Eva was my great aunt, my dad's uncle's wife. Aunt Eva and Uncle Frank had eight children. Seven sons and finally a daughter. They named her Joyce, but I think it's because they were RE-joicing that, at last, they had a girl. I want to say she was "Eva's Diva," but I don't really remember that Joyce was spoiled. Probably was, but I didn't really get to know her until she was in college, and she was a lovely, admirable girl with high moral standards without being a snob.
Aunt Eva and Uncle Frank Nickel travelled often with their whole family in a hearse, which is I guess the closest thing to a limo or van they could get back then without appearing to be materialistic Baptists or wayward hippies. They were a singing group, and their music took them all over the United States. They could turn four-part part harmony into ten-part harmony by simply opening their mouths. I remember when they came from Illinois and pulled into our long, gravel driveway one hot, summer day. As they emerged from the hearse, I believe there were only four kids. There weren't ten Nickels left (or, as Uncle Frank said, "fifty cents") by the time Joyce was in grade school touring with them, but as I recall, at least a sextet from the Nickel Family Singers' Hearse/Limo.
Every meal started with prayer and/or a sung prayer. Every after-dinner conversation seemed to make its way to the piano for a hymn-sing. Every farewell was set to beautiful music. You would think you'd been transplanted onto the Austrian Alps alongside Julie Andrews and those drapery-clad Von Trapp kids. The hub of this family wheel was Aunt Eva, smiling at Uncle Frank and the almost-all-male brood with them while they sang, "God Be With You Till We Meet Again."
What a sweet memory. Aunt Eva left a legacy of music in me. And she also left an unforgettable image of a singing hearse parked at our house in Maryland countryside.
Showing posts with label memoirs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memoirs. Show all posts
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Thursday, April 14, 2011
L is for Long Letters
Getting a personal letter in the mail ranks up there with caressing soft baby skin and buying a new purse. I just love, love, love it. The joy of corresponding started when I was quite young, but I can't remember how. I remember being taught in fourth grade or so how to write a proper letter, complete with inside return address, salutation (a word which always reminds me of Charlotte's Web), and one of a myriad appropriate closings to choose from. "Yours truly" or "Sincerely" or "Respectfully yours" were closings which I spent an inordinate amount of time pondering.
My most memorable pen-pal of all times was Lola Steinmetz. She was in her sixties when we lived in Kansas, and she and her husband were faithful members of our little Methodist church. Often they invited us to their home for lunch, which I only remember one other person in the church doing--and it was Marion's sister, Stella Moore. You can tell they grew up with hospitable parents.
But I digress.
Marion and Lola loved each other dearly, saying sweet and kind and polite things to each other. Winking. He always called her "Katrina," and she called him "Butch." They'd tap the other's leg with affection when scooting past into the other room. I remember wondering how it would be to grow old with the same husband and still be so obviously in love. They moved to Charleston later to live with their son, and we moved to Maryland. Marion got cancer that took his voice, his beautiful white hair, and the stout farmer's build he once had. But it did not drain the twinkle from his eyes-- or his memory.
We visited him in his Illinois hospital room on the way back to Kansas one year. Lola brought us in. I'll never forget how tiny and pale Marion looked. Did I gasp from shock? I hope not. What had happened to the big, Santa-like grandpa of a man I had known when I was in Alden? The man who loved to show us the constellations through an enormous telescope? The man who let us pump well water from the old metal handle right into a trusty tin cup that kept it ice cold? What happened to the man whose hearty laughter and keen intellect provided us entire afternoons of joy?
Lola gestured to my dad to come near as she spoke to her Marion.
"Butch, you remember Lyle?"
Before my dad could extend his hand to his dear old friend, Marion's eyes filled with tears. He could barely nod.
"Of course he remembers you, Lyle," Lola said, "He has always loved you and your family. Butch, look. Brenda and the girls came, too." His eyes, big blue pools, fixed upon each of us in turn, dripped with fond remembrance.
Daddy and Mama chatted with him (or with Lola, rather, including Marion with eye contact), thanking them both for treating us so generously while we lived in Kansas. They prayed. I sobbed. Then Daddy cut the visit short. He knew the emotions were awfully hard on everyone in the room. To love so deeply and to lose so quickly? Gut-wrenching.
Marion died a short time later. I think he was about 80.
Lola, however, lived to be 92, if I recall correctly. And for the first two years that I was in college at Seton Hill, she wrote faithfully to me--long letters to fill my journalistic inquiries about life during the Great Depression. Long letters to encourage me to keep the faith in hard times. Long letters to advise a young woman on how to pick the right husband.
I remember two sage pieces of her counsel.
1. "Never marry a man you have to apologize for."
2. "When you marry a good man, your heart won't always flutter when he walks into the room. But it will always beat steadily with love."
Lola always closed her letters the same way. Simply,
Love,
Katrina
My most memorable pen-pal of all times was Lola Steinmetz. She was in her sixties when we lived in Kansas, and she and her husband were faithful members of our little Methodist church. Often they invited us to their home for lunch, which I only remember one other person in the church doing--and it was Marion's sister, Stella Moore. You can tell they grew up with hospitable parents.
But I digress.
Marion and Lola loved each other dearly, saying sweet and kind and polite things to each other. Winking. He always called her "Katrina," and she called him "Butch." They'd tap the other's leg with affection when scooting past into the other room. I remember wondering how it would be to grow old with the same husband and still be so obviously in love. They moved to Charleston later to live with their son, and we moved to Maryland. Marion got cancer that took his voice, his beautiful white hair, and the stout farmer's build he once had. But it did not drain the twinkle from his eyes-- or his memory.
