The Dog Ate the Mail and the Sugar Plums!

Tessa Mesa wasn’t home the day her local post office manager made a momentous decision. Delivery of priority holiday packages addressed to box numbers was running past the promised delivery date so it was decided to deliver the packages to the homes of the addressees. Tessa Mesa’s package was left on her door step in the belief that it was safe from lurking thieves. The mail person didn’t know that Tessa Mesa would be out of town until late Christmas day.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Missy, the German shepherd left to guard the yard and house, was free to roam the grounds and inspect all packages left on door steps which meant tasting and eating contents of said packages. When Tessa Mesa returned home all she found were bits of colored red and blue boxes and bits of wrapping paper with my return address and labels saying, “Rum Sugar Plums”, and “Orange Sugar Plums”.

I received a phone call Christmas night with the above story, and asking me what sugar plums were, what they looked like, and how they were made. I told her it was a secret family recipe that I had promised never to divulge on pain of death or banishment from the clan.

Of course, it's not really a "secret family recipe" so I'm delighted to have put it in the following post...

Happy Holidays to All!

Sugar Plums

Tessa Mesa, (who lives in the wilds of Arizona north of Prescott,) has threatened to drag me and make me run along side her new pickup truck when we tour family cemeteries in Iowa during our genealogy quest this April unless I give her my recipe for Sugar Plums.

This is a currently popular, but very old recipe using dried fruits. Using an old fashioned food grinder or a modern food chopper, a thick paste is made by combining dried apricots, golden raisins, black currants, dried figs, dates and pecans. Flavorings such as Orange, Rum or Brandy are added. The paste is formed into marble sized balls and rolled in finely chopped nuts or finely chopped flake coconut.

Variations of the recipe are made by adding or subtracting the types of dried fruits, crystallized ginger, flavorings and extracts as well as the kinds of mixtures the balls are rolled in. Rather than grind the dates into the paste, pitted dates and citrus flavored pitted prunes can be stuffed with the apricot mixture. Taste and imagination determine portions of ingredients.

I hope the above recipe lets me have the back seat of the king cab all to myself!

Happy Holidays to All!

Apartment Living In Houston

When I made an inspection trip to see the damage to my house, it was a most stressful day! Not only is the damage ugly and extensive, SOMEONE HAS BURGLED THE HOUSE! Among the stolen items was my antique piano stool and quilt collection. A box containing gold colored Sacajawea dollars was emptied, but the box holding the money was left behind. The thief didn’t realize the box was more valuable than the few dollars they took. I can only hope more items in the house are not ear marked for another burglary attempt!

Until repairs on my house have been made, I’ll be staying in an apartment in Houston. Friends and family have loaned me furnishings, stocked the pantry and freezer and even hung bird feeders for bird watching! That’s one of the things I miss most, the variety of birds, especially the Cardinals, living in the woods outside my windows at home.

Houston’s city streets are decorated for the holidays and the shops are full of people. Night time is a kaleidoscope of colored lights and moving vehicles. One can’t help being enthused with holiday spirit!

The Houston Post Office gives hurricane evacuees a free post box for forwarded mail until they can return home. On days I check my mail, there are long lines of people waiting to mail holiday packages. If the size and number of packages could indicate the state of the country’s economy, I’d say we were in good shape!

I have a Harry Potter closet in my apartment and have decorated the doors with bells and bows. A small table top Christmas tree with ornaments and lights sits in a corner of my living room and when I turn off the radio which plays Christmas music 24/7, I practice playing Xmas carols on my violin.

There are thousands and thousands of evacuees in Houston; many of them are in dire straits. FEMA is attempting to limit the housing for evacuees but Houston’s city government is concerned that it will become known as the U.S. city with the most homeless people. I wish all the evacuees could be as well cared for as I am. When I feel sorry for myself, all I have to do is think of them and count my blessings!

The 12 Mile Road

While I wait for Fema and my insurance company to make it possible for me to return to Texas, I’ve enjoyed a routine of visiting a bookstore in Gilroy, California. We browse the book aisles for the best and the latest until tea time, and then we take our selections to the corner where tea is served and order cookies and carrot cake.

I look forward to the drive, especially a 12 mile stretch, straight as an arrow, thru cultivated fields with telephone poles bordering one side. The beauty of the fields is striking with acres of color ranging from freshly disked black earth to long silver rows of plastic with varying shades of green stretching to the base of the mountains beyond.

A few weeks ago, after the pumpkin fields were harvested, one could see spots of orange from a few that had been missed. It was only hours before the ground gave way to new plantings. Every inch of soil is cultivated, even to the edge of paved roads. This area is truly ‘the land of milk and honey’, but builders are coveting and building homes as fast as they can and the agricultural lands are diminishing every day. They don’t seem to realize we are losing the Golden Eggs the earth has given us, chunk by chunk as they buy up the fields and build fashionably large multi-million dollar homes for wealthy people.

As we enter the 12 mile stretch, we eagerly anticipate the sighting of hawks which are often seen perched on the telephone poles and wires, and occasionally on the ground of a fallow field. Sometimes we only count 3 or 4, but once we counted 8. They are difficult to identify because they perch between the insulators and we drive by so fast we get only glimpses of them. No matter how we strain our eyes, details of color elude us, but the white breast patches can be seen if they are facing us as we drive past. If their backs are toward us, their stance indicates they are ready for action if food is spotted.

While searching the internet for hawk photos I came across this photo which is like the hawks we see.

Visible Storage

I recently saw an exhibit at the Computer History Museum in Mt. View, California ( http://www.computerhistory.org/). What a delightful experience! The exhibit called, Mastering The Game, is a collection of computer chess sets showing the history and development of electronic chess boards ( http://www.computerhistory.org/chess/).

As an avid chess player, (learner status only), I enjoyed watching the film of the famous match between IBM’s Deep Blue and Kasparov, the highest rated player in the world. A portion of Deep Blue, in fact half of the actual computer, has been donated to the museum and stands near the collection of chess sets which includes the signed board used to play the match.

The first electronic chess boards were quite primitive compared to the constant innovations and ever changing developments in computer technology. The chess exhibition is only a part of the museum which gives tours by volunteer docents who explain in detail the history of computer invention and design.

After browsing the chess exhibit I joined a group tour that encompassed the Jacquard weaving looms, a precursor to electronic computing. The exhibit houses actual computers from the most primitive to the modern micro devices. With the advent of the transistor, massive machines with tubes requiring huge areas of floor space could be replaced by smaller machines which in turn led to innovations in design and materials. I suspect my new laptop with wifi connections is already obsolete as I recommend a visit to this remarkable museum.

Horses and Cattle

I recently visited with two extraordinary women. I’m impressed with their expertise in animal behavior, breeding practices and agricultural knowledge. Michelle runs a horse boarding facility and Darlene runs a small cattle and horse ranch. Each exhibits a confidence and responsibility that indicates a life long interest in their work. It takes only a moment’s conversation to realize both women love what they are doing and have been animal lovers all their lives.

Darlene and her husband live in a small rural community called Escalon. After leaving the central California coastal area and the beautiful rolling hills and mountains of Pacheco Pass in Santa Clara Valley, it’s a several hour drive thru the fertile San Joaquin Valley to Modesto, California.

Darlene was waiting for us at the Flying J truck stop in Modesto where we had a fabulous lunch. It had been a long time since I had seen Darlene. She and my daughter share an interest in horses and had sent me photos of themselves on trail rides. Our lunch conversation centered on horses, rodeos, dairy farming, haying, and stock auctions.

After a leisurely lunch we drove to the ‘farm’. Of course the first thing we did was visit the cattle and horses. Several years ago Darlene had purchased a 2 year old Black Angus bull at auction and he has grown into a huge animal! The size of his head is massive and a quite intimidating although Darlene says he isn’t aggressive. Even so, she says she keeps an eye on him when she is in a pen with the cows and he’s near by.

The cows are also Black Angus. Darlene showed us how gentle the cows are by petting those she had given names. The bull was also in the same pen and he barely paid her any attention, but when she opened the gate to leave the pen, the bull did take a step toward her and she just held out her hand to stop him. A very impressive display of control !!!

Darlene’s favorite horse is Nugget which she rides as often as possible. A 2 year old filly, that is the spitting image of Nugget, but sired by another, will start her training in the spring. We petted 20 year old Perry, a thirty thousand dollar dressage horse that has been retired and no longer ridden. He is over 16 hands and as gentle as a pussy cat!

The ranch is surrounded by large dairy farms. Sizes range from 200 Holstein cows to as many as 600. Darlene raises hay which means planting and cutting, but she gave us a long detailed description of ‘green chop’ which is what the dairies feed. Field corn is cut while still green. The entire plant is finely chopped then piled into huge mounds where tractors compact it. When all the oxygen and water has been squeezed out, forming a dry ‘cake’, it is stored under tarps or blown into giant tubes for later use. Covered mounds like giant Quonset huts and long, tubes, placed side by side, dot the fields, indicating dairy country.

Michelle’s horse facility is a hidden treasure. Just as one thinks they are lost at the end of a paved lane, shrubs reveal a curve in the road leading to a private horse boarding and training facility. A spacious parking area of sparkling white gravel is next to a large covered arena.

The pastures lie in a bowl surrounded by foothills and mountains. One’s first impression is one of extreme cleanliness with well placed barns, stalls and pens. Michelle owns 30 acres and boards a horse for each acre.

She is the single care taker and does all the work although her husband and children lend support and help at various times. While feeding apples and carrots to my daughter’s horse, Bailey, we had a chance to ‘shoot the breeze’ with Michelle and heard stories about Bailey’s funny conduct on the days she’s not visited.

