"The Views From Home..."

Greetings from our Home in the Woods*

I think we've managed to add a little curb appeal to the old homestead over the years...

Husband sometimes likes to drink his morning coffee at this little bistro set out front.

This is the view from the upstairs porch outside my office.

I was very pleased that the arborvitae survived the winter and are thriving

This is actually one of my favorite places to sit in the garden

"Husband looking satisfied with the garden"

The gazebo was a gift for husband last year, he can be found out there most of the day when the weather is really nice like it has been for the last few days.

This is the view from my favorite spot.

On quiet days, I can hear the water in the fountain gently gurgling as the wind chimes are singing in the summer breeze.

 

This old planter was found on the side of the road too many years ago to remember now, but every other year or so, it gets a fresh coat of paint. It now has sentimental value since every year on the first day of school, I'd take a picture of our sons flanking this old Grecian urn. The boys are all grown up now and gone from home, in fact the oldest celebrated his 42nd birthday on Saturday. Since my brother passed away, it's just husband and me and kitty makes three.

More views from home coming this fall, until then if you're in the neighborhood come by and sit a spell in the garden at our home in the woods.

* Our home is right in the city proper, but I like to call it "Our home in the woods" as an homage to our subdivision's name, Russell Woods.

"In Memoriam..."

William B. Flournoy, Jr.

May 29, 1954 -- June 1, 2025

Beloved Son, Brother, and Uncle

No other posts today in honor of my brother.

 

"The Artist's Corner..."

Requiem

Acrylic on canvas

Steve Walker

In memory of my brother, I will officiate his funeral tomorrow.

"The Truth About The Soul..."

I'm in mourning, so there'll be fewer posts for a while. My brother passed away yesterday evening here at home. He was 71 years and two days old. We'd celebrated his birthday just a few days ago. He'd been quite sick for the last few years, even since before he came to live with me and my family during the early days of the pandemic. He was a very good man who many will miss, perhaps none more than me. 

"The shadow of death will pass over us all; but the light which is the soul, it shines on evermore..."

"I Am Always Remembering..."

If you "smoked" these as a kid, you're at least as old as me...

For those who don't know what's inside the box, it's rods of bubble gum wrapped in powdered sugar dusted paper, printed to look like cigarettes. When you first put one in your mouth, you quickly blow hard before the paper gets soggy and the powdered sugar shoots out the end like smoke. After that "excitement," you'd peel off the paper and chew the gum while walking around with the box bulging your shirt pocket just like dad's.

My father had been a lifelong smoker and so he thought these were a cute gift for his sons, but around the time I was 6 or 7 my mom asked him to stop buying these. This was around the time the Surgeon General's warnings were getting pretty serious. It was also around this time that my older brother who was about 14 decided we had to get dad to stop smoking. Back then they used to run tv spots explaining the health dangers of smoking and warning of cancer and all manner of ailments.

My father would buy his cigarettes every week during grocery shopping. A carton of Trues was his brand, and as soon as we'd come home with the groceries, my brother would be pretending to help put them away, but he was actually looking for the cigarettes. When he'd find them, he'd hide them, and wouldn't tell until dad got mad enough to threaten a whipping if he didn't hand them over. One week, my brother refused to give 'em up and dad did give him a terrible whipping and he still wouldn't tell. And when finally, my father asked him why he was doing this, my brother replied with tear-filled eyes, "Because I love you and don't want you to die from cancer." Hearing that was one of the few times I saw tears in my father's eyes. 

After a long silence, my dad called mom and the rest of us into the living room and told us he wasn't going to smoke anymore. My brother gave him the cigarettes (he'd hidden them in the fireplace behind the logs) and dad took them to the trash can in the kitchen. After that day I never saw him with a cigarette again in the nearly 40 years he lived after that day. 

As you know, there's always irony in life and this story is no different. By the time my brother was 17, he was a regular smoker himself and still is to this day (the only one of us 6 children). And the real irony is that my father was aware of my brother's smoking and never called him out about it. I even remember my dad buying my brother a pack of cigarettes at a gas station once. The rest of us kids were always like "WTF" when it came to the things my brother got away with, but we all knew that my brother Darrell was my dad's favorite. My dad loved us all, but there was something special about my brother Darrell.

