Mimi

Poor Mimi is traumatized. She is upset because I got a new bed. It’s queen size and replaces the single bed she and I have shared since she was a baby. I can’t believe that she lost her usually tranquil demeanor over the event, but she carried on like a banshee all night. My plans for a comfy nights sleep in my comfy new bed turned out to be one of the worse nights I’ve had in a long time.

She cried all night, sometimes meowing softly, sometimes more loudly, and sometimes in my ear. She jumped on and off the bed. She walked on my pillows, and she walked on me. I thought eventually Mimi would settle down and divide the night between sleeping at the foot of the bed and stretching out on the window sill next to the bed, and as usual, make her nocturnal forays from room to room leaving her toys scattered around for me to find in the morning.

Instead, around 3 in the morning, I was awakened with a noise that made me sit straight up in bed. In my ‘sleep-confusion’ I reached for a light that wasn’t there, on a night stand that wasn’t there either. Because the queen size bed took up so much space, the night stand had to be moved to a different spot. When I did turn on the light, I saw that Mimi had turned over a large floor fan that had a strand of jingle bells attached. Nothing was broken. The only damage was to my nerves.

Not having been born a true cat lover but having ‘acquired’ the affection like one ‘acquires; the taste for green olives, I’m learning that cats do not tolerate change well. ‘What to do Percy? What to do? I believe that when Mimi finishes sniffing and realizes the bed is here to stay and discovers that it might be more comfy for naps than the old, lumpy, narrow single bed was, she’ll be my sweet, lovable Mimi again.

Weather

I get annoyed about the way weather people report the weather on television. This annoyance has been building for years, but like Mark Twain’s famous saying that everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it, I complain but I don’t do anything about it.

Doing something would probably mean writing a letter to the TV station asking the weather people to change their ways. Or more precisely, asking them to stop hogging the camera. In fact, get out of the picture all together!

In the old days of television, weather reporting was done by a person at the edge of the TV screen, holding a long stick and pointing to the map where certain weather anomalies were taking place or might take place. It was a fine system, simple and direct. You always knew where the weather was!

Modern weather people stand in front of a map with myriad symbols representing clouds, rain, snow, flood, sun, wind, humidity, heat index, jet stream, highs, lows, temperature and warnings. They speak in a rapid gun fire weather jargon while drawing on the electronic map and adding more lines to the scribbles and never moving from the best camera angle.

They are always standing in front of the weather I want to look at! If I want to see the weather at the border of Texas and Louisiana, the weather person is either standing in front of that portion of the map, or the map cuts off at Houston. If I want to see the weather in southern California, the map stops with Colorado as the most western state.

Give me Radar Weather. At least with the sweep hand centered near ones location you can see where the weather is!

Aunts

I had two aunts named Bessie. Mom and Dad both had sisters named Bessie. Mom’s sister, Bessie Ross, lived in the north; Dad’s sister, Bessie Denison, lived in the south.

Bessie Ross was like an older sister and always a port in a storm for me. She was a pragmatist and over the years demonstrated her ability to cope with difficult situations and not only survive but come out on top. Bessie was married to Uncle Wallace and their son, Homer, was their only child.

Bessie Denison was the pivot around which Uncle Alvin, their children, Rosalee and Albert plus Grandma and Grandpa Abbott revolved, and we always stayed with them during Dad’s annual vacation. The trips to visit relatives in various parts of Kentucky and Tennessee radiated from their home.

Bessie Denison was soft spoken with a charming southern drawl that contrasted mightily with the quick, hard edged speech we in the north were used to hearing. It was great fun to have Rose and Albert repeat words such as ‘time’. Adeline was always quick to pick up the nuances of language and within a few days of our visit, Adeline was talking like Aunt Bessie. Apropos of the spoken language, when my daughter, Kim was 5 years old, she asked Aunt Bessie Ross to tell her about sewing the flag. We had a wonderful laugh when we realized that Kim had confused the names Betsy and Bessie.

