THREE ANNOUNCEMENTS

THREE  ANNOUNCEMENTS

“Lifes and Loves of Myrt-ty-ty-Ky-Ly Dragaan Princess”

is now available on Amazon.

.  ***Not a children’s book.***

After two and a half years MYRT-TY-KY-LY now glides into our world and discloses her friendship with Lu-e.   The pushy yellow-haired fem broke into her Memory Cave in the red mud hills of Virginia.  Myrt-ty had to return to her first Life.  She asked Grand-myrt “Why am I stuck with her training.”

Young Louey in the depression years of the 1930s, wanting answers, chased the golden Dragaan in a leaking rowboat on James River only to hear “When you’re older.”

Or-Vry, the copper-skaled prince, upset Myrt-ty’s goals with a mist of light flame surrounding her in deliciousness.  Did he refer to the Veil of Mating?  Or the Veil of Time?  The sinking of Atlantis might have been his error. 

After the war years of the 1940s Louey made the most important decision of her life and accepted the consequences. 

Orders came for the Draks to transfer to other star systems.  Louey called for help after a debasing wrong.  Would Myrt-ty leave her tyke or Lu-e?  

Fact or Fiction? Both the good and the bad shown for Louey are based on my personal experience. Some stories have been enhanced, some have been limited. The description of the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s would be fact.

Myrt-ty-Ky-Ly’s part? I sat at the keyboard and words appeared on paper. Myrt-ty wrote her own story and you will need to ask her if it is Fact or Fiction.

100% of all monies received go to the Fred Cheshire endowed Scholarship Fund

“THERE’S  NOTHING  I  CAN’T  DO”

Biography of Fred Duane Heiny Cheshire        -        December 22, 1945 -  September 22, 2017

                                                                                                                                        

I’m looking for help. – Did you know Fred???

We arrived in Phoenix in 1963 --  Phoenix College and Encanto Park and ASU.

Do you remember when Fred walked?

Did you know Fred at - Royal Palm – or - Gary Tang  - or - Phoenix College  - or - Glendale College ???

Did Fred help you with Spanish or Citizenship??

Were you a Nurse or an Attendant??

Did you call Fred friend or sweetheart???

Help me with stories of these times and others that I don’t know to mention.  I am most appreciative of those who are offering their memories and I’m looking to fill in the blank places.

Send me a note at mimar102@cox.net and we will talk.

FRED   DUANE  CHESHIRE  SCHOLARSHIP

We celebrate Fred’s life with that which he loved best –

Helping his students over a bump in the road, helping his students when lack of English holds them back. 

In order to have an Endowment fund, where the original donations stay intact and scholarships are awarded with the earned monies, $10,000.00 is required. 

How long will it take for those who know Fred and/or want to help his students to reach our goal? 

We have had many generous donations and someplace we know Fred is applauding. 

The total raised to date is  $4200.63. 

Checks may be mailed to:   

                          Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation,                                                                       

                              2419 West 14^th St., Tempe, AZ 85281                            

                                         Please indicate Fred’s name and 5629 or . . . . .

Maricopa Community College Foundation, c/o Mariam Cheshire,

 613 N. 4^th Ave. #616, Phoenix, AZ 85003 or . . . .

                            https://mcccdf.org/Cheshire  for credit card

AN ANONYMOUS DONOR WILL MATCH DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR

For every dollar you contribute to Fred’s Scholarship fund, it will be matched until this person has contributed five thousand dollars.

Every dollar helps.

I will send you a letter or email to give you my thanks.  You will hear from MCCD for your tax deduction. 

THERE'S NOTHING I CAN'T DO

There’s  Nothing  I  Can’t  Do

I have written and rewritten this.  Now I throw that away and type it like it is. 

Sad words:  It might have been.

Misery:  It shouldn’t have happened.

Tear out a heart:  I have lost my child.

The Memorial Service for my son, Fred Duane Cheshire, took place on September 30^th at St. John’s Lutheran Church, Glendale.  If I had not been numbed, I would have considered it a beautiful Service. 

Pastor Peter, a friend of Fred’s, spoke loud and clear.  He called Fred “a Bridge Builder.” He said: “Fred looked around and saw gaps that needed bridging. . . . computer know-how . . . social activities . . . language skills . . . tutoring . . . cultural togetherness . . . citizenship . . . He brought people together with what interested them and excited them and he shared those passions.”

Dan, as one of his caretakers, gave us stories that came about due to Fred’s needs as a quadriplegic.  Fred pushed the envelope and Dan rescued him in ways that sounded funny when told after the disaster was over. 

