Winning the War with Grinch

I really considered saying nothing this holiday season because it’s been really a difficult year

However, I’ve always been quite transparent with my readers, so I invite you to listen while I talk to myself.

Do you talk to yourself?

Sometimes I have to.

You see, 2023 has been one devil of a year.

Let me give you just a few lowlights.

• I’ve had Covid twice and RSV once. Yes, I took the vaccines, which is probably why it didn’t kill me.
• I have a very close family member with horribly debilitating long Covid, and he has had it for almost a year. Not only can he not work, he can’t even stay awake through a meal. Forget doing anything enjoyable. If anyone dares to say anything about how Covid isn’t real or long-Covid is just laziness, I’ll not only ban you from my blog, I’ll curse you with fleas to your armpits and private region for the duration of what I hope is your very long flea-ridden life.
• A young family member took her own life after being bullied at school. And yes, the school knew about the bullying and DID NOTHING. Not only do I remain furious, but the family is beyond devastated. I can’t even imagine Christmas at their home right now.

I just can’t even…

• A month later, my closest family member, other than my immediate family, died unexpectedly when I was quite ill with RSV. Cheryl, my sister-cousin.
• I can’t even begin to explain the huge hole in my heart. She’s the last of my generation. Saying goodbye was both extremely difficult and very cathartic. No mixed emotions here. Being the last one standing does a number on your psyche.
• Then, my house was struck by lightning. This is beginning to sound like a really bad country song isn’t it?
• I’m not even going to begin to list everything that got fried. Let’s just say it would be easier to list what wasn’t fried and even that list is dwindling. We’ve become good friends with the electrician, is all that I can say.

Ok, enough of that. See, I’m already talking to myself. I’ve been doing a lot of talking and swearing and muttering under my breath this year.

I truly thought that losing 22 people to Covid, including my husband’s best friend and some very close family members over the past 2-3 years, was the bottom of that barrel. Covid isn’t “over,” but not as many people are perishing now. Or maybe we aren’t counting anymore.

I also lost four very close family members in another devastating event during that time.

Anyway, I thought “everything” would be better by now. Less trying. Fewer disasters. At some point, surely, the worst would have to be behind us.

We can’t even get past one issue or challenge before the next one arrives, screaming, “Hold my beer!” Hey, at least the tornado bounced OVER my house.

We aren’t discussing the flood, though. We were spared this year, but so many weren’t. People around here are building arks.

And the floors. If anyone even mentions floors to me, I’m liable to launch either into an apoplectic fit or a sobbing breakdown. We are now on the 7^th round of packing up and moving around the house from room to room to remediate floor issues. Yes, 7. That’s not a typo.

Some days, we have multiple disasters or multiple work crews stepping over each other here while I’m trying to work.

I don’t want to leave you with the idea that everything has been bad this year because that isn’t the case, but the year has been pretty much saturated with ongoing issues and disasters.

I was glad to be just about to usher 2023 out the door with a swift goodbye, but 2023 wasn’t done with me yet.

As I watch my social media feed, I’ve realized that many other people are experiencing this same thing – which is why I’ve decided to invite you to follow along as I talk to myself.

Meet Grinch

This brings us to Grinch.

Meet grinch.

Grinch looks like this, at least at my house this year.

After electronics take a huge power surge, like a lightning strike, some electronic parts and appliances fail immediately, and others fail more slowly. It’s like they are stressed, but they don’t give up the ghost right away.

After the initial hit (while we were traveling AND had Covid), I paid to repair the heat pump, which serves as a combined heating and AC unit.

Well, it turned out that I was throwing money away because right after Thanksgiving, we started having issues again.

So, after several service calls and a few parts, two very expensive pieces of the unit failed one after the other.

We were now facing the “fix or replace” decision.

I don’t need a stress test because receiving the quote for the repair started heart palpitations, followed by the quote for the new unit. Since I lived through that, I’ll probably live to see the century mark.

The new unit comes with a warranty. Parts and labor don’t, yet cost two-thirds as much as the new unit.

Couldn’t get parts for six weeks, best case.

And – we were freezing because we had no heat. It was a 4-quilt, 3-cat night, and I was still cold. The good news is that we had hot water, because I really needed hot showers.

So, the decision was made, and the installation of a new unit was scheduled for December 21^st. Merry Christmas. Well, those aren’t exactly the words I said.

However, the day before the installation, the experienced technician we really had confidence in quit. My anxiety level leaped right off the charts. I swear, the Grinch has secretly moved in.

The following day, the installation was on once again, staffed with other people, but everything had to be torn out first. The floor crew was here, too. Four trucks in the driveway and one on the street. I had to go sit in the car for some silence.

