LABOR DAY, 2026

Wow! I have really made it here! Who would have thought that, I, Laveryle, Verlie, Strong, Jager, Bosley, and now Rider would have arrived at this special date, still able to write and to read whatever I want to! Able to drive my car, keep house, plan my days and enjoy my trusty IPad! On Saturday I celebrated my 92nd birthday with my family at La Fiesta here in Hart. Blew out the two candles on my cake and enjoyed the day immensely.

Now I am recouperating from all of the excitement of seeing everyone. This morning I saw the ads talking about Labor Day and started thinking about how far I have come and how much I have seen. Everything has changed so much. Today’s children have no conception of how it was for children when I was in grade school at Moon School in Muskegon, Michigan and then in Junior High and High School. We walked to school each day. We played outdoors until the dark and our mothers forced us in for bedtime. We were really lucky if we had a wagon or a bike. On rainy days we played in our basement, roller skating round and round on the cement floor. On Saturday mornings we cleaned our bedroom via force if we wanted to go out to play again. Sundays were church and SundaySchool. Then a big meal and my dad would take us for a ride somewhere. Usually it was to the lake or to look at farms in the countryside. He always wanted to farm but never found one he could buy.
But eventually when I was almost 58 years old I got my chance at a fruit farmer when I met Bob Rider. He was selling his fruit at the Muskegon Farmers Market when I came walking up and that was the day when everything changed again for me. Eventually I became the farms bookkeeper and sorter and picker and then even the seller at the same market I who already had four sons became the mother of another son and two daughters. Seven children plus numerous grandchildren and eventually many great and great great grandchildren.
So life has been so good to me. The ups and downs have faded into the past and sometimes I need reminders for the names of some of them. I have actually lived in nine states, visited in numerous ones, traveled thru over 40 of them by car, and enjoyed them all immensely . I have published two books and I have written on my blog for many years.
I haven’t decided what is to come next yet but I am working on it. The young girl who lay in her second story bedroom dreaming of something still far off in the future still exists in my mind and heart. As a young person I never knew what I know now. That the next time you meet an older person you can realize that they too have that secret person still in their mind and heart.

Verlie’s Back!

A December Michigan afternoon and it is dripping from the eaves as I am watching outside my window the few people that think it was a good idea to get out and drive on a wet afternoon. At least it is raining and not snowing so I know I could get out of my driveway! In the wintertime we always counted that a blessing. Everything seems to be black or grey, brown or white.
But inside it is bright and cherry. The lights are on, the furnace is running, and I am warm and dry.

I’ve been working on a difficult jigsaw puzzle, a Springbok, and I am enjoying it a lot. I am right in front of the sliding glass door where I can keep track of what is going on around me today. I have always enjoyed these puzzles because nothing matches on them, and so it must be done strictly by the colors. Nowadays puzzles are my biggest challenges and that is good.
For the past few weeks the urge to start writing again has been floating thru my mind but it has taken a while to actually start doing it. I have always felt that I wanted to write about my thoughts yet sometimes life would get in the way and put an end to it. But here I am again, and oh, it does feel so good! How can I feel alone when I have so many good memories of a long and productive life. How can I feel alone when I can read or write on my trusty IPad or phone at any time of day or night? The memories of my children or parents or husbands or siblings or many grandchildren or friends are all here with me no matter where I am or where I go. I know that sometimes my family is concerned about me being lonesome but I am finding out that when you have reached the magnificent age of 91 you really are never completely alone.
And this is a good thing. So many great memories. When I look at my photo library on my IPad I realize anew just how lucky I have been. Throughout all of the ups and downs of life I have been guided by the Spirit within us all and I am so thankful!
Time to pause for a while, but I shall return again, looking forward to sharing my thoughts with all of you. Knowing you are all an important part of my life! Knowing that we are all sharing our lives together!

Counting Our Blessings 💕

Sunday evening and I am back at home from the facility, resting after another long day of family, friends, phone calls, emails, and all that is a part of my daily existence right now. It is an overwhelming experience for me. I knew vaguely that our children, our friends, and many others cared about us in some everyday way. I never doubted it but also I really didn’t think about it every day either. This is our life, a long and productive one, but I didn’t dwell on it a lot. As an extended family we have blended together in a most enjoyable way.
But now we are watching our beloved husband and dad, Bob Rider, slip thru the remaining time of his life and it has become evident that he really is important to a lot of people. I hope that he knows somehow just how much he has meant to a lot of friends and family in his life. He has always been a family man. Proud of his children and grandchildren, working for him in their childhood on the farm and at the farmers market.
Proud of the four sons that he acquired when he married me almost 33 years ago. And he has always made friends easily. He was always known as the “apple man “ at the Muskegon market. That is how I first met him 34 years ago. We have been very fortunate. We have been thru all of the ups and downs of life as we know it. We have traveled a lot, casino’d a lot, read a lot, watched Gunsmoke and The Virginian a lot and it has all been good. Now we watch another episode of our life unfolding and I can honestly say. “How lucky we have been to find each other “ and how lucky I am to have found my special place in life complete with new daughters and a son. 💕

HERE WE ARE!

