My First Big Trip

 My first big trip is one I never have remembered. I wouldn’t know about it except that it was a favorite memory of my Mom and Dad and one they told me about several times.

    We went across the country from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh on Amtrak. Or the other direction. My Dad grew up in the Pittsburgh area and most of his siblings were still in that area, but his Dad and the oldest Sister (Dorothy, who had raised him after his Mom died when he was seven) had moved to Orange, CA and another sister lived in Anaheim. I was only 6 months old. They got lucky and their sleeper was in the forward facing nose of the train so they looked out from bed, over the empty tracks in front of them. I think that view at night with the stars and moon and ever changing landscape must have felt like having their own private universe  

    The one thing that they loved was a young boy named Anthony Bonaducci who was about three. The boy was fascinated by their baby with red hair like his and he kept coming back to talk. He also had a scam going that made them laugh. He would drop a piece of paper in the aisle and then tap the shoulder of a man sitting near by. “Hey mister, there is garbage by you. If you give me a dime, I’ll throw it away for you.”

    It was many years later when I was playing the Partridge Family album that my cousin gave me for Christmas. My Dad pointed at one of the pictures on the cover and said, “He looks like what Anthony Bonaducci would look like if he has been older.”

    Of course, Danny Bonaducci did look a lot like his big brother. That was confirmed later in a Tiger Beat Magazine story. Back then I couldn’t just Google the info I wanted.

    Then in 2017, we booked tickets on Amtrak for my husband, youngest son, his daughter and I to go from Klamath Falls, Oregon to Denver, Colorado to visit my Father in Law for Christmas. But Papa Harvey died on December 4 and we ended up traveling via Amtrak for his funeral and a family reunion instead. Now my granddaughter can’t remember that trip but my stories remind her. During the journey she was enthralled the the beautiful views and enjoyed meeting new people and never bored of snuggling with her Grandpa and her Dad and for once getting as much of their attention as she wanted.

Laura Goode, Dec. 15, 1953 - March 7, 2022

 

Today I learned of the death of Laura Dee Goode. She died 1600 miles away, and nearly two weeks ago but until today her family did not know it. On March 6 my husband talked to her, and she responded with shock and irritation when he said she was nearly 70. She won’t get there now, not with her 69th birthday still nine months in the future she will never see. 

When I was 18, I met her youngest brother and once we were dating, I decided to travel with him to visit his family. She told us we could stay in her house but she would be out of town for that weekend. We got there to open doors and a welcoming note and that is exactly who she was back then.  Generous, welcoming, the life of any party. My husband assured me, well not yet my husband, that “she will love you because I love you.” And she did. Even when we lost a python in her house that first visit and had to leave her a note of warning as we left. (Greg’s roommate had asked us to take it to the Reptile Gardens near her home because it had gone nine months without eating after being bitten by its last meal. She found it in her dryer months later and sold it.)

As we grew older and I got to know her, she became a bit more unstable. Life wasn’t kind to her. Her only son died when he was in a custody battle for her grandkids. He stepped in front of a moving train and she lost him, and any chance of every seeing those beloved grandkids again. She also suffered from chronic pain and tried about every thing from pain clinics and drugs to meditation and acupuncture but always the pain shaped her life. 

She also was not exactly smart or stupid, but she didn’t think the same way other people do. She wasn’t cruel on purpose, but she said whatever she was thinking, and it was often harsh. She didn’t think people should be offended if she meant to honestly let them know something they could fix, but still people would resent being told their sink was stained, their shirt was threadbare, their recipe needed more of this and less of that and they really needed to take a shower and pick up their crap.  Why does everyone get so upset? She did think differently, so she was always repeating the punchline of a joke, and then frowning and saying, “I don’t get it?”

That was life for Laura, a joke she didn’t quite understand told by family members who talked too loud and too much but always were welcomed in her kitchen to a big pot of spaghetti sauce and a lot of love. 

But she was eternally naïve, she wanted to be loved and she wanted to help people, and she gave everything, over and over, not just to stray cats, and homeless women and the men she let in her heart and home until once again her mental issues chased them away. She picked up people from anywhere and when she was used and abused, she did it again. This life tested her and has finally left her. 

I’m so sorry, that it wasn’t easier for her, but I’m grateful for the way she opened her door and her heart and welcomed me into her family. 

Dad, as I knew him when I was a child.