I kept my tears away long enough to tell about Fred’s life growing up:  his eagerness to learn about everything including rocks, stamps, chess, science fiction, Spanish and people.  He earned his degrees from Phoenix College and A.S.U., married Sue and took to teaching like a duck to water at Royal Palm Jr. High. 

To our way of thinking, his death should not have happened.  A routine sinus procedure to help him breath better and all appeared to be O.K.  Suddenly the paddles were called for.  One-two-three-four-five-six-seven and his heart began beating once more.  The doctor said it was not a heart attack. 

I had been strolling around St. Louis ready to take off on a seven day boat trip on the Cumberland River to Nashville.  When I called the hospital to check on the results of his procedure, the nurse said, “If he were my son, I would be on the next plane home.”

When I came in early the next morning, Fred opened his blue eyes and knew I was there.  That was the last time I would have communication with my kid.  From December 22, 1945, when someone plopped a 5 pound scrawny, red, wrinkled, crying baby in my waiting arms until that fatal date of September 9, 2017 adds up to 26,194 days or 71 years, 8 months, 18 days.  I thank you, God, for every hour of that special merry-go-round loving time. 

Many people stayed around after the Service to tell me how Fred had impacted their life:  Citizenship stories, foreign students with tutoring help, a young woman who had scuba-dived with him, and a lady who had been in Fred’s 8^th grade and remembered when he walked, taking giant steps across the room, always eager to reach his goal. 

I have much to do now.  Messages await.  Where we have addresses from the email and the beautiful cards and the signed Guest book, we want to keep in touch. Magaly, his special Magy, and I want to thank the people who have donated to the Scholarship fund. 

My second book -- “The Lifes and Loves of MYRT-TY-KY-LY, Dragaan Princess” -- will be published this month on Amazon.  I begin to tell Fred’s story when “GranMyrt placed a safety net around the baby heart of Fritz.“   (not a children’s story)

Next:  I will begin, “There’s Nothing I Can’t Do, the Biography of Fred Duane Heiny Cheshire.”  In the back of my closet I found three golden files with Fred’s early letters, newspaper stories about his accident and even a rough draft of a book started back in 1977.  I will be looking for people who participated in Fred’s life and ask for their stories.  Don’t be concerned with sentence structure or commas, just write to: MIMAR102@COX.NET. 

Top-top priority will be the growth of Fred’s Endowment Scholarship fund at Glendale Community College.  We celebrate Fred’s life with that which he loved best -- helping his students over a bump in the road, helping his students when lack of English held them back. 

AN ANONYMOUS DONOR WILL MATCH DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR

For every dollar you contribute to Fred’s Scholarship fund, it will be matched until this person has contributed five thousand dollars.  In order to have an Endowment fund, where the original donations stay intact and scholarships are awarded with the earned monies, $10,000.00 is required.  How long will it take for those who know Fred and/or want to help his students to reach our goal? 

Checks may be mailed to:   

                          Maricopa Community Colleges Foundation,                                                                        2419 West 14^th St., Tempe, AZ 85281                            

                                         Please indicate Fred’s name and 5629 or . . . . .

                            https://mcccdf.org/Cheshire  for credit card

I will send you a letter or email to give you my thanks.  

 Thank you for listening to my story.    Hugs and blessings, Mariam

Time Travel: TWO BIRTHDAYS SEVENTY YEARS APART

Time Travel: TWO BIRTHDAYS SEVENTY YEARS APART:   Two Birthdays Seventy Years Apart     It was August 1947, seventy years ago, when my 20 th birthday came around and I wanted a par...

TWO BIRTHDAYS SEVENTY YEARS APART

 Two Birthdays Seventy Years Apart    

It was August 1947, seventy years ago, when my 20^th birthday came around and I wanted a party.  The only problem – there was no one to give me a party.  I was a single mother living with grandma who took care of my very neat two year old boy. 

Sounds like an unhappy sad situation, doesn’t it?  Actually it didn’t take long to find a solution.  After the divorce I needed a job, and since I wanted to fly, I went out to the airport and began working at Roscoe Turner Flight School.

We had a lot of flight students on the G.I. Bill.  I suggested to my boss that there might be a celebration for all the new solo permits and private licenses issued.  He agreed.    We might have had a cook-out of some kind – I don’t remember.  I do see the scene of cutting slices of cake and passing them out, all with lots of laughing and talking and good cheer.  And I kept my birthday a secret!  