She told us of her plans to plant several hundred trees along a fence line and pointed out which horses she plans to bring into the barns for the winter to fatten them up, but still turn them out daily for exercise.

We talked about which horse is the boss in the pasture, (which happens to be Bailey), and whether or not if a horse’ rear end is higher than its withers it indicates the horse is still growing. That was a bit of info I had never heard before! Now, every time I see a horse, I’ll probably start silently comparing derrieres to necks….just one more thing to pay attention to so I can pretend to know more than I do about horses.

Hats off to both Darlene and Michelle! They are resourceful and charming women and I’m lucky to know them.

Living off The Land

At the end of November when I return to Texas, I’ll be facing decisions about house repairs and whether to buy a car to replace the stolen one, or use the senior bus and save money on car insurance and gasoline.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying life in the fast lane and living off the land at lunch time. When I mention the ‘fast lane’ I’m referring to the never ending ribbons of traffic on all the major thoroughfares of northern California. Back home in rural Texas, heavy traffic is when three or four cars are stopped for a red light at commute time. Here in the Bay Area, multiple lanes in both directions are bumper to bumper with vehicles, day and night.

The foothills and mountains of the San Francisco peninsula are cuffed and tied together with twisting concrete ropes, each promising a shorter road to beach towns. At night car lights paint strips of yellow/white in one direction, and red going in reverse.

If two or more people are in a car, the driver can use the ‘fast’ lane. It can be a breathtaking ride as slower lanes of traffic recede backward while clipping along at the maximum speed limit several car lengths behind the car in front. In rain, it’s even more breathtaking! I’ve taken to praying more than usual.

While I have been an ‘evacuee’, I’ve enjoyed delightful meals with friends and co-workers of family members who have graciously invited me to experience their traditional and special ethnic cuisine. I’ve also had the opportunity to join many of them for lunches at their favorite restaurants. So far I’ve enjoyed Russian, Mongolian, Greek, Chinese Fusion and both the Northern and Southern foods of India which can rival the hot chili dishes of Mexico. California organic, and wild Alaskan are important in the recipes my family serves. What fun to live off the land! So many choices, so little time!

Luck and Good Fortune

I consider myself the luckiest of people! I’m blessed with a loving family, wonderful friends and neighbors who are salt of the earth! While the hurricane, Rita, created havoc along the Texas coast, uprooting trees, ripping roofs off houses, demolishing basic community services, and leaving the area uninhabitable, I was enjoying the dry desert mountain air of Arizona.

My first evacuation occurred when Rita was declared a cat 5 hurricane and my son suggested I come to Houston and wait out the hurricane in his apartment. 18 hours later, Houston had to evacuate and I was on the move again. My son evacuated to Austin, but I accepted a cousin’s invitation to visit her in Arizona.

L, (aka Mesa Tessa) owns a mini ranch miles from civilization as we know it. There is no living off the land by patronizing fast food restaurants like Wendy’s, McDonalds, Burger King, or Jack in the Box. She drives ten miles to pick up her mail at a tiny branch post office and thirty miles to Prescott for groceries.

While we watched television coverage of Katrina survivors in New Orleans, the Bush administration finally kicked into gear as the scope of the catastrophe became apparent. As people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds suffered hunger, thirst, and helplessness in the face of death, flood and indignities due to lack of sanitation, I was safe, well fed and enjoyed the comfortable amenities of a modern ranch with every convenience.

Family and neighbors kept me informed by phone and email as conditions at home became known. Thanks to them I have been able to arrange to have the tree on top of the house removed and the roof tarped to prevent further damage. Considering the state of affairs in the devastated area of the gulf coast, I am very lucky to have a house I can still call home!

Even the fact that my car was recently stolen can’t dampen my belief that I am a lucky person. Neighbors continue to keep me apprised of conditions and improvements in town and my family has kept me entertained with excursions, presents and visits with friends. Houses can be repaired, cars can be replaced, but I would truly be lost if I didn’t have such a loving family and caring friends.

Yet Another Problem

It’s been a very interesting time since hurricane Rita ran over my Mom’s town in Texas and it’s not over yet….

Things have been a frustrating trying to get some help for Mrs. B, my Mom. It seems that no one will allow you to file, get copies, forward information, pay the bill or do anything at all with any account unless you are the “owner of record” or are “named on the bill”. It’s probably a good thing from an identity theft point of view, but some of the people I’ve tried to work with definitely have a Catch 22 clause in their work agreements. One company I called would not even let me PAY the bill for Mrs. B without a “coupon from the statement” and would not “forward a copy of the bill” unless “she calls in person” even though she’s an evacuee! However, they did assure me “since her bill is current” they would not cut off the utility… I guess they didn’t GET IT that she’s lucky to have gotten out of town and the town was badly damaged and that no one had any “utilities” to speak of! So, in spite of everyone trying to help, she’s had to do much of the calling and filing and arranging of things herself.

I understand from the neighbors that things are getting back on-line in the town and the services and utilities are back on line. The local radio station web site has stopped blogging detailed information about what’s happening, so we have to rely on information from the neighbors who have already returned after the hurricane.

I can’t say enough good things about Mrs. B’s neighbors, K and B and their son P. They have been really extraordinary in helping us out. In spite of having damage to their own home and having to deal with the results of the hurricane themselves, they have been on the forefront of helping Mrs. B get help, including assisting in getting someone to remove the tree from the house and forwarding important phone numbers and passing on much needed information.

Here’s a picture of the old pecan tree that fell on the house during the hurricane.


Now, just to make life a bit more miserable for her, it seems like someone has stolen her car. But I have to say, her spirit is not daunted one bit. She’s so good at filing reports, that she filed the police report like it was no problem! Of course, no one else could file it for her, not the family or the neighbors because it has to be the “owner of record” of course…

Tree Removal

Well, it's time for another interim post while Mrs B is staying in Arizona.

She's doing fine but is worried about the damage to her home caused by Hurricane Rita. She's waiting patiently for the insurance and FEMA inspectors to contact her. But we've made some good progress... The BIG pecan tree that crushed her home is being removed today.

Her good neigbors K and B found a crew of nice folks working in the neighborhood removing trees from damaged homes. They checked them out and decided to have them remove the trees from their home. Then they called Mrs B to see if she wanted the guys to do the same to her house too. Of course, we said "YES, PLEASE"!

We know the "front of the house is caved in a bit" and there's a BIG crack down the wall, and the front door only opens about 2 ft because the front of the building is out of alignment, but we won't know what the roof looks like until the tree has gone. B said the Army Corp of Engineers is going around and putting blue tarps on roofs for folks.... It's call the "Blue Tarp Service" and we hope they will be able to get a tarp up before any rains come.

K said she took some photos of the house with the tree on it and is sending them to Arizona, but we don't have anything yet to look at... just the other houses as posted on the www.KOGT.com site. Unfortunately, it seems that he is ending that blog now as he has a radio station and plans on giving the info over-the-air... it was the only real news we had of what was going on in Orange and vacinity.

Hurricane Rita hit the bull’s eye! Mrs. B is OK!

Well, today is Saturday Oct 1, 2005 and it seems like a long time since the Eye of Hurricane Rita went over Mrs. B’s (my Mom) home town of Orange, Texas on Saturday morning Sept 24, 2005. Orange is right near Beaumont, Texas for those of you who watched CNN coverage of the event.

The damage to Orange is extensive and thanks to a brave soul at KOGT radio station in Orange, who stayed thru the hurricane and reported on the outcome we know some of what took place there. He continues to post his blog updates and photos of the damage around the area.

What we do know from the KOGT blog is that there’s no food, no water, no electricity, no sewage, and no services in the Orange area although, some things have started to come into town like the National Guard, MREs (food packets), and the start of recovery efforts around the town.

You can see the blog and photos at http://www.kogt.com/.

The good news is that Mrs. B is safe and is staying with relatives in Arizona. She flew out of Houston on the previous Tuesday and if she’d waited another day, she’d have been stuck in the airport. But Mrs. B has the luck of the Irish, and made it out of town safe and sound.

P, a neighbor in Orange has told her “there is a tree on her roof and she’ll need a new roof for sure”. She’s been in contact with FEMA and her insurance carrier and they have been very good about helping her get the claim forms started. She’ll be staying in Arizona while we wait for inspections and such. She’ll have lots of experiences to write about when she gets back on-line again.

Trip Plans

My plans for this trip began several weeks ago when Loretta W, a cousin, invited me to visit. She told me she was researching the family tree, and would like me to join her so we could work together. I never need an excuse to travel, but her mention of genealogy activated my research addiction and I readily accepted her invitation.

My trip will start Monday, September 19, 2005 at 6:30 am. A neighbor will drive me to the Greyhound bus station on Interstate 10 to catch the bus for the three hour drive to Houston, Texas. I’ll spend the rest of the day and evening with my son. Tuesday morning he will drive me to Hobby airport for the Southwest 11:30 am flight to Phoenix, Arizona arriving there at 1:30 pm. A shuttle van will take me to Prescott, Arizona where Loretta will meet me 3:30 pm and drive us to her house in Paulden, Arizona.

I’ll be exchanging Texas humidity and night temperatures of 80; and day temperatures of 97 for 40 to 50 degree days and nights. My plan to travel light is easier said than done, but I’m determined to ‘under’ pack rather than ‘over’ pack. I want to eliminate as much baggage as possible so I don’t have to stand and wait in long lines at security check in.

I’ll write of my adventures and the progress Loretta and I make in our research of family history, so do come back and read about my travels. Thanks to all my readers for your interest in my stories.