 
This year I got a gift, which is also a challenge. It is a year of writing the answers to Storyworth questions  which will be assembled in a book after a year 

 
Paul Edward Miller was 27 when I was born. He had survived a stint in the Army as a Morse code operator in Manila. He had relocated from the Pittsburgh, PA area where he had been one of the youngest of more than a dozen siblings and nieces and nephews raised jointly by his Dad, Brother-in-law and oldest sister after his mother died when he was 7. He married my mom, and they had a difficult time conceiving and then had miscarried a baby boy before I showed up in the 4th year they were together.

Dad loved kids, and he was a playful and energetic companion. He had nicknames for me, the neighbor kids and my cousins that made us laugh and feel special. He worked hard and came home to scoop me up and onto his shoulders, but after playing he wanted to sit down, put up his feet, drink a beer and watch the news. “Hey kid, you make a better door than you do a window.”  Meant we were blocking his tv view. Kids were fun, but blood made him faint and he only ever changed one diaper. He had iron clad ideas, he had gender roles, boys got motorcycles and had to mow the lawn, girls helped their mom and never got the motorcycle. No wife of his was going to keep working once there were kids to raise. He didn’t have kids so he could go out and party or leave them behind on a vacation, but his equal share in raising us was bringing home the check and being there when he wasn’t at work. Mom never really got a break.

When we adopted my first brother, I was almost 5, and then 12 when my brother Lance was born. Dad did learn to be softer with having a Down’s syndrome baby, he loved all three of us intently and would have easily given us everything he had. He was smart, maybe the smartest man I ever met, certainly could have been a Jeopardy champion. As a child,  his family financial status meant he had been tracked to a technical high school and never allowed to consider college. His first new pair of pants were for 8th grade graduation and he tore them that same day, scrambling over a chain link fence. His sister who was only a year younger than he was, never let him forget that he had dropped her only doll in a bucket of water, which made her go bald.

He was raised in a prejudiced time and place but saw people as individuals and was often amazed that the people he made friends with were always exceptions, “he’s not like a real Mexican” to the stereotypes he didn’t question. He used words like “Hunkie, Wop, Nigger, and Polock” in the jokes he repeated and as the term used to name items like Brazil nuts and cabbage rolls. I don’t think he ever questioned that until he had kids in Jr. High, and by then he had met enough exceptions to begin to change his language. He never really met a stranger, just friends he didn’t know yet. He taught me to love people and to have an obnoxious sense of humor and I miss him every day.

When I became a mom he loved being a grandpa. He played tirelessly with my boys and my brother’s three children, but that was cut short when esophageal cancer killed him just before his first two grandchildren turned 4 and only 5 months before the birth of his 5th and final grandchild. I often made decisions on how I was going to parent by reminding myself that he would have given anything to be able to say, “yes, I’ll take you fishing. Or Yes, I’ll play with you and read to you.” So I said “Yes” a lot more. 

when I cried my three year old assured me, “the part of us that is the strongest, never dies, and the part of Papa Paul that loved us was the strongest part of him.” He was a complicated, loving human born in complicated times and nearly impossible poverty, but he grew to be a generous and wonderful man. 

Dixie Dawn Miller Goode, January 03, 2022

Nostalgic Christmas 1987

In 1987, Greg and I went to China as exchange students from Oregon. We went with about 15 other Oregon Students and 30 from SUNY. It was challenging and life changing. When we came home at Christmas time we really felt like Santa and the Mrs., because we had gone with two suitcases and came home with 14. Mostly filled with gifts. We were blessed to have both of our families close enough to each other that we could spend Christmas with one set, drive seven hours and spend Christmas with the other. 

Back then it felt like we would have these wonderful homes to return to every Christmas. Now of course they are both gone, and the memories are tinted with the knowledge of what and who has been lost, but even in the sadness is a new understanding of how lucky we were to have the older generations- missing their own childhood families and homes, but still recreating the magic for us. 

Christmas Letter, 2021

 

Greg and Dixie Goode

Crescent City, CA

2021 Holidays

 Merry Christmas, Happy Thanksgiving, delightful Birthday, Happy New Year! May you have something to celebrate and someone to love in 2022.

My something to celebrate and someone to love is still the same people. The last couple of years have been filled with their share of problems and worries, but every day has also been filled with people I love. My family and my friends are amazing to me and I think that they make every day Thanksgiving. 