It would be a late evening so I made arrangements to stay on the airport.  A very large area over the main hanger had been turned into a room with rows of beds for when country-wide fly-in’s were scheduled.  After I had finished bidding everyone ‘Good-night,’ I went up to the loft and chose my single bed nearest a big window looking out over the Airport. 

I was content.  A lot of people had come to my birthday party.   And now I could blow out the one candle I had brought with me.  I looked out at all the airplanes parked below me and the runways beyond and made Four Wishes: - 

shown at the end of this story along with the results. 

Fast forward to August 11^th 2017.  90 year old birthdays don’t come along every day.  And I wanted this one to be special.   What did I want to do?  Easy. I wanted to fly a Cub once more. 

Emails went out to the flying clubs around the Valley asking if there were any J-3 Cubs around.  I received good answers:  A 1945 Cessna, an Ercoupe, a Swiss Pilatus turboprop, and a “high performance“ plane.  All exciting -  all maybe someday. 

The one that fit would be a Super-Cub at Chandler Air Service. My niece, Alice, drove in from the boondocks to take me.  Son Fred said he preferred this to my first suggestion, parachuting out of a plane, and appeared happy to put down $192 for an hour of flight.  A reservation was made for 10:30 am on my birthday. 

My instructor, Curt Murphree, and Alice and I walked out to my Cub.  Back when I was 20 years old and 30 pounds lighter, I swung into the back of the J-3 with ease.   Now I put my foot up on the iron step and I needed Alice’s help to lift my leg up and over into the narrow space.  Fortunately I still have strength in my arms.  I could reach up to the overhead framework and pull myself into the seat.  

There were other differences.  Instead of a seat belt, a shoulder harness kept me tight.  A radio head set instead of yelling back and forth.  And flaps and trim helped to smooth out the 165 h.p engine instead of the 65 h.p. in my J-3.  Once I settled in, the cockpit had the same feel as “the olden times.”  

I had my hand on the stick on take-off.  Curt let me climb and when I reached around 3,000 feet, I did a 360 very shallow turn in each direction.  I didn’t have quite the nerve to push that stick over for the steep ones.  Another hour and I would have done it, though! 

Then a little more altitude and I did a power-off stall and another power-on stall, climbing, climbing, until it reached the place of no-flight, fell off on one wing and stick forward, level it out.  Just like at least a thousand I’ve done before.

Then Curt made a wonderful suggestion.  We went down to warm altitude, maybe 500 foot about ground level, and I followed the dry Gila River along its path.  We came up on the San Tan Mountains and I’m right on top of them, then going down through an opening between the hill tops, buffeted a bit by wind thermals and the Cub and I handling those together.  

I’ve flown around a lot of the air of Indiana and of south Florida, and I have had land exploration in Arizona, including the Grand Canyon, -- but, honest to goodness, there is nothing like our Arizona desert.  I held my breath with its beauty.  

Now comes sad news.  My phone/camera had worked its way loose from my pocket and was traveling around the bottom of the plane.   So these aren’t my pictures. 

Alice is the official photographer for this trip, learning her new Apple phone, and going over to the Apple store so that she could “air-drop” the photos to me. 

Curt is my new love.  He was so patient, allowing me to handle the stick throughout, even though his hand was close by if I needed help.  He did the landing, but I followed him through and pulled that stick back tight when we touched down. Just like the good ol’ days. 

When you’re in a Cub, you are flying.  You and the plane are together.  And I have a date with Curt next year to fly the Great Lakes bi-plane in a few acrobatic moves.  Actually I’m double-booked because Alice and I are going to indoor sky dive.  

Back to the Airport Café for a very good hamburger and beer. 

 Then Alice pulled out fun extras.  The pot of succulents from my brothers and sister waited for me.  Alice reached down for the cake she had hidden.  And then my beautiful new blue blouse that only Alice could have chosen for me.  There is no way that I could tell everyone how much I appreciate this wonderful, wonderful, never-to-be-forgotten 90^th birthday.  

And as for those Four Wishes:  -  to fly and to travel and to write and to raise my kid properly.

  It has all come true.  Seventy years later, I write this to tell you – If you want something, don’t wait for it to land in your lap without any effort – Go for it!

My Cup Runneth Over!

Time Travel: FUN TIME IN TEXAS

Time Travel: FUN TIME IN TEXAS: Fourth of July and Fireworks.    The anchor is down on the pontoon boat and we are surrounded by the bright green Neches River trees. ...

FUN TIME IN TEXAS

Fourth of July and Fireworks. 

