A Strange Trip | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on September 10, 2026:

Some of my recent columns have focused on the fact that people of a certain age – people like me – tend to talk about the past – a lot. Another very frequent topic of conversation among us is our health. You don’t have to spend very long around a group of us before you hear more than you want to know about medications, aches and pains, ailments, doctors, and surgeries. We laugh at ourselves, but when the majority of the items in your calendar are medically related, it’s a topic that naturally comes up – often! And we know our personal medical conditions are boring to most other people, but it doesn’t seem to matter. That being said, this column is about a recent medical experience I had. I hope you find it strange and interesting rather than boring.

Last Monday, I went to Christus Mother Francis in Sulphur Springs for a couple of out-patient cardiac procedures. The most complicated part of the preparation for the day – other than skipping my morning coffee – was working out the transportation. I needed a driver for myself, and David needed a ride to and from physical therapy that afternoon. The problem wasn’t finding drivers but choosing among several volunteers. When you put out a call for help to BBC, the church family responds en masse. After a couple of text conferences, Lissa drove me to Sulphur Springs, and Jackie picked me up with Lissa as a backup in case something came up. And Jason ferried David both ways with Cole as his backup.

Lissa dropped me at the front door a few minutes before my requested arrival time, but I waited less than five minutes before being called to the check-in desk. The woman at the computer was very friendly and efficient and quickly handed me off to a volunteer who escorted me to the lab to have some blood drawn. She was very nice, too, but she had very long legs and a stride that had me out of breath by the time we reached the lab. More smiley faces greeted me, and the lab tech drew several vials of blood without pain. She may be my new best friend.

School Lunches | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on September 3 2026:

In a column in late July, I began with a warning that, at this stage in my life, many of my columns consist at least in part of memories of days gone by. This is another of those columns. Sunday morning, I saw a Facebook exchange between my brother Jim and his oldest grandson Michael about school lunches. They were lamenting the cutting of funds to a school lunch program in Oklahoma, and while I’m sure Michael’s original intent was to raise awareness of the situation, for me he actually raised memories of my own school lunches and ideas for another column.

If there were government school lunch programs in the 1950s and 60s, I wasn’t aware of them. We either purchased our lunches at school or brown-bagged it. I usually ate in the school cafeteria during elementary school. The cost was fifty cents a day or two dollars for the week if you purchased a lunch card. We had a morning break during which we could purchase a small carton of milk for three cents. That may have been subsidized by the dairy industry, but I don’t remember for sure.

One of my most embarrassing moments happened in that school cafeteria. During my fourth-grade year when I was in Brownies, our troop presented a musical program in which I was dressed like a Gypsy. Mom, who was a talented seamstress, made my costume – a long skirt, a puff-sleeved blouse, and a vest. I felt very exotic in it, but what does one do with a Gypsy costume besides wear it in a play or on Halloween? Your mom cuts the skirt to knee length and you wear it to school.

On the Road | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on August 27, 2026:

When you’re stuck at home recovering from knee replacement, or caring for someone who is recovering from knee replacement, you watch TV – a LOT of TV. We have several streaming services but none of the high dollar movie channels, so David – whose favorite toy these days is the TV remote – does a lot of YouTube surfing. One of his greatest discoveries has been “On the Road” with Rich and Ewa (pronounced Eva), a couple of adventurers from the UK who describe themselves this way: “We travel the world by motorcycle with one goal: to inspire everyday people to take on their own adventure.” Their latest adventure was in the United States where they purchased two cheap motorcycles on Facebook Marketplace and spent three months traveling from Florida to California, sticking to the back roads and smaller towns and talking to people.

Rich and Ewa purchased two Himalayan 411 adventure touring bikes which were manufactured sometime between 2016 and 2023. They certainly didn’t offer the comfort and style of a full-sized heavy touring bike like a Road King or Heritage Softail, but they ran well, and as it turned out, they covered around 6,000 miles with very few problems.

The intrepid pair hit the road with no itinerary and no timetable except to reach California before their visas expired. They set out with a general plan for the day, but they stopped when they saw a sight or event of interest, turned on a road that seemed more scenic than the one they were on, and stopped to eat or sleep at whatever establishment was at hand when the time came.

I could tell by watching David’s face that these videos were kindling the wander lust that had burned so strongly in him in his younger days. It was what made him go into the woods with a blanket and a bag of beef jerky to spend the night with his friend Roger dreaming of adventures to come. In later years, they rode their motorcycles without a lot more planning to the Terlingua Chili Cookoff, Sturgis Bike Week, Blue Ridge Parkway, the Tail of the Dragon, Key West, and many more.