I will never forget the wonderful visit my husband and I had with Aunt Bessie and Uncle Alvin when they lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky. While Bessie and Grandma prepared a wonderful meal, Uncle Alvin took us on a tour of the tobacco crop and we helped put the milk cans on the road for the milk truck to pick up. Albert was our special guide and made certain we saw everything. I loved his enthusiasm and I still recall his saying the words, ’flatter’n a fritter cake’. At that time I never thought such an engaging youngster would grow up to look like the proverbial distinguished Kentucky Colonel with snow white hair and beard that Adeline and I met again years later when we visited him in South Carolina.

As the years went by, both Aunts continued to be the hub for family gatherings and sources of news about distant cousins, aunts and uncles. Even after Uncle Wallace and Uncle Alvin passed away, I often turned to them for comfort when Mom and Dad were not at hand. They were a grounding rod for me during difficult times and I will never forget how gracious and willing they were to show me kindness when I needed it most. I have been very lucky to get bunched in with such a generous and loving family!

What fun to recall drinking coffee with Bessie and Grandma Abbott and watching Grandma’s parakeet sitting on her shoulder and saying, “I’m a democrat”.

A Wonderful Birthday Cake by Esther

[note: this story was written by my sister Esther]

It was so nice to see Mom and Dad. They came to spend a few days with us on their way through to Florida. And best of all they brought along with them Mom’s sister, Aunt Nettie and her husband Matt. Aunt Nettie is everyone’s favorite and she was one of the best Aunts any one would want.

Vern and I enjoyed taking them sight seeing what was to be of interest and in general what made Baton Rouge a growing city. First stop was the capitol. It’s always a good place to spend several hours. We left there to go eat lunch and then we were off to a hard ware store.

It was a general store that was long past it’s time. But it was not about to close it’s door and go out of business. They had so many customers that needed them. I told the owner I had to bring my parents in to show them and he was more than pleased to show us around. He had farm equipment for the small farmer and for the rice and cane big time farmers.

If you needed harness for any animal he had it all. If you needed tools, he was your man. If you wanted bees he had them for sell too. By now Dad and Matt were really enjoying this place. We had a first class tour and he was a fantastic guide. The owner was as pleased to know Dad and Uncle Matt were old time farmers too.

Us ladies also had a great time there just looking. It was like being back a few generations, where a general store meant the store had everything to sell. It had fabric, buttons, ribbons and patterns for the one who sewed. The furniture was the best made and in style, from the kitchen all the way though the house.

Mom and Aunt Nettie and I spent a nice afternoon and we all thanked the owner for his time showing us how good the old days were. I really loved taking everyone there.

The children loved it when Grandma and Grandpa came to visit. They really spoiled the kids. That’s what they are suppose to do. They loved to hear grandpa tell about when he would work with Paul Bunyon. He would tell the same stories my brothers and sisters would ask him when we were small. And Dad would have one of them cut the string in to two pieces and then he would make it back into one string. His fingers were fast.

The day before they were to leave to continue to Florida, was my birthday. I was going to bake my cake, a devils food cake with white mountain icing and lots of shredded coconut flakes all over the top and sides. Mom always made the best cakes, but there just was not enough time so Aunt Nettie and I went off to the bakery to see what I could find. She wanted to buy me something and there was not a thing I would let her get for me.

We made a stop at the grocery store and got several items I needed for supper and after that we went to the bakery and looked at the cakes in the glass cases. They all looked so good. It was like when I was very young and I had a penny and could only buy one piece of candy and there was twenty five different kind to choose from.

Aunt Nettie saw one that she liked and pointed it out to me. It was really a nice looking cake. Had five layers, was a rectangle, and each layer was a different color. It was a rainbow cake. It was just the best looking cake and I told her she pick a winner. She wanted to get it as my birthday gift and I let her do it. I have always treasured that cake and it was several years later I found the recipe for it and if you do make one, you will love it for sure.

I don’t make five layers and so I don’t have all the colors at one time. Any flavor is good and the frosting is a glaze drizzled over the top. I will leave the recipe for you to try, knowing it’s a winner.

Cake

1 white or yellow cake mix
1 3 oz any flavor jello
½ cup oil
¼ cup fruit juice to match jello*

Follow directions on cake box and add the dry jello powder,
oil, fruit juice or water, with an electric beater

Bake in two layer cake pans or a 9x13 inch pan at
350 degree oven till done. Cool before icing.


