The Sonka House was gifted by the presence of ....

Four beautiful young people who were here from December 17 until this morning, December 29, when they set out again. Left to right in this photo (less focussed than I wish, sorry; it's the camera): Julian Paschen, Teri Stopoulis, Andrew Stopoulis [they're married] and Bryan Johnson. All came from the Seattle area to help at the Sonka House in many ways but mostly by giving presence.

They had been four months in the coming but hopefully will be in Teri's father's town in Massachusetts in a mere 57 hours from their departure on the bus at 7:50 am.

A short list of what they did for the Sonka House itself while they were here:

*rebuilt the clothesline
*rebuilt a door to the hayloft of the carriage house
*cleaned out the hayloft of all manner of thing
*hauled heavy tools to be stored in New Braunfels
*made a small back-yard garden by the Ruth Stout Method
*hauled away a pile of bricks that had been waiting for attention since February 2010
*mowed an acre of winter rye (i.e. the yard) with the old-fashioned rotary mower (no power but the person)
*repaired an old Schwinn bicycle
*pruned drought-stricken trees and bushes including one huge old hackberry
*chipped all pruned wood for mulch
*picked greens from a community garden for our own meals and, even more importantly, to give to those in need in Seguin
*fixed front and back door to close and lock properly
*scoured bathroom fixtures with grout stick so they're shiny white
*made a brick wall around an overflow pipe so that cars wouldn't hit it
*repaired a leaky shower head
*sorted and organized hand tools
*mopped and otherwise cleaned up three rooms flooded -- caused by a main pipe being filled by thirsty oleader roots during the drought
*carried from store, upstairs, then installed a heat/cool window pump in the mauve (once we said "pink") room
*replaced lights on rear license plate of my little truck
*put proper latch on large wash-house door
*put proper plate on wash-house electrical outlet
*put new chain on chain saw
*taught me the names and uses of several tools
*corrected problem with VW brake system that the garage had failed to solve
*...many other things I've failed to remember in the list, like


**attended Christmas Eve services at black historical Wesley-Harper United Methodist church in Seguin
**returned for Christmas Day service
**attended Unitarian Sunday School and regular service in San Marcos the week prior
**helped prepare many meals and washed dishes afterward
**left their bedrooms much cleaner than they found them
**provided good audience for The Georges (from Texas City) at Gruene Hall
**visited friends who served Venezuelan-style tamales and ate them heartily
**ate everything and anything set before them without prejudice and NOT ONCE complained that the meals were vegetarian
**made fresh pots of coffee when the need arose
**praised our locale for its good local beer, Shiner
**took care of me when I got sick
**cleaned the whole house before Christmas

***made Christmas Day itself delightful for me, my sister Bonnye and my friend Danelle in many ways but perhaps especially with long old-time conversation

***spoke of Mark Twain, of Holden Cauldfield, of Doc in Cannery Row,of other books they'd recently read, of the Beat Museum in San Francisco, of the Pacific Trail and the Long Trail, of the places they'd stopped before on the way here....

Hmmm. I could go on.

But now they've have gone on. Andrew's last task was to hang out a load of laundry, and here's a picture of how a young man (they're all 22-23) hangs out laundry on a newly-repaired clothesline in a still-dark chilly morning. The sheets look like angels, I've always thought.

And these angels, not on the line but once again on the road:

Happy Trails into and through all the new years, beginning with 2012!


Postscript, New Year's Eve: I just reached Teri's father by phone. They arrived safely to Massachusetts and were all together at a restaurant. I know they must be exhausted, but they're young and a new year is their's.

Home again, Home again

Trying to stay warm. I talked to Margot, Joseph Sonka's granddaughter, today. She said she couldn't remember ever being cold here. But, I think the fireplaces worked, back in those days. They would now, if I could find a way to have the chimney repaired. After 118 years, there's just enough of a crack in the mortar, in one place only, that smoke escapes. I need the Chim Chimminy man.

Someone came by to give me an estimate for heat pumps. We'll see how that goes. I wish there were better access to geothermal and solar.

