Quips from Kay

This past Thursday I went downstairs to our community room for what was to be a "High Tea". We had one last year and it was very nice, ladies dressed up wearing hats and the tables were set with fine china, etc. I am a bit of a snob when it comes to things that have a tradition and I had been to High Tea in Scotland.  Before I describe the scene, I must tell you that here in this retirement community for the elderly, whatever the scheduled start time is, they will show up at least 30 minutes before. Therefore, when I arrived all the tables were full but the nice hostess gave me her seat. Well, the lady to the left of me, bless her heart, was partially deaf and had four teeth; the one on my right went to sleep and the one across from me didn't say a word. Now please understand that I am not belittling the toothless one, only describing her to set the scene, which didn't get any better. The tradition is to have a three-tiered serving plate with little goodies on it in ...

In 1969 my husband's friend invited us to stay at his place in Fredericksburg. Actually, he invited two families, ours and one other from Corpus Christi. His purpose was to see which family was best suited for caring for his ranch and animals while he was gone. See, he was a ship captain from Pennsylvania and his wife was from Brazil. He was due to return to the ship and she had to go to Brazil to see about her father who was ill. So, we all went to Fredericksburg to see who would win the prize of staying on the ranch. Well, our little family won out and stayed to take care of the place while they were gone. It was a lovely location with a very comfortable large house and there was plenty to keep our active five children busy. There were chickens to feed and eggs to be gathered, dogs to be fed, rattlesnakes to shoot and last but not least, sheep to be tended. It was there that I finally understood why Jesus referred to us as his "flock" and "sheep". Those anim...

Port Aransas is a small fishing village on the Gulf of Mexico, southeast of Corpus Christi. It's still there but has become very modern, much larger and populated with restaurants, motels and "fun" things that can be found just about anywhere else on a coast in the U.S. When I was growing up in Beeville, Port Aransas was the place we went to go fishing and/or camp out on the beach. There were several families from Beeville who had vacation homes in Port A; in fact, so many that one street was renamed "Beeville Avenue". My parents and I were not among those but we did stay in various motels in town and of course, had access to the beach. We loved to fish and did so by either surf, pier or jetty, or renting a boat for deep sea fishing. On one occasion when Daddy chartered a boat for half a day's deep sea foray, I got so seasick that we had to turn around and return to port. He was not pleased with me because the owner gave no refund plus, of course, we didn...

Not long after my husband conquered Hodgkins lymphoma, he learned that he had bladder cancer. The triumph over one cancer was overshadowed by a more ominous type. We began driving from Fredericksburg to Houston M.D. Anderson for his radiation treatment. To cheer ourselves up on the way we would sing "On the Road Again" and we also tried to find interesting places to eat both on the road and in Houston. At Anderson we learned of a service given by a group of unselfish pilots, called Angel Flight. They give flights to people from all over the U.S. who need medical treatment. They fly their own planes, pay for their own gas and are very congenial. We would go to the little airport in Fredericksburg where we would meet our pilot for the day and from there would fly over the beautiful state of Texas as if we were on a private air tour. The pilots would drop us off at Hobby Airport in Houston and we would catch a taxi from there to the hospital. The taxi driver also owned the comp...