ALL ABOUT BUSTER...the wonderful dog

    My sister Glads--well, her real name was Gladys, but I always called her Glads, and best I recall now (I am 86 and may not always recall things exactly right), everybody else called her Glads also.  I thnk she liked that name because she liked flowers, especially gladiouli.  (Later in life, she became a floral designer in a florist).
     Glads was much older than I as we had different Mothers.  At the time I am referring to, I was 8 or 9 and she, well, she had already been married several years and lived on PEA RIDGE with her husband, Jesse.
     They owned a ten-acre plot on a poor, rocky, yet treeed  (how do U like that word?)  ridge, as I said, called Pea Ridge.  I don't know now if that was the real name on that ridge or just a descriptive word somebody attached to it.  Years later, I asked somebody why it was called that and was told,"That land was so po hit wouldn't grow nuthin but peas!!!!", but Jesse always had a prolific garden.  I suppose there were a number of rocky ridges called Pea Ridge in most every State
    Jesse went to work in a nearby coal mine and latere in life drew Black Lung benefits...(I gotta stop this colored background as it is going to use all my ink).
     Jesse, relatives and friends bult their small wooden house.  The corner of it that you first approached was an open covered porch as it was part of the house.  On the left side of the porch was a door to the living room  In it there was an open fireplace with a large, flat rock hearth.  Then you went in to the dining area and to the right of that (no divider) was the kithen, and in the corner was a large iron cookstove.  Out of a sheet of sandpaper, Glads had cut out the shape of a cat.  It was mounted on the wall by the stove, and on it read:  " Scratch my Back".  I thought that was so clever...but then I was awfully gullible...or is it gullable??...just remembeer, "mesobumb".  (Many years later, I ran across a letter addressed to Glads from the "Home Extension Service." which was anotice of their next meeting, dated in mid-30's.)
     In those days, there was no electricity, no telephone, few paved roads, no indoor plumbing.  They had a well but it did not furnish sufficient water so they caught rainwater which was funneled into the well.
     Oh, I nearly forgot...yes, they  had a dog named BUSTER.  Next Monday, I will tell you why he was such a wonderful dog.
     (PS:  I have another GOOD dog story that I met in  Ecuador, but, first, I have to do some research on it..thanks for your patience.)

AN 1896 FAMILY INCIDENT

My Father was the eldest of eleven children. They lived on a small farm in Bount County, Alabama. He was born in 1875. Eeking out a living on a small farm in those days was a laborious chore. The incident I am going to tell you was not told to me by my Father nor by any relative. I told it to a cousin, who I look upon as our clan's family historian, but she said she had never heard of such a thing either. I was wondering if it were a common practice to do this back in those olden days. It was told to me several years ago by a non-related eldery man. I believe it to be true, but it is odd that I had never heard of it before. In February 1896...here we go now...my Father turned age 21 and he was still living at home. His Father told him you are 21 now and time for you to leave home. To help him on his way, his father told him he could have $50.00 cash or a mule and ten acres. My Father chose the $50.00. He spent the day and left the next morning after breakfast. His Father gave him some money. He (my Father) counted it, and it only came to $47.50. He inquired of his father, "Where is the rest of it?" His father replied, "Well, you ate supper, that's .75 cents, you had a night's lodging, that's $1.25, and you ate breakfast, thats .50 cents" So my Father took the money and departed for Waxahachie, Texas--the county seat of Ellis County, Texas, located just South of Dallas. I have heard that several families from Blount County, AL. migrated there back in latter 1800s when cheap land here was no longer available. They liked the area as it was hilly, similar to Blount County, I am told. My Dad stayed there at least one year, if not longer, I am not sure. He attended a school there and worked on the side. He returned to Blount County and lived there for the remainder of his life. He was a Teacher-Principal in rural elementary schools, often being only one or two rooms..maybe three or four sometimes. Have you ever heard of a similar incident?

