Chris-messy

     

Scenes from a Chris-messy Cleveland in 2022. That's my west coast son Adam in  the middle and my daughter-in-law Booth on the left.

"Tradition!" I can practically hear Tevye shouting from the fiddler’s rooftop as Christmas approaches. Is there any holiday more steeped in tradition? Yet in my big, messy family, each year writes its own script. Strong traditions have eluded us as blended family customs merged, conflicted and evolved along with the demands of running businesses designed to be convenient for customers but not necessarily family.

Yet, most years we celebrated with gusto. Christmas Eve? Christmas Day? Or a few days before or after? It didn’t matter. At my advanced age, the warmth and companionship of so many holidays are like the gentle lapping of water on the shore: advancing and retreating, comforting and joyful.

Yet … yet … there is a reason I titled this "Chris-messy."  There were Decembers that I left my Vermont family to fend for themselves. Both my parents passed away during Christmas week (though many years apart), and the tradition of taking care of family trumped the traditions of Christmas. I know I am not alone in experiencing great sadness at a time renowned for joy.  It did not permanently spoil the holiday, but added an aching dimension.

 One year, there was a road trip to Cleveland to visit extended family including a newly minted nurse grandson. We battled lake effect snowstorms of epic proportions and stayed in an AirBnb where a door fell off the hinges -- literally.  But celebrate we did when east coast and west coast family met in middle America for a memorable, non-traditional gathering. 

And then there was the year my son moved to Los Angeles. His relationship with his now wife was in its fledging stages and a solo holiday for him loomed. He assured his father he would be fine. “I ‘ll just go to a soup kitchen,” he said. The next thing I knew, my husband had put me on a red-eye flight and I arrived in L.A. just in time to take in the procession of Las Posadas in the historic heart of the city and watch as the colorful shops of Olvera Street slammed their shutters and closed their doors to the pregnant Mary until she found shelter a humble barn on the eve of Jesus birth. So different  and poignant!

The next day, we did indeed go to a soup kitchen -- but as volunteers to help serve a holiday meal to the less fortunate.

If you have traditions, hold them close to your heart. Embrace them with all the love you can muster as the Birthday Boy taught us to do.

Yet … if your traditions fall short … well, life is messy and sometimes holidays are too. 

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas.

 Recent posts:

Hoarding Friend(-ship)

Flair, Sass and Familial Respect: Mother's Day 2022

Time Out

Hoarding Friend(-ship)

 

Doug and Dick were friends. No, they were best friends in a relationship that spanned six decades and included their wives and extended to their children, grandchildren and even great grands.

They, as most friends do, shared many core values. They were hard working in their small businesses and believed in participating in making changes instead of just complaining. They loved their families and where tireless ambassadors for the states in which they lived (Dick in Rhode Island and Doug in Vermont). They valued common sense which they often perceived to be short supply. They could be tough task masters but also kind and generous. Their early morning (4 or 5 am) email threads were legendary sessions sharing tidbits about business, politics, finances and family; it was as bracing a start to the day as that first sip of joe. Dick mentored Doug in ham radio and Doug showed Dick how to strip furniture. 

AND they were both borderline hoarders!

No attic, basement, closet or shed was immune from stashes of miscellany that these two thought might be valuable or useful – someday. Dick’s collection of “stuff” was top-heavy with radio paraphernalia of every shape age and size. Doug’s stash included a Home Depot’s worth of hardware, tools, plumbing parts and small motors.

SO, that is the back story. 

Doug passed away in December of 2014. 

We, his family, are still finding odd bits of interesting things in backrooms and cubbies some seven and a half years later. One day I found a small brown plastic radio high up on a shelf. The Bakelite case was cracked and the dial, sporting a graphic of an airplane, was dingy though intact. Perhaps Doug had saved it for his friend. Perhaps Dick could salvage something from this shabby radio remnant? Perhaps. Off to Dick it went.

Yesterday, I was gifted the little brown vintage radio back. In the months it had been with our friend, it had been lovingly restored to working condition using old radio tubes from his “hoarded” stash. It appears to be a somewhat rare -- and maybe valuable -- little 1940-1950s electronic treasure that was used to monitor air traffic. Dick is the one in a million that has/had the parts, the knowledge and the desire to fix up this long-hoarded relic, this bit of history that honored a frugal and saving lifestyle and a four-generation friendship.  