We visited him in his Illinois hospital room on the way back to Kansas one year. Lola brought us in. I'll never forget how tiny and pale Marion looked. Did I gasp from shock? I hope not. What had happened to the big, Santa-like grandpa of a man I had known when I was in Alden? The man who loved to show us the constellations through an enormous telescope? The man who let us pump well water from the old metal handle right into a trusty tin cup that kept it ice cold? What happened to the man whose hearty laughter and keen intellect provided us entire afternoons of joy?
Lola gestured to my dad to come near as she spoke to her Marion.
"Butch, you remember Lyle?"
Before my dad could extend his hand to his dear old friend, Marion's eyes filled with tears. He could barely nod.
"Of course he remembers you, Lyle," Lola said, "He has always loved you and your family. Butch, look. Brenda and the girls came, too." His eyes, big blue pools, fixed upon each of us in turn, dripped with fond remembrance.
Daddy and Mama chatted with him (or with Lola, rather, including Marion with eye contact), thanking them both for treating us so generously while we lived in Kansas. They prayed. I sobbed. Then Daddy cut the visit short. He knew the emotions were awfully hard on everyone in the room. To love so deeply and to lose so quickly? Gut-wrenching.
Marion died a short time later. I think he was about 80.
Lola, however, lived to be 92, if I recall correctly. And for the first two years that I was in college at Seton Hill, she wrote faithfully to me--long letters to fill my journalistic inquiries about life during the Great Depression. Long letters to encourage me to keep the faith in hard times. Long letters to advise a young woman on how to pick the right husband.
I remember two sage pieces of her counsel.
1. "Never marry a man you have to apologize for."
2. "When you marry a good man, your heart won't always flutter when he walks into the room. But it will always beat steadily with love."
Lola always closed her letters the same way. Simply,
Love,
Katrina
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
J is for Jump Rope & Jacks on Think-Back Tuesday
The photo below is borrowed from a source other than my personal scrapbook. I have very few pictures of myself as a child. And maybe zero of myself on the playground, except in my mind. So, gracias, Google.
Once more you get a twofer here at A Penchant for Pens. I'm enjoying this nudge to intentionally chronicle my memories, but I enjoy reading others' also on the same topic.
Funny thing about memories: they are seldom chronological. On any given day, I find myself remembering my life as a mom with a five-year-old, and then I recall something when I myself was five, and in another flash I'm 27 or 15 or 42. The alphabet is guiding my thoughts for these memoirs via the A to Z Challenge.
Today I'm thinking back to playground games. One of my all-time favorite activities was jumping rope. It took me a little while to "find my rhythm," but once I did, I was hooked. It's hard to believe the stamina I had as a kid; where'd it go? I remember contests to see who could jump for the most minutes, who could jump rope on one foot, who could do it backwards, who could cross their arms and keep jumping the rope from that criss-crossed position. I remember how fun it was to have a friend jumping inside the rope with me! And how about multi-player games with a long rope to see how many people can jump in and stay in at the same time?
One thing I remember: it was a girls-only activity. If boys jumped in, it was only to make us mad. Which it did.
Now for some playground / "J" questions for Think-Back Tuesday.
1. Did you enjoy jumping rope, and if so, were you a competitive type like me, wanting to win contests?
2. Were you ever seriously hurt on the playground?
Yes. It involved a sliding board. I remember in seventh grade our entire Christian school junior high and high school went to Promised Land Camp for a weekend retreat. The first evening there, while waiting for dinner to be served, a bunch of us decided to use our spare time playing like "little kids" on the sliding board. When a backlog of bodies was first noticed, someone had the bright (testosterone-induced?) idea to see how many of us could fit on the slide. One, two, three, seven, 11, 19, 24...and counting. More and more until... the entire aluminum sliding board collapsed-- at the curve--where I was seated, my feet wrapped underneath it. I can still remember the pain I felt when I heard "Thirty-threeeeeeeeee!!"
Everyone was screaming and pushing and laughing and cheering and scrambling to either be part of --or free from the mass pile of teens on the ground. No one could hear me wailing. Beneath the heap of humans and twisted aluminum I lay, with my ankle seemingly crushed and swelling at the same time. It took quite a while to get the proper medical treatment because the school nurse was also the head cook (home ec teacher/jill-of-all-trades). To this day when I see idiots of any age squeezing themselves together on a sliding board, my ankle throbs. I spent the rest of the weekend hobbling around with an ice pack.
3. Speaking of jills, did you play jacks?
I remember learning how in sixth grade, and giving it a try at school at recess for about a week. All that hand-eye coordination was rather nerve-wracking for me. My hands were small and I could only hold about four jacks at once. Like jumping rope, it wasn't easy to play jacks on the ground while wearing a dress.
4. Jack is usually a nickname for John. Are there any Jacks in your family, or anyone named John?
Yes, I have a brother-in-law named John. he is the third generation--as in John III, so he goes by Jay. I'm glad he doesn't go by Jack because he married my sister, Jill.
5. John III:XVI is the Roman numeral version of the Bible's most popular verse. Can you quote it? How about quoting it in a foreign language?
I can quote it in French, because it was required for our French II class in Christian high school. It goes something like this (please, you French readers, do not hold this against me. I'm going from memory here, and I haven't been in high school since the year aluminum foil was invented):
" Car Dieu a tante aime le monde, qu'il a donne son Fils unique...."
