled by a creek, a meadow and a county park.

My first impression of the new pad was the design. Tall fencing covered in ivy provided privacy for the walkway and the small patio. Did I mention hills yet? The garage was tucked under the living room with its high open-beam ceiling and French doors that opened onto a small porch where one could look down through the branches toward the unseen ocean. The guest room had its own entrance next to the garage.

Dad and Gale were happy here and filled the house with sunshine, love and music. Gale's baby grand piano occupied  most of the living room's west corner.

The small, winding street behind the house was up the hill, so when dad  harvested  his marijuana plants, he  shut all the windows in the brightly-painted kitchen. He worried the neighbors would grow suspicious as the windows were otherwise open to let the sun in.


My step-sisters, Julie and Kendra would come over with their friends in tow and the feel of a party was in the air. By nightfall, everyone had a  noisemaker gadget in one hand, a fat joint in the other and Bob Weir's song Mexicali Blues playing on Dad's stereo at top volume.

One of Julie's friend was a young homosexual man. At first he stayed in the background, watching the party, self-conscious, then he felt the love and joined the festivities. I remember being happy he relaxed and knew there was no negativity or even a care as to his orientation. 

 Once he relaxed though, things got a bit wild. He wanted to see the ocean, so we all piled into his van around midnight. He drove the narrow, tree-studded streets to the beach while clapping to the music, no hands on the wheel. Someone spoke quickly to him and he settled down. On the beach, he began singing while running around having a joyous time. Then everyone started singing too.

Carmel beach, Carmel-By-The-Sea, Calif.

Dad and Gale's love also went into  fostering a teenage boy named Blake Ramsey. One summer, I arrive to have a young teenage boy my age taking up residence in my Heaven. Of course, we became friends. He wanted it to go further but I resisted his advances. Then the brother-sister arguing and fighting ensued. It was too much for Gale. She would grab her asthma inhaler. I was sent back to Biloxi early.

 I harbored no animosity toward Blake though, as he had a difficult future. His Dad was on the run from the law for armed robbery and his mom lived in a tent on the Carmel river. She walked the several miles (uphill) with a Hershey candy bar for her son during their once-a-month visits.
To this day, I wonder if Blake survived and got beyond his dire situation. He didn't even know if his dad was alive or dead.

Blake was moved to another foster home some time later and I never saw him again.

A Jambled Rumble

I'm a lefty in a right-handed world. It's fun at times, confusing otherwise.

I get Kate Bush mixed up with Kate  Wolf. I call a certain brand of corn  chip "Sandinista"

Luckily, I'm not too politically buff  or wonky, as I'd get the 2 Roosevelts confused, although I could never make that mistake with the Bushs, one of  whom may be related to Kate.

C.S. Lewis is not the author of Alice In Wonderland, nor is the Mississippi river the "Big Muddy"  although the jury is still out on that argument. Depends on how much stock you put into  Yahoo answers (answer: not much.)

My husband's face turns bright red when I confuse Ambrose Bierce with Stephen Ambrose, who, fortunately is deceased now. In fact, they are both dead I've been informed.

In school,  no one else I knew wrote their sixes backwards. The letter "C" gave me Hell too.

We won't even talk about the preference of scissor-makers for right-handed people. It's a conspiracy I tell you!

In my job as groomer, my sharpening guy will not even touch left-handed scissors saying "they don't lay right on the stone."  Well then lay them left ...  I've learned to use the right-handed ones fine but inside I'm steaming, groveling to the right-handed majority like a peasant is not my style.

And to make matters worse, I've read that lefties use the right side of the brain, in addition they say we "only use about 15% of our brain's capacity" so, I'm using less than one quarter?
How about 2 dimes and a nickel?


Going into high gear now, you ready?
You ain't seen nothing yet Yeti.
Yet I was the lover of
 English ...
 saddle
 at the Gymkhana. Jim's Kana was held in the rink at summer camp called Camp Kennolyn, named after the owner's 2 kids, Kenneth and Carolyn. Snazzy huh?

Each morning, wee kiddies in our cabins would hear Cat Stevens played from the loudspeakers. I was 12 going on 13 or 21 depending on my mood.

Deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I'll never sing On Top Of Old Smokey again as long as I live.  No meatballs in my spaghetti either thank you.