It was a gift touching beyond measure and will have a place of honor. Not to be too maudlin, but if we could hoard friends like these, wouldn’t we?

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Flair, Sass and Familial Respect: Mother's Day 2022

Time Out

A Thanksgiving Carol

Flair, Sass and Familial Respect: Mother's Day 2022

My mother, Maisie Schweitzer

 I wanted to post this on Mother’s Day. But I was too busy watching my great grand-children run and swing and tumble together in the welcome spring sunshine.  I rarely get caught up in -- or bogged down by -- holiday memories of departed loved ones. If a memory creeps across my mind it is usually humorous or has profound significance.

 So it was this Mother’s Day. I obsessively watch “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” because that is my mother’s era and because Mom could be talked into dancing a mean Charleston -- without the benefit of alcohol or weed.  I imagine her flair and sass and clothes to be just like Miss Fisher’s.  I construct this image in my head from partial cues; a slightly bawdy photo, a flapper’s headband in an old trunk, a pair of satin heels. I like to think of her that way but of course that would have been a version of her that existed long before I was born. 

 My actual memories of her are embodied by chocolate chip cookies and gallons of tomato soup with crisp grilled cheese sandwiches. The memories include hours of musical practice on the piano or saxophone, church on Sunday, gymnastics on Tuesdays and Campfire Girl meetings on Fridays. She was a joiner and participant and she expected me to be too.

True confession:  She failed to make me musical. I can barely find middle C on the piano and I have not so much as looked at a saxophone in over 60 years.  I am not a “clubby” woman and mostly avoid anything beyond an occasional book club. Like most mothers and daughters, Mom and I locked horns, butted heads and disagreed on boyfriends, clothes and lifestyle.

What then were the profound lessons that flitted across my mind?

 I learned even from our differences.  Differences do not need to alienate … if you do not let them. Love goes deeper, broader and wider when enhanced by listening and respect. We learned this together --sometimes with tears and sometimes with side-splitting laughter at our absurdities.

She was a fierce advocate of education for women before it was popular and accepted. She was deeply spiritual, turning over to God without reservation the depth of her gratitude and fears and longing.

AND, she was adamant that no one in the family speak ill of anyone else in the family. Like Disney’s Thumper she held to “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”  I am not naïve enough (nor was she) to believe that never happened behind closed doors or in private thoughts. But she set a tone of positivity. She would have positively loved the rough-and-tumble camaraderie of her progeny, generations removed on this Mother’s Day 2022.  She would have giggled and laughed and scolded. And no doubt injected a dose of positivity because she believed in its benefits so wholeheartedly.

Thanks Mom …

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Time Out

The predicted late winter snow storm is ramping up with its companion wind, gusty and brittle.

It is mid-March and Vermont has already had a few days of balmy, faux spring tricking my senses into believing that wintertime has passed. Now, my sense of time is reversed, plunged back to January. 

As if I needed more disorientation, the news reminds me that today is also when we change our clocks, losing  a precious hour of sleep and throwing my circadian rhythm into disarray. I can now put to rest my November procrastination of changing my car clock. How did time go so fast?

I think I have a partial answer. For my great-grandson, Carter who is 10, a year is one tenth of his life, a relatively large fraction and long portion his life. For me, a year is quite a different matter, only a small fraction of my octogenarian life. I blink and a year has gone; the announcement of a pregnancy is now a bouncing baby.  

The time represented by the last couple of years has seen such drastic changes … people moving in and moving out … businesses closing, job concepts altering, politics changing, controversy and conspiracy rampant. Never a fan or believer that the “good old days” were all that good, I am exercising a woman’s prerogative to slightly change direction. I want to blink and again experience a simple, more trustworthy time. But who among us has not occasionally chanted Elizabeth Akers Allen’s poem (even if we did know the source)?

     Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

    Make me a child again just for tonight!

 But this cannot be. 

Despite the momentary time-warping disorientation, there are orientating markers. The glorious sun rises on another day. The morning coffee brewed and savored and the pesky cat meowing to be fed anchor my morning and defy time and age. There are chores to be done … the fridge needs cleaning and the laundry needs doing. A birthday card needs sending and a child needs hugging before the sun flames below the horizon of another day.