Relocating Survivors
I’ve been following the TV coverage of moving the hurricane survivors out of the Astrodome, entertainment centers and church facilities here in Southeast Texas. Some have been offered temporary housing with families. Many have accepted rent free apartments for three months while they look for work, but many of the survivors were put on planes and taken to states like Utah, Illinois, Ohio and California and only told their destinations after their flights were in the air. . The “Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune” will undoubtedly be compounded by Culture Shock some of these people will experience.

I sympathize with those who have lost everything and find themselves in bewildering circumstances. Even after reaching safety and receiving basic needs of food and water, they find themselves in limbo. Although agencies like the Red Cross and Salvation Army along with hundreds of volunteers give financial help and comfort, they face confusion and dismay about where and how to rebuild their lives.

My family never experienced such a catastrophe, but there was an incident that lets us relate to some extent the trials and tribulations of those who have lost all their possessions. When Mom and Dad moved from Palo Alto, California to Los Angeles, all their household possessions were sent by moving van to the house they had rented in Los Angeles. Grandma and Grandpa A lived with the folks and everything they owned was on the van too.
I accompanied Mom and Dad and grandparents as we drove to Los Angeles a day before the van was to arrive at the Los Angeles address. After spending the night with relatives, we went to the house early the next morning and waited for the van to arrive at 9 or 10 a.m. When the van had not arrived by late afternoon, we assumed a misunderstanding about the arrival date was to blame. We voiced annoyance at the delay, but knowing the amount of work ahead of us we took the delay in stride and spent another night with relatives.

As the next morning and early afternoon passed without the van’s arrival, the folks made phone calls to find out why. Being told the van was on its way, it became a matter of exhibiting patience while we speculated on the reasons for such a delay. Toward dusk, we saw a large van from the moving company come down the street and being driven as if the driver was looking for a house number. We all heaved a big sigh of relief as Dad went to show the driver which house to go to. Relief was quickly dispelled when we discovered the van was not the one we were waiting for.

The following day we learned that ‘our’ van had caught fire and was totally destroyed midway to Los Angeles. Years of accumulations, photos, clothing, objects of value, furniture, books, tools, mirrors, family records and things of sentimental value belonging to both grandparents and Mom and Dad was lost. It was impossible to enumerate every thing on the van.

Eventually most of the items were replaced. But the loss of photos has been keenly felt thru the years. As I research our family trees, I often recall a snapshot or an old Kodak picture and wish I could add it to our genealogy records. Names and dates were usually written on the back of the photos; what a treasure it would be to have those pictures now!

Email Reply

Hi G
I'm like you I'm bewildered and angry at the seeming lack of organization in getting aid to the survivors of Katrina! The situation is worsening by the hour. I'm perplexed about why the busses going to the Superdome didn't carry crates of water to those people before they picked up a load of passengers for the Astrodome in Houston. At least they would have made the most of the gasoline used for round trips.

I just watched the President on TV. He's taking a tour of the area, but I don't think he really had a clue about the extent of the disaster. Why some of the administration were not more visible is a mystery to me. I'm thinking back to when Churchill went to the bombing sites as the bombs were falling just to show that elected officials were there to support those in such misery. Officials who have been in front of the camera in the last several days have been in suits and ties, the women beautifully coifed and looking like magazine pics. If they were dressed in casual clothing with hair a bit mussed, standing near a pile of ruble left from the hurricane, I'd at least have the impression they are hard at work solving problems. They know how to dress for photo ops in soup kitchens when they want publicity.

When you think of the immediate aid given within a short few hours to other countries- quakes in Turkey, tsunamis in Asia, floods in Bangladesh, not to mention the aid given in Iraq, you'd think we could do the same here. Electrical workers from Texas Ohio, Arkansas were in route to the area before the hurricane hit land, as were telephone workers, Red Cross trucks and Salvation Army.

Why did it take 4 days for the Senate to meet? Every person in the country with a TV could tell how big the catastrophe was even before the levees broke. Men here in this comunity got together with their boats the morning the hurricane landed to so they could join the rescue effort. If civilians can do it why can't the military do it? they have better resources at their disposal.

As you can tell I'm angry and I'll admit to confusion. I hope we haven't deluded ourselves that we are the greatest country on earth and our famous 'know how' is only a myth... I do believe once things get moving the rescue will go fast but in the meantime just wrapping dead people in sheets and leaving them on the side walk while people are dying of insulin shock, thirst and lack of medicines is beyond acceptable!!!

I realize in a few hours or maybe another day, my impressions and questions about the slow progress in rescue will change, but this is the way I'm reacting now. You will probably have different perspective too. If possible I hope you keep a diary of sorts of these days so people years from now can read how we coped with the loss of a city. I don't believe New Orleans will ever be a city again, at least as we have known it. We may salvage a portion, but if we do, it will be years before it can be inhabited again.

Thanks for sending your email, it gives me a chance to spout off and you know misery loves company! In other words, GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE !!!!!! love ....

Katrina
The devastation that Katrina, the hurricane, has wrought in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is so mind boggling it’s difficult to comprehend. Each passing hour brings additional news of destruction, death, flooding and looting. Since I live on the upper Gulf coast, there was a big sigh of relief knowing we wouldn’t have to contend with a direct hit, but the worry was short lived as the hurricane gathered strength and headed for New Orleans.

I listened intently to both radio and TV for the latest tracking predictions as Katrina changed from a category 2 to a 3, then a 4, and finally to a category 5 hurricane. During the midnight hours of Sunday, August 28th, I listened to an all night call in radio program about how New Orleans would cope when the hurricane hit. It was unthinkable that we could lose an American city, but the possibility was mentioned and I began to wonder if such a thing could happen.

Before daylight, TV crews were filming the onslaught of wind, rain and storm surge. At dawn we began to get an inkling of the devastation, but it seemed that New Orleans had survived the wrath of the hurricane. As daylight allowed greater evaluation of the damage, the horrifying devastation became apparent.

Mississippi and Alabama suffered terrible loss of life and whole communities were obliterated. Television cameras panned across the areas showing piles of rubble where houses and commercial buildings once stood. When reports that levees in New Orleans were breached and water from Lake Pontchartrain had poured into the city filling it with water to roof tops, the unthinkable had happened.

The scope of the catastrophe is so overwhelming I haven’t been able to absorb the impact yet. I’m hypnotized by television photos of people waiting for rescue on roof tops and scenes of autos in hotel lobbies. There are reports of hundreds of bodies floating in the water. Helicopters hover in place as coast guardsmen rappel below to rescue survivors.

The country is barely beginning to realize the extent of the greatest natural disaster we have ever experienced. In the next few days reality will seep into our consciousness that we have lost an American city as we once knew it. A collective effort toward solving long term needs of its inhabitants and plans to save and rebuild as much of the old New Orleans will emerge.



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Harvest Moon

During August, when I go to bed at night, I can see the moon thru my bedroom window until tree tops obscure its ceaseless path from view. As the moon loses its crescent shape and becomes rounder, silver light advances into the room until I’m bathed in moonlight. The soft air of summer nights, the murmuring cadence of night insects, and delicate silhouettes caused by moon glow combine to create a mood of enchantment which lingers long after the moon disappears from sight.

I have lovely childhood memories of summer nights when we lived on the asparagus farm. As the months changed from June to July, then August, the nights grew increasingly hot. After dark fell, the family took blankets and pillows out to the yard to enjoy the cooler night air. We clustered the blankets willy- nilly to each other, and each had their favorite pillow. Most of us planned to sleep outdoors, but sometimes we would wake in the night and go back to our beds inside the house.

After we got tired catching fireflies and saving them in jelly jars, Dad might give us riddles to solve or we listened to stories of how Mom met Dad and what their lives were like when they were kids. Sometimes Adeline or I would pretend moonlight magic made us dance and as we circled and twirled in the moon light, we begged Mom to join us. One of my most precious memories is watching Mom as she laughed and danced with moonlight on her face.

When I was fifteen, a farm neighbor hired me to help in the kitchen at harvest time. Their harvest would take three days, with noon meals being served each day. Groups of local farmers would work together, taking turns harvesting each other’s crops. Not all the farmers would own the machinery needed, but the one or two that did, would use them as they moved from farm to farm. Living in the middle of the Corn Belt, I knew how harvest meals were prepared and served, but I had never helped in the work.

I started work at 8 each morning, but the farmer’s wife and another woman started work earlier. Pies had already been baked with several more ready for the oven. Chicken was frying on top of the stove and bread dough was rising, ready to be made into rolls. The two women did the cooking while I fetched and carried and helped at whatever job I was given. The dining table was covered with a white table cloth and matching napkins. Each man’s place setting included bread and butter plate, cup and saucer, and glasses for water and lemonade or iced tea.

Each day the meals were basically the same, platters of fried chicken and baked ham, sweet corn on the cob, bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed vegetables from the garden along with sliced tomatoes, radishes, scallions and pickles. For dessert there were three kinds of pie, apple, berry and a cream plus a white and a chocolate cake

The men were divided into two shifts for eating, one at 11:30 and one at 12:30. The farmer, his brothers and their sons waited to eat at the second shift, allowing the volunteer workers to eat first. Outside the kitchen door several benches held buckets of water, wash basins, and piles of clean towels so the men could wash up before eating.

The second shift was a duplicate of the first. The women kept the platters and dishes filled, but the men served themselves and passed the foods around. Pies and cakes were also placed on the table so the men could help themselves. They laughed and joked as they ate, but they didn’t linger at the table.

When the meal was over for the men, we three ate and then started the kitchen work. After all the dishes, pots and pans were washed and put away, I was free to go home, but the women made pies to get a head start on the next day’s work.