GUAYASAMIN: Ecuador's Picasso

The plane left Miami 1 1/2 hours late due to "having to fix a broken part". It was a four hour flight to Quito arriving at the airport there about 10:00 pm. There was a light rain. When we started descending my seatmate, a native of Guayaquil (the largest city in Ecuador) told me not to get frightened because we had to go in between two mountains and make a sharp turn to the left...we did and all of a sudden you could see all the lights of the runways. Quito now has a large new modern airport about 35 miles from the city. So I check out through Customs, get a taxi and head for the Magic Bean Hostil in downtown Quito where I have a reservation. The entrance gate was locked, but a guard came immediately and opened it. This building was an old colonial-type house with a restaurant (a very good one) on the ground floor with rooms and dormatories on the first floor....yes, what we call the second floor is the FIRST floor down there...I have a bedroom with bath and also a kitchenette. I was tired and retired right away after having noticed some framed prints on the wall of the bedroom. The next morning I looked at them and saw all were done by someone named Guayasamin. Little, at that time, did I know what a great abstract artist he had been. I felt somewhat ashamed not already knowing who he was having taken a couple of courses in Art History at the University, but after all that was 50+ years ago. So, on Friday I take a bus to Otavalo, about 40 miles North of Quito. That alone was an experience. There are no speed laws down there except, I was told, during school hours. So here we go up and down hills and mountains at a high rate of speed. The highway was excellent being part of the international highway system. (About now my brother would have said, "Well, get on with the story") A day or two later, while having stopped to listen to a flute player at the edge of the hugh Arts & Crafts Market, I asked someone standing near me for the directions to a Travel Company that I had written on a piece of paper and he said, "But there is one much closer and a lady there speaks English also. It was located at the other end of the market. He said it was the one he used. He kindly escorted me there where I made a reservation on the TAME Airline from Quito to Loja being en route by bus to Vilcabamba. This gentleman who spoke five languages happended to be a retired college professor. He invited me join him for lunch at what he said was the best restaurant in Otavalo located at the North end of the big Market. He said he ate lunch there everyday as one could get a discount by buying a month-long meal ticket. The food was good. There were cloth tablecloths with fresh flowers on each table. The men waiters wore white jackets. So, to get along with the story a day or so later he escorted me to the Peguche Waterfall telling me that on way back from the waterfall he wanted me to see "the music museum". So we stop part way down the hill and go down the walkway to this building, which serves also as a house. Their garden was a corn patch and seemed that and other vegetables were grown in some of the yards. Anyway, it was obvious he knew the man who greeted us, then a couple of elderly women came out to greet him also. So while he was talking to them, I wandered down this dimly lit hallway where there was more light at the end. When I got there I saw three large framed watercolor paintings..........and, what do you know, they were all three signed by who else but GUAYASAMIN. They each had glass over them, so I got to touch each one. But, what on earth were these very, very valuable original paintings doing here? About this time, my newly acquainted friend came up and I inquired of him about it. He said Guayasamin gave them to a friend who later died, and he being a friend, or was it a relative, to these people that lived inherited them. (I later learned that these works of art were each valued from $75,000.00 - $100,000.00 each) What a coincidence that after having first becoming acquainted with Guayasamin by seeing the prints at the Magic Bean Hostel, I later see three of his original paintings. (There was a Guayasamin Museum in Quito, and I regret deeply that I did not go there). So, this is my Guayasamin story and I am so glad it happened. (PS: I forgot to say that the only music related item I recall seeing there was a CD by some well known Ecuadorian Organist. My friend handed it to me, but I told him, no thanks, I would buy it if it were by a local playing their national instrument, the flute. Well, maybe there was one old instrument on display. On the way to the Waterfall, where the taxi could not go any further because the road stopped, this friend said, "Wait, here I want to talk to this lady in the Gift Shop" It appeared to me from my viewpoint, there was nothing in the Shop to sell. I mention these things because it seems some of these folks quietly and tactfully are trying to get you to buy things to help the local economy. I didn't mind that because I knew most of them were so poor. On more than one occasion, the first thing a taxi driver asked you, when you had hired his service, was "Did you come to buy land"? If so, I am sure he had connections with local real estate dealers. The second question some asked was, "Where youse wife?"...well, I always had a good answer so that ended that line of questioning. I was there during the rainy season but I saw very little rain. Most tourists visit during the "dry" season, which, I think begins in June and last about 6 months.