This year all of my grandkids are back to in person in school, or preschool. The youngest in preschool, the middle in Kindergarten and the oldest in Second Grade. Of course the whole, in person or distance learning, to vaccinate or not, to enforce a mask mandate or not, is not just a political issue - but to the kids it is almost a non issue. They just want to feel secure and to have a predictable routine, and to have people around them who are friendly and caring. For them, school is school. They were too young to really remember it any way but how it is. 

Greg and I are still struggling with health issues, but the masking and hand sanitizers and distancing has made it one of the healthiest years ever as far as the bronchitis and ear infections, colds and flu that normally plague the families of school teachers. 

Greg managed to squeeze three surgeries into one insurance year, so hit his maximum out of pocket early with a knee replacement on June 30, a carpal tunnel surgery in early November and the other knee replacement scheduled for Dec. 16th.

The two he has had already were both successful and he is getting around so much better. 

I still don’t have a diagnosis but I do have an appointment with a UCSF motion disorder neurologist. Not until January 10, and this first one via zoom, so I don’t have to drive to San Francisco. That is a very good thing because it can take me ten hours or more, especially now when not moving causes stiffness and PAIN  The general issues I have all seem to circle around Parkinson’s type motion disorders. There is one I think it might be but I haven’t had it diagnosed yet, “Stiff Person Syndrome” which is a boring but descriptive name that makes most people laugh and say, “oh, I have that too.”

I move like the tin man, except when someone touches me, or I’m cold, or I haven’t moved in a long time, like 20 minutes. Then I startle, jump, shake and all my muscles spasm so hard that they injure my hip or my knee or my shoulder. I used to be able to hide the pain if Daisy climbed on my lap, or Greg reached to hand me a cup of coffee and I started to lean forward, but now it’s progressed to these spasms where my face twists, I scream and everything goes rigid and shakes. It feels ridiculous. 

Anyway, there are less and less things I am capable of doing, but the things I can do, I still consider myself blessed with. I have my grown up children and young grandchildren and my crazy partner who has always been my favorite and now I have an enforced abundance of time with my family by virtue of being unable to teach. Though I am depriving my students. I can just see the delight they could take in knowing that if they startled me, or even just approached in plain sight and put a hand on my arm, I’d twitch like a marionette. No snakes or bugs or tacs on my chair, required. 

I’m hoping that my referral to UCSF leads to answers which let me announce I’m doing much better by the next Holiday Letter you receive. I hope you also have a better year in 2022.  I hope we all find health and happiness in the coming year  

Much Love,

Dixie and Greg

Merry Christmas 2020

 Greg and Dixie Goode

Crescent City, CA 

Merry Christmas 2020 and We Wish You a Blessed and Happier 2021

Just listen to the sound of that! Happy New Year 2021!

There has been so much about 2020 that we will all be glad to see in hind sight. Most of us could not have predicted last Christmas, what we would experience before the next Christmas rolled around. It was a roller coaster of a year.

Before mid March, we were having a good year, Daisy was in Basketball on Saturdays and loving Kindergarten during the week. She is very social and loved the class full of kids as well as the teacher. I loved volunteering in the class and working with the same teacher who had been teaching Austin and then Emerson 20 years ago. The class loaded an incubator with chicken eggs and began to plan St. Patrick's Day activities. And then between Friday March 13, when things were quite normal, and Monday when schools were closed and Daisy has never returned to in person classes. I've enjoyed having her here with me, teaching her and working with her as she learns to read and write and do all kinds of math and science and creative things is fun, but we both miss other people.

Emerson got promoted to manager where he works at New Dawn, which is good, but just as hard on Daisy as on him, when he has to work double shifts or gets called to leave town, or has to have his day off interrupted to take a client to the hospital. He works in homes with handicapped people and with them out in the community at large, and since his job is essential, the state closing down for a pandemic hasn't effected his hours at all.

For Greg, his students at the prison were already doing college work and he was the intermediary between getting the work to them and getting it back to the colleges, so he changed to doing what he could from home, with limited at the prison time each week. Now he just got out of the college position which he wasn't too fond of, and back into a classroom of academic work. He much prefers the business of actually having student time.

