We all need to lean sometimes, don't we? Sometimes life just gets a little chaotic, a little scary, and a little strange. This is for all of us who need to know someone is praying for us, someone is standing with us, and we got somebody to lean on.

I love you guys.

Rascal Flatts - Lean On Me (Live)

Music Code provided by Song2Play.Com

Is this close enough, Naapers?


Okay, Mario was too "pretty boy", huh? Well, I was looking for his brother George (o, you say, they aren't brothers? Yeah, George is too old to be his BROTHER.....maybe his UNCLE!).....I found another picture though that I thought you might like to inspect for accuracies. A little too '50's for ya, I know, and I know you are partial to blonde hair, but Lucy can go either way, donchaknow. I mean, apparently, when she was accused of being a communist at one time, Desi was known to remark "The only thing red about Lucy is her hair and even THAT'S not real." So, see, there ya go! Could be, right, Napalm? Right? Right?

When POH was a little girl, Christmas was all about Santa Claus, decorating the Christmas tree, hanging our stockings above the fire place, and sitting on the "Yule" log making "a Christmas wish".

It was a special time with my Dad. He was very busy most of the time but at that time we played chess in front of the fire and did jigsaw puzzles together in front of the football game. Funny, I remember the names of football players like Johnny Unitas and later Terry Bradshaw, more than I know any from the last 25 years.....not like I cared about football even then.

Sitting with my Dad was a treat to the youngest of three middle children. Little POH got lost in the crowd sometimes especially as for every gift or ability that she had, she had one or more sisters who could do the same thing only better. My Dad was, among his tennis and golfing, an avid bowler. He was on a league called the "Ad Club". He encouraged me to learn to bowl and I did. It just so happened that some close friends of mine and I joined a Saturday league for teenagers and it is a great memory for me. Later, as an adult I joined a woman's league one year and had an average of 140. Whoo-hoo, right?

Around the age of 13, after I had been bowling for a year and knew how to keep the score (it is interesting that as hard as math was for me, keeping the bowling scores, adding strikes and spares together, was a pleasure, something todays kids, with the automated scorekeepers don't get a chance to do.)

I was invited to come and keep score for my Dad's team and for whatever team he was playing against that day. They always checked my calculations over my shoulder but I came to like that because then they would pat my back and tell me what a good girl I was, how bright........Ooooo, POH lapped that up like a puppy with a fresh bowl of Kibbles and Bits. I got paid a dollar a game.....a good deal since it was only a couple of hours and babysitting would have been alot harder and for only 50 cents an hour. Plus, I got to feel important for once. I could do something for somebody and they appreciated it. The men all wore suits and ties. They would take off their jackets and hang them on the back of the chairs. They smelled like tweed and camel's hair and cherry pipe tobacco. It was the funnest.

At Christmas we had enough traditions to look forward to so that each year was in many ways the same, yet at the same time, with the fifties moving rapidly into the sixties and lifestyles dramatically shifting there were many changes too.

As we became a family of teenagers and one sister left to go to college and another to boarding school, family dynamics shifted. Christmas was the time when everyone returned though. It didn't always feel the same....relationships change when people are gone even for a few months at a time, but singing carols around the piano with my mother playing in her smooth and quiet style, and making cookies and stuffed dates with walnuts and sugar, made for a continuity that seemed to bridge the gaps....at least for a time.

Christmas shows and movies were not much of a factor in my generation. Yeah, there were some, mostly black and white for many years, but the proliferation of "Christmas movies" was not part of our holiday season to any great degree. The only one I remember seeing was "White Christmas" with Danny Kaye......and another guy I can't remember.

We had a creche. My mother gave it to me before she moved from New York to Florida many years ago. I still have it. It sits, set up year around, in a glass cupboard in my dining room. It is a Hummel Creche that my grandmother brought from her trip to Germany sometime when POH was very little. I never remember it not being there.