Icing

½ cup butter room temperature
1 lb. powder sugar

Start with a few drops of lemon juice till you have glaze icing

Spread icing over first layer put second layer on top first layer
and spread the rest of the icing on top.

Bastille Day

After seeing the eye Dr the other day, I stopped at the appointment desk to set the date and time of my next appointment. It fell on the 14th of July. I casually mentioned to the nurse that July 14th was Bastille Day. She and another nurse gave me a questioning look and asked what I meant. I had surprised myself when I blurted out the name of the holiday, but I explained that it was a National holiday in France, celebrating the storming and liberation of the Bastille prison and the beginning of the French Revolution.

In 1948 my husband and I, along with our 2 year old son, went to France. Soon after we arrived, we rented rooms in the apartment of a Jewish couple, M’sieur and Madam Dryfus, who had been in concentration camps and had taken in their 8 year old niece whose parents had been killed by the Nazis. They rented us a combination living room/bedroom and a dining room/kitchen but the bathroom was shared with them.

A large double bed in one corner of the living room was enclosed with heavy gray velvet drapes separating it from the rest of the room. The dining room had a large dining table and chairs in the middle of the room with a mini kitchen in one corner. A cot for our 2 year old was along one wall. There was a large window overlooking Paris in the dining room and a similar window in the living room overlooking shops on both sides of the street below and a park, which was catty corner across from our building

At the beginning of our stay in France, neither of us spoke French. The Dryfuses did not speak English, but we quickly absorbed enough French to understand them. They told us about the customs and habits of the French which paved the way for us when we shopped and traveled around Paris and the countryside. They urged us to join others of the 15th Arronndissment, (a working class neighborhood), and dance in the streets on Bastille Day to celebrate French Independence Day.

We were hesitant, but wanted to see how they celebrated. There was loud record music coming from an open doorway and 5 or 6 couples were already dancing in the street, but it wasn’t long before more people came to dance. The general atmosphere was one of gaiety and laughter. Many were strangers to each other and as greetings were exchanged, they realized we were Americans. Regardless of our limited French, and our decision to only watch, everyone insisted on dancing with us. I was very shy and tried to hold back, but found myself being whirled and turned as I tried desperately not to sprain an ankle as we twirled over the irregular pavement. My husband was also dancing and as busy changing partners as I was.

Besides being an evening to remember, it was a wonderful welcome to the neighborhood as well.

Kentucky

I must have been born with a ‘travel gene’ because from earliest memories I have been interested in far away places. By ‘far away’ I mean anything beyond home and environs. About the time I was in third grade at school, the names of states began to make an impact on my consciousness. I used to coax Dad to tell me once again the name of all the states he had been to. I kept track of them and if he forgot to name a state I would remind him. Mom’s list of states was meager compared to Dad’s and so was mine.

I loved to hear the folks tell me about the places I had been as a baby. In their telling, my birth state of Kentucky took on a quality of specialness that I never applied to any other state I’ve lived or traveled in. Neither have I spent much of my life there, but perhaps birth states are special. I certainly seemed to have bonded to mine.

In those early childhood days, any bit of history about Kentucky got my attention. Kentucky was called both ‘the dark and bloody ground’ and ‘the happy hunting ground’ but my grade school history books never explained the reasons. As an adult I read that Kentucky was not home to any tribe per say, but surrounded by many that hunted in the area and oft times clashed, thus, the bloody connotation.

When ever Dad would say that Kentucky was the home of fast horses, beautiful women, tobacco and whisky, he always had a twinkle in his eye and gave Mom a knowing look. I could tell a secret meaning had passed between them and it seemed as if Kentucky was special to them too.

Growing up I sifted the remarks about horses from Calumet Farm when the Kentucky Derby was run and took childish pride in having the famous race at Churchill Downs in ‘my’ Louisville. Even today when I watch the run for the roses on television, I get a delicious shiver when the crowd sings My Old Kentucky Home.

It has been many years since I was last in Kentucky, but I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Kentucky relatives who now live in other states. Favorite cousins, brother and sister, RosaLee and Albert and their families now live in Georgia and our last visit was memorable! Just hearing Rose’s voice on the phone brings back a wave of Kentucky nostalgia. I never get tired of remembering the house on Phillips Lane in Louisville and the love and warmth I experienced there. Viva RosaLee! Viva Albert!