I wasn't good at anything the camp offered; the guitar strings hurt my fingertips, the clay pot broke, my horse almost slid down the embankment.

Then I made my Real Bad Mistake ...
standing in the infirmary hallway door for the pledge of allegiance, I said something like "why do we do this, its just a cloth with colors on it." the kid next to me nodded to show he heard but the office workers on the other side of the wall heard me too and I was duly punished.

I should've let that horse backstep off the trail, we'd of been happier in and up the creek.

Brought again to Mr. Brautigan, one of the world's greatest penmen. Saddled with alcoholism and depression, pure genius flowed from his mind until he kissed that bullet and ended the pain. I don't have the guts Richard, I can't do it, at least not yet.
Wanna bet?
No I don't. Besides, I don't have a gun.

And I want to stick around for the end of this clown show in politics.

Luckily, everything changes eventually except the dust in the museums whose sole job is to keep the past frozen in
place. 

A longtime friendship has just ended  today between myself and a Deadhead over politics. We are both entrenched in the trenches and refuse to budge. He called me a "socialist" ... as if that was an insult. 
Sad, confused, but like Jerry Garcia, I let  what happens happen most of the time.
 A second civil war says Rush Limburger. Damn right, and not too soon either. Might as well face the music ... or the gun.

Bloody Rock, Eel River area, Mendocino Nat'L Forest, California

 
Change.

Do you have any?

Only a dime and two nickels.

 

A Narc, Stormy Night

by B. T. Raven

In those times, Los Angelenos were divided into either burrito camps or pastrami camps for  takeout dining.

 A tiny contingent became drive-through burger folks who tended to be Zombies from the Midwest who mistook  'Night of the Living Dead' as a news documentary shot in L.A.

They would chance the drive-throughs in the twilight in the hopes of snagging a few tasty ladyfingers as the food passed through the tiny windows.

Greg was in the pastrami camp for at least this night. His cooking skills were limited to Bisquick variations. There were no microwave ovens, SUVs, mobile phones  or other such poppycock.

He was the lone pedestrian in a seedy North Hollywood district, that was redeemed by good burritos at one end of the block and decent pastrami at the other.

Greg was walking east across the parking lot of the Greek-owned pastrami place when things went south. He glanced to the back of the parking lot and noticed a junkie standing beside a beater Oldsmobile from an earlier decade.

The junkie had a gun.

Since L.A. is a friendly town, whose principle entertainment is serial killers, Greg complied with the junkie's command to come to the car.

"Oh fiddlesticks," Greg thought. "I'm going to be robbed and murdered without any dinner."

The Junkie produced a badge claiming he was an undercover LAPD narc, deputized Greg as a fellow narc, and ordered him to stand on the other side of the Olds to guard a prisoner laying facedown, uncuffed, on the backseat of the car.

Mr. Junkie/Narc appeared to be holding a Browning nine, the kind that carries 15 rounds. Nines have a bad habit of keeping their trajectory even when traveling through Oldsmobiles.

The suspect didn't make any furtive moves requiring gunplay, which was good.

The uniformed backups arrived, which was bad. It was  quickly obvious that the narc was not a local narc. The deal may have been setup in Hollenbeck, or Hollywood or Venice and migrated to North Hollywood.

The cops surrounded the Olds and everybody near it with weapons drawn. Greg tried to leave, but the cops decided otherwise, until the narc eventually told them it was OK.

Greg  beelined towards the restaurant to finally get his pastrami sandwich, and maybe some french fries. He passed two teen boys in a booth. "He's a narc!," sneered one boy loudly. Technically the kid was correct. The Greek counterman was as friendly as Greeks are capable of being. He tried to give the suspected cop free food.

Greg declined the offer, because of the possibility that it could screw up his sainthood application when he finally caught the bad end of a nine.

The Church requires  saint candidates to have performed a verified miracle  The miracle here was that Greg actually got his friggen pastrami on a steamed roll with just the right amount of pickles, mustard and onion. He kept the receipt to prove it.

Leaning Tower Of Glory

       This trellis is going to fall ... any day now. You can''t even see the trellis for the massive amount of Morning Glory vines draped like a solid green curtain, slowly pulling it over.

Each day I check for flower buds. A daily ritual guaranteed to disappoint, for there are no flowers, or hints of anything resembling a Heavenly Blue Morning Glory.