Weather

Different regions of Texas have differing climates in winter and summer. My Texas summer weather is still in the 95 -98 range. Weather is the first topic in any local conversation. It’s either hot, or getting hotter and we blame humidity. The heat index, not the number on the thermometer, is the one we pay attention to, along with percentages of rain possibility, which yo- yo up and down the scale. If it’s 20%, 50% or 60%, it means showers will be passing thru and we can, in all probability, expect sunshine before and after rain. If 70% or higher, we are in for monsoons, (good for gardens), or a deluge and floods, (bad for gardens).

Weather in Texas can change drastically within an hour. One has to experience it to believe it. I remember one winter night going to sleep with my warmest blankets, and as the jet stream switched directions, the interior of the house got so warm, I had to kick the blankets aside.

I have never gotten used to the violent weather changes. The ice storms are exquisitely beautiful to look at but not much fun to experience. They cause power outages, downed trees and broken water pipes. I was astounded when I experienced my first Texas ice storm. It was totally unexpected. Rain turned to ice after nightfall and I could hear the crackling and breaking of tree limbs all thru the night. When I awoke next morning, I was awe struck to find everything coated with ice, glistening and sparkling like diamonds. The sun was shining but the temperature had dropped too low to melt the ice.

There were power outages and broken water pipes all over town. Mom and Dad, living in the house next door, had an outage lasting 8 days. Mine lasted only 3 days as electricity at the end of my side of the street was restored sooner than Mom and Dad’s. We both had broken water pipes. My sister, Esther, was visiting Mom and Dad at the time, and between her and our brother, Charles, we managed to connect our two houses with heavy duty power cords so both our houses had lights, television and refrigeration. We all went on ‘wilderness survival mode’ until water pipes were repaired, but we counted our blessings because we still had heat to warm the house and cook with.

Broken tree limbs were everywhere. Trees had crashed due to the weight of ice, and flattened sections of my back yard fence. A huge limb from a pecan tree had fallen on top of my car, covering it with a 6 foot high canopy of frozen branches. The thick, jagged end of the limb was jammed into the frozen ground on the passenger side of the car. I was able to push branches aside far enough to squeeze into the driver’s seat and fortunately, the car started instantly when I turned on the ignition. I slowly backed the car out from underneath the branches and parked further down the driveway. Later, when we checked the roof of the car for dents, there wasn’t even a scratch to be seen.

Walking To School

The school busses are beginning to roll thru my neighborhood on trial runs. School starts in a day or so and they will be stopping to pick up the children that live further down my street. The middle school is only three blocks, four if you count the football field, from the end of our street, but the children ride the bus.

What a difference between my school days and today. My brothers, sisters and I walked to school. Our town didn’t have busses. Even when my family had a car, we walked to school. When the family moved from town to the asparagus farm on the outskirts of town, we still walked to school.

Adeline and I attended school in town, but my younger siblings went to a small country school with all the grades in one room. The distances to both schools were about equal; walking times approximately the same. We left the house in the mornings at the same time, and returned home in the afternoons around the same time.

We dressed for the weather. In the winter we wore snow suits and boots. The boy’s boots always had a jack knife in the side pocket of one boot. The girl’s boots were ankle high, either white or black. When it rained we had a choice of goulashes or rubbers to wear over our shoes when the dirt road we walked was muddy, or slushy with ice and snow.

Adeline and I had a shortcut we used on our way to and from school. By cutting thru a pasture that was almost opposite our house, we avoided having to walk the road which would have added at least a mile to our walk. Coming from school, we climbed under a barbed wire fence, and then walked along the top of a broad hill which gradually sloped to a running creek at the bottom. On the other side of the creek the pasture duplicated, in reverse, the side of the hill we walked.

There was always a large herd of cows, sometimes at the top of the hill, but usually scattered across the lower side of the hill nearer the creek. The pastoral scene of cows browsing the lush, green grass was a visual delight, but if cows meandered too close to me, I was afraid of them. Adeline, a year and a half younger, and brave to the max, was my defense and rescuer.

If the cows ignored us and went on with their grass munching, our walk across the slope was uneventful, but if any one cow took notice and began walking in our direction, all the cows began moseying our way. It then became a matter of judging whether or not I could run past the cows before they reached us. If I didn’t think I could make it, Adeline would run ahead and wave the cows off while I ran.

Sometimes our running started the cows running, in which case, their running started my screaming. Adeline would yell, “They won’t hurt you!” as she faced the cows and shooed them off, but what did she know? They didn’t chase her! Of course I always reached the safer side of the hill when Adeline was with me. She was my protector, but if I was alone, and the cows were too close for comfort, I was in trouble. If they were in the way of my running past them, I tried circling and yelling at the same time. I must confess I never had a confrontation with a cow, but then again, there was always that possibility!

Space Walking

I am overwhelmed with awe that astronaut, Steve Robinson, tethered to the robotic arm of the shuttle, was guided to the underbelly of the shuttle so he could remove two tiny pieces of filler protruding thru cracks in the tiles on the heat shield.

The walk required the most delicate of maneuvers in order not to bump, jar, or crack the tiles. The procedure was filmed under water in Houston and beamed to the astronauts so they could see how the job went before taking the space walk.

I can’t imagine the emotions Robinson must have experienced as the arm extended and moved him thru space, 230 miles from earth, traveling in opposite directions at great speeds, to position him on the underside of the space craft. His caution and composure as he reached for the fillers and gently pulled them away from the tiles, made the task look simple.

Questions remain whether the return from space will be safe. What exemplary qualities of bravery and courage these astronauts exhibit in the face of such danger! All the more reason they should not be subjected to the whims and ambitions of an agency that talk’s safety, but cuts costs in achieving it.

This current trip of the Shuttle to deliver cargo of needed supplies to the International Space Station is the first since the Columbia tragedy in 2003. It may be the last as NASA has cancelled future trips of the Shuttle until design problems threatening the lives of astronauts can be corrected.

I wonder what Grandma A would think of the International Space Station, orbiting 230 miles from earth with crews that spend months manning it. I think she would be astounded at the many space endeavors that have taken place since she saw the first Russian Sputnik. She was so thrilled to have seen it. As often as I attended Sputnik parties with friends waiting to see it as it came into view, I never saw it. There was always smog or the sky was overcast with clouds.

Tattoos
I heard on TV news that the Houston, Texas police dept has issued an edict prohibiting the showing of tattoos. All personnel with tattoos must keep them covered in order to present a professional, unified appearance to the public.

As an adult, I never gave much thought to tattoos except when I saw one on a movie character, or on a woman’s shoulder or back waistline on Judge Judy’s or Judge Joe Brown’s TV court program when a complaint was being made about it for some reason.

As children though, my brothers and sisters and I were intrigued with Dad’s. He had a flag tattooed on the inside of his left forearm just below the elbow crease. It was red, white and blue with a simulated wave. One could imagine it blowing in the wind.

Sometimes when we had run out of play ideas, someone would ask Dad to show us his tattoo. We loved to hear the story about how he got it. When he was quite a young boy, he decided to secretly get one, but his younger brother, Ernest, discovered his plan, and insisted on tagging along. When they got to the tattoo parlor, they had to chose the design and after some thought, they both decided to have the same flag pattern done on their arms so that shirt sleeves would hide it from their parents.

Of course we asked how it was done and as Dad went into detail, we shuddered at the thought of needles pricking the skin. We commented on their bravery to have such a procedure done and we would take turns touching the flag to feel the smoothness.

Dad and Ernest were able to keep the secret until Grandma and Grandpa discovered that Earnest’s arm was infected. They had a fit! Dad said they were very angry with him for not only getting the tattoo on his own arm, but for letting his younger brother get one too!

As we grew up and remembered to ask Dad to show us his tattoo, he always obliged. Amazingly, the colors were bright as new. When WWII happened, we were very proud that Dad had a flag on his arm. We thought it very patriotic! As the years passed we nearly forgot about the tattoo it had become such a part of his being. We rarely gave it a thought, even when we saw him wearing only an undershirt.

As Dad’s age reached 101, I began to take notice of his tattoo again. The flag was still there, faded, but enough color remained to identify it as the flag of the United States. And it was still smooth to the touch. We revived the old stories about the tattoo and we both enjoyed the reminiscing of his escapade.

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Threading Needles

I spent the good part of an hour trying to thread a needle today. It was the same needle I threaded yesterday. It was also the same thread, from the same spool that I used yesterday. I have several of those little gizmos that threads needles, but the eye of the needle I was trying to thread was too small for the miniscule gizmo wire to push thread thru.

I snipped imagined frayed ends of the thread, along with the classic technique of wetting and pinching to make a point that would go thru the eye, but all I can say for my persistent efforts was zip, nada, zero, nothing. I even came up empty handed when I searched my needle cache for one I could use.

While I was struggling with my needle threading I thought of Dad who threaded all the needles Mom used when she quilted. He did not use a needle threader gizmo. He wore glasses but he did all the threading by hand. As he threaded each needle he judged the thread length Mom like to work with, and carefully pinned each threaded needle side by side to a man’s white handkerchief.

The needles were placed close together and in long rows. There would be hundreds of threaded needles by the time he filled the handkerchief. He had a special way of folding the handkerchief to protect the threads so they didn’t tangle. As Mom finished a needle, she pinned it to the handkerchief and gently pulled a threaded one from the cloth to use.

Mom found so much pleasure in quilting. Dad made her quilting frame along with rails of different lengths to fit any size quilt Mom wanted to work. Dad also helped with tracing the border designs. The two of them were a ‘quilting team’. Dad was as proud of each finished quilt as Mom was.