"FREE" Hospital in Vilcabamba, Ecuador

Yes, there is a free hospital in Vilcabamba, Ecuador. It was built with public funds years ago. A Japanese man gave an electrocardigram machine to the hospital that is said to have been valued at $40,000.00...so, they named the hospital after him: KAKCHI-OTANI. It is operated by the Catholics. It is a simple block building near downtown. It has private rooms and wards. It is kept immaculately clean. A young man came into the room at about 5 am and swept it, mopped it, and then went over it with some kind of disinfectant on another mop. The food was OK but I usually didn't know what it was that I was eating. OK, so why was I a patient there? It really started about two weeks earlier when I was visiting in Otavalo, a town north of Quito...well, at least in my opinion, that is when my problem began. One day an acquaintance I met invited me to go see the Peguche Waterfalls near the village of Peguche which is located about 10 or 12 miles North of Otavalo. You can go nearly all the way by taxi, which is inexpensive, but you have to walk then through a very old eucalyptus forest.I could not keep up with him so I lagged behind huffing and puffing. (I did not tell him I would get short of breath if I hurried...so I had to stop and rest a couple of minutes several times before I got to the bridge overlooking the falls.) Then I had to walk back to where we had kept a taxi waiting. A day or so later, I then went to Vilcabamba. There I started coughing and thought I had just caught a bad cold. About a week later, one day I was having lunch at a natural food restaurant (a large bowl of soup, which was VERY good), but all of a sudden I got very nauseated, There was no other customers at that point in the room (most people ate outside). I saw a door and thought it might be a restroom but it was locked. I went back to my seat, and about that time a woman came in to pick up a take out order. That's when I could hold it no longer, and let loose right in the bowl of that delicious soup. She came over and put her arm around my should telling me she had cared for her late husband for two years before he expired and she could help me. She had them to bring a wet towel from the kitchen and she wiped my forehead and they brought me a glass of orange juice from the kitchen. A man wearing a long leather coat appeared on the scene from nowhere and he told em, "He just got low on sugar and was going to pass out" I had happen to notice him earlier walking in the vicinity of the Catholic Church on one side of the central square and the thought came to me that he was probably a Monk or some religious figure, but I later heard he was a truck driver from Oregon down for the big natural food gathering that was going on in that area. (OK, Fred, get to the point. This is what my brother used to tell me if I drug on too long it telling an event, but I think it is important here for you to know the background of what I think it was all about)..So, this kind woman told me that she had a friend from the States who lived nearby and usually came into town over the week-end and that if I cared to tell her where I was staying she would have her check on me, saying she had noticed that I had been coughing a lot. I told her, and the nurse came to see me a couple of days later. She said, "Come on, we are going to the hospital" So, we got a taxi and went to the nearby free hospital (the only hospital of any kind in this town). No one there spoke English and my Spanish is rather limited. After listening to me breathe, the nurse there said, "Bronchial pneumonia, three days, hospital; stay?" So, I said, Si, stay. I was there for 2 1/2 days and the nurse who took me came to check on me on Wed (I was admitted on Monday am), she had talked with the doctor (She spoke fluent Spanish), and both he and she thought I should go to a larger hospital in Loja since the X-Ray machine here was broken and a patient diagnosed with pneumonia should have their lungs x-rayed. So, she and a taxi driver acquaintance took me to a large hospital in Loja about 40 miles North. I was there until Sun at noon when I was discharged. The bill there was $900.00. It was a very modern hospital, good food, private room, huge TV, etc. I knew that Medicare would not pay outside USA but then when I got home I remembered I had a supplemental policy that might pay some on it. I was surprised about 10 days after filing a claim that I received a check for $900.00 Some way to make money in Ecuador as I didn't have to pay for food and living accomodations for a week but I wouldn't want to repeat it. (I did have to buy my own medication at the free hospital, but everything else was free). Two other interesting things developed out of that trip to the falls; I will tell later.