Oh, drat! I can pronounce the words, but I'm not recalling the spellings, and that could be sacrilegious if I messed up. I just remember the ending..."la vie eternelle. " Life eternal, and that makes me happy in any language! Ma vie eternelle began the moment that the unique (one and only) son of God entered my heart and forgave my sins--all of them, past, present, and future, and declared me righteous. Declared it the way he declares everything--with authority. Merci pour the mercy de Dieu!
---------- If you want to answer the preceding questions on your blog, simply leave a comment and link back to mine so we can find you. We can jump rope or skip from blog to blog -- or do a virtual (painless) pile-up on the slide. Can you say, "33"?
Once more you get a twofer here at A Penchant for Pens. I'm enjoying this nudge to intentionally chronicle my memories, but I enjoy reading others' also on the same topic.
Funny thing about memories: they are seldom chronological. On any given day, I find myself remembering my life as a mom with a five-year-old, and then I recall something when I myself was five, and in another flash I'm 27 or 15 or 42. The alphabet is guiding my thoughts for these memoirs via the A to Z Challenge.
Today I'm thinking back to playground games. One of my all-time favorite activities was jumping rope. It took me a little while to "find my rhythm," but once I did, I was hooked. It's hard to believe the stamina I had as a kid; where'd it go? I remember contests to see who could jump for the most minutes, who could jump rope on one foot, who could do it backwards, who could cross their arms and keep jumping the rope from that criss-crossed position. I remember how fun it was to have a friend jumping inside the rope with me! And how about multi-player games with a long rope to see how many people can jump in and stay in at the same time?
One thing I remember: it was a girls-only activity. If boys jumped in, it was only to make us mad. Which it did.
Now for some playground / "J" questions for Think-Back Tuesday.
1. Did you enjoy jumping rope, and if so, were you a competitive type like me, wanting to win contests?
2. Were you ever seriously hurt on the playground?
Yes. It involved a sliding board. I remember in seventh grade our entire Christian school junior high and high school went to Promised Land Camp for a weekend retreat. The first evening there, while waiting for dinner to be served, a bunch of us decided to use our spare time playing like "little kids" on the sliding board. When a backlog of bodies was first noticed, someone had the bright (testosterone-induced?) idea to see how many of us could fit on the slide. One, two, three, seven, 11, 19, 24...and counting. More and more until... the entire aluminum sliding board collapsed-- at the curve--where I was seated, my feet wrapped underneath it. I can still remember the pain I felt when I heard "Thirty-threeeeeeeeee!!"
Everyone was screaming and pushing and laughing and cheering and scrambling to either be part of --or free from the mass pile of teens on the ground. No one could hear me wailing. Beneath the heap of humans and twisted aluminum I lay, with my ankle seemingly crushed and swelling at the same time. It took quite a while to get the proper medical treatment because the school nurse was also the head cook (home ec teacher/jill-of-all-trades). To this day when I see idiots of any age squeezing themselves together on a sliding board, my ankle throbs. I spent the rest of the weekend hobbling around with an ice pack.
3. Speaking of jills, did you play jacks?
I remember learning how in sixth grade, and giving it a try at school at recess for about a week. All that hand-eye coordination was rather nerve-wracking for me. My hands were small and I could only hold about four jacks at once. Like jumping rope, it wasn't easy to play jacks on the ground while wearing a dress.
4. Jack is usually a nickname for John. Are there any Jacks in your family, or anyone named John?
Yes, I have a brother-in-law named John. he is the third generation--as in John III, so he goes by Jay. I'm glad he doesn't go by Jack because he married my sister, Jill.
5. John III:XVI is the Roman numeral version of the Bible's most popular verse. Can you quote it? How about quoting it in a foreign language?
I can quote it in French, because it was required for our French II class in Christian high school. It goes something like this (please, you French readers, do not hold this against me. I'm going from memory here, and I haven't been in high school since the year aluminum foil was invented):
" Car Dieu a tante aime le monde, qu'il a donne son Fils unique...."
Oh, drat! I can pronounce the words, but I'm not recalling the spellings, and that could be sacrilegious if I messed up. I just remember the ending..."la vie eternelle. " Life eternal, and that makes me happy in any language! Ma vie eternelle began the moment that the unique (one and only) son of God entered my heart and forgave my sins--all of them, past, present, and future, and declared me righteous. Declared it the way he declares everything--with authority. Merci pour the mercy de Dieu!
---------- If you want to answer the preceding questions on your blog, simply leave a comment and link back to mine so we can find you. We can jump rope or skip from blog to blog -- or do a virtual (painless) pile-up on the slide. Can you say, "33"?
Monday, April 11, 2011
I is for I Spy my Former Self
Back in the day, I was a cheerleader from seventh grade through tenth grade at a Christian school. Don't look at the lower right hand picture. Our uniforms were just way too sexy. You could almost see our kneecaps if you play "I Spy."
Here is a picture of a scrapbook page I made. Yes, that would be me in the denim overalls. We were doing a pep rally with a "Hee Haw" theme. (Readers under 40 years of age might have to Google "Hee Haw TV show" to understand the reference. Ouch.)
The ankle-crossed-leaning-like-dominoes photo (L. to R.) shows Yours Truly, Louise D, Margaret Ann R., and Wendy E. I've lost touch with Louise and Wendy, but Margaret Ann and I still keep in touch a few times a year. I spent countless hours at her house when we were growing up.
The most fun that Margaret Ann and I had was on a certain Halloween night when we toilet-papered her neighbor's truck and lawn, and soaped his windows. The man--Mr. Knaub-- happened to be the boys' gym teacher at our school, and he was at prayer meeting with his family that night. I don't know where M.A's parents went, but they weren't home either.