I have no idea how many quilts Mom finished. She quilted for many years so there had to be a large number. Most of her quilts were traditional patterns; although she once quilted a dogwood pattern I designed to be white on white. It was really lovely when it was finished and I was pleased it had been quilted so beautifully. She gave it as a present to the Dr. that did her cataract surgery.







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Mark H.

I had a surprise phone call from my nephew, Mark. It’s always a delight to chat with him. He drives an eighteen wheeler and phones me from time to time from various points on his long haul trips. Mark and his wife Celia live in Missouri with their three children, although Celia and boys, Andrew and Jonathan and daughter Christina are presently on vacation in California visiting Celia’s family.

I’ve enjoyed knowing my sister Adeline’s children, Michael, Virginia, David and Mark. Each had charming personalities as children and as adults they are still charming and fun to know.

I first saw Michael when he was about a year old. At that time, my husband and I were in Philadelphia on business and I had an opportunity to visit Adeline in New York for an afternoon. Adeline had a regular routine of taking Michael for a walk in his stroller every afternoon so I helped bundle him up and off we went. The weather was cold and cloudy, but Michael was happy as could be.

Virginia was 18 months old before I had an opportunity to see her for the first time. Mom and Dad were babysitting her for a day. She was a cutie little cherub with dark hair and fair complexion and sound asleep in her playpen.

David was sitting in his highchair, eating cheerios when I first saw him. He was almost at the walking stage and Adeline asked me to fix his bottle while she got him ready for his nap.

One of my earliest memories of Mark was when Adeline asked me to baby sit one afternoon while she made a quick trip to the grocery store. She warned me to keep a close eye on Mark or he would sneak away and try to cross a busy street on his way to the bakery. As a toddler he had learned to climb the high brick wall enclosing the back yard and taking off to heaven knows where! As a slightly older child, he had repeated his escapes on several occasions, but neighbors, police and shop keepers were alerted to his forays.

As I sat on the couch reading Mark a story; he sat on the floor by my feet. He heard Adeline tell me to keep an eye on him and he promised me not to run away. He brought me a long 10 or 12 foot piece of heavy rope and said he would tie himself to my foot. I let him wrap the rope around my ankle and he wrapped the rope around his waist and sat on the floor listening to me read.

I once had Mark spend the night with me. When I took him home the next day, we stopped at a deli and ordered sandwiches and slaw to eat at one of the outdoor tables. As we were eating, Mark told me he was never allowed to keep any of the money he earned, his father made him put it all in his bank account. I was a bit surprised but when I asked if he got to spend some of his money on things like movies or candy, he said no.

The movie How the West Was Won was showing at a near by theater. Thinking the film title indicated it might be appropriate for children, I decided to take him to the movie before I took him home. We settled into our seats with popcorn, but it wasn’t long before I realized that Mark was too young to sit thru Hollywood’s history of the west, so we left.

Mark often made fudge in the afternoons after school. I happened to be around on several occasions when he made his fudge and served it to everyone. It was delicious, the best I’d ever eaten! He told me how to make it, but I didn’t write the recipe down. On the way home I stopped and bought the ingredients which included a can of evaporated milk and proceeded to make fudge, only mine didn’t fudge! I phoned Mark to find our why I was having so much trouble and discovered I had used a large can of milk, not the smaller one the recipe called for. My solution to the problem was to double the recipe and continue cooking the mixture. I ended up with a lot of fudge that was almost, but not quite, as good as Mark’s.

I once traveled across the country from Texas to California with Mark and his wife. Mark was driving a pickup with a camper, his wife and I took turns driving their small compact car. We caravanned in tandem, making stops at the same time. We pulled into the rest stop outside Deming, New Mexico late one morning. Mark was concerned that his truck radiator was heating up, so he checked under the hood.

As the three of us stood there looking at the engine, I noticed that a man some distance from us, start to run toward me with arm held straight out with his finger pointed at me like a gun. I just stood there looking from his hand to his eyes and back to his hand. In a flash the man had reached me, put his arms around my waist, whirled me around, and laughed. He asked if I knew who he was. It was Anno, a cousin I hadn’t seen for years! We asked how in the world he found us. He was making a fast driving trip from Florida to California, but had taken time to stop and say hello to Mom and Dad in Texas. They told him to look for us and described the truck and car. That’s how he knew it was us. I still marvel at that chance meeting in the desert! It was like finding a needle in a haystack.

George

George W has moved back to ‘Osky’. He sold his house in What Cheer, Iowa, auctioned most of the furnishings and has rented a small apartment in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He will be 84 in August. Although his health allows him to retain his independence, he wanted to be closer to family members in case of emergency.

When I, along with my brothers and sisters stayed with Grandma W, uncles George, Paul and H.O. were more like older brothers than uncles. During summer days when school was out, Paul and H.O. spent their time with boys their own ages, but George and I formed a formidable pair that dominated most of the activities of the kids we played with. Neighbor kids, and those of my brothers and sisters that chose to join us, formed a loosely knit gang that expanded and disintegrated several times a day as our activities changed. The pair of us mutually took the attitude of being in charge and allowing others to tag along although we never voiced such an opinion.

We children had a freedom in those days that would be unthinkable in today’s world. We had the run of the town, and all its offerings. Occasionally we would ask Grandma for permission to go somewhere we thought might be out of bounds, but other than that, we came and went pretty much as we pleased. We hit home base a couple of times in the morning and the same in the afternoons, so Grandma had an idea of where and what we were doing as she let us ‘just be kids’.

Sometimes Grandma would ask one of us to run an errand to the day old bread store or the post office, but generally we ran in ‘packs’ as we walked across town to see Aunt Rita’s and Uncle Lester’s new baby, or to the stadium to run the cinder track. We never lacked for something to do, be it playing Michigan Rummy with Bicycle cards, (Grandma didn’t allow Euchre decks in the house) or taking turns playing Grandma’s old pump organ where one of us had to manually push the bellows because our feet couldn’t reach the pedals.

Grandma was quite tolerant of the mischief George and I got into, but I vividly remember one occasion when she was very cross with us. Grandma sent us to town with our toy wagon to get a large chunk of ice so she could make peach ice cream in the old fashioned freezer and asked us to help turn the crank. When the ice cream was ready, she took the freezer into the cellar room and covered it with gunny sacks and old blankets to keep the ice cream frozen until time to serve it.

As the morning passed I went looking for George and discovered him in the cellar, sneaking a taste of ice cream. I demanded a taste too. We carefully rewrapped the freezer and made our getaway. It wasn’t long before we decided another little taste wouldn’t be noticed so back we went for more. We made several furtive tasting trips before we realized we had substantially lowered the level of ice cream in the container.

When Grandma got ready to remove the dashers from the ice cream container, she discovered our dastardly deed and demanded to know who was responsible. After confessing, she lectured us royally! She sent us for more ice to make another batch and warned us to be ‘quick’ about it. She threatened to make us do with out, but when the time came to serve the ice cream; she relented and served us along with the others.

July 4th

NASA has blasted a comet as part of our 4th of July celebration! Done as a scientific probe, timing the event to occur in the early hours of July 4th, is phenomenal. (As all space achievements are phenomenal.) Since ‘Sputnik’ first circled the earth I’ve been fascinated with all space endeavors.

Sending persons into orbit around the earth in a rocket controlled by a rinky-dink computer compared to the more complex computers we use today seems foolhardy. When a space ship landed on the moon so men could walk in moon dust then return to earth to tell about it, I knew we had reached the age of ‘Buck Rogers’.

When my sister, Adeline, and I were 8 and 9 years old, we played a game of imagination to compete with the newspaper comic strip, Buck Rogers. We stretched our imagination to the limit in thinking of outrageous inventions we knew were impossible. We laughed hysterically as we took turns naming things like a machine to wash dirty dishes, a machine to cook food in a few minutes, a sewing machine that could embroider, and even a machine like a radio that would show pictures.

Today, I can cook meals in a microwave, and watch news events and celebrations on my Television. I can also wish everyone a HAPPY 4th of July, 2005 on my computer!

Civil War History

I heard on the news this morning that Shelby Foote the famous Civil War Historian, has passed away. In 1990 when the Civil War series was shown on PBS, three women friends and I were avid viewers. After each airing of the series, we met for a picnic at the Louisiana Rest stop near the Texas border. It’s a delightful park like setting with shaded picnic tables, raised wooden walkways to view the swamp flowers and plants and a tourist information building. While spending the afternoon, we four widows discussed the film, and mutually confessed to falling in love with Shelby.

Long after the strife of the War Between the States was over, attitudes in the north as opposed to those in the south were part of my consciousness as I grew into girlhood. Customs of race, religion, agriculture and speech were topics of interest when comparing my life with my cousins in the south.

My southern family had fought for the confederacy; my northern family fought in the Union Army.
I grew up with corn fields; my cousins grew up with cotton and tobacco fields. I went to school with black children, my cousins did not. My cousins spoke with a ‘southern accent’, I did not. Both families went to Southern Baptist churches, but sometimes I tagged along with a school friend when she went to catholic catechism classes.

Abraham Lincoln, the song Dixie, and the Underground Railroad epitomized my understanding of the war when I was a kid. At Grandma W’s house there was a long, secret passage leading from a closet under the stairway to a large cellar room that had been made from digging into the side of the hill. The room had walls lined with bricks and a dirt floor. Potatoes, apples and jars of canned fruits and vegetables were stored on shelves around the room. From that room there was a door leading to the back yard as well as door leading to the kitchen. George and I were convinced that the house had been a way station in the Underground Railroad. George is my uncle and only a year older than I but we were like brother and sister in those early years.