Dinner has arrived! by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader August 20, 2026:

Throughout the years, there have been many ways of calling the family to the dinner table. On the farm when most of the family was in the field, the cook rang a dinner bell of some kind to let them know the food was ready. In homes where the diners were close enough to hear, you might hear calls of “Dinner’s ready” or “Come and get it” – or in the south it might be “Ya’ll come and eat.” In more formal settings, the call to dinner would likely be “Dinner is served.” But until yesterday, I had never heard “Dinner has arrived.”

I was looking through Facebook when I saw a post with this caption – “Dinner has arrived.” My first thought was, “Why is someone posting a picture of an empty blue sky,” but then I realized it was a video. I clicked Play, and within seconds, a drone appeared. It hovered for a few seconds, and then a cord of some kind came out of the bottom of the drone. I couldn’t make it out at first, but there was something attached to the end of the cord. I don’t remember exactly what it looked like, and I couldn’t find the video again, but it was a kind of rectangular box with legs sticking out of the four corners and a small antenna at one end. It descended pretty fast at first, getting slower as it neared the ground. It touched down at a bit of an angle but quickly settled down flat. It sat for a couple of seconds, and then like a hen getting off her nest, it rose leaving behind a box that did, indeed, look like a takeout dinner from a fast-food restaurant.

People sometimes talk about all the changes our grandparents saw in their lifetimes, but when I look back on all the technological things I’ve seen, I want to shake my head and say in my best west Texas drawl, “Well, if that don’t beat all!”

It was a blessed day! by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on August 13, 2026:

Last Thursday could have been a really bad day. David had two appointments at the VA in Bonham – dermatology at 9:30 and podiatry at 12:30. These are regular six-month and three-month checkups and are scheduled months in advance. I suggested to David that we might consider rescheduling until he was stronger, but he didn’t want to. He has a history of skin cancer, and he doesn’t want to take a chance of something going unnoticed and getting out of hand. Besides, his toenails were getting long enough that they got hung up on his sox when we were getting him dressed. So, I obsessed about how I would get him out of the car and down the long hallway to the departments in question. And then came Robert – again.

From the beginning of this new knee venture, Robert has been ready to do anything necessary to help. There have been many others as well, but for transport, Robert’s truck has the perfect seat height and spatial arrangement for a one-legged patient to get in and out with a minimum of contortion and pain. So, when David asked if he would be able to transport us, his answer was, “What time do I need to pick you up?”

He showed up promptly at 8:00 am and helped get David down the stairs and into the front seat. He had helped with the reverse process on the day of the surgery, so he was familiar with the routine. We arrived in Bonham in plenty of time, and I saw the small group of valet parking attendants in action for the first time. Before this, David and I had self-parked, and the valets were simply a friendly group of young people who wished us a good day as we entered the building. But this time, Robert pulled into the specially marked area by the door, and one of the valets was at the truck with a wheel chair before I could climb out of the back seat. She expertly assisted David out of his seat and into the chair with ease. Then she wheeled him up the entrance ramp and down the long hallway I had worried about. She left him with a smile and the often-repeated tag line at the VA – “Thank you for your service.”

Job Satisfaction | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on August 6, 2026:

Last week while I was sitting in the surgery waiting room while the doctor replaced one of David’s defective parts, I was texting with my son. We had been focusing on David who was in the recovery room by this time, when Christian sent me a picture of the palm of his left hand showing a nasty gash in the thenar. That’s the fleshy mound at the base of the thumb. See how smart you get by reading my column! But I digress.

I did the typical mom thing: How did you do that? Looks like you need stitches. Clean it with hydrogen peroxide and triple antibiotic ointment. When was your last tetanus shot?

He did the typical son thing: I sliced it on some sheet metal. I thought I’d try superglue and butterfly bandages since I don’t have insurance. My nurse friend said to run it under cold water for about a minute and then put a waterproof bandage on after the glue and butterflies. The shot was about a year ago.

In addition to doing the same kind of stock market trading David and I do and some other projects he has going, Christian works with his dad in a handyman and remodeling business. He went on to tell me that he was loading some corrugated sheet metal into the truck, and it slid across the palm of his hand. I won’t tell you how much he said it hurt. This is, after all, a family newspaper. Then we went back to talking about David.

Lieutenant David got a magic knee! by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on July 30, 2026:

One of my favorite scenes from the movie Forrest Gump happens when Forrest sees his friend Dan Taylor, who lost both legs in Vietnam, walking across his lawn to attend his wedding. Forrest puts his hands on his hips and, with a look of amazement on his face, he says, “Lieutenant Dan got magic laigs!” I’m too tired to stand on the porch with my hands on my hips, and David is lying on the couch anyway, but I am totally amazed that in less than twelve hours, David has a magic knee.