Time to get to it ...

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A Thanksgiving Carol

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A Thanksgiving Carol

In the few days that remain before the most gustatory holiday of the season, not only am I pulling recipes out of my ancient, stained and spattered recipe box, I am pulling memories to the surface.

In a Dickensian vibe a la “A Christmas Carol,” I go to Thanksgivings past. But these memories bring a bubble of laughter. Unlike Scrooge, whose ghost of the past was bitter and sad, my ghost of Thanksgivings past is more Casper-like, flitting merrily across my mind. 

In the early years of our marriage, we were asked to host my hubby’s rather difficult grandmother in our Rhode Island home. With other family too distant to either her or us, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to learn some old holiday cooking tips and bond with this frugal ex-pastor’s wife. Her big tip was to drape a clean, white tea towel like a blanket of fresh snow over the mountaintop crest of the turkey’s gigantic breast. Every 20 or 30 minutes, the gathering juices would be sucked up in a baster and squirted generously over the tea towel to keep the bird moist and succulent. Over the hours of cooking before the great unveiling, both the turkey and the tea towel took on a golden, fragrant hue.

After the meal, with our bellies full of the delicious turkey and all the trimmings, it was time to clean up before the pumpkin pie was served for dessert. All three of us -– husband, wife and grandmother-in-law -- helped to wash and package up the leftovers.  Nana admonished me to wash and save the tea towel for future turkeys. But, for some reason, I could not find that tea towel, crusted as it was with fond and dried brown juices. Finally, my husband pointed to a large pot on the back burner of the stove where he was boiling the juices out of said tea towel enroute to making turkey soup!  I knew I had married into a frugal family, but really! Even his Nana was surprised, and I remember seeing a smile creep across her usually dour face.

A year or two later, I am in the cabin in Sandgate for the holiday (we had not yet made the move to Vermont). The men are out hunting while am preparing a somewhat simplified meal. There was turkey, of course, and pumpkin pie.  I had been to the cabin often so I knew what to bring and what I could source from the cupboards -- or I thought I did. I rolled out a tender crust and fluted it with a pretty, ruffled edge. I combined the other ingredients, carefully carrying the pie to the still-hot oven. Everything would be ready for the returning hunters. But my pride in the meal was dashed the moment the first forkful of pie hit my husband’s mouth. Apparently, I had sweetened my pie with a full cup of salt!  Sugar was the stuff that came in 5-pound bags, right? And salt was always packaged in those deep blue cylindrical boxes with the pop-out metal spouts, right? Lesson learned, I would never again cook operating from such partial cues for, indeed, salt does sometimes come in 5-pound bags that, to the unaware, resemble sacks of sugar. 

The men were convulsed with laughter at my culinary faux pas and claimed they were too full for dessert anyway. Bless them!

Those November holidays stand out like shiny threads in the warp and woof of a fabric that stretches from my childhood to the childhood of my grandchildren and great grandchildren. Some had a shadow of illness and loneliness, some were interrupted by the need to work or by minor strife. Like other days, some Thanksgiving Days were better than others but they were universally filled with abundant food and great gratitude.  

My ghosts of Thanksgiving present and future are more tangled and sparring.

The present (aka pandemic time), found turkey day 2020 re-configured. With gatherings and travel plans cancelled, our family met in the parking lot of our business and exchanged clam-shell takeout containers or Tupperware bowls filled with each family’s specialty dish. Some were relieved at the broken traditions (come on, admit it – you were SO tired of hosting), while others, mourning the loss of tradition, tucked in to watch the Macy’s parade and convince themselves that next year would be better. In the future they will, no doubt, tell tales of the strange and scary Thanksgiving of 2020. But for others, it was an opportunity to make new a new set of memories – some as laugh-out-loud funny and indelible as tea-towel turkey soup and pumpkin salt.

That darn ghost of Thanksgiving future, though, still refuses to fully reveal itself. Dickens’ big-three ghost saga charts a transformation from greedy to generous, from cruel to kind. But transformation can go either way. Perhaps the ghost is waiting to see our collective choice? 

While I wait patiently for the final Thanksgiving ghost to arrive, I will go back to the recipe box and still my thoughts while dreaming of pecan squares and pumpkin pudding, of sage dressing and silky gravy.

