Now you have gone tooooo far.
I think some of the most important lessons of life were covered in the episodes.
I learned about siblings that fought but still loved eachother. I watched as Ma and Pa quarreled, even had full out breakdowns and still held it together.
I dreamed of someone like Pa falling in Love with me someday. He was strong, handsome, funny, and hardly ever let his worries get to the rest of the family. There was always a way to fix it.
Were there a time they couldn't fix it, well we always have eachother.
I loved that.
Ma was strong, independent, smart, and lived for her chidlren and husband. She never took crap from that nasty Mrs. Olsen-who by the way wanted to be like Ma too.
I loved when Ma sold her eggs at Olsens Mercantile. Nasty Harriet would want to give her less for her pristine eggs, ma would say no and threaten to leave, Mrs. Olsen would always give in. Ma remained calm and always the lady.
Until she got home and berated Charles with "THAT WOMAN IS AWFUL!"
It made Ma human, and their marriage something I thought was real. I believed it all, hook line and sinker.
I still think of myself as aspiring to fill Ma's shoes sometimes.
My favorite episodes/...
well..
Of course when the girls found fools gold inthe river, and had dreams of being rich, then to find they found nothing but shiny rock. Their disappointment, I felt it in my heart at the time.
I dreamed of someday being "rich" and buying my family everything awesome.
In the end they had eachother, didn't need all the fancy stuff, and money can't buy happiness.
The episode of the wind storm in Decato when Mary married Adam. I cry now thinking about when Reverend Alden walked in covered in dust and carried on the ceremony.
I always think about the long lost episode of Ma being home alone when she got a blood infection from a scratch on her leg. She toughed it out and crawled around the house for a week, thinking she was going to die. Ended up lancing her leg with a kitchen knife. She was surely a tough broad.
Albert joining the family, ehhh.
Nellie turning nice, ehhhhh.
Oh Gawd the sad episodes haunted me, the fire in the hotel that killed Alice and Marys baby. The first time I saw or thought about someone "cracking up".
Ma thinking she was pregnant when she was going through menopause? I didnt get it.
Her feeling like a failure because Charles never had a son, that survived. Really sad, really really showed how much Pa loved Ma. She cried, he cried, and he told her she was everything he could ever want, gave him more than he dreamed of.
Men like that didn't exist. But they do.
So today, my friend (who deserves a post of her own.) in anticipation of this storm coming up the coast suggested we spend the day together with the kids and hang out.
Me- thinking of the perfect storm and how I do like a good snow in, referenced LHOTP.
I may have gone too far hahahahaa.
The Christmas episode when they got ORANGES IN THEIR STOCKINGS AND A PEPPERMINT STICK!!!!!!!
Then Mr. Edwards coming in through a snowstorm. I LOVE that idea. All snuggled tight in our little house by a fire. So its out there, I ws born 150 years too late. I like the idea of friends coming over with their children while we cook and chat and bond.
Although I don't have eggs to swap, nor do I sew, or make Andy's clothes, or mend Jacks shoes...
I don't make the girls dresses from old tablecloths, for their big day at school.
Ahhh shit.
I'll keep working at it.
So in closing, my love of LHOTP is not an obsession, it was this little girls vision to have something, someday, that was guaranteed to last. Why?
because we said so.
Because we believe it.
Because GOD has our back.
Gives us courage when we need it, and a friend when we need to borrow someone elses.
When life looks dark, and it will, your friends and family will be there.
Some of the most unexpected characters, provide the most needed and necessary lessons.
Who would have thought Nellie would be nice someday?
Gosh I could talk about this all night.
First black characters, drug addiction, rape, stealing, lying, marrying a Jewish person?!?!!?!?!!!
All so exciting for a ten year old girl.
Even now for my 46 yr old psyche how relevant.
Orphaned children, leaving home, a sister that is suffering.
So to my friend that I may have scared away today with LHOTP images...
While we hunker down for the storm, I'm not nutty, just nostalgic, and seeking simplicity.
I think we both like that.
I'm living my life, and keeping my family together, while trying to raise "good people."
The End.
Until next week...
When Laura meets a peddlar with magic herbs and oils to sell, so she can buy the school new books.
That was a good one too.
Comments