Also for Greg, one of the joys of life is his music, and having to indefinitely close down his children's choir has been so very sad for him. I hope that he will be able to restart it once children are able to be vaccinated. He did throw himself into designing a choir t-shirt logo, and that fed the creative need briefly, but he still misses both his kid choir, and the local community choir he sings in.

My health hasn't improved, the more staying at home I do, the stiffer and more awkwardly I move, and the more basic abilities I see falling away. I did manage to see two neurologists this year. The cognitive specialist evaluated me with five hours of testing and declared that there were no problems there, which is a relief, but the motion specialist did a few simple tests, talked rudely to Greg and I, and said to come back in 4 months. I tried getting a referral to a different one, but they are few around here, and Portland says they have closed down to new patients living more than 100 miles away. I know I couldn't be teaching anymore, even if I wasn't staying at home with Daisy, so of course the schools are having such a substitute shortage that they bumped up the sub daily rate by $50 a day through the end of this year.

I'm trying to think of the highlights of 2020. There were some parts that were worth the struggle. The Grandkids of course are high on my list of worth it, so one of my favorite memories is the day Trisha and Austin were camping up at Dry Lake and invited us to meet them there. We got to walk around the lake, watch Austin and Gavin Kayaking, push Gavin in a huge swing and snuggle Trinity. We got lots of sunshine and flowers and hugs. Speaking of the Goode-Pitt branch of the family. They got new truck and a new camper (well both in nice, used but new to them, shape) and they got deer tags, and went camping and hunting. Trisha got a deer. Gavin is going back to in person school and so far the county hasn't had ay school to home Coronavirus transmission. Some people at the in person classes have tested positive but gotten it elsewhere so the school precautions seem effective. I think Daisy would do ok going back as well, but she does well on Zoom and I would be high risk if she brought it home.

Because the idea of her having a 6^th birthday party during lockdown, was so sad, a Redwood School teacher, who is also a fireman, brought a big firetruck to our house for Daisy's Birthday. Then for the summer we did sign her into swimming lessons and she made great progress. It was in the outdoor, chlorinated pool in Brookings with one teacher and three students, so there wasn't a very high risk, especially since all summer Del Norte and Curry Counties had almost no Covid cases. Sadly that is no longer true. 

This year, more even than most, Consider this letter as a paper hug. I wish I could hug you in person.

Virtually a New Year

Hello, And so here we are, from New Year 2020 to the New Year of the 20-21 school year has been a wild ride that I never would have predicted. I don't think the January me would even believe if she could read a letter describing the last 8 months.

My prediction or "closing" at the end of my New Year Post makes me want to either laugh or cry. 

"2020 looks like more swimming, acrobatics, soccer and basketball with the granddaughter. Praying for peace and health for you and for the world. Remember to look for the good in each day."

I don't have to tell you about the isolation and loss of income that has been the truth world wide under the Covid-19 pandemic. I don't need to think there are any Americans who haven't heard about the divisions between people of various races and political and religious views. It's stressful and heartbreaking to be sure. I love my country and I love our world. There is so much beauty that it makes my heart break to not be able to get into school and share it with my students, and get out of school and be able to share it with my grandkids.

I have three, three wonderful, deserving, grandchildren. One who lives with me so I see her every day, and two I've never seen enough of even pre lockdowns and this year without birthday parties and holiday celebrations I miss them beyond words.

I've also been dying. My Dr.'s haven't come out and said that, but honestly they have never seen anything close to my daily degeneration. I finally get to an appointment and don't look too bad. It takes energy to dress and drive there (often a couple hours drive) and nerves and hopes add adrenalin, and I function better, then get home and pay for it with three days as an invalid.  My brain and my husband's face tell me I'm dying. (every time I need to adjust my body in any position) but I hope I'm wrong. The love and trust in my granddaughters face tells me I need to be around to be her safe place. She has no idea how many times I've shielded her from the ravages of a meth addicted mom, and I don't want her to know. Life is scary enough just hearing the news in the background, as she tries to master learning via zoom. As a first grader, with a wonderful, but older teacher, she and her teacher are learning together and it's hard.

I don't want to complain. I know that living in a rural place, with low covid numbers and empty areas where we can get out snd play means we are among the lucky ones this year. I know that we have an old house but we have one, we have lost income but still have enough to get by, we have each other.

We Have Each Other.

Just Breathe that in.

Sending you love and the reminder that we are not done yet. Hang in there and I will too, even if it tears a couple finger nails loose to maintain the grip.