She and I had never done anything so ornery as this little stunt, and we were loving every minute of it. Two "good girls" being very,very bad. Working swiftly, hearts pounding, we giggled harder with every roll we finished off. When we finally ran out of TP, we high-fived. What great mummifying skills!
We crossed the street and decided the better part of wisdom would be to go bed before her folks--or Mr. Knaub--got home. Of course, we couldn't really sleep, we were so "wired" from our escapade. We wondered how long it would before Mr. Knaub found the culprits. Surely we'd help him hunt them down; surely they were mean-awful-no-good hoodlums from the other side of the tracks.
Margaret Ann's parents got home around 10 pm. We were "asleep" so they didn't come asking about our evening. All looked normal, and besides, it was a school night, and we were tired cheerleaders. Ahem.
Ding-dong! I still remember the doorbell. We trembled and yanked the velvet bedspread up over our heads.
Mr. Reeves answered the door.
"Hey, Al, what brings you over?"
"Hey, Donny, uh--I was just wonderin' if you had any trouble tonight."
"Trouble? You mean Halloween trouble? No, why. You?"
"Yeh. Somebody papered the truck, all up the hood, around the wheels, in the bed, everywhere. Soaped my house windows. Grass is covered, every square inch of it."
"Really? Oh, Al, no. I'm surprised being right across the street we didn't get the same thing done, but no, we're fine. Margaret Ann and Zoanna were here, but they're in bed now."
"They are? Oh, I was gonna talk to them, see if they knew who done it."
"Well, I can ask them in the morning..."
"Thanks, Donny. I mean it's going to take a lot of work to clean it up, and I really want to find out if they know who it was."
We could hear every word through the thin walls of the small house. Margarent Ann's room was right behind the front door. It was all we could do to squelch our giggles under the covers.
As soon as the front door closed and Mr. Knaub was gone, we burst out laughing. So loud that Mr. Reeves came to his daughter's door and knocked. "Margaret Ann, I thought you girls were asleep. What're you laughing about? Al was over here just now. He wasn't in a real good mood. You have any idea who coulda--"
We opened the door, doubled over in ribs-hurting, face-cracking laughter.
Her dad started chuckling. "You two papered Al's truck? And soaped his house? While we were gone? I never woulda--"
The next day our consciences would not let go of us. We found Mr. Knaub at school and told him it was us. He knew. He knew? The good girls of HCS, his own sweet neighbor girl and her innocent friend?
He was right. It took a lot of work to clean that mess up.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Springtime Hodgepodge, Written Under a Blanket
Joining Joyce again, this time for springtime Hodgepodge. The only signs of spring today are daffodils and some greening of my weeping willow.
1. Sunday was the first day of spring. So they say. Ahem.
4. What topic puts you to sleep faster than anything?
Almost anything dealing with electronic gaming or handheld devices. I am just not into video games, giga gadgets, "cool" apps and all that hoo-ha. As long as I have a computer and a working cell phone, I'm content with technology.
5. Which flowers do you associate with specific people, places, or events?
Daffodils--my oldest son's birth; daisies--my daughter's favorite; yellow roses--my husand's first gesture of "friendship" to me before he got up the nerve to actually use his words; poinsettias--our wedding; gladiolas--a former boss with a Spanish accent couldn't STAND them or the smell. Some were delivered at work one day and she went on and on, rolling those r's with disdain, about how "they jist remin't me uff my GRAN-mutherrr's fYOONerrhral in Pware-t'REEco. I think dey arhr ukly and dey STINK! Doan'jew agrhee?" One time, I shall never forget, I got flowers delivered to me at home from an anonymous sender. To this day I have no clue who sent them, but I was in a serious depression and they lifted me up and showed me God's love.
6. What significant historical events took place during your elementary school days?
I was unaware of world politics, for the most part, in those days. I do remember later that I was concerned about the hostages in Iran. My dad dug up a Christmas tree from our "back 40" in December, but the ground in January was too cold to replant it. Same with February. As we approached March, I was so embarrassed to be the only family with their Christmas tree still up. My mom (a poli-sci major and totally devoted to current events on the globe) said, "We'll leave it up till the hostages come home." She wasn't kidding. Replanting that five-foot pine was our celebration of the hostages' homecoming. I also remember (high school) the day Ronald Reagan was shot. He was my favorite President and I prayed and prayed for God to spare his life. I remember his humor: "I hoped that all my doctors were Republican."
7. Do you swear?
Yes. When I'm super angry/out-of-control mad, my speech is not "seasoned with salt" but "peppered with other things," I'm afraid. I wasn't raised like that. It shouldn't be part of my vocabulary, and it isn't the norm, but when I'm truly heated up over a searing hurt, it's like the proverbial sailor takes over my mouth.
Do you pseudo-swear? (You know crap, shoot, friggin'?)
Heck, yeah .
8. Insert your own random thought here.
I didn't realize how much I already loved our new dog, Reilly, until this past week. Last Friday his face and throat swelled up huge as a St. Bernard's, he was itching from head to tail, and he was having trouble breathing. We rushed him to the vet. He'd been bitten by a spider, the vet surmised. But Reilly survived the allergic reaction with steroids, Benadryl, and a lot of prayer.