When I was around 35 years old, I became intensely interested in reading about the Civil War. Over a period of about 5 years my reading was heavily concentrated on the subject. I frequently made mental notes to read more about a certain general, or battle and would be astonished when I would quite by accident, not design, find the very book I needed when I went to the library It might be a book on display or one left on a reading table.

This is something that happens to me in libraries. It’s as if ESP takes me directly to the book I want or need. I once was curious about how the Japanese tied bamboo together to make a fences but I had no intention of going out of my way to find out. On a visit to the library, I started down the whodunit aisle and the first book I pulled from the shelf was a book that was slightly out of line with the other books. It was a volume with colored photos of Japanese fences with instructions on tying the various knots. This happens often when I’m in a library, and, I’m equally astonished each time it occurs.

Esther and I once attended a two day re-enactment of a civil war battle in Mansfield, La. It rekindled my interest in the history of the war and the land where it was fought. When Adeline and I visited family in a part of Georgia that I had not traveled before, Sherman’s march to the sea crossed my mind dozens of times as I tried to envision his troops moving across the terrain. The consequences of that struggle are still creating situations to be coped with today, but the explicit history of those times continues to fascinate me.

Vacation Car Trips

Friends are going to Cancun, Mexico on vacation. I have not been to Cancun, but my visits to Mexico have always been enjoyable. I know they will have a good time. I love to travel. I take after Grandma W in that respect. She was ready to go at the drop of a hat, literately. At the end of WWII, many of my aunts and uncles traveled back and forth from Iowa to California and often ‘hauled’ paying passengers. They would put a notice in the newspaper telling how many persons they had room for, cost per person and date of departure. Every effort was made to accommodate the riders as to luggage and departure time.

Most of these trips were non-stop with a team of two, sometimes three, family members as drivers. They were very fast drivers, stopping only for meals and gasoline. It’s a miracle no accidents occurred in the many trips they made. There were no freeways, only two lane roads, open range, (cattle and horses were not fenced), with long stretches of rural country side. The east-west routes went down the main drag of small towns and thru the centers of larger cities. After passing the fields of local farmers, Burma Shave verses were the only relief from the monotony of wide open spaces. There were few facilities of any kind between towns, so mileage markers were carefully noted, especially the ‘last chance’ warning signs to ‘fill up’ with gasoline.

Autos did not have air conditioning. One drove with open car windows. Canvas bags of water were tied to the bumpers for emergencies and for drinking. The desert was driven at night to avoid scorching temperatures. The rays of sun rise and sun set blazed with blinding intensity on cloudless days. I don’t know if there were speed limits in open country back then, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. The cars my aunts and uncles drove were top of the line, luxury cars that stood up well under adverse driving conditions with speedometers registering speeds well past 100 mph. The brakes were mechanical, and there were no seat belts.

Sometimes Grandma W was invited along so she could visit some of the family that had left Iowa to settle in San Bernardino, (often called, San Berdu), and Los Angeles. She could be ready in minutes if necessary and regardless of possible hardship, she was raring to go. The circumstances of her life had taught her how to meet traveling hardships with practicality and simplicity. Her vacations were not the kind of leisure trips to foreign lands and souvenir shopping of different cultures that many of us enjoy today.

All my earliest travel trips were much like the ones Grandma W made. The destinations of Dad’s annual 3 week vacations were families in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Mom and Dad were not speeders, but once Dad got behind the wheel, he didn’t like stopping. After many requests to stop at the next gas station so we use a bathroom, Mom would say, “Herod! My dentures are floating”! Hours spent on the road cut into the precious visiting time with family.

Dad took his vacations in October which got us out of school for three weeks. To compensate for the lack of classroom study, Mom and Dad sandwiched tours to strange and unusual places for us on these vacation trips. Among some of the places we visited were a tannery, a mortuary, a weaving mill, horses at Churchill Downs, and the old family cemetery in Virginia.

In the early years of my marriage, trips from California to Pennsylvania were also rushed. Deadlines had to be met when my husband attended summer classes at Temple University while at the same time we visited his family for the summer. At the end of summer we rushed back to California to meet the deadline for his fall classes. For many years now, I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy leisurely trips by both auto and air.



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Lost Children

It was good news yesterday when Brennan Hawkins, 11 years old, was found safe and unharmed after being lost 4 days in the rugged wilderness area of the Uinta Mountains of Utah. Searchers had intensified the hunt for him as concern for his welfare mounted.

Thankfully the search ended in a successful rescue. The boy was found approximately 5 miles from the Boy Scout camp site near the East Fork of the Bear River having suffered only dehydration, hunger and minor cuts and bruises.

It’s always good news when a missing or lost child is found or rescued. One of the frightening experiences Mom told about homesteading in South Dakota, was when her brother, Lester was lost. He was a very small boy when he became lost in the high prairie grass.

It stretched across the plain for miles, as tall as a man’s head, thick and dense. An adult on foot could quickly become disoriented and have difficultly finding his way thru it. When everyone realized Lester was missing, Grandpa W organized a group of men to search on horseback. The worry was over when the riders quickly found Lester and brought him back where he belonged!

Swimming

Summer is officially here. I don’t take part in warm weather activities like I did when I was young, but I like to linger over the sweet memories of those long ago lazy summer days. Swimming was a twice a day activity at the city pool when the eight of us children were old enough to be at the pool without a parent. We were in the water from the time the pool opened in the morning until we went home for lunch. We had to wait a full hour after eating before Mom allowed us to go back to the pool for the afternoon. It was only a few blocks, about a ten minute walk from our house.

Food and ‘pop’ (soft drinks) was not allowed at the pool but if the attendants were in a good mood they would give permission to leave and return without additional charge if we wanted to buy snacks from the vendor outside the pool gates. We had nickels and dimes for morning and afternoon snacks, but no matter how many ice creams or fudge bars we ate in the morning, we were ravenous at noon.

Mom cooked our lunches in a big canning size pressure cooker. She called the meals English Boiled Dinners. There were layers of pans filled with fresh vegetables from our garden and meat. Dad always walked home for lunch and Mom was ready to serve the minute he walked in the door. She let the steam out of the cooker, removed the lid and lifted out the trays of pans, each containing a separate vegetable. There was always a freshly baked pie or cake. I liked Gooseberry or Rhubarb pie best but she made Banana Cream or Coconut Cream pies as well as Pineapple Upside Down or Burnt Sugar cakes, which were my second favorites. We drank pitchers of lemonade, orangeade and grape Kool-Aid.

One summer day I developed an abscessed ear that caused me to lose my hearing. The Dr was concerned that I might become totally deaf and I started to learn sign language, but after some weeks, my hearing returned and I stopped learning to sign. Since that time however, I always wear a nose guard when I dive while swimming. Jerry, the smallest and youngest of my brothers, learned to swim long before I did. He was like a fish in the water and had no fear of the diving boards and accepted all dares to jump off the highest board. My brother, Charles, liked to play water polo and was quite good at it. I enjoy swimming, but am not good at it. I can chug along, but I’d never win a race.

David A.

My nephew, David A. had an interesting Father’s Day. His brother, Danny, secretly entered David’s name in a local radio station contest about dads. Danny described how successful David is as a single father, raising his daughter, Brittany, from babyhood to a high school senior. The radio station selected David along with several other fathers to sing the National Anthem at the Dodgers game on Father’s day.

David is a ‘go getter’. As a 4 year old, he started several businesses that earned him money for hamburgers at a nearby McDonalds. He picked radishes from his mother’s garden and sold them for a penny apiece. His ‘territory’ was the street he lived on which was a semi cul-de-sac that circled a small park at one end, with a large thoroughfare at the other.

One lovely summer morning, my parents picked up David and brought him to my house for a little visit. I set up a card table in the living room with a cloth and napkins and served the four of us milk and cookies. While we chatted, David showed us some stones he had picked up from the driveway that he planned to sell. He asked if we would like to buy any. They were various prices; some 3 cents, but most were a nickel. It was a big decision to choose which were the prettiest, but I finally chose three and paid him the money. We were still having cookies when I picked up one of my stones, walked over to the window and looked at it in the light. I called Dad over to the window and asked him if he thought the stone was ‘A GENUINE’... After Dad looked at it from all sides, he said, yes, it was definitely a GENUINE. David had been quietly observing this and when Dad agreed with me, David said, “That one should have been a dime!”

When David was 4, he went to the park every day and played ball with the little leaguers. One day he had his picture in the paper. He was photographed in a batting stance ready to hit a fast ball. David collected several newspaper copies of his picture from neighbors, then went up and down the street offering to autograph it for a quarter.

When David wanted a hamburger and didn’t have enough money to buy one, he’s sit down with his crayons and draw pictures to sell door to door. He had several customers who bought regularly from him so he enjoyed lots of treats from McDonalds.

David has a day job, but he also plays guitar with a group. They play gigs on weekends and for fund raising events. His band often entertains when his daughter, Brittany invites friends for a weekend bar-b-queue.

Elbert

June 19th is both Father’s Day and my Brother, Elbert’s birthday. He was born at home in Spencer, Iowa on June 19th, 1929 and named Elbert James A. I’ll observe the day by telephoning Mary, his wife and sharing memories of him with her. We haven’t saved our memories of him to recall on a special day; we speak of him often in our frequent phone conversations.

During the night that Elbert was born, I woke up and thought I heard my mother calling. I opened my bedroom door and got as far as the curtain hanging at the end of the hallway. As I pushed the curtain aside, my father quickly put his hands on my shoulders and gently turned me around and said I should go back to bed. He assured me everything was fine.