Regardless, I could hear my checkbook screaming.

Yes, the Grinch visited and stole the Christmas spirit for a month or so.

When the crew finished installing the new unit, they hauled the broken parts away, hopefully removing Grinch, too.

Thank goodness for multiple credit cards is all that I can say.

I’ve had to tell myself to take a deep breath and just breathe more than once.

So, now that I’ve told you about that evil Grinch, let me tell you what’s NOT wrong, and what I did to combat Grinch.

Grinch can put a huge damper on things, but Grinch CANNOT steal everything.

Holiday Spirit

Whether you celebrate Solstice, Hannukah, Christmas, or something else, the holiday season embodies a spirit of celebration, love, positivity, and generosity.

Gifts and colorful decorations remind people that others care.

Those who can, do for others who cannot.

I’ve been that single Mom with no help, so I stuck some cash in an envelope and gifted our favorite server – who is also a single young mom whose mother died.

My first thought was that I couldn’t afford it, because, you know – evil Grinch and the heat pump. But guess what? Trust me, that heat pump cost so much that the cash I put in that envelope for her isn’t going to matter one iota. Not to me. However, it did matter to her.

She exclaimed, joyfully, “Oh, now I can get my daughter a stocking.” I wished I had put more in there.

At least I HAVE a house, and I CAN replace the heat pump, and I’m NOT debilitated by Covid. I’m also NOT sleeping on the sidewalk in the cold or begging for food for my dog. (Yes, I bought the dog food and gave the guy something for himself too. Yes, I also know it might have been a scam, but it also might not have been. If it was a scam, he deserves an Oscar. I’d rather risk the $ than risk allowing another human and his dog to starve in the cold.)

There’s something else too.

My path through the valley of the Shadow of the Grinch is strewn with boulders, but so far, I’ve been able to navigate them. Alright, I have a few bruises on my shins and my credit cards have been brutalized, but I’ve survived.

This is NOT a life sentence of cold and misery. I’m not condemned.

Ancestral Life

Historian Travis Chumley posts daily photos of life in Appalachia from the first half of the 20^th century on Facebook. These photos are of common people – workers, miners, farmers, women keeping house, and children.

Their everyday lives.

These are the lives of my ancestors on my father’s side.

My ancestors were poor, and some lived in grinding poverty – the kind that never leaves your soul.

I’ve been spared and remain spared that fate.

I searched Travis’s feed for both my family surnames and their locations, by county. I also searched the UNT Library collection, here, too, along with the Library of Congress photos.

Let me share this part of the story with you.

My grandfather lived in a shack up on Black Mountain in Harlan County, Kentucky.

The shacks were numbered. They lived in shack #74 for years, as listed on their child’s death certificate and the census.

My grandfather, along with his eldest son made moonshine for the miners. Their young daughters delivered it in a wagon during Prohibition. Yes, most of this family line suffered from alcoholism, a “gift” that descended generationally.

Kerosene lamps. String beans on a thread were how beans were dried, which you can see at right, and newspapers served for wallpaper and insulation. These shacks were people’s homes but were not insulated. Snow drifted in through the cracks in the roof and windows. One family told me that their puppy froze one night, in bed with their three sons.

Mrs. Leanore Miller, widow of a miner, with a picture of her husband. She said, “there’s more widows and orphans in this holler than men at work”. Kentucky Straight Creek Coal Company, Four Mile, Bell County, Kentucky…

Source
National Archives Russell Lee photographer

Life was unrelenting, and there was no avenue of escape.

Wash day about 1920. Water was carried from the spring. Often clothes were boiled because they were worn for so long between washes. Notice the washboard. The Claxton land still had remnants of wash day down along the creek, long abandoned when we found it in the 1980s.

Everything was done wearing those long skirts, even in the heat of summer. Many women died when their skirts caught fire.

Medicine was scarce, and people were often afraid to turn to doctors. Not only was medicine unfamiliar, many women wouldn’t allow a man to treat them.

Death was common. Coffins were handmade in the barn, neighbors dug the grave, and family members were buried in cemeteries “up the hill.” My great-grandparents were buried on the same day, some say together, in the flu epidemic of 1918. They put one body in the barn to wait for the other person to die.

If you didn’t have medicine as a resource, then you were left with prayer. People went to church in wagons. The lucky ones got to ride in trucks like this lady in Springdale, TN, in 1940.

My cousin first took me “up the mountain” in the back of his truck that looked a lot like this, except without the roof.

After Tennessee and sometimes Missouri, the next frontier for many was Oklahoma and Texas. The government divided much of the tribal land and granted individual allotments to Native families. That started the next land rush of settlers who were eager to purchase land for pennies on the dollar.