 I thought I was such a green thumb, an engineer of plants, a more intelligent being, ready to manipulate  nature to my will. The laugh is on me.

Why are humans so bent on changing things; rivers are straightened and dammed, bays are filled in to extend coastlines, mixed forests are clear cut then replanted with another species.

My 'design' looked beautiful in my mind's eye, yellow sunflowers peeking out among brilliant blue flowers on a green canvas.

Guppy the sailboat with last year's bounty.

Last year's garden was astounding, as it was all in pots and it produced  much food. I had to use Greg's sailboat for the tomatoes and, let me tell you, that 13-ft. sailboat is a much better planter than an actual in-the-water-type boat.

The experience in the sailboat at Clear Lake taught us so well. Being at a 45 degree or more angle is just mentally weird. My brain screamed, "Danger, danger" while I argued with it, "he'll turn us into the wind, we'll be fine."
Well, there's this small island you see, so the wind then whipped us from the other side.

Did we take sailing lessons?

 Of course not!
Nor did we wear floatation jackets because a capsize was not  possible, thus no need.

 The reasoning escapes logic, I agree.

We started the motor and removed all sail as we headed back to the harbor, the safe but boring option.

 Boring until the mast crashed down. Greg failed to see the low-hanging oak branch above the take-out. I distinctly heard a collective "gasp" from the boaters in the parking lot.

Once again, nature had the last laugh.

Guppy is the world's prettiest planter and that's that. The pots all lined up on the cockpit seats as she sits on her trailer in the parking lot.

Every residence we've lived in was a gardening challenge; first the desert of Mojave with no shade, all heat, then the dark forest of a mountain with all shade, no heat.

The desert was easiest to garden in. Spaghetti squash greened out the chain link fence and the lattice panels added shade and cut the wind blasts.  Greg would do his morning duty and hand pollinate the  golden yellow female squash flowers, a task he enjoyed, "Better then meditation and yoga."

 The mountain garden did well considering it was located in a tiny open area under the mixed deciduous forest of black oak, Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees.

In the  fifteen years we lived in our little 600-square-foot redwood cabin, the garden lost its spot of sunlight as the conifers grew. When we added the chipped remains of a big-leaf maple, that really did it, as the seeds in the chipped mulch began to grow, although the fall colors were delightful.

The local denizens of the forest stopped in to say hello. He had large ears framing the antlers, so I named him Prince Charles. He told his gang "look, a salad bar!" then mowed down the tomato plants to the nub. With full bellies Charles and his does paraded down the middle of the street like they owned the joint, which they do.

Other visitors included skunks, moles and bats. The 1950s-era cabin had been enlarged with a deck at some point in its life and that's where the bat show began each evening.

 As I sat in the twilight more sensing the creatures than seeing them, I'd remember that night at Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. Never had I experienced so vicious a mosquito, not even in Biloxi. Right though the shirt fabric they attacked us, then suddenly ... Thousands of bats darkened the air over the campsite. I ducked but was too fearful to move away. They swooped and circled and flitted over and around us until all the insects had been eaten, then the bats disappeared as silently as they had arrived.

Looks like a face coming out of the ground.

We discovered the home turf of the bats on the next camping trip to Ajhumawi State Park. The area was once a volcanic field and has cinder cones and lava tubes and caves. Of course we had to explore a large cave next to the hiking trail right?

The cave of bats we entered slowly, and left quickly.

As we turned a corner in the cave, Greg stopped and said, "I'm going to take a shot of this."

It took Greg only half a nanosecond to rethink his bad idea as the whole cave was solid with sleeping bat bodies, moving now from our disturbance.
"Turn around and leave slowly ... now" he whispered. Any minute I expected to be flooded with flying bats, wondering what this experience is going to be like and will I get them out of my hair.

There are no bats around here in the potted garden with its trellis. A few turkeys will wander through, glancing at the turkey standing at the sailboat, but that's all.

Maybe by the time you read this story, I'll have success and can return to calling them Heavenly Blue and not Dante's Disappointment.









The 8th of September was a heavenly day for there appeared one single Morning Glory in all its Heavenly hue of Blue

Worth the wait.

