Shakesthegrounds Rumblings

[Shakesthecoffecan]

When I was a kid my Mamma would get rid of me for a week during the summer by sending me to "Vacation Bible School" at the Methodist church. Them women were so stingy they resued styrofoam cups year on year, they were brown inside. 

[Shakesthecoffecan]

Here is a first: I learned of the death of former US presidential widon Ladybird Johnson from the top of the forus page here at Bettermost. (Way to go Phillip!)

I turned to my partner and told him and said with BIG eyes "You know what this means?!?!?" and went on to explain how Bess Truman's record as longest living "first lady"is safely intack.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

...and it will be interesting too, to see if Ladybird comes to be indentified as the first first lady of Hispanic descent. Her mothers maiden name was Patillo.

[moremojo]

I saw Mrs. Johnson in person twice, both times in Austin. The first time was about a quarter of a century ago, when my mother and I were enjoying a stroll on one of the city's Hike and Bike Trails near Town Lake. My memory is a bit vague, but I remember seeing a woman of some mature years walking past us (from the opposite direction), with maybe one or two men beside her. My mother told me immediately afterwards that the woman was Lady Bird Johnson.

The second time was some twelve or thirteen years ago, when she walked through a hall in the Peter T. Flawn Academic Center on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin (which then housed the now-defunct Undergraduate Library, where I then worked). She walked right past my open office door, with security men on either side of her. My eyes briefly met those of these three individuals as they quietly made their way to the building's rear exit...and I immediately recognized the former First Lady, though I had only seen her live some ten years earlier, and otherwise knew her image only from photographs. I learned later from my then-supervisor that Mrs. Johnson enjoyed the privilege of passing through the staff areas of our library, if she chose to make her rounds on campus easier thereby. I never saw her in that area other than that one time, though.

I learned yesterday afternoon that Lady Bird had died earlier that day. My sister told me when I met her at her church following her choir practice. She said that the former First Lady was lying in state for two days at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, also on the University of Texas at Austin campus. There seems to be little comment or commotion on my corner of the campus today, however. The days seems like any other...perhaps her death was expected, considering her age and recent history of illness.

[ifyoucantfixit]

Quote from: Shakestheground on Yesterday at 02:19:11 PM
You have got to be the youngest person I have heard of who has consumed the possum!

Now the place down the road from he has a Brains and eggs special for breakfast.


Yum...had some just the other night...we wa sittin' by the ceement pond, jawin', cousin Joe Bob was pickin' a fine banjo... ...kidding... 
 
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cracked me up...and made me kinda sick at the same time..........    

[ifyoucantfixit]

      I remember Mrs Johnson very well of course.  Being somewhat older than the rest of you..She seemed to be the quintessential southern "lady."  She was very soft spoken and kind, and she was always polite. 
      I will forever be grateful to her for the campaign to reinstitute the wild flowers growing by our highways and fields.  I had remembered them from when I was a child, and by the time my kids were born, they had all but disappeared..Now I see them flourishing again..  It may not seem very important in the giant scheme of things.  But I think food for the soul is just as nourishing as food for the body.

[Ellemeno]

I told them to stand on the 7's and take a deep breath.

Truman,

[moremojo]

I had remembered them from when I was a child, and by the time my kids were born, they had all but disappeared..Now I see them flourishing again..  It may not seem very important in the giant scheme of things.  But I think food for the soul is just as nourishing as food for the body.

Janice, the wildflower season this past spring was the most spectacular I can remember seeing in all my Texas days. One unexpected, and unexpectedly beautiful, result of my decision to turn back from my intended trip to Colorado in May was getting to see the absolutely gorgeous wildflowers that carpeted the sides of the road to Kerrville from Abilene. The northern part of Llano County was particularly impressive--my mother and I had never seen anything like it, and it took our collective breath away.

So, yes, that could be yet another thing for which we should gratefully remember Lady Bird. And I agree that food for the soul is absolutely essential to a life fully lived.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

I thought this was a very moving account of Ladybird's passing:

Priest describes Johnson's last moments By KELLEY SHANNON, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jul 12, 4:48 PM ET
 


AUSTIN, Texas - Lady Bird Johnson died amid song and prayer as she spent her last moments with her two daughters, other family and friends at her bedside, a priest said Thursday.
 
"It was a beautiful scene, truly," said the Rev. Bob Scott, a friend of the family who was called to the former first lady's Austin home Wednesday and was present when she died at age 94.

Johnson, the widow of President Lyndon B. Johnson, is Episcopalian. She and her family knew Scott for years because of his association with St. Austin's Catholic School, attended by some of her grandchildren.

Scott, called by Johnson's daughter Luci Baines Johnson and granddaughter Nicole Covert, was told that she was in a coma and close to death, he said in a news conference Thursday.

When he arrived at her home overlooking the city, the multi-denominational group of about a dozen people asked that he lead them in prayer. He said he suggested giving Johnson a welcome into heaven, and he read the prayer "Litany of the Saints."

After each saint's name was read, the group responded, "Pray for Claudia," Johnson's given first name. As soon as he finished the prayer, a nurse at the head of the bed said, "She has passed," Scott said. "At that very moment."

There was also a hymn, sung at the behest of Johnson's older daughter, Lynda Johnson Robb. Scott said he couldn't recall the name of the hymn.

"It just seemed to be sort a song of triumph, to me," he said. "It was something that both Catholics and Protestants sing together. We all knew the words, so that was surprising."

He said Johnson was unconscious before she died, and that her death was peaceful.

"Even though death scenes are not exactly enjoyable ... the meaning of it was so beautiful, the faith of these people," Scott said. "The Holy Spirit sort of works with us once in a while, gets us to do what we should do at the proper moment and for the proper situation. I felt myself blessed to be there."

Johnson's family members are declining to speak publicly this week. But Luci Baines Johnson issued a statement Thursday through a family spokesman thanking her mother's caregivers and "all who ministered to her at the hour of her ascension into heaven."

A series of services to remember the former first lady will begin Friday with a private family Eucharist at her beloved Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Johnson, an environmentalist devoted to preserving wildflowers and native plants, founded the center in 1982 on her 70th birthday.

On Thursday, admirers of Johnson visited the center to remember her and sign a condolence guest book. She last visited the center in May for its annual fundraising gala.

"Everybody around here today sort of has wet eyes," said Marsha Bissett, 70, a volunteer clerk in the center's gift shop. "There goes one of the great ones."

The public can visit her casket at the LBJ Library and Museum at the University of Texas, where she will lie in repose beginning at 1:15 p.m. Friday until 11:30 a.m. Saturday. It will be in the same spot at the library where her husband's casket rested after his death in 1973.

An invitation-only funeral, which will be televised, will be held Saturday, and she will be buried Sunday next to her husband at the family ranch in Stonewall.

___

Associated Press writer April Castro contributed to this report.

[loneleeb3]

When I go thats how I want it to be!
God bless her sweet  soul and be with her family!