Some made the journey with their entire family and belongings in a Conestoga wagon, but many of the Native people who were forced onto the Trail of Tears decades earlier, walking during the winter, didn’t make it.

A hitchhiking family waiting along the highway in Macon, Georgia, in 1937. The father repairs sewing machines, lawnmowers, etc. He is leaving Macon, where a license is required for such work (twenty-five dollars), and heading back for Alabama.

Source
Farm Security Administration Dorothea Lange photographer

Everything that family owned was in those bags.

This isn’t in the South, but many people from Appalachia went north seeking work in factories or on farms.

1937 was the year my grandfather’s youngest child starved to death up on Black Mountain.

Life was tough, and many were impoverished. This young woman is picking alongside the road for pieces of coal that fell off of trucks. Some scavenged along train tracks for the same reason. Coal and wood were both used to heat homes.

Notice that this girl is wearing a coat and hat but is barefoot. My aunt told me that they had one pair of shoes that the children shared for “good” and everyone was mad when the foot of the largest child stretched the shoes out. They went everyplace barefoot.

Clothes were shared in hand-me-down fashion from child to child until nothing was left. Scraps and remnants were often remade and repurposed.

Mother and daughter of an impoverished family of nine… FSA photographer Carl Mydans found them living in a field just off US Route 70, near the Tennessee River.

Source
Farm Security Administration

This mother’s skirt is made from a coarse feed sack, and her top appears to be a sweater in tatters. The baby doesn’t look much better. This is what hopelessness looks like.

I can’t help but wonder what happened to these people.

This boy was digging coal from mine refuse on the road side. The picture was taken December 23, 1936 on a cold day; Scott’s Run was buried in snow. The child was barefoot and seemed to be used to it. He was a quarter mile from his home.

Source
Records of the Work Projects Administration Lewis Hine photographer

This is no life to aspire to.

Many tried to leave, or did leave, but often what awaited them wasn’t any better.

“Buddy,” youngest child of migrant packinghouse worker from Tennessee, sitting on the only bed for six people, which is rolled out on the ground at night and pushed into the back during the day. Belle Glade, Florida.

Source
Farm Security Administration (Marion Post Walcott photographer

I don’t even have any commentary about this one except to say thank the Lord because there but for the grace of God and some amount of good luck goes every family.

Photograph of a wooden outhouse in an open field. A line of fence posts can be seen in the middle ground of the photo while trees are scattered throughout the background.

I grew up on a farm, and yes, we had an outhouse, but by that time, it was only used for emergencies.

In the south, everyone had outhouses. Many were still in use when I first visited Claiborne County in the 1980s.

Attitude Shift

All of this makes my first-world problems look privileged and trivial by comparison.

If my ancestors can and did survive that as routine life, I can assuredly survive this. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been whining, grousing and complaining so much.

This is why I talk to myself. To remind myself that:

• My country isn’t under attack.
• My friends and family aren’t starving.
• We have clothes and food.
• There’s no outhouse outside, because there’s plumbing inside, including multiple bathrooms.
• We don’t have to find wood or pick coal from the side of the road for heat.
• I have shoes.
• My children had shoes, and they didn’t have to share them.
• I may have to pack up my belongings and shuffle them around my house to fix the floors, repeatedly, but I have more than a few suitcases of belongings.
• And I have floors – that I don’t have to sleep on.
• I’m no longer that single mother trying to figure out how to acquire the things that I know my kids asked Santa for.
• I no longer need to ration food from Friday to Friday to have enough to get to the next payday.
• I no longer have to live in terror of any “strange” noise my car makes, knowing I can’t afford to fix it.
• I have the ability to alleviate some of that suffering and those challenges for others through various means.

Grinch, I hate to tell you this, but you’re outta here. You’ve been evicted – run right out of town!

This is a Grinch-free zone now!

My Wishes for You

The best that life has to offer

Tranquility.

Kindness

Safety.

Wisdom

The wisdom to know when to walk away

Time

Time to do what you need to do

Time to do what you want to do

May your lightning bolt

Be one of awakening

Freedom from fear

Warmth

Family

Someone who loves you

Unconditionally

Loving another

Unconditionally

Fur family who loves you,

And that you love

Hope

The ability to help others,

Change lives,

Make a difference

The willingness to reach out with love

The desire to give

Motivation

Grace

Gratitude

Both given and received

The satisfaction of bringing joy to others

Great gifts,

But most of all

 I wish you peace

And Inspiration

That you may find your Calling

Or it finds you

And know that you are doing the work of the Divine

Not just for this day

Or month

But until the end of time

Happy Holidays, and no Grinch!