"VERN"

             The drivers speeding by on the state highway barely notice her. She is just another small pond under the tall pines in the forest. Just another body of water, one of several in the area. But Vern is a special body, unlike Boggs Lake or Forest Lake, Vern will disappear in the summer and transform herself into a flowering meadow.
If she could, Vern would tell you of the history she witnessed, going way back to the volcanism that laid ash on her bed of clay. In more recent times, she suffered baseball games, bicycling  and horseback riding from the folks at a resort on her southern flank.

The resort was completely destroyed by fire in 1967, with part of a stone wall remaining.

She will tell you of her enemies and of her rescue. Her owner began excavation in 1984 to force her into a recreational lake, but he somehow skipped getting the required permits.

About this same time, friends she had not yet met came and introduced themselves. They were seekers of rare plants, so she showed them her jewelry box.

Among her treasures they found a plant that grows nowhere else and named it the
 Loch Lomond Button Celery.  Discovered in 1941 and collected by botanist  Beecher Crampton  in 1954, two more occurrences north of San Francisco were later found. (This plant is so rare, no pictures online allow for copy. A written request for use must be sent to California Native Plant Society or the photographer.)

Loch Lomond Resort, late 1940s

By 1993 Vern had a new owner, the state of California and a new unladylike name, the Loch Lomond Vernal Pool Ecological Reserve or LLVPER. Yuck.
"Honey, me and the dog are gonna go visit Vern."

"Okay, be careful. Say hello for me"

The state agency Dept. of Fish And Game, built a post-and-rail fence with a dirt path skirting the perimeter. Next year the agency drafted a management plan, a fun read if you like  fantasy, for the interpretive signs never appeared,  neither the "repair fence as necessary" (page 16).  She was ignored and neglected..
We visited her almost daily, although in the rainy season, parts of the path were flooded, for Vern did not care about the fence.

By 1995, the fence was crumbling, whole sections had fallen over, other sections missing entirely.

    The Damage

On this warm afternoon in April of 2008, Vern was drying out and the path was muddy and full of recent and deep tire tracks. Not only was the path destroyed, the tracks went beyond a missing section of fence and into the meadow.  Vern's enemies had returned, riding ATVs. In the surrounding woods live scalawags and parolees of every type. The Chamber of Commerce will not tell you this though. They will tell you what a nice resort Loch Lomond is, all the amenities it offers, including "occasional snowfalls" at Christmastime.

"Honey we're back .. and I need your help."

   The Rescue

Knowing how much Greg hated off-road vehicles, I tried to cushion the blow he was about to receive. Rage was not going to help me in my rescue effort.

" I need your photography skills and your camera at the vernal pond. There is real bad damage and I wanna document it."

"You can take the camera, what's the big deal?" he asks.

"No, you don't understand, it's bad hon."

Finally, he agrees and again I caution that the damage is extensive, "steel yourself for this." I add.

The ruts where the path used to be are a good eight inches deep, serious ankle breakers. The mud was beginning to dry and turn to concrete already.  The damage went from the fence to the treeline.

Several photographs (seen here) were scanned onto the bottom of the letter I carefully composed,  then mailed copies to all state and federal representatives of the Cobb Mountain area. I included a 'cc' list of each name receiving the letter. Then waited.

   The Response
Two replies came back, one from U. S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and the second from Mike Thompson, California State Senator at that time. Senator Feinstein's letter stated, " ...  the land in question belongs to the State of California and is not a Federal issue."  The second reply from  Mike Thompson had, "we will look into this, my assistant will be calling you soon." Next day the call came and very soon, no trespassing signs appeared along the undamaged portion of the path. Sheriff's deputies were seen talking to people in pickup trucks, the truck bed holding an ATV.  Then came the surveyors, placing brightly colored sticks in the middle of the pond.

I put the pressure on. I emailed the state agency responsible for the property, California Dept. of Fish and Game, only to find out they were "unaware this reserve exists." I promptly sent them the 1994 Draft Management Plan they themselves had published.

Next on my email list was the strong environmental  group, the California Native Plant Society. This organization publishes a list annually of endangered and threatened native plants used as the reference by other agencies.

Then came the Great Recession. Vern's tale may not have a happy ending for by the time we moved away in 2012, nothing more had been done.  The survey markers were long gone. The gouges were tramped  down to a semblance of a path by feet and horse hooves willing to risk it.

At least the no trespassing signs were still visible, having been nailed to living oak and pine trees.