Sitting in my rocking chair, glancing up every few minutes at Bob resting on his left side, so he can wear his right ear hearing aide, I feel like I have been on this road before. Remembering the hospital beds after surgeries that we have survived thanks to good doctors and nurses, I am thankful that we have come thru it together. We have picked ourselves up and gone on to a better day. We moved on to new adventures and better times.
But this time is different. We are surviving alright but with new knowledge and new glances at our future. And it is definitely a one day at a time thing. We brought my rocking chair to the facility so I can sit here and write or read at my leisure. Each day I have been driving the 22 miles from our home to walk down the long corridors to Bobs memory care unit to sit and make small talk with Bob. He is always very glad to see me and I give him big hugs but sometimes he wants to get up and sometimes he doesn’t. He is just really tired and my heart aches for him.

Today he says he has a backache. I head out for an aide to see if I can get some help for him. The aides here are wonderful. So cheerful yet matter of fact. I don’t know how they do it. Anytime I talk to them they are ready to solve whatever problem has arisen. And they do it day after day, and with concern. I am so thankful we found the right place to go thru this trying part of our lives.
Another day in our lives. Bob gives me a big hug and says “I love you honey” and my heart swells as I say “I love you too, honey “. I know that this is where I belong right now, and I am thankful that I can still drive our car and come to see him.

Our new direction💕

Of all of the various directions that I have encountered in my 91 one plus years of life on this planet I think that this is probably the one that has had the most profound effect in my everyday living.
There is no one to say, Verlie, this is what needs to be done. No one to say, Verlie, this is for your own good, or your own happiness, or for someone’s well being. This is it. It is my life, it is my husbands life, and I must do what is right for us. Our six living children, our 13 grandchildren, our many great grandchildren, they are all a part of us and everyone has their ideas about our path forward. Prayers and encouragement have been extended and we all know that we want the best for Bob and I.
And so do we. Of course we do. There is one major problem tho. It is no longer in our best interests for Bob and I to make the decisions together. His memory is fading with his 93 years and now he must trust me to do is best for him. The best thing about that is that he does. He loves and trusts me as I do him. It is an honor that this is so. We have lived together for almost 33 years now and we have had many happy and productive years together. Our children love and honor him with everything that they say and do. My four sons are grateful that he has been so good to me. His two girls are the daughters I never had. And our son in laws and daughter in laws are our children in word and deed.
But it has become time to make the changes. For two weeks now Bob has been living at the White Lake Assisted Living facility and he is now in the Memory unit. He has his own belongings and his own many photographs and a favorite chair to watch his television in. He has many aides to help him when he needs it. They have great meals and their own chef to prepare them.
One thing everyone can say about Bob is that he is a very friendly soul and always thanks them for everything. I can tell the aides like that already. We live 22 miles north of White Lake Facility so it is easy for me to drive there each day. Winter is going to be a challenge, no doubt, but I am working on that.
Bob is always going to be remembered as the Apple Man. He sold every variety of fruit to Muskegon County at the Muskegon Farmers Market for over 50 years. He gave my friend Loyce Tapken, the Apple that she gave to me that led to our happy marriage.
I am so thankful that I can still write to all of you, my friends, on my trusty IPad, and give you our news. Writing on here is one of the major blessings of my life. Sending you all love and blessings. 💕 theappleladyblog.com 💕. Verlie Rider💕