I'm always remembering...

"A Thought To Ponder..."

If this is your favorite scene from "Carrie"

You were definitely bullied in school

I'm just saying...

Actually, truth be told, I was bullied relentlessly at school from about the 3rd grade on, and at home by one of my brothers. It was so bad that I dropped out in the 9th grade.

 

And yes, this is my favorite scene from "Carrie"

I know a lot of folks had already read the novel, but geez, the theatrical trailer was just a complete spoiler reel...come on!

"The Truth About Me..."

The year my sister got this, I was far more thrilled than she was

Christmastime always reminds me of my childhood and the things that influenced me and made me who I am. Toys I played with, films I watched and books I read all gave me escape from the unhappiness of realizing how different I was from other boys including my older brothers. I was a lonely child, even though my sister and I were only a year apart in age. My little sister was born in the midst of the women's liberation movement and although she had lots of girly toys, my mother didn't insist on her adhering to old gender stereotypes. She was happy enough letting me play with her toys if I let her play with my boy toys. The truth is I baked far more cakes and cookies in her Easy Bake Oven than she did. And as a result, I discovered that I liked cooking and baking. It was far more likely that I'd be the one in the kitchen helping our mother prepare meals. By the time I was 10, I could cook entire family meals with just a little help from my mother. No one in the family was surprised when I declared at 17, I wanted to be a pastry chef.

Yule Log I made for Christmas this year

Inside: chocolate sponge roll moistened with wild cherry brandy and filled with whipped cream

And of course, as a child it wasn't Christmas without the Rankin Bass stop motion Christmas specials.  My favorite character was the abominable snow monster, I could identify with him.  Like me, he was different, he was an outcast and in the end he redeemed himself and found acceptance... But even more significantly, I recognized early on that Rudolph's friend, Hermey the elf was a gay character. I think almost every gay kid realized this eventually.

Another thing about me that I now realize made me stand out as a weird kid was my love of old movies. Even before I was 10, I loved to watch old films from the 30s and 40s. I'd sit i front of the old black and white tv and cry at all the emotional points in the stories. I watched It's A Wonderful Life this weekend and it made me cry just like it did when I was a boy. I pretty much liked every genre of old films and I especially enjoyed British films. Just the other day, out of the blue, I remembered the intro of the J. Arthur Rank Organisation's films and how seeing them was a secret pleasure of mine as a boy... You've probably seen it, it's a muscular naked man striking a gong (talk about young gay boy fantasies, this was far better than anything on the men's underwear pages of the Sears catalog).

It's funny to think about all of this now, but clearly I was exhibiting all these OGTs* and nobody ever called me on it except my brother Darrell. I now think everyone else realized, but just chose not to question it. No wonder, that for the most part when I came out at 40, my family's reaction was pretty much, meh...

* OGT: Obviously Gay Trait

"It's Not So Funny..."

"Happy Father's Day..."

Dad at 83 still working on the front page of the Sunday Detroit News and Free Press

Dad and shipmates somewhere in the Pacific, WWII

Dad, 10 days before I was born

Another gold watch from Ford, he got two, 25 Years and 50 Years

A prized possession in the Great Depression

Mom, Little Sister, and Dad at Brother's HS graduation

Big Brother and Dad at the Detroit Auto Show

Little Sister, Dad, Me and Big Brother - Dad's Birthday 1973

Little Sister, Dad, Me

Dad, Little Sister

Little Sister and Dad

Dad, a young man determined to make it... about 1940

Dad riding a bike at Russell Woods Park in 1959 - He made it!

Dad and Big Brother 1972

Mom and Dad Entertaining Friends

Mom and Dad - My Oldest Sister's Wedding Party 1975

Dad on Thanksgiving sometime in the early 1960s

Mom, Dad and my Older Brothers 1959

Dad with my Older Brothers

Dad and Older Brother, 1957

Dad giving his speech on retirement from Ford Motor Company after 65 years of service

Through the good and the bad, I could always say,

Thanks for being a great dad!

I love and miss you.