May your memories be happy and your choices kind.

Cheers,

Nancy

Most recent posts

I Wrote a Book! Announcing the Arrival of "The Wayside Story - A Look Back at the History of a Vermont Country Store

One Hundred Days

Stayin’ Home / Stayin’ Alive

I Wrote a Book! Announcing the Arrival of "The Wayside Story - A Look Back at the History of a Vermont Country Store"

 

Thirty-seven years ago this week, my husband Doug and I signed on the dotted line and became the owners of the Wayside Country Store in West Arlington, Vermont.

Although I have been working on it -- and talking about it -- for two years, my little book chronicling the history of the store is finally done … just in time to celebrate this anniversary! While it is a slim volume, it manages to cover a good deal of ground and will hopefully shed some light on the families that have kept the doors open over the last century plus.

Who built the store? And why? And when?

This little book is the result of many, many hours spent searching for verifiable information to confirm -or in some cases dispel - my long-held beliefs about the origins of the business. It turns out that, while there is a lot of information out in the world about Arlington proper, West Arlington seems to have been sparsely documented (except for Norman Rockwell’s presence) so my hope is that this book will add to the rich history of our beautiful valley.

The project has been great fun and I am indebted to the many folks who helped bring it to fruition. Chief among them has been graphic artist Dave Van de Water who enhanced the photos and documents that accompany my text and is responsible for the way it is laid on the page. Without his expertise, my book would have been little more than poor-quality photocopies stuck together with a paperclip. Another one of the heavy lifters has been Christine Meyer who kept me from making a fool of myself with poor spelling, punctuation and assorted grammatical missteps. And Debbi Wraga at the Northshire Bookstore deserves a shoutout for her efforts to have the finished, printed book ready for this week’s Wayside milestone. There are many, many more to thank and I thank them all – profoundly.

The Wayside Story - A Look Back at the History of a Vermont Country Store  is available – where else – at the Wayside Country Store. For those far afield, it can also be ordered online directly from the Northshire by clicking here. 

Previous posts:

One Hundred Days

Stayin Home / Stayin' Alive

The Woodpile

One Hundred Days

I stopped short of titling this post “The First One Hundred Days.” Like the rest of the country -- and indeed the world -- I am hoping that there is not another 100 days like the last hundred; an unprecedented (do you hate that word yet?) period marked by the rampant spread of the novel coronavirus, conflicting  “expert” advice and the knowledge that numbers are not static but can be manipulated in startling ways.

I have been self-isolating for 100 days.  It is a milestone.  But, unlike birthdays and anniversaries, Hallmark does not (yet) have a card to pluck from the rack at the local store to commemorate the occasion. There are no pictures of ringing bells, mortarboard hats tossed into the air, explosions of confetti or flaming candles, the traditional congratulatory markers of achievement or longevity. 

The early days of the isolation were characterized by napping, reading and the sorting out of all those weird little drawers, closets and under-bed spots that had been long neglected. It was naively satisfying.  Just as the reality of isolating really started to set in, the seasons cooperated and the sorting gave way to the gardening and the taking in of great, grand gulps of fresh outdoor Vermont air.

Through each day I watched the news (channel-surfing endlessly), read countless Facebook posts (some so long they might qualify as novellas) from friends with wildly disparate views.  And I paid attention to my own emotions -- my joy, my anger, my sadness, my frustration and yes, my gratitude. 

These might not quite be what Hallmark would put on a quarantine-themed card, but what follows below are some brief, random thoughts and observations from the past 100 days -- to commemorate and celebrate the milestone!

• Please do not confuse “fear” with “caution.”  I do not fear death but I am not going to put myself at unnecessary risk. I would not risk walking to the edge of a precipice where signs clearly indicated DANGER unless I was suicidal.

• I miss social contact but have Zoomed into a new social world.  I Zoom church services, Zoom with far-flung relatives and Zoom with family. It helps. (The downside is that I look a lot older in the Zoom grid than I do in my bathroom mirror!)

• Be careful with your words either written or spoken. Regret is a heavy burden and kneejerk remarks can -- and do -- hurt.  Express yourself but be careful and thoughtful when you do so.

• I have never paid much attention to age.  But I cannot deny that I am in the high-risk group based on my age alone.  I have to admit that I am hurt and shocked that we elderly seem to be viewed as no longer useful, that we’re some kind of expendable collateral damage. It makes me angry.

