FRIENDSHIPS by Katherine Carey-Place 1878-1934

 

It’s sad to come to the end of the trail,

When your sun is setting low,

And your journey’s end is just beyond,

                Not many miles more to go.

Oh, it’s sad, I say, if you find too late,

                As toward the west your journey ends,

That you’ve missed the joy you might have known,

                In making and keeping friends.

 

We toil for loved ones, day by day,

                We give of our hard earned store,

We laugh or sigh down the sunlit way,

                Till the journey is almost o’er,

Then perchance we pause and some to know,

                What it means when journey ends,

We have lived in vain if we do not know,

                What it means to call folks friends.

 

It’s good to feel a real friend cares,

                It’s good to know they’re near,

When sorrow comes that we all must share,

                How we prize a word of cheer,

Or the tender clasp of a true friend’s hand,

                That understands our woe,

Will help to make that long way sweet,

                As we all will come to know.

 

Oh, keep your friends, by being loyal,

                And tell them you love them dear,

The time and place to call them friends,

                Is the while you journey here,

Oh, the joy you’ll find, as the years go by,

                Oh, the glory that comes to you,

In knowing you have a friend who cares

                And you’ve earned by being true.

 

It’s not too late, though the shadows fall,

                And your sun in the West is low,

Just a tender word or sunny smile,

                Dropped here and there as you go.

And you’ll rejoice when the eve has come,

                And you’ve reached the journey’s end,

That you can say I have kept the faith,

                I have loved and known a friend.

 

Katherine Carey-Place 1878-1934

February 1932

 

Copyright Roy Richard

FAMILY by Roy Richard

 

In the greater scope of things, is your clan weird?

Mine won’t win any prizes, they’ve proven their true worth.

My dad was a “dirty old man”.

My mom a “gold digging hussy”.

Or so the respective “Families” said.

 

I have always felt disowned by my blood,

We were rarely included, given a thought

In celebrations and fun.

They all could not see the love, they had for each other,

Our “Family”.

 

Mother’s menfolk had to ‘work’ and so missed the wedding.

Dad’s family said they could still see his dead wife beside him.

Twenty-six years was too great a divide,

Their love didn’t meet the proper definition,

Of “Family”.

 

At Christmas Grandmother bought me pj’s while my cousins got trucks.

One exceptional year nothing under the tree for me,

“Oh, I left it upstairs, I’ll get it in a moment”, she muttered.

I could hear her wrapping something and I was presented with mis-fitting pj’s.

Some “Family”

 

The Uncles took the boys fishing and hunting,

To learn life skills that would make them men.

I wasn’t included, wonder what they were thinking?

But I learned a life skill,

How to hate “Family”.

 

Older cousins left me on the bench at little league.

Psst, dad forced them to put me on the team,

Then they lied why I didn’t play

I learned isolation at an early age,

From “Family”.

 

Funny, they could ask my parents for loans.

Risking handouts wasn’t forbidden.

Deals on cars, loans for houses, a little pocket money,

Dad never complained, just did what was right,

For “Family”

 

Only mother could care for grandmother when she took ill,

After all she had the ‘room’ and the ‘time’.

Never complaining after working forty hours and then cleaning up shit.

Sitting near the hospital bed, knitting mittens and waiting.

For “Family”.

 

Their marriage was not perfect,

Yes they quarreled and fought,

No more than others I’m sure.

But the love they shared inspired,

Our little “Family”

 

I’ve now built my own little brood,

Successful and strong,

Based on the example of their love.

I’m sure mom and dad would be proud.

If they could see, my “Family”

 

Roy Richard (Coot)

July 2022

 

Copyright Roy Richard

THE SEXY OCTOPUS by Gaylia Kenslow – Stogsdill

 

In the year of 1973 –

There was a commercial on TV.

A sexy octopus comes on to tell –

As an underarm expert, what she’d sell.