TO WRITE OR NOT TO WRITE

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To write or not to write, now that is the question. It being Saturday afternoon and Monday morning writing class looming on the horizon, little bits and pieces of quotations are floating thru my mind. It also being the last time we meet until the fall months, there are two ways of looking at writing. Either I can work hard, write splendidly, and go out with a bang, or I can sigh, think, everyone is leaving and so it really doesn’t matter anyhow. I can just look thru my old inventory, so to speak, and skim by with no problem. It wouldn’t be the first time, or the last either, so what’s the big deal?
Actually, this seems to be a pretty good synopsis of our lives, I think. Most of us seem to be a combination of these two pathways in life. Sometime we are going forth gung ho, looking forward on a trail towards success and happiness no matter what we must do to achieve it. And at other times we seem to cross over to the easier trail, taking each day as it comes, accepting whatever comes our way, and thinking, No big deal, anyhow. And there are a lot of reasons for our uncertainty because success and happiness usually takes a lot longer to accomplish than we want it to. Particularly since patience is a quality that I myself find hard to find all too often.
At some time in our lives most of us learn the word acceptance for ourselves at least, and forget that once we were the younger go getters, intent on making our way in the world. We marvel at the younger generations and how busy they are, how intent upon making their path successfully and forget our own past efforts. Each group has to learn their own way, and we can watch them doing it, and remember what it was like to feel pushed.
And we can help them in the small everyday ways by showing our encouragement and love for them and their efforts. For me, writing seems to be the way for me to remind them that we all are on the path, in different positions to be sure, but with the same goals of happiness and success for them and their families.

INSPIRATION

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Thinking about a new word today – inspiration. A long word for a sizable subject, you might say.
To inspire is to fill someone with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially something creative.
Most of us can look back at our own lives and find someone or something that inspired us in a positive way. In the early years it may have been a parent or a special teacher in our grade schools.
As we grew up our horizons became broadened. We listened to speeches or we read books that were very significant to us. We had special authors that inspired us to look at many new and unknown subjects. It might have been a musician or a sports figure that we followed their every word. We wanted to be just like they were, or maybe even better.
I submit to you that as adults, and also as creative writers we all have the ability to inspire the generations coming up behind us. We have the innate ability to show them that each of them is capable of bringing joy into their lives by the way they choose to live, and the choices that they make. We know that what we put into our minds will be reflected all around us and it is up to us to inspire our families and friends by living a life that they will wish to emulate.
Words, either written or spoken can inspire others and we want only the best for the people who listen to us or read our words. So it is our pleasure to remember that someday we may be the ones that are the inspiration for young lives just as our heroes and heroines were for us. It is an awesome responsibility, and one we shouldn’t take too lightly.

MUSIC, MUSIC, MUSIC

“Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon,
All I want is loving you, and music, music, music!”
These are the words that popped into my mind when I started thinking about writing an article about music! This song, written by Stephen Weiss and Bernie Baum in 1949, was very popular when I was growing up. Teresa Brewer put out the biggest version of it in 1950. At that time, whenever one singer got a big hit, every other singer followed it up with their own special version. The minute I would hear it on the radio I would start singing right along with it. Teresa was at the top of the charts for many years with her bouncy style of music. She was a very small girl, but filled with energy and people loved her.
In my teens there was hardly ever a time when I didn’t have the radio or my phonograph turned on. The first thing I bought with my library job was a 3 speed record player and it cost $60. Since I was making 60 cents an hour you can see that I really felt it was worth it for me to have my own music. As the years went by I acquired quite a few long playing 33 speed albums.
Singing in our church choir for many years, taking piano lessons for seven years, listening to the radio constantly, my life has always been filled with music. Now my laptop and my Ipad are filled with it. As I type here I am listening to Elton John singing “My Song”.
My Aunt Donnie played the piano beautifully and I wanted to be as accomplished as she was. For a long time I just played the piano by using my fingers and pretending on our kitchen table. My dad found a way to buy an old upright piano for $25, and then my mother figured out a way to pay for lessons for me at $1.00 a week. She gave up things that she needed so that I could have the lessons for a long time. Alas, tho I loved playing and practiced diligently, I never acquired the skill that my aunt had all of her life. My cousin, Carolyn played by ear, beautifully, which means she didn’t even need to see the notes, and I really envied that.
It is amazing how the words, music, music, bring back all of the memories of my life and how much of a part they played in it. Music, books, writing, the Internet, all have formed me into becoming the person that I am today. In our house my mother played mostly show tunes from Broadway, so I became a great fan of people like George Gershwin, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Classical music also filled the air, mostly because my piano teacher gave me assignments of symphonies. And in later years I became an avid rock fan, and still to this day I play all of the greats of the 80s and 90s.
So I guess that I am a product of all of the years spent listening to radio and tv in all of its forms, and it has been a great pleasure for me. Many of the major events in my life can be brought back just by listening to a particular song, like “Rainy Days and Mondays” by the Carpenters.
We all seem to feel a special closeness to the singers who sang the songs that we have loved for a long time. When we hear of the untimely death of one of them, it is like a big chunk has been taken out of our lives. We smile thru the tears as we remember what it was like when we listened to them at a special time in our life. And we thank all of the songwriters who expressed our feelings so well as we listened to their music.
Thanks to the friend who suggested using Music as a subject to write about in our group. The words just came bubbling up like Teresa Brewer, Music, Music, Music. We owe a debt of gratitude to the ones who make us sing, or cry or smile as we remember. Music, one of the greatest pleasures in life.

