August, Annie Oakley, & More

Sitting here being calmed by the sounds that the thunder is making outside of my window and watching the rain trickle down the panes. "Gosh, how we needed this reprieve from the unrelenting heat and humidity from these July days that have collapsed on the calendar," my soul thinks...

But then I find Mikey's Challenge posted and realized I didn't create the story I had in mind about July's "Spooner Day." You see, Spooner was my maiden name. As you can guess, growing up I received a lot of heckling about that and often got dubbed, "Forker."

To pour wound in that salt...I mean to pour salt in that wound...see what I did there albeit completely innocent of being that brilliant? That is called a Spoonerism. You can google it, but there was once a nutty professor named Spooner who was well-known for his goofs...

But, after almost seventy years on this planet with that "SUR" named, "Spooner," I would go on to find that my Scandinavian grandfather had changed his identity from Leffler to Spooner and had magically "done a disappearing act" from Minnesota to Louisiana, never to be heard of again. But DNA doesn't lie, and the truth came out of the story. To be fair to my ancestor, according to Wikipedia: Löffler (literally "Spooner") is a German language surname. It is often anglicized as Loeffler. In most cases, the name originates from people who produced and/or traded spoons. (But turns out, my Leffler's made dairy cream/butter in Minnesota.)

So, since July is a flop for me, I will give you a story about August!

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What August Means to Me...

August is hope. It is a pause. If August were a part of the 24-hour day it would be the exact moment between the end of afternoon and the beginning of evening. It would be like the anticipation of getting your favorite meal cooked by your mom and your mouth would water at the anticipation. It would be the excitement of going back to school for young kids and kicking the grand colors of fall on the ground and hearing them "crunch" under their small feet.

In my early life, August gave me a boy cousin five years older than me. He loved cowboys and all things western. I loved the story of Annie Oakley and played with my plastic doll made in the image of that feisty historic female icon. I chose her over the baby dolls and stuffed/fuzzy animals.

August also gave me one of the most important women and mentors of my life...my mother's oldest sister. She was my Aunt Sis. Thinking about it, she and Annie Oakley had the same kind of spirit. They were both straight shooters.

August also brought me my firstborn child, a beautiful blonde-headed boy, full of giggles and getting into stuff. He still makes us all laugh with his quick wit and jokes.

Like two cherries on top of a whipped cream topped vanilla shake, August blessed me with two grandchildren born on the very same day and year in the same hospital...only two hours apart. One, a girl from my firstborn and the other, a boy from my second son.

And August would bring me yet another grandson five years later, too!

Funny that I am merging July into August now and it's the last day of July as I write this. My ex was born on this day, and we married on an August day. Like the childhood memories of August...with that marriage, I lived in anticipation of a good future, and it held excitement. But it was the beginning of the end before it really ever started...sort of like Taylor Swift's lyrics in her song, "August:"

But I can see us lost in the memory

August slipped away into a moment in time

‘Cause it was never mine

And I can see us twisted in bedsheets

August sipped away like a bottle of wine

‘Cause you were never mine

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