This time it was very good to get back. Last year, the house had stood empty for a few months, to no good end; but this year,someone was here the whole time. His name is Leonard Simecke. He rents the turquoise room.

The turquoise room, as we call it, was Lillian Paris's last bedroom.

Margot and Jacqueline told us that the Sonka family and later the daughters who shared this house rented rooms also. Changes were made as necessary to accomodate soldiers, during WW II, and other residents.

I haven't put up any Christmas decorations, but the native passion vine has bright red balls, and I have a wonderful Santa that my Aunt Martha made. I spent a weekend with her and my cousin David Pippin, her youngest son, in Oklahoma City.

My wonderful friend Danelle told me that the passion vines in the yard were the native kind. Danelle rode a bus from San Antonio to Oklahoma City to accompany me all the way back. For her it was a 24-hour trip. It made my homecoming so much better.

Margot tells me she will go somewhere for Christmas. Danelle and I will go somewhere also. We still don't know where.

Today I wrote my Christmas poem for 2011. Here it is:

whatever tomorrow brought,
there to find the poem,
this year’s Christmas poem
we were bid by our mentor
to write, even if we doubted
we had it in us

and so it was

in the bunches of radishes
big and shiny red, polished by
early morning drizzle
on free community garden
where Paul picked arugula,
turnip greens and mustard

for “the women,” as he said,
at Our Lady of Guadalupe,
to clean again and package
for whoever might still know
how to use their goodness

or so he said before saying as well

“I’m sorry, but I’ve been there, and
there aren’t any men helping.
It just so happens that ….”

Viola from another kind of parish
comes for greens for herself and friends

and that these red radishes
bunched to be placed
on open pickup tailgate
for Paul to wash at his place
before taking to Our Lady

are as red as any boughten balls
on any real or artificial tree,
are as red as the roses
springing from brown thorny brush
in Juan Diego’s winter landscape

and sweet, these bouquets
bearing colors of the Mexican flag,
from this free garden
(whose young pecan trees died in drought) on soil once
tierra mexicana

and sweet beyond conceit or metaphor,
for Our Lady, these less than two weeks
before Christmas


December 12, 2011, Seguin TX


Now, should I try to imagine stockings on the fireplace here in the office? (This is a picture I found on one of Tony's discs. How I wish he were here for me to fuss at, tell him to straighten the room before he took the photo. Oh, my. I hope he knows how much this room remembers him.)

Leecia's working vacation(s)

In the years when we were bringing the Sonka House back from deterioration, Leecia Manning would come and work hard, using her vacation days from her New York City job. This must be from 2002 or 2003.

The Sonka House was locally called The Sisters' House when we came.

Joseph Sonka's daughters: Lillian, Irene, Mamie.

William Alton Thompson

As some neighbors say, he has passed. He is Margot's husband, thus the son-in-law of Lillian Paris, who was one of Joseph Sonka's daughters.

When we first moved here, we found an old photograph album with pictures from the 50's, one of them Margot and Bill as teenagers sitting on the back stairs which led up to Margot's place, where she and her sister Jacqueline lived with their mother, Lillian. I gave the photo album to Margot or I'd post that picture here.

(By the way, as I was writing the above, all kinds of loud sounds reverberated, upstairs and down: doors slamming, things falling. I'm not particularly drawn to belief in ghosts, but I think maybe ....)

Here is the URL for Bill Thompson's funeral notice: http://www.penningtonfuneralhome.com/obituaries/william-alton-thompson/.

I had a great uncle named Alton, whose funeral I couldn't attend. I'll try to attend Bill Alton Thompson's.

Bill suffered from Parkinson's. I've seen recently a wonderful television segment, on PBS, about professional dancers who lead Dance for Parkinson's groups throughout the country. Maybe Bill will find the dancers. Maybe he will find the Lord of the Dance.

He was a kind and gentle man, as I knew him.

Once after my Tony died, in those days I was so bereft and so deeply sad, Margot and Bill drove all the way from Dripping Springs to visit me. Bill helped Margot load some of her grandfather's bricks into the back of their car. It was not that easy for him, with the Parkinson's, to carry a brick from ground to automobile, but he smiled as he did so.

I'll keep that memory of him.