Today, July 27, has been a day of magic. It began when the alarm went off at 5:00 am. David took his shower following instructions he was given at the seminar we attended last week and using the special antiseptic soap, a clean towel, and a clean wash cloth. I took a plain old everyday shower and then checked to be sure I had gathered everything we might need for a day at the hospital.

The magic began when Robert, our friend and volunteer chauffeur for the day, arrived at 6:45 on the dot. He negotiated the traffic, keeping the conversation lively and our minds off David’s upcoming surgery, and delivered us to the Main Entrance of Christus hospital in Tyler at 8:00 am – again, on the dot. He went to park the car and came back with Duffey, the BBC worship and media minister, who had pulled into the parking garage at the same time he did. The two of them provided more entertaining conversation while we waited to be called back to pre-op, and Duffey prayed over us before he left – twice for good measure.

Surgery is not what it used to be! by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on July 23, 2026:

Back in my day…

You’re just going to have to face the fact that I’ve reached the age where most of my columns – and a lot of my conversations – begin with “back in the day” or some version of that. Today’s topic – surgery – has been on my mind lately because David is having his left knee replaced next week. And the hoops we’ve had to jump through in preparation for that surgery have blown my mind.

“Back in the day,” surgery usually meant a hospital stay of 3-10 days beginning the night before the scheduled procedure. Now, something that used to be considered major surgery – like a knee replacement – is day surgery. But the prerequisites – so far – have filled two folders and three typed pages.

Last week, we spent a day at Christus Mother Francis where we had three appointments. First, we attended a two-hour seminar that was interesting and informative enough to keep us awake – or maybe it was the temperature of the room which was just warmer than a meat locker. We learned a lot, though, and I’m glad we went. Here are some of the things we were told.

Reading and Writing in Rains County | by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on July 16, 2026:

My favorite talk for those times when I’m asked to speak to a group about writing is one I call “How to Become a Book Writer.” I first wrote this particular talk in response to an email from a fifth-grade teacher. She was teaching a section on creative writing, and her students had come up with ten questions about the writing process, publishing, and the business end of creating a book. Their first question became the title for the talk, and the short answer was “Read, read, read. Write, write, write. Repeat.” I’m sure that answer would have frustrated the students if I had left it there, especially if they were like one little girl that approached my booth at the Fair a couple of years ago.

“I want to write stories,” she said, looking very serious.

“That’s very good,” I responded. Then, I followed up with a question. “What kind of stories do you like to read?”

“Oh,” she said dismissively. “I don’t like to read. I just want to write stories.”

I’m sure she’s not the only would-be writer who feels like that, but I don’t understand that way of thinking. I believe that being a writer begins with a love of the written word, whether you’re on the reading end or the writing end. I’m not much of a memoir reader – which is ironic since I’ve written two of them – but before I published my first memoir, I read several books of that genre. It gave me an idea of what had already been written about Alzheimer’s caregiving, what I liked and didn’t like, and what I might say that hadn’t already been said.

I misgendered my cat! by Linda Brendle

Published in the Rains County Leader on July 9, 2026:

Yes, it’s true! I have misgendered Pale Rider for several months and only recently realized my mistake.

I first wrote about Pale Rider on April 20 in a column called “Okay, I’m a cat lady.” I wrote about a gang of feral cats who tried to intrude on Sunshine’s new-found meal service and how I discouraged them by sitting with her while she ate and keeping a water-filled squirt bottle close at hand. I managed to scare off all the uninvited guests except two. One was a tuxedo cat who looks like Kitty. We call him Fang because he has two vertical white streaks, one on either side of his mouth. The other one was Pale Rider who I described as a very light-colored orange female.

These two continued to give Sunshine a hard time. But Fang was the bully of the three, and eventually Sunshine and Pale Rider formed an alliance against the bigger, meaner cat. One cold morning, when I opened the front door, both girls came out of the pet carrier where I assume they snuggled for warmth during the night as well as protection from Fang. Throughout the rest of the column, I continued to refer to PR in the feminine gender.

The next time I mentioned PR was on May 25 in a column titled “Feline Report.” By then, the name of the pale orange cat had evolved from Pale Rider or PR to simply Rider, and she had become more or less a permanent part of the outside family. She didn’t like to be touched, but she liked the food enough that I was able to pet her for a few seconds at a time once in a while. Then we noticed she seemed to have hurt her right front leg. After some discussion, David and I decided to take her to the vet. I managed to surprise her while she was busy eating and put her into the pet carrier. She didn’t go quietly, but I got her in without any resulting claw marks.  However, I didn’t get the door of the carrier latched completely, and the next thing I knew, Rider was out of the carrier and chomping on kibble again.