• I am not a one-trick-pony. I do not think you are either. If we have a relationship, it is based on more than whether you wear a mask or not. 

• Like most folks, I love a sunny day. But, I have never been a sun-worshipping, beach-going person. I far prefer fishing or canoeing on a Minnesota lake or tubing down the Batten Kill. Now, for the first time, I find myself basking in the sun on my patio, drinking in the healing medicine of vitamin D, utterly quiet.  I now understand sun-worshippers.

• I am going out a bit more.  Each opportunity is met with “risk assessment.”  I remember that from my youth (when the calculus was: “Will the fun of that party be worth the trouble I might get into?”).  It makes me chuckle to realize that I have been a risk-assessor my entire life.  Nothing new here.

• I had thought of cataloging all the divides but there are now so many things that divide us. You know them already for you post and tweet and film them. We are a culture founded on individual freedoms and that now seems to hamper instead of help the solidification of a common goal based on equality and fairness. We need uniters in politics and I don’t see many.  This is frustrating.  This is heart-breaking.

• My day starts early.  Almost every morning I cry. Not for long but, when I wake up, I mourn for what we have lost, or for the daily complications for which we have had no preparation and over which we have scant control. Then I pray. My mind goes first to Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” The burden is in my mind, an effort to understand the chaos of 2020. The tears and prayer have comforted me. I am ready for my cup of coffee. I am ready to face the day with gratitude for my blessing are many and my burdens are relatively few.   

Previous posts:

Stayin' Home / Stayin' Alive 

The Woodpile 

It's Complicated: A Sentimental Journey

Stayin’ Home / Stayin’ Alive

I only know how long I have been self -isolating at home because I remember that my last day of being physically present at the Wayside Country Store was St. Patrick’s Day. Since then, I’ve been lovingly side-tracked by my family due to my age and underlying immune issues.

A few days in, I started making slash marks on my calendar but that felt curiously like being a prisoner scratching out days of a sentence served on the cell wall.  I did not yet feel like a prisoner and there was no end in sight -- then or now.

Tending to be an optimist, I cast around for productive uses of time.  A mountain of old photos needed to be sorted and I got down to the Jurassic layer (see the photo of a five-year-old me at the top of this post) pretty quickly.  I kept dozens of images and threw away hundreds – most of the latter blurry or duplicates. When I die -- hopefully no time soon and not because of Covid-19 -- I want my children to know that whatever they have to sort out is now a good one tenth of what it would have been before the isolating circumstances of the 2020 pandemic.

I’ve sorted out bits and pieces of metal and all things shiny accumulated through my jewelry-collecting hobby (and even managed to construct a few jewelry Christmas trees along the way). I’ve gardened -- pulling miles of mint roots that zippered out of the thawing soil, I’ve spent too much time on Facebook (checking Getty Images is entertaining – and illustrates the kind of ingenuity that has resulted from this quarantine).  I’ve learned to use new technology (hello Apple TV!) to get more stimulating programming (not to mention distance myself from the ubiquitous and often confusing “information” about the very virus that landed me here) as well as connect with friends and family in ways I hadn’t thought possible (hello Zoom video-conferencing!).  

I’ve texted and emailed and cleaned my cupboards, snacked way too much, played game after game of solitaire and I’ve prayed.  Oddly – given how voracious a reader I am – I have not read very much. I have stacks of books within reach but have not been able to concentrate.  I used to be able to retreat into the fantasy of fiction but right now the welfare of my family (both near and far), the welfare of my business and my concerns about the future of the country seem to lurk just below the surface. 

And, truth be told, I started thinking too much.  Case in point: Not being particularly musical, I was surprised to be visited with an “ear worm” of the Bee Gees singing “Stayin’ Alive” from the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.  The subtext of the song is about staying alive – and perhaps even thriving -- on the mean streets of New York, which is currently the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic and frighteningly close to my corner of the world (less than 175 miles as the crow flies). 