Arid was dry and would never sting –

And Dee also began to sing.

Then Aunt Gayle hung a sexy octopus on her Christmas tree –

And this brought forth a special jingle by Dee.

She looked at the tree with a shine in her eye –

Saying, “Oh, look, there is NEBER, NEBER, NEBER, - DI, DI, DI!!!

 

Gaylia Kenslow – Stogsdill

1973

Written for Deanna Salazar

 

Copyright Roy Richard

THE FISHING TRIP WE TOOK by Katherine Carey-Place

 

I’ll tell you ‘bout the fishing trip we took the other day,

It sure has me thinking some ‘bout what folks have to say,

You hear some awful stories ‘bout he color and the size,

And I begin to think be-gosh, you hear some awful lies.

 

Si Briggs just caught a three pound bass a week come Wednesday night,

And Hiram Jones, he caught a eel, he said he caught it rithe,

He said it measured more’n three feet by inches two or three,

He said they had a wash tub full, that’s what Hiram Jones told me.

 

Well after hearing Hiram talk about what he had done,

It sort of made us fellers want to have a little fun.

So we looked the almanac clear through to see what day was right,

And we hented cravs and crickets and worms most half the night.

 

We reached the old pond by the mill some time twix three and four,

And boys, I want to say right here, I won’t fish any more,

The rain it drizzled down our backs, it chilled me nearly though,

The fish stayed on the bottom, for fish know what to do.

 

Still hope stayed with us pretty good, each moment brought delight,

For Hiram said, “On good dark days, the fish were sure to bite.”

Well fishing haint the easiest job on the earth today.

If you want to catch the big ones, you got to know the way.

 

You’ve got to know what kind of bait is best for a certain day,

And how to hook it on your hook right in the proper way.

The folks was all to bed asleep when we got home that night,

Bill Snell had caught a sucker and I didn’t get a bite.

 

Katherine Carey-Place 1878-1934

 

Copyright Roy Richard

YOU WENT AWAY by Roy Richard

 

 

Nan Marie Edmonds-Richard (1933-1978)

You went away,

Leaving me alone.

Exposing a hole,

I could not fill.

 

I felt the vast emptiness,

A chasm I could not cross.

Days filled with helplessness,

And long nights of restlessness.

 

On a cold snowy January night,

I lay in the snow, full of hurt and broken might.

Wishing for an end to this madness,

Or for your loving, comforting embrace.

 

Days later,

A sudden passing thought,

A random memory,

Triggered in my consciousness.

 

Only then I realized with startled wonder,

You had not left!

Your body is no longer present in my world,

But your spirit dwells beside me never less.

 

 

Embarrassed I shook my head.

The blessings,

The Love,

The experience!

 

You are still here,

Though in a different form.

Living in a new realm,

That’s inside my heart and head.

 

I love you mom

 

Coot (Roy Richard)

June 2020

For my Mother.

 

Copyright Roy Richard

Randy Graduates by Gaylia Kenslow – Stogsdill

 

If you ever have a mountain to climb –

And everything ‘round you was smooth and sublime –

Just think how dull your life would seem –

If there was no reason to plan and dream.

So when the “going” gets a little tough –

And solving a problem is extra rough –

Just dig right in and climb that mountain –

And savor the taste of “success” from life’s fountain.

 

Gaylia Kenslow – Stogsdill

Written for her nephew, Randy Lee Stogsdill when he graduated from high school in June, 1973. He graduated from Southwestern High School, Flint, Michigan

 

Copyright Roy Richard

Three Gates by Katherine Carey-Place

 

If you are tempted to reveal,

A tale someone to you has told,

About another, make it pass,

Before you speak, three gates of gold.

 

Three Narrow gates first, “Is it true?”

Then, “Is it needful?” in your mind,

Give truthful answer, and the next,

Is last and narrowest, “Is it kind?”

 

Katherine Carey-Place 1878-1934

Copyright Roy Richard