Then yesterday he gave me another scare. I was in the family room, decluttering the toys, minding my own business. I had been ignoring him while "in my zone," and he'd fallen asleep behind "his" chair. He was lying on his side, and his eyes were open, glossy. I called, "Reilly?" No response. Normally he lifts his head. "Reilly?" I called more loudly. Panic. He didn't even twitch a tail. I screamed, "Reilly!" thinking he was dead! I thought, How? Did you choke on a Lego creation and I didn't notice? Or a sock? Wake up! Those glossy eyes freaked me out! But yelling in his face woke him up. Man! Be still my heart! Guess he was in his zone!
Here is swollen Reilly. Freak-ay!
1. Sunday was the first day of spring. So they say. Ahem.
What is your favorite outdoor springtime activity?
Well, back to the first part . "They" say Sunday the 20th was the first day of spring, but I will always, always, always say it's March 21st. My firstborn's birth ushered in spring on that day in 1988, and forever his birthday is synonymous with the first day of spring.
My favorite springtime activity? Cutting daffodils for the first time and arranging them on the kitchen table in a white pitcher. I also-- (don't gag)-- enjoy washing windows and then changing my curtains.
Well, back to the first part . "They" say Sunday the 20th was the first day of spring, but I will always, always, always say it's March 21st. My firstborn's birth ushered in spring on that day in 1988, and forever his birthday is synonymous with the first day of spring.
My favorite springtime activity? Cutting daffodils for the first time and arranging them on the kitchen table in a white pitcher. I also-- (don't gag)-- enjoy washing windows and then changing my curtains.
2. Who would you want to come into your kitchen to cook dinner for you?
Hmmm. My first thought was Emeril Lagasse because he is so cute and personable and I love food that's been "kicked up a notch," as he says. BAM! He could also teach me a lot of things, I'm sure. I also think "pork fat rules" (gotta lummie sum bacon). But then I thought he would judge all my inferior cookware (inferior for him, good for me) or that I'd feel compelled to rush out and buy his brand before his arrival --you know, "suck up" to him?
So my new answer to the question would be "my cousin's husband, Rene." (Hard to take good pics in the limo, but you can see his incessant smile.) He absolutely shines in the kitchen, loves it, and is an extraordinary host. He fixed some superb tamales on New Year's Day this past year when I went to Texas-- for a mini-family reunion/NYE celebration-- and then hired a limo to take all of us (about 16 people) down to San Antonio's Riverwalk, where he had arranged (with my sister) a cruise on the river under Christmas lights, followed by service of hot cocoa on the top floor of a tower restaurant overlooking the entire city. That's what I'm talking about, baby. All the love and thoughtfulness and over-the-top memory making gift he has. The difference between having Emeril or having Rene in the kitchen would be love. I love Rene and would feel totally at ease with him in my kitchen. Emeril would impress me for sure, but Rene would bless me.
3. When did you last fly a kite?
Wow. I can't remember the last time I personally flew one. I remember when my husband and his brother Tony took the kids out to a big field and flew one. Or was that just a remote- controlled airplane? I don't remember if there was a kite or not!
Hmmm. My first thought was Emeril Lagasse because he is so cute and personable and I love food that's been "kicked up a notch," as he says. BAM! He could also teach me a lot of things, I'm sure. I also think "pork fat rules" (gotta lummie sum bacon). But then I thought he would judge all my inferior cookware (inferior for him, good for me) or that I'd feel compelled to rush out and buy his brand before his arrival --you know, "suck up" to him?
So my new answer to the question would be "my cousin's husband, Rene." (Hard to take good pics in the limo, but you can see his incessant smile.) He absolutely shines in the kitchen, loves it, and is an extraordinary host. He fixed some superb tamales on New Year's Day this past year when I went to Texas-- for a mini-family reunion/NYE celebration-- and then hired a limo to take all of us (about 16 people) down to San Antonio's Riverwalk, where he had arranged (with my sister) a cruise on the river under Christmas lights, followed by service of hot cocoa on the top floor of a tower restaurant overlooking the entire city. That's what I'm talking about, baby. All the love and thoughtfulness and over-the-top memory making gift he has. The difference between having Emeril or having Rene in the kitchen would be love. I love Rene and would feel totally at ease with him in my kitchen. Emeril would impress me for sure, but Rene would bless me.
3. When did you last fly a kite?
Wow. I can't remember the last time I personally flew one. I remember when my husband and his brother Tony took the kids out to a big field and flew one. Or was that just a remote- controlled airplane? I don't remember if there was a kite or not!
4. What topic puts you to sleep faster than anything?
Almost anything dealing with electronic gaming or handheld devices. I am just not into video games, giga gadgets, "cool" apps and all that hoo-ha. As long as I have a computer and a working cell phone, I'm content with technology.
5. Which flowers do you associate with specific people, places, or events?
Daffodils--my oldest son's birth; daisies--my daughter's favorite; yellow roses--my husand's first gesture of "friendship" to me before he got up the nerve to actually use his words; poinsettias--our wedding; gladiolas--a former boss with a Spanish accent couldn't STAND them or the smell. Some were delivered at work one day and she went on and on, rolling those r's with disdain, about how "they jist remin't me uff my GRAN-mutherrr's fYOONerrhral in Pware-t'REEco. I think dey arhr ukly and dey STINK! Doan'jew agrhee?" One time, I shall never forget, I got flowers delivered to me at home from an anonymous sender. To this day I have no clue who sent them, but I was in a serious depression and they lifted me up and showed me God's love.