The next morning Mom, who was still in bed, told me I had a new baby brother and if I looked in the carriage near the bed I could see him. It was an old fashioned wicker buggy, high off the floor with a dome like bonnet covering half the buggy. I couldn’t see the baby so I pressed down on the handle bars and tipped the buggy for a better look. As I did so, a pillow slipped out of the buggy onto the floor and the baby, wrapped in a blanket, was nestled on top. Fortunately, the baby wasn’t hurt and I was allowed to hold him for a few moments.

I loved to tease him by calling him “kissy lips”. He’d grin and we’d laugh about the toddler story Mom loved to tell. She had finished giving him a bath one morning, but hadn’t dressed him yet. While she was draining the tub, he ran out the front screen door and down the street, naked as a jay bird. Workmen making repairs on the roof yelled for Mom to let her know. Mrs. Jones, our neighbor two houses away, picked him up and carried him home. Mrs. Jones thought Elbert was the ‘cutest’ thing and that he had the “prettiest kissy lips”.

It was about this time that Elbert learned to cuss. Dad was busy working on the dining room chandelier, his tool box on the floor at the foot of the ladder. Elbert would pick up a tool and walk away with it. Dad kept ordering Elbert to leave the tools alone, but Elbert paid no attention. Dad became frustrated when Elbert wouldn’t leave the tools alone, and I can still hear Dad saying, “Hell’s Fire”. That expression soon gave way to, “God Damn!” It wasn’t long before Dad let out a, “God damn son of a bitch!” Mom yelled from the kitchen, “PLEASE, NOT IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN!” Elbert said, “Doddamsombit” and proceeded to repeat the phrase over and over as he ran around the house. He continued using this expression all his life, but Dad eventually gave up swearing and we rarely heard him curse in later life.

Elbert had Mom and Dad’s blue eyes and dark hair. He had the same facial features as Dad and Grandpa A. As Elbert aged, he looked more and more like the two of them. I once did a drawing of Dad from memory and when it was finished, the drawing looked more like Elbert than Dad.

Elbert was industrious as all my brothers were. When he was quite small, he agreed to pull weeds for a neighbor in exchange for a fishing rod. Our family and several aunts and uncles planned a joint camping-fishing trip and Elbert was excited about having a rod of his own to use. The neighbor really took advantage of him by insisting he finish weeding, even as the paraphernalia for the trip was being stowed in the vehicles. At the last moment, they gave him the rod, but it was broken. Never the less, Elbert was excited when he was allowed to join those in the boat and fish with his own rod. As it turned out, he was the only one to catch a fish that day. The fish was not very big, but it was cooked especially for him.

I have many treasured moments of the fun times we spent together, during WWII, the many dinners in San Francisco’s China Town, and browsing the shops before his reporting in at the barracks at the bottom of the hill. He looked so handsome in the sailor type uniform belonging to the merchant marine program he was in. We used to also enjoy frequent dinners at various restaurants in Los Angels when he worked construction with an uncle on the first Disney Land Park in Anaheim, Calif. Afterward, we’d drive side by side on the freeway, him in his red convertible, me in my blue one, until he came to his exit. We’d toot our horns and Elbert would give me a debonair wave as he turned off the freeway and headed home, and I continued on to my place.

I have many more stories to write about Elbert. He was truly a special person and I was blessed to have him for my brother. He was forever kind and generous to me and I know my affection was returned. Elbert didn’t like his name and preferred his nickname. Unfortunately, I was known by the same nickname. Mom, Dad, brothers and sisters used our real names, but everyone else, our spouses, friends and co-workers knew and used our nicknames. Since we didn’t live near each other, there was never a conflict. When I talked to him on the phone I always called him Elbert. One day I received a letter from Mary. Elbert had scribbled a line telling me to not call him Elbert any more! I sat down and wrote this poem to him.

I’m too much myself
If I’m called Elbert,
I ask you not to use that name.
“What’s in a name?”
“A rose would smell as sweet
By any other”*
Is this a game to pick and choose?
To nick a name for part of self,
The rest of self to lose?

E is for an ancient King
J for family past, yet of our time
No legend, myth or mask enfold
These names
But History, Truth and Honor, all contain

What whim of self to own a name
You will not use
There are no laurels lost or gained
If ‘E. J doesn’t suit, or be too plain

Be this a puzzle or a game,
Will you believe
My heart remembers
Will not forget
I love an Elbert without regret.

Bread

I have been walking around the house for two days spelling: Sea, Eye, A, Bee, A, Double Tee, A, Ciabatta. The latest Jack-in-the-Box spelling bee ad has seeded itself in my noggin like a tune that plays over and over. The current series of ads are very clever. I began paying attention to them when Jack returned from vacation with a woman who knew the ciabatta recipe. I had to laugh When Jack shared a ciabatta sandwich with a customs inspector, but the spelling bee ad has got me imitating little Jack’s sing- song spelling of the word.

The appearance of the ciabatta buns in the ads remind me of home baked breads and rolls the women in our family used to make. These days we have the convenience of baking a single loaf in a machine that sits on the kitchen counter, or buying a loaf of frozen bread dough to bake in the oven, but when I was young, bread was made in batches large enough to last several days.

In the kitchen of the asparagus farm, we had a large cast iron stove with double water reservoirs and a warming oven across the top. Wood and coal was used to heat the stove for cooking and baking year round. When Mom made bread, she mixed the dough in a large crock, let it rise until it had been ‘punched down’ at least once, and then made it into loaves or rolls. If there was a second batch to be baked, it went in the oven as soon as the first batch finished baking. Mom always brushed tops of the hot bread and rolls with butter as soon as they came out of the oven.

Mom always mixed the batch of dough, but Adeline and I often helped with the baking. My brothers also helped as they got older. Mom started teaching all of us how to cook and bake when we were small. All five brothers became excellent cooks and one enjoyed gourmet cooking.

One of our favorite snacks after school was fried bread. Being the oldest, I was the one usually making it while the others waited impatiently for a piece. Fried bread was made from a pinch of fresh dough, stretched to the size of one’s hand and deep fried to a golden brown in Crisco. Each piece was slathered with butter. To keep from burning our fingers it was switched from hand to hand as we tried to keep the melted butter from running down our wrists. Sometimes we sprinkled it with powdered sugar.

One day during the 1960s, a girl friend introduced me to the wife of an American Indian. The two of them invited me to join them in attending an Indian powwow in Los Angeles. They raved about how delicious Squaw bread was and I was curious to know what it was like. My mother was named after her great grandmother, an American Indian, and I grew up hearing stories about her, but I had never heard of Squaw bread. The first thing we did when we got to the powwow was to head for the food booths. When we were served the bread, I was surprised and amused. I exclaimed that I had grown up with this kind of bread, but my friends refused to believe me.

Horses

The Belmont race is this Saturday. I’ll be watching on TV. I’m not a big racing fan, but I always get caught up in the excitement of races like the Derby. Anticipation of the outcome builds as commentators discuss past performances of the horses, interview owners, and coax information from trainers and jockeys.

I admire the ability of riders to contend with the pressure of winning when fabulous amounts of money are wagered on their crossing the finish line first. In my estimation, jockeys exhibit tremendous courage when they sit on a postage stamp size saddle and ride at breakneck speed in a cluster of galloping horses!


I choose my favorites by color of the silks jockeys wear as they parade the horses. As the camera pans from horse to horse, I weigh their chances to win by the way they prance and perk up their ears and choose one to win, one to place and one to show.

I’m not a connoisseur of horse flesh. They all look alike to me. I can’t tell one breed from another, but they capture my imagination in stories and movies and I enjoy reading about them. Horses grazing in a field or colts and fillies running along side their mothers in a pasture are lovely sights, but horses intimidate me. I like having a fence between me and a horse. Unlike my daughter, who inherited my Grandpa W’s way with horses, I am content to be a viewer, not a doer.

Mom used to tell us stories about grandpa and his horses. He had a wide reputation for handling and training horses without abuse and selling them to area ranchers and farmers. When they were on the homestead in South Dakota, a local rancher came to grandpa with a proposition. If grandpa would capture a particular herd of wild horses, he could name his own price and also have first choice of the herd.

Mom said it took three or four days for riders, who took turns around the clock, to keep the herd moving before they could corral them. . The leader of the herd was a magnificent stallion which, of course, the rancher wanted for himself, but, true to his word, he honored it when grandpa chose the stallion.

The horse was so wild that no one could get close to him, not even grandpa. Grandma was the one who gentled him. He was kept in a separate corral without food and water. She started by frequently offering the horse water to drink and gently talking to him. Little by little, the horse began to accept food and water from her and eventually from grandpa. They named him, Doc. The horse was tamed and was grandpa’s pride and joy for many years. Although Doc was gentle around people, he would never allow anyone but grandpa to place harness on him.

My Sister Esther

In a recent IM chat with my sister, Esther, she offered to make me a muumuu. Mine had finally worn out and was beyond patching and I was complaining. Of course I accepted her offer! Esther is a whiz with a needle. She started sewing before she was old enough to go to kindergarten. Mom used to tell how she would sit on the floor under the dining room table and amuse herself for hours sewing clothes for little celluloid dolls. I could never come close to matching her sewing ability; in fact I never really learned to sew. Sewing machines remain a mystery to me.

When Esther was a baby learning to walk, we older ones loved playing with her. She looked like a doll in the pastel colored dresses and panties Mom made for her. We older ones played a game of pretending to drop things and she would pick them up for us. We thought it was hilarious when she bent over and her ruffled panties showed.