  The anchor is down on the pontoon boat and we are surrounded by the bright green Neches River trees.  Watching the white clouds build into stormy shapes.  Eating salami and cheese sandwiches and drinking a beer with sister and friends.  There is no better vacation for an escapee from Arizona heat.

 

The three weeks fly by far too quickly.  Sister Nan starts out the first week with the check-ups, teeth and eyes, both of which I pass with no problems.

 

Then our fun time comes by putting our mother’s paintings on the entry way hall of Nan’s new home.  

We take our time placing them on the wall and reminiscing with Mom.  

The second week has been reserved for Tyler State Park.  It’s a comfortable fit for the three of us in the ‘Minnie Winnie,’ the 13 foot Winnebago camper.

I have slowed down from the previous year but still enjoy hiking several trails, getting my breath when I stop to take photos of the wild flowers. 

We explore the Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge with tigers and lions and leopards, learning much from the young cute volunteers.  

Another different kind of day is the First Monday Trade Day in Canton, the largest continually operating outdoor flea market. A scooter has been reserved for me but I allowed sister and Mr. B the fun of operating it also.  Money spent?  My contribution amounted to four dollars for a glass bear paperweight.  

High on my bucket list – kayaking on the lake in front of our camp.   However, last year I sailed the single seater kayak right into the weeds, so I was outvoted in favor of the paddle boat. 

 Our front yard is the perfect place for naptime.  Weather in the 70’s, light breeze, warm sunshine.  Who can want for more?!!  

I looked forward to our three day visit with my niece and family and this year she had a new toy for me.  The Harley Davidson Trike has lots of power and I knew I could handle it.  Well, at least from the back seat. 

Back home in Phoenix again, clearing up paperwork, trying to decide on another plan.  The big Nine-Oh comes up next month.  Son Fred will not hear of me making a chute jump.  I’m trying to think of one last big adventure that I can get by with and show the world I am not yet old.  I wonder if there are any Piper J-3 Cubs still flying.  I know I could bounce it in easy. 

  

 

Mariam and March Madness

Mariam and March Madness

For anyone born in Indiana basketball is part of the DNA.  Thus it’s Big News with the Final Four right next door in Glendale.

And the March Madness Musical Festival is a stone’s throw away from my apartment.  I can see the ferris wheel turning from my balcony.  However windy weather had blown in some aches and pains for my 89 year old bones and I didn’t think it wise that I walk close to a mile for the action.

 

I watched about ten minutes of South Carolina and Gonzaga.  The sun came out.  I couldn’t miss the chance of a lifetime.   I changed shoes, put on a pullover for warmth (a mistake), put cell phone, ID and a few dollars in a (no larger than) 5x8” pouch and got a bottle of (unopened) water out of the refrg.  If the aches got bad, I’d turn back. 

Anticipation took over. The heavy grass on the west part of Hance Park slowed me down, but I could see the action ahead.  I entered the airport-looking security gate about a quarter to four.  Here the plastic sack, a handy way to carry my water bottle, had to be thrown into the garbage barrel.  Music sounds came across the park; I could hear Capital Cities on the stage.  

The price tag for the three day event – FREE.  That’s my kind of admission.  The information sheets read “Come early, Seating is on a First come, first served basis.”  The only seating I saw was of the BYOB type, that is Bring Your Own Blanket.  

Capital Cities belongs to the type of music called “pop.”  I didn’t know what this sound would be like since it would not be my kind of pop.  If they played Tommy Dorsey’s “Boogie Woogie,” I would understand it.  It didn’t matter, I liked the beat, and my feet kept moving.   One of the official “March Madness” photographers – the man carrying the big camera on his shoulder - recorded shots of me taking pictures of the crowd and he also has a couple of minutes of my feet dancing.  

My biggest surprise – and I don’t know why – the age of the crowd.  I’m mixed in with teens and what is called the “Millennials.”  (18 to 29’s)  I doubt if anyone even came close to 50 and definitely not near my 89.  Well, it pays off to get old.  These kids were super polite.  I was allowed and helped to get closer to the stage.  Longer arms held up my camera.  And amazingly, these youngsters wanted their picture taken with me.  In return I got my picture giving big hugs. 

The last time I was on a ferris wheel was in the 1950s at Riverside Park in Indianapolis and with a date.  I didn’t plan on standing in that long, long line to get on a free ride, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to get pictures from a top angle.  

After the ferris wheel made a couple of circuits and the Capital Cities band had moved off the stage, the time had come for me to head home.  The last picture I took is probably my favorite – four great big beautiful policemen protecting me.  That can’t be beat!!! 

For the record, my pedometer read 2.2 miles which doesn’t include the dancing.