NOTES
Beecher Crampton (1918-2002) is the author of Grasses of California, published in 1974.

Other Federal and State-listed endangered plants in the reserve are :
 *Many-flowered navarretia
 *Few-flowered navarretia
Wikipedia's article on the LLVPER here.

Few-flowered Naverretia c michael hogan  License

"Vern" as seen from State Highway 175.

More information on vernal ponds here

 Lakes

by B. T. Raven

 

All lakes, at some point in their careers were once rivers.

Most rivers, against their will, become lakes. They are dammed to become lakes as some sort of punishment. River prisons. The waterfowl and fish are innocent victims of this scheme.

Rivers have no right of free speech, but the brooks often speak out. They babble, mostly, being so little.

La Cucaracha

La Cucaracha

Living in the Deep South was like living in a terrarium. Everything seemed oversized, from  the six-inch long grasshoppers to the bullfrogs the size of my hand.

Unless you cut down the trees, bushes and vines, then paved over your land with concrete, you were on a first-name basis with nature.

Even the bugs were huge. The cockroach refused to be shown up by the famous   mosquitoes "the size of Volkswagens."

Not only were the cockroaches big, they could fly. American cockroach is the common name, although they have another, friendlier name spoken by those who can't bring themselves to say the word "roach."   Palmetto bugs. Brings a picture of beach, sun and palm trees to your mind.

The bug man never worried about unemployment , every house needed him on a monthly basis. Diana's  mom Bertha had the bug man spray their kitchen. For two days, you could not even sit at the table, the acrid, chemical smell was so strong.

 Neither could the cockroaches, they just moved to other parts of the old house. Diana and  I would play throw the shoe ... the winner was whoever's shoe came the closest to knocking the big, brown guy off the wall.

I hated that smell and tried to leave our house while the bug man sprayed each room's baseboards. Thinking back now, I always seemed to be sick when Dad made his monthly phone call to Biloxi.

Having them dead was almost worse then having them alive, for they chose the most inconvenient places to croak.  I'd pull out a frying pan to cook a nice Southern breakfast of eggs, bacon and grits, and there he was, belly up and definitely dead.

 The chemical companies have had to change their formulas, the insects adapted to the poisons.  It's a waste of money, especially in the south, where everything grows regardless of what Man does in his fight again nature.

La Cucaracha is winning.

A Remembrance-Janice Beryl Shaughnessy July 21, 1923

The first time Mom told me  her middle  name, I was disappointed.

 But only because she said she hated it. She said it sounded like "barrel" even though she knew it was the name of a precious gem.

I thought having a name of a pretty blue-green stone was enchanting. Emerald is a variety of beryl.

Dad hated his middle name too and neither of them added their middle name in signatures.

Mom went traditional with my mine, although I was never sure if my first name was just Marcia or Marcialynn. It is a combination of Marcia, who was Mom's only sister and Lynn, her brother's wife, Marilyn (Dennis).

On top of that,  Deep South tradition is to preface a woman's first name with  "Miss"; Miss Betty, Miss Helen, etc.  Of course, I refused to do this and called my best friend Diana's mom "Bertha". Diana addressed my mom
as "Miss Janice".

 I was hard-headed. Even after Diana's family asked me why didn't I follow the custom, I never changed.  Our black housekeeper Alma knew it, "You a hard-headed chil, and yer moma don't whup you like she oughta." she told me sternly.

Mom had to let Alma go eventually, as the money got tight.  Mr. Jackson, the groundskeeper disappeared too. I asked her why isn't she getting retirement from her Stanford University teaching job? Seemed to me she had been a longtime fixture on campus, but was less than twenty years.

 There were good memories in Biloxi despite the rough times: Sitting on the patio listening to the tugboats on the back bay, watching her show how to make sand castles, or how to crack a crab claw open or a walnut. Reading her college textbooks and trying to decipher her hieroglyphics she called "notes."

When she wasn't trying to stop freight trains, she'd instruct me in  everything from Chinese checkers to jigsaw puzzles to how to fill out a check, or the correct way to spoon soup from the bowl. She was a patient teacher.

 Mom loved dancing the most I believe. Dancing freed her spirit, and she is dancing now and forever.

Thank you Mom for everything.

There was never, ever a doubt you loved your children, and

that is the most precious gem of all.