THE DREAM

Early this morning I had a dream. Not just an ordinary dream, destined to enter my sleep, erupt my thought patterns and leave just as swiftly as it had come.
No, this was a full-fledged dream, and as I awoke, I remembered the warmth and the glorious feeling of it all surrounding me in my warm bed. You see, in my dream I had a brand new baby, she was mine, and I held her and felt the incredible miracle of how a brand new baby feels, the cuddling and the softness of her skin, and the delight of being a mother. I marveled at how big she was and remembered that all of my babies, all boys, had been so big. But this was a girl and I was overcome with joy! I realized that we must give her a name and at first I thought of Elizabeth, my favorite name as a teenager. But then I thought of my mother, and the name became Leona, in my mind. My mothers middle name had been Leone. That was it. I hugged her and said “my sweet Leona”, and knew the joy of being a parent again as I held her and caressed her. I felt the certainty of it all and never realized I was dreaming.
But then I began to wake up. Remembering how vivid this experience had been to me, I began to wonder. Was it a dream or was it an experience? As I sit right here writing I can still know that something amazing happened to me, and in my mind I can still feel and see it. Who is to say what really happened? I know that dreams usually fade away, but I also know that writing this down will keep it fresh in my memory. In this strange and mysterious world of ours how are we to know what is real and what is imaginary? Years from now the scientists may tell us for sure that dreams fortell our experiences, either past or future. Maybe I was remembering an event of long ago in another lifetime.
What triggers a dream? Could it be all of the pictures of babies I see every day on Facebook, being held by granddaughters or grandsons or nieces? I don’t know.
All I know is, it felt so vivid and so real that now I know I must keep watch wherever I go in my daily life. Maybe this warm and beautiful little girl exists somewhere watching over us and I was lucky enough to hold her in my arms for a little while. But I will be sure to remember my sweet Leona, wherever she may be.

OUR FRIEND VERNA THORNTON

hearts_s Sometimes we have to smile at our memories, be thankful that we had our friends as long as we did, and look for the words that express how we feel about them. Verna Thornton was probably the first friend that I made after I moved to Florida and discovered the Creative Writers Club at Betmar Acres. One of the original founders, she was an enthusiastic member that almost always showed up on Monday morning. As our facilitator she guided us in our writing, suggesting many subjects that she felt we would be interested in. As a poet, she excelled, and she and I felt a kinship from the very first time that I went. I was so impressed by the way her words could always make me see a picture in my mind. She just had a way with descriptive words that could make you laugh or cry or remember something in your own life.

Verna has gone on beyond us this week. She hadn’t been well after a bad fall a month ago, and we had missed her at our group meetings. I talked to her a few days ago and she was very determined to get better so that she could attend again in November. She lived alone, after having taken care of an ailing husband for many years. When I got the phone call I was shocked because I hadn’t expected it.

I found this poem written by Verna in our annual book put out by our group this spring, and am printing it to show you how she felt about moving on from us.

FLYING FLOWERS

I was just a little child

And watched the pansies die.

Grandma tried to comfort me

As I began to cry.

Then she sat me on her lap.

She hugged me close and said,

“Pansies droop and petals fall,

But they’re not really dead.

Notice how the butterflies

Have colors bright and gay.

They are wilted pansies, dear,

The ones that got away.”

Now, my pansy bed is filled

With deep exotic hues,

Yellow, purple, rust and bronze,

Mahogany and blues.

Vibrant colors, trimmed with black,

Their scent is everywhere,

Sunshine yellow on them all,

Their fragrance fills the air.

Rippled by the summer breeze,

They’re nodding in the sun,

A dark and somber little face

Peers out from every one.

Wistfully, they try to speak,

And each one seems to say,

“How much longer will it be

Before I fly away?

I’m bound to earth by stem and roots

My days are passing by.

How much longer must I wait

To be a butterfly?”

Today our Verna is a beautiful, shining butterfly, so watch for her wherever you go.