6. What significant historical events took place during your elementary school days?
I was unaware of world politics, for the most part, in those days. I do remember later that I was concerned about the hostages in Iran. My dad dug up a Christmas tree from our "back 40" in December, but the ground in January was too cold to replant it. Same with February. As we approached March, I was so embarrassed to be the only family with their Christmas tree still up. My mom (a poli-sci major and totally devoted to current events on the globe) said, "We'll leave it up till the hostages come home." She wasn't kidding. Replanting that five-foot pine was our celebration of the hostages' homecoming. I also remember (high school) the day Ronald Reagan was shot. He was my favorite President and I prayed and prayed for God to spare his life. I remember his humor: "I hoped that all my doctors were Republican."
7. Do you swear?
Yes. When I'm super angry/out-of-control mad, my speech is not "seasoned with salt" but "peppered with other things," I'm afraid. I wasn't raised like that. It shouldn't be part of my vocabulary, and it isn't the norm, but when I'm truly heated up over a searing hurt, it's like the proverbial sailor takes over my mouth.
Do you pseudo-swear? (You know crap, shoot, friggin'?)
Heck, yeah .
8. Insert your own random thought here.
I didn't realize how much I already loved our new dog, Reilly, until this past week. Last Friday his face and throat swelled up huge as a St. Bernard's, he was itching from head to tail, and he was having trouble breathing. We rushed him to the vet. He'd been bitten by a spider, the vet surmised. But Reilly survived the allergic reaction with steroids, Benadryl, and a lot of prayer.
Then yesterday he gave me another scare. I was in the family room, decluttering the toys, minding my own business. I had been ignoring him while "in my zone," and he'd fallen asleep behind "his" chair. He was lying on his side, and his eyes were open, glossy. I called, "Reilly?" No response. Normally he lifts his head. "Reilly?" I called more loudly. Panic. He didn't even twitch a tail. I screamed, "Reilly!" thinking he was dead! I thought, How? Did you choke on a Lego creation and I didn't notice? Or a sock? Wake up! Those glossy eyes freaked me out! But yelling in his face woke him up. Man! Be still my heart! Guess he was in his zone!
Here is swollen Reilly. Freak-ay!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Homeschool, Day One, 1993: A Memoir
Homeschool, Day One, Take One:
It was in late August of 1993 and we were starting kindergarten for Ben, our firstborn, then five years old, and I had a little pile of preschool books right next to his for Sarah, who was four. Our curly-headed blonde two-year-old, Stephen (whose name Sarah couldn't pronounce, so it was "Fegan,") had toys and books and other things to play with in the living room, so as to not disturb our "classroom." He was not a demanding child at all, so that should have been easy.
But he wanted to be right there at the table with us. Drawing, "reading," being a cute distraction.
I wanted everything to look like a school on Day One. The kids were bathed and in fresh, clean clothes, hair just so, pencils sharpened, books stacked neatly at their places on the dining room table. (Our kitchen was too small for a table.) I had decorated a bulletin board with a fall theme above the stereo cabinet (which held--oh my goodness--LP's and cassettes). There was a bookcase, of course, and a server for art supplies. The piano stood duty along the north wall, begging Stephen to bang on it like a drum. Ah, yes, I can still hear it. I remember thinking, "Lord, I will give him piano lessons, but Heaven help me if he ever begs for drums in the house!"
That right there makes me chuckle. I should have seen it coming, but I digress.
Since it was 1993, homeschooling was still a new thing, a new and odd and seemingly-illicit thing. I felt all eyes on me when people asked where my pint-sized child would be attending school. When I said, timidly, "I'm homeschooling them," it was as if I I had just decided to burn my bra, eat tofu, and grow my own alfalfa. (Wearing a denim jumper while maneuvering stair-step kids through clearance racks didn't help my defense.)
Hippie or pioneer, it doesn't matter; the label is immaterial. Grit and Determination fueled my rookie tank. The problem was, my first child had been born with the same kind of fuel--except his I would have called Stubbornness and Rebellion.
It was Day One, and I was going to be not just an average mom, I was going to be stellar. Ben would start with English grammar in kindergarten, know Latin by third grade, French by fifth, and Greek by graduation. So would I. Somehow.
He would give Einstein a run for his postmortem money. He would sing like a Polish Pavarotti and write like William Shakespeare.
We would sign him up for t-ball, for "socialization and physical exercise," but (in my heart) I said, "God forbid he actually becomes a sports nut."
I would be revered as a mother by my kindergartener. He would rise up every day and called me "Blessed" for all my sacrifices on his behalf, for disciplining him in mind, soul, spirit, and backside. He would thank God every day (over tofu and alfalfa sandwiches) for the privilege of being schooled at home, under my tutelage.
Homeschool Day One, Take Two:
We have prayed to open our day and that we'd do everything to the glory of God. We have turned to the first page of A Beka K Arithmetic. Ben takes his careful time on the first page to write neatly, and declares how easy that was.
Can I go play now?
MAY I go play now? I correct him for the 188th time since last week.
Play? I say. No, honey. We don't play in school. This is work time.
He dropped his pencil on the floor. "Adults work, kids play," he said.
Okay, so maybe there was a greater lesson to be learned than 1+1 = 2.
The morning which I had so romantically inclined my heart to, looked nothing like
I'd fantasized. Ben dropped his pencil no fewer than fourteen times in a half hour, retrieving it each time as if blindfolded and crippled, and he complained that page 2 of math was way too hard (you know the pace A Beka keeps!) and that I should have let him get on the big yellow school bus and go a "real school" and have a "real teacher."
About 45 minutes into it, I was in tears.
I called my dad. That's right, my dad, not his dad. I needed comfort.
"What's the matter, Zo?" he asked.
"Oh, Daddy, I just didn't picture it ever being this way?"