Esther was sixth in birth order; bunched between three older brothers and the two youngest. She was the third and last girl to join the family. In Mom’s last years she still called Esther her ‘baby girl’. When Esther was small, she fell off the steps of the back porch near our tomato patch and cut her cheek on a piece of broken glass hidden in the tall weeds next to the steps. When the doctor came to the house to treat Esther, he lectured Dad for not keeping the area clear of hazards and expecting Mom and us older ones to do it. The cut left a jagged scar, but fortunately, it lightened and became less noticeable as she got older.

Esther and the boys attended an old fashioned country school when we lived on the asparagus farm in Iowa Falls, but Adeline and I continued high school classes in town. Esther had beautiful, long red hair, a peach and cream complexion and an affectionate temperament. She wore her hair in French braids. Occasionally, when Mom was too busy getting everyone ready for school in the mornings, Adeline or I would do her hair, although I never learned to French braid and did the regular three strand braiding.

During the war when Dad’s office transferred him to San Francisco, the family lived on Hillcrest Drive in Redwood City, a peninsula town. Esther started to design and sew some of her clothes when she went to Sequoia high school. I remember being very impressed with one of her house coat designs.

During the war, Esther met Vernon, a charming young sailor from Baton Rouge, Louisiana that one of our brothers had befriended. They fell in love and corresponded while he was overseas in the Pacific. When he returned to the states at the end of the war, he wanted to marry Esther, but the folks thought she was too young and asked them to wait. They threatened to elope, so the folks gave permission. My husband and I had the wedding and reception at our home in the Redwood City foothills. Esther was so beautiful in her white satin wedding gown. Friends of Mom and Dad loaned Vern a convertible to drive while they honeymooned on King’s Mountain. They lived in California until after their second baby girl was born, then made a permanent move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Vern’s home town.

Esther saved her family a lot of money using her sewing talent to make school dresses for her three daughters and western shirts for Vern. The beautiful wedding gown she made for her oldest daughter has been loaned to cousins to wear at their weddings.

After raising a family and retiring, Esther and Vern moved to Toledo Bend, Louisiana, a resort area where Vern fished and Esther studied to become a ham radio operator like Dad had been prior to WW II. Her FCC license was upgraded from Novice, to Technician, to General and eventually to Extra, the highest, and she participated in various radio networks.

About the time Esther and Vern moved to the lakes, Mom and Dad moved to southeast Texas. Vern kept the folks supplied with freshly caught big mouth bass, and veggies from their garden. Mom started quilting in earnest when Dad made her a quilting frame. She liked quilting, but didn’t like ‘piecing’ them, so she paid Esther to make tops for her. After they decided on colors and patterns, Esther would make two tops, one for Mom and one to keep. In this way, they both had quilts to sell and give away as presents to family members.

Vern passed away several years ago and Esther now lives with a son in Baton Rouge. Her three married daughters live near by. She is truly blessed with a loving family and grand children. Esther reminds us of Grandma W in looks and attitudes, but she is like Grandma A when it comes to needlework. Grandma A was also hard of hearing and found pleasure in quilting, knitting and crocheting. Since Esther’s hearing loss has deepened in recent years and prevents her from participating in the radio networks she enjoyed for so many years, new doors have opened for her. She has taken to computers like a duck takes to water. She also discovered beading. If she isn’t sewing or crocheting something for a new grandchild, she’s finishing work on a counted cross stitch project, working with beads or starting a new quilt. As if that isn’t enough, she is now making me a muumuu!!!!

Gardening

One of two African Violets that I rooted from a leaf cutting has beautiful white blossoms with blue edges. I’m a sometime gardener. I get enthused in spurts and go all out, 90 to nothin’ propagating plants, buying seeds and digging holes in the yard until my back gives out. Then I take to my bed and read whodunits. From that point on, the fruits of my efforts have to make it on their own or die.

Years ago, when I was in a dentist’s waiting room, I read a magazine article on how to grow roses from stem cuttings. My husband had sent me a dozen American Beauty Roses so when the petals dropped, I collected coffee cans, drilled drain holes in them, and filled them with dirt from the yard. After carefully measuring, cutting, and planting the stems in the coffee cans, I watered and watched. Days went by; the stems turned brown and the cans rusted. It turned out that I had just been watering sticks. Eventually, I threw them away.

One day my daughter wanted to make a bonsai. As we browsed a nursery for a plant with an interesting shape, I saw several women filling flats of sand with tiny pieces of plants and asked what they were doing. They showed me about how to use rooting hormone. Since then, I have had a lot of pleasure learning and propagating various plants.

Mom and Dad always grew big gardens. They were family projects. When we lived on Bliss Blvd, we had a small tomato patch near the back porch and a large field garden on the other side of the railroad tracks that ran in back of our house.

When we kids woke up on summer mornings, we’d find Mom working in the tomato patch and she’d let us pick the biggest, ripest and juiciest tomatoes to eat as we sat on the porch steps. In the afternoons when Dad got off work from the office, we hurried thru supper so we could get as much garden work done in the field garden as possible while there was daylight. We reached the garden by walking down a path and crossing the tracks at the bottom of the little hill.

We’d walk single file down the path carrying buckets of water, hoes and rakes. Carrying water was a hard job. We larger ones made the water trips, filling the buckets at the house then carrying them to the field. We tried not to spill or splash too much water out of the buckets so we wouldn’t have to make so many trips. We gardened until dusk, and then Mom would serve us slices of melon or ice cream and homemade cookies. .

In those days we went barefoot all summer, except when we went to Sunday school. One day I was running down the path ahead of the others and stepped on something. It was a coiled snake lying in the middle of the path. The whole incident was over in a matter of seconds, but to this day I remember how it felt when my foot touched it. On the way back up the path, I insisted everyone go ahead of me to make certain there wasn’t another one.

June Is My Favorite Month

June is my birth month. I suppose everyone’s favorite month is their birth month. My brother, Elbert was also born in June. If one of our birthday months included a national holiday, the month was even more festive.

I hate to admit it but I have forgotten my birthday on several occasions. Once, a whole week passed before I realized my birthday had come and gone! For some inexplicable reason though, my Grandmother A’s birthday is imprinted on my mind. I always remember hers.

When I was in second grade, I created a birthday for myself. I don’t know what day or month is was. I only remember that it was a school day. After the class had said the Allegiance to the flag, we sang songs. Miss Chase, our 2nd grade teacher, sometimes asked if anyone had a birthday and if so, they got to choose a song. One day I raised my hand and told her it was my birthday. She looked at me a little strangely and asked me how old I was. I looked her straight in the eye and said,” Seven”. The fact that I would NEVER have a school day birthday and would NEVER get to choose a song had hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew I was telling a lie, but I continued the charade at recess. I invited several girls to my house for hot chocolate when school was out. When we reached home I told Mom why they were with me and why I pretended it was my birthday. She didn’t say anything but she served us hot chocolate and cookies just as if it was my real birthday.

Telephone Chat with Elizabeth

I had a nice telephone chat with Aunt Elizabeth over Memorial weekend. She, and her brother George, are the only remaining members of Mom’s family. Due to failing health Elizabeth has recently moved into a care facility. She has poor eye sight and is hard of hearing, but she can hear quite well on the phone.

Elizabeth is 91 years old, but her voice is youthful and reminds me of days long ago when my sister and I would meet Elizabeth when she got off work and walk home with her. She was a pretty, 18 year old with a sweet disposition. She worked at the bakery waiting on customers and I was very impressed with her responsibility of ringing up sales on the cash register and making correct change.

The country was in a deep depression; grown ups talked about ‘hard times’, but Dad always had a job with the phone company and received a regular paycheck. I was never aware of being deprived in any way but I saw newspaper pictures of people selling apples, or razor blades or shoe laces; wire photos of long lines of people at ‘soup kitchens’ as well as pictures of huge mounds of oranges having oil poured on them and burned in California or thrown into the ocean in order to raise prices.

For people without a car, hitch hiking was a safe way to travel and our family hitched rides when they needed to go somewhere. The summer that I, with my brothers and sisters, went to stay with Grandma W, Mom and Dad would hitch hike on weekends to come see us.

Grandma didn’t have a phone so we never knew ahead of time if Mom and Dad would be coming. If they had good luck hitching a ride, they might arrive by 8 or 9 o’clock Friday evening, but if rides were hard to get, it might be as late as 11. If it was later than midnight, we knew they wouldn’t be coming that weekend.

Grandma let Adeline and me stay up late on the nights we expected Mom and Dad. After all the others were in bed asleep, Grandma would take a chair out to the front porch to sit in while Adeline and I sat on the steps. The moon light was bright enough for us to see each other, and there was a street light at the corner so we could spot Mom and Dad when they turned onto our street.

During those summer evenings Adeline and I would ask Grandma to tell us about her wedding picture. Sometimes she would show us things from her special trunk. We always coaxed her to sing and if she wasn’t too tired, she would sing hymns and old ballads. She knew all the verses to Jessie James and that was our favorite.

Grandma’s dog, Penny, an American Spitz, kept us company as we waited on the porch, but he observed his own private and regular bed time. He slept on an old overstuffed chair in the front room. When Penny indicated it was his bedtime, one of us would open the screen door so he could go inside. We never turned on a light for him but he knew exactly where the chair was. One night after we opened the screen door for him, we heard a great plopping noise. We rushed to see what had happened. Penny had taken a great leap expecting to land in his chair but instead, landed on the floor. That day Grandma had moved the furniture around in the living room and either Penny didn’t know the chair had been moved or he forgot. He wasn’t hurt but he had a look of embarrassment on his face! Penny was a wonderful pet and we loved him dearly. He lived to be 19 years old