It sat a top the piano for many years out of the way of little fingers. All except for POH. She couldn't take her eyes off of it. Or her hands away from it. The little Jesus in the manger just did her in. He wasn't connected to the manger bed so you could take him out and look Him all over. The manger had indentations where he fit. It was an amazing work of art. Yet, that is not what fascinated me so much......it was Him. Who was He? Why did He come? For what purpose? Oh, I had so many more questions but those were the real big ones......and the ones that no one gave me a satisfactory answer about.

We never talked about Jesus much in my house. Oh yes, we went to church each Sunday, dressed in our Sunday best. My mother wore her stole and my Dad wore his best coat (even nicer than the business coat he wore for everyday!) and we all wore hats. We were so quiet when we entered the beautiful stained glass sanctuary. Everyone was. We genuflected before entering the pew. We pulled the padded kneeling rail down and knelt on it for just a minute. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do then, but other people looked like they were talking to themselves so I just lowered my head and didn't say a word. It was all very pious and holy. I liked it alot........well, until my leg started rocking back and forth and my mother would glare at me......or my mind kept wandering to the cute altar boy.

Who was that little baby in the manger? Why was He born? What was so important about Him that the biggest holiday on earth was named CHRISTmas after Him? What did it all mean? Those were not questions POH thought about when she was a little tyke just enjoying her father's company and a rare cup of eggnog. Those nagging thoughts kept her awake once in a while though when she was 13. Who is this Jesus? Why did He come? What is Christmas all about? Why can't someone tell me something that makes sense about that?

It was Christmas 1967........POH was in the eighth grade. I had a friend whose father was doctor.

I don't know whether he was a Christian or not as we were all from very respectable church going families and no one discussed the difference between upstanding church going folk and people who read their Bible during the week and committed their lives to the Lord in a serious and life changing way. Looking back I think he may have been.

In spite of the fact that he was quite well to do.....or maybe because of that fact.....he had a serious habit of giving needy people free services.

One Friday night, POH's friend called up and asked if she wanted to go along on her father's errands the next day. In those days there were no important video games to play.....no time consuming internet sites to visit, and girls didn't play any SERIOUS sports......enough to require Saturday practices or traveling games. Ah, yeah, it was a different time back in them days. Believe me, the thought of missing a piano practice and some black and white looney tunes wasn't problematic.

When they came to pick me up the car was full of supplies. I wondered a little bit what the name of this day would be but I went along....to shy to ask what was going on.

We drove and drove. About 45 minutes later we came to what I later learned was a migrant workers camp. The people there were slightly different than POH had ever seen.....their skin was darker, not black, but definitely not like the light skin that POH and her girlfriends had. Their dress was somewhat shabby but when they saw the good doctor their faces brightened up so much that their apparel was not noticable.

POH and her friend were assigned many jobs that day. Everything from taking care of small children, to doing loads and loads of laundry at the local laundramat with quarters given to us by the good doctor. At the start, POH felt a little uncomfortable.......like who are these people and why am I here? By the end of the afternoon, as the sun was beginning to wan in the west and POH could hear the faint sound of her mother's cowbell calling her home for dinner....if only in her head....we were laughing, singing, playing.......having the time of our lives.............I didn't want to leave.

When we got home I got all kinds of pats on the back from my parents and others who told me that I did "charity work". I was told how hard I worked....how I helped some "poor people" and how I was "such a good girl". Funny about that.....I thought I was just having fun.

That Christmas.....way back in 1967....was the beginning for me, I think. The beginning of a revelation that helping people made ME happy. Happier than sitting around with my girlfriends waiting for boys to stop by, happier than playing Chess or Scrabble in front of the fire on a cold and snowy day....happier than anything I could have thought to do on that Saturday afternoon when I had nothing else to do. Even though I didn't know the verse, "It is more blessed to give than to receive", that was the first time I can truly say that I had a revelation of the awesome feeling that comes when one steps out of their selfish existance and does something for someone else. It isn't just a nice thing to do.............it's FUN!


Sometimes people still pat me on the back.....at least with their words for the life that I have led. They have even used the word "saint". Yikes.............can I just say that POH is not THAT! All I can say is that most of the time......maybe not all..........but most......it's been my pleasure. Like that day.......it's been fun.

Gotta go now......gotsta play with Gabriel. Who'da thunk at 53 life could still be so much fun?