"What way? What?"
"Homeschool. It's only the first day and I want to quit!"
I do believe my dad stifled a laugh. It was so typical of me: Get a notion, run with it, declare defeat at the first sign of trouble.
"How long has Benjamin been sitting still?" he asked.
"Not even an hour," I said.
"Well, that's an awfully long time for a little guy to sit still. I think he needs to get outside and run around."
"Run around?! But Daddy, this is school time, not play time!"
"Zo, a little boy needs to wiggle and run. You send him outside and tell him to run around the house ten times. Then you watch. He'll come in ready to sit still again."
My dad's advice had seldom failed me before. Why doubt him now? I thanked him politely, and told Ben that Pappaw said to run around the house ten times. I really did it so that I wouldn't get social services called on me.
And he did. He ran all right.
But, as he ran circles, in broad daylight, in our Dundalk neighborhood, around the weird Christian/hippie house, he yelled and panted, yelled and panted, "I hate my mother! I hate my mother! I hate my mother!"
It was in late August of 1993 and we were starting kindergarten for Ben, our firstborn, then five years old, and I had a little pile of preschool books right next to his for Sarah, who was four. Our curly-headed blonde two-year-old, Stephen (whose name Sarah couldn't pronounce, so it was "Fegan,") had toys and books and other things to play with in the living room, so as to not disturb our "classroom." He was not a demanding child at all, so that should have been easy.
But he wanted to be right there at the table with us. Drawing, "reading," being a cute distraction.
I wanted everything to look like a school on Day One. The kids were bathed and in fresh, clean clothes, hair just so, pencils sharpened, books stacked neatly at their places on the dining room table. (Our kitchen was too small for a table.) I had decorated a bulletin board with a fall theme above the stereo cabinet (which held--oh my goodness--LP's and cassettes). There was a bookcase, of course, and a server for art supplies. The piano stood duty along the north wall, begging Stephen to bang on it like a drum. Ah, yes, I can still hear it. I remember thinking, "Lord, I will give him piano lessons, but Heaven help me if he ever begs for drums in the house!"
That right there makes me chuckle. I should have seen it coming, but I digress.
Since it was 1993, homeschooling was still a new thing, a new and odd and seemingly-illicit thing. I felt all eyes on me when people asked where my pint-sized child would be attending school. When I said, timidly, "I'm homeschooling them," it was as if I I had just decided to burn my bra, eat tofu, and grow my own alfalfa. (Wearing a denim jumper while maneuvering stair-step kids through clearance racks didn't help my defense.)
Hippie or pioneer, it doesn't matter; the label is immaterial. Grit and Determination fueled my rookie tank. The problem was, my first child had been born with the same kind of fuel--except his I would have called Stubbornness and Rebellion.
It was Day One, and I was going to be not just an average mom, I was going to be stellar. Ben would start with English grammar in kindergarten, know Latin by third grade, French by fifth, and Greek by graduation. So would I. Somehow.
He would give Einstein a run for his postmortem money. He would sing like a Polish Pavarotti and write like William Shakespeare.
We would sign him up for t-ball, for "socialization and physical exercise," but (in my heart) I said, "God forbid he actually becomes a sports nut."
I would be revered as a mother by my kindergartener. He would rise up every day and called me "Blessed" for all my sacrifices on his behalf, for disciplining him in mind, soul, spirit, and backside. He would thank God every day (over tofu and alfalfa sandwiches) for the privilege of being schooled at home, under my tutelage.
Homeschool Day One, Take Two:
We have prayed to open our day and that we'd do everything to the glory of God. We have turned to the first page of A Beka K Arithmetic. Ben takes his careful time on the first page to write neatly, and declares how easy that was.
Can I go play now?
MAY I go play now? I correct him for the 188th time since last week.
Play? I say. No, honey. We don't play in school. This is work time.
He dropped his pencil on the floor. "Adults work, kids play," he said.
Okay, so maybe there was a greater lesson to be learned than 1+1 = 2.
The morning which I had so romantically inclined my heart to, looked nothing like
I'd fantasized. Ben dropped his pencil no fewer than fourteen times in a half hour, retrieving it each time as if blindfolded and crippled, and he complained that page 2 of math was way too hard (you know the pace A Beka keeps!) and that I should have let him get on the big yellow school bus and go a "real school" and have a "real teacher."
About 45 minutes into it, I was in tears.
I called my dad. That's right, my dad, not his dad. I needed comfort.
"What's the matter, Zo?" he asked.
"Oh, Daddy, I just didn't picture it ever being this way?"
"What way? What?"
"Homeschool. It's only the first day and I want to quit!"
I do believe my dad stifled a laugh. It was so typical of me: Get a notion, run with it, declare defeat at the first sign of trouble.
"How long has Benjamin been sitting still?" he asked.
"Not even an hour," I said.
"Well, that's an awfully long time for a little guy to sit still. I think he needs to get outside and run around."
"Run around?! But Daddy, this is school time, not play time!"
"Zo, a little boy needs to wiggle and run. You send him outside and tell him to run around the house ten times. Then you watch. He'll come in ready to sit still again."
My dad's advice had seldom failed me before. Why doubt him now? I thanked him politely, and told Ben that Pappaw said to run around the house ten times. I really did it so that I wouldn't get social services called on me.
And he did. He ran all right.
But, as he ran circles, in broad daylight, in our Dundalk neighborhood, around the weird Christian/hippie house, he yelled and panted, yelled and panted, "I hate my mother! I hate my mother! I hate my mother!"