It is no wonder that we are is obsessed with how to stay alive and to thrive; are we politically and individually doing the right thing, the best thing? Only history will tell.  We can only do what we think is right for us so we can look ourselves in the mirror, realize that our instinct to live and protect those around us is alive and well, however we manifest it.  In many ways, I feel like I’ve been through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

I am beyond grateful that my multi-stage grief processing is not for a departed loved one.  Rather I grieve for the normal that was here and no longer is. What a “new normal” will look like is as uncertain as the path of the novel coronavirus itself.  I accept that. 

So, for now, I am stayin’ home – and stayin’ alive. 

Previous posts:

The Woodpile

It's Complicated: A Sentimental Journey 

A Little Boy and a Hummingbird

The Woodpile

The 16-inch chunks of wood are in a jumbled pile on the grass between my back door and the wood shed.  

It was cut and delivered last summer and was slated to be properly stacked and air-dried before the first snow frosted the mountaintops. But it did not happen. I refused several offers of help, saving the chore as an opportunity for a lad who owed me money to work off his debt. But that too did not happen. And so, the pile aged from a bright, raw yellow to a pale, watery lemonade as it mocked me for my foolish failure to get it under the protection of the wood shed.  

At my age (senior – senior), I thought I could gracefully nod out of the wood-stacking chore. But it was not to be. And I am glad that it was not. Without being too Pollyannaish, it seems that my unstacked wood is now my source of exercise and sunshine -- both badly needed while I am self-isolating to protect myself from the novel coronavirus pandemic.  

On the first day of my isolation, I luxuriated in reading. On the second day, I cleaned out kitchen drawers -- interspersed with reading and TV-watching. By the third day, the isolation began to feel real …watching television, while informative, was also scary as hell. This is not a random couple of days off or a vacation, it is a catastrophic, deadly worldwide event that alters the very fabric of the way we have lived. We, as individuals, families, and businesses are crafting a new normal and we don’t exactly know how to do that (there's no YouTube tutorial -- yet) or what that will look like.

But, what I do know right now is that I need exercise, I need to get out of the house, away from the television and the cocoon of my down comforter, the escapism of my books, and the temptations of the snack drawer and refrigerator.  

As I whittle down the unruly pile, 20 minutes at a time, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, my mind takes things a step further. This is an act of faith in the future, I realize. On the cusp of a terribly troubled spring, while stacking the hunks of birch, I am betting that this time-honored Vermont chore -- and the sense of normalcy that engaging in it imparts -- will hold me in good stead nearly a year from now in a calmer and healthier winter when the snow comes to frost the mountaintops.  

Previous Posts:

It's Complicated: A Sentimental Journey

A Little Boy and a Hummingbird

Fourteen Stories

It’s Complicated: A Sentimental Journey

Como Park Zoo

I have just returned from a 12-day vacation. I knew ahead of time that it would be complicated; it involved some intricate travel arrangements, more than a dozen other people and a highly sentimental journey to the place I’d spent much of my childhood.

We landed at Wold-Chamberlain Field, more commonly known as the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport.  As a child, it was not uncommon for my family to return from church, the wonderful scent of a roast in the oven heralding the imminent arrival of our big Sunday meal -- which we knew would be followed by a ride to the airport to watch the planes land and take off. Air travel was still new and fascinating back then. Now only the name, Wold-Chamberlain, remains familiar though those long-ago memories remain sharp and dear.

Securing a rental car, we headed to Como Park Zoo, another childhood haunt only blocks from the brick and stucco house that I had called home for so many years. I audibly gasped as we passed familiar streets:  Lexington, Larpentuer, Snelling, Hamline. I had often traveled these streets but now only the names were familiar -- the other landmarks long gone or changed beyond recognition. The zoo itself is now an animal sanctuary, educational center and amusement park. Blessedly gone were the tiny cramped cages that defined zoos of the 1940s and ‘50s where a solitary bear would circle in bored captivity or the monkeys would screech and hurl food or feces in frustration.

Not everything about “the good old days” was good though; I was too young and ignorant to see the cruelty that existed in this place that had been my backyard and playground. In this particular case, I was thankful that only the name was familiar. And, yes, I have recollections of a happy childhood walking daily and blissfully to Como Park unaccompanied, it was a time when kids were safe to roam unencumbered and unclouded by adult concerns.

Now, clouded with the adult concern about whether or not I’d be able to walk the long distances on a hot day that a thorough visit would require, I sought refuge on a bench in a cool, breezy corridor between the amusement park and the zoo – and I was not alone. 