Monday, November 23, 2009
Grandma's Laugh Lines
I've been poring over lots and lots of old family photos lately, in preparation for creating a slide show for Daddy's 75th party this coming Sunday.
How good for the soul to flip through old pictures. But it does make me feel a bit weepy looking at some of the people who have passed away before I knew them well.
My Grandma Dauber was one such person. When I was born, my mother got a bad case of phlebitis in her leg. We were living in Baltimore, but Grandma came all the way from Kansas to take care of me for six weeks. Of course I don't remember it, but I am positive that my bond with her formed in those earliest days of my life.
I didn't get to know her until we moved to Kansas when I was in third grade. We lived in Alden, she and Grandpa in Sterling about seven miles away. And though we only lived there two years, my memory bank is full of deposits made by my sweet Christian grandmother. Her sense of humor was infectious. My favorite line of hers: "I love the old hymns. So much of the Bible is based on them. "'
What I remember best were all the times she and I played dolls together in their "fifth wheeler"--a parked metal trailer out back of their little house. Grandma was compassionate and nurturing. She would make sure we wrapped our babies well in blankets, gave them plenty of milk in their bottles (those forever-full toy bottles, remember?) ,and take their temperatures like they were in a hospital or something. I think Grandma always wanted to be a nurse because the babies were always sick, getting sick, or recovering from sickness. She was a worrier in real life and at play, but when she'd say, "Now, Zoanna, let's check your baby's temperature one more time. She still feels warm to me, " I really believed the plastic skin of Baby Wets-a-Lot
did indeed feel fevril . Grandma kept chewable baby aspirin in the trailer for our babies, and once in a while she'd let me take one myself to show Baby it wasn't so bad. (Never did it dawn on me that my babies had no teeth to actually chew their pills with. But, at any rate, I developed a taste for pink chewable baby aspirin early in my childhood. Expensive candy.)
Grandma's hypochondriac and subsequent caregiving tendencies came back to mind as I read a funny one-liner from Barbara Johnson's Humor Me! this morning.
How good for the soul to flip through old pictures. But it does make me feel a bit weepy looking at some of the people who have passed away before I knew them well.
My Grandma Dauber was one such person. When I was born, my mother got a bad case of phlebitis in her leg. We were living in Baltimore, but Grandma came all the way from Kansas to take care of me for six weeks. Of course I don't remember it, but I am positive that my bond with her formed in those earliest days of my life.
I didn't get to know her until we moved to Kansas when I was in third grade. We lived in Alden, she and Grandpa in Sterling about seven miles away. And though we only lived there two years, my memory bank is full of deposits made by my sweet Christian grandmother. Her sense of humor was infectious. My favorite line of hers: "I love the old hymns. So much of the Bible is based on them. "'
What I remember best were all the times she and I played dolls together in their "fifth wheeler"--a parked metal trailer out back of their little house. Grandma was compassionate and nurturing. She would make sure we wrapped our babies well in blankets, gave them plenty of milk in their bottles (those forever-full toy bottles, remember?) ,and take their temperatures like they were in a hospital or something. I think Grandma always wanted to be a nurse because the babies were always sick, getting sick, or recovering from sickness. She was a worrier in real life and at play, but when she'd say, "Now, Zoanna, let's check your baby's temperature one more time. She still feels warm to me, " I really believed the plastic skin of Baby Wets-a-Lot
did indeed feel fevril . Grandma kept chewable baby aspirin in the trailer for our babies, and once in a while she'd let me take one myself to show Baby it wasn't so bad. (Never did it dawn on me that my babies had no teeth to actually chew their pills with. But, at any rate, I developed a taste for pink chewable baby aspirin early in my childhood. Expensive candy.)
Grandma's hypochondriac and subsequent caregiving tendencies came back to mind as I read a funny one-liner from Barbara Johnson's Humor Me! this morning.
"I've come to realize that most of the things I worry about never
happen--which just proves that worry does work!"
Monday, November 02, 2009
Memoir Prompts
I love reading memoirs. It doesn't matter one whit if the author has ever been famous. In fact, I much prefer reading snippets from the lives of people I know personally. My dad, for example, filled out a book for me that I gave him for Father's Day one year. It's a blank journal except for a pre-printed question on each page to help the writer recall a specific memory. This book is called A Father's Legacy, and is an absolute treasure to me.
Reading that my dad's favorite author is Albert Einstein came as a complete surprise, more because I don't think of Einstein as a writer, but as a wild-and-white-crazy-haired scientist and inventor. But it should not have been a surprise: my dad is an excellent writer, scientist, and inventor. No white and wild hair, mind you, but intellectually (in my childlike bias, at least) my daddy is on par with good ol' Al. In the last couple of years of my dad's career with the Army Corps of Engineers, he invented a new-and-improved chemical filter for mustard gas. Along with it, he wrote a manual, complete with diagrams and explanations that even the layperson could probably understand, because he's had a major beef about writing with such "-ese" (government-ese) that the average Joe --GI Joe--is left scratching his head rather than using it.
So here's my prompt for anyone who wants to use it: Choose a male in your life (doesn't have to be dad) and ask him who his favorite author is and why. Write a post about it. I know I'll learn something from it. Maybe you will, too.
If you do this, please leave a comment here so we can follow you. Thanks.
(The candid above is my dad playing MasterMind in my parents' loft on Christmas Day last year. I'm sure Joel will always keep a fond spot in his memory bank, recounting many times of playing games and drawing cars with Pappaw. My dad's love of children, his seemingly endless patience, and his affinity for art make him a favorite companion to my little guy--and to me.)
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