As I “people-watched,” I saw blonde pigtails on little girls that must have been the Nordic grandchildren and great-grandchildren of my peers. Surely they carried names like Anderson or Erickson, Peterson or Pederson, Lindquist or Sandquist. But I saw something else too.  I saw families of every color and ethnicity. 

A tall black man wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the printed message “I’ve had enough adulting for one day.” A few minutes later, a slight, grandfatherly man who appeared to be of Asian descent ambled by clad in the identical T-shirt -- how universal a sentiment that phrase is some days! Another memorable passerby was a tiny boy with caramel-colored skin whose shirt declared the ultimatum: “Only Good Vibes Today.” I could only guess at the complicated, meandering paths that brought this mix of color to what I remembered as such a historically white state. 

While this made it markedly different than it was when my memories were first formed some 70 years ago, what hadn’t changed at all was the fact there were families enjoying a day outside – and together -- trying to create memories that would sustain them over the ensuing decades – just as mine had sustained me on this sentimental journey. If I knew where to buy one, I would have purchased a T-shirt to match the one worn by the little boy with the caramel-colored skin!

Sitting on that bench, seven decades into my journey that brought me back to where I grew up, my head began to spin. There would be many more observations and complications to be sure -- I was only 12 hours into my vacation after all -- but already I found it hard to believe that joy and sadness could simultaneously occupy the same space in my heart.

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On Readin' and Writin'

A Little Boy and a Hummingbird

A hummingbird preserved as decoration from the New York Historical Society's recent exhibition "Feathers: Fashion and the Fight for Wildlife." Credit: Adam Tschorn

It is a clear cool September day. It is the kind of day that heralds the iconic Vermont foliage season.  It is bookended by days of late summer heat and humidity and a forecast of Indian summer heat to come.

It is the kind of day that urges fall housecleaning, stacking wood, putting the garden to bed.  It has been said that September is second only to the dawn of a new year in January as a “re-set” month. And that is certainly true for me.  Always a casual housekeeper, I am armed with broom and vacuum cleaner, trash bags and disinfectant cleaners.  I am about to tackle the long-neglected “shed way” that is the only easily accessible entrance to my house, a double-doored 4x4 space that also houses my garden tools, yard toys, a few decorative plants and the detritus of living in the country.  And its two little windows and their sills – one on each side -- are the graveyard of ladybugs, a few furry bumblebees, a curled-up spider and, it turns out, the  carcass of an ill-fated hummingbird.

My breath caught in a moment of sadness at this undeserved fate; caught between doors and unable to escape this tiny gem perished with its tiny, pointed,  thorn-like beak and iridescent green feathers perfectly intact.  Somehow I could not leave it alone there.  Nor could I throw it away.  I envisioned another use for it.  So I placed it in a tiny white Lord & Taylor jewelry box, carefully wrapped in clean white tissue paper which I then moved to the temporary funeral home of my deep, black leather purse. 

Who would give a last bit of love to this tiniest of nature’s marvels?

Most adults who live in the country, familiar with ebb and flow of life and death as they are, would certainly not be impressed -- or even very curious. 

But great-grandson, Carter, six years old and already very familiar with the toys and curiosities of my shed way would probably like this … Maybe.

When I saw him at our family’s country store shortly thereafter, I called him over to me, opened my purse and pulled out the tiny box. His big blue eyes got even bigger and rounder as I carefully unwrapped the tiny mummy with its luminous colors.  His first reaction was sadness at this wee death.  Then he looked carefully at the long beak and layers of feathers and took off across the ancient floor boards of the store to find someone with whom to share his discovery.  He was as excited about this treasure as the original recipient of the piece of jewelry in the Lord & Taylor box must have been.  It was his gem.

After exhausting the supply of customers and employees at the store, he cradled the bird gently in his arms and announced his intention to take it to school to share some more.  Knowing the school, I was sure this would be accepted and, perhaps, serve as the starting point for an examination of the brief and stunning life of a hummingbird.

I was happy that he liked this little not-from-Walmart gift. I was glad that he could be sad but still see the beauty even in death.  Maybe that is an old person’s wish.  

Maybe it is life in miniature.

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Fourteen Stories

On Readin' and Writin'

Forget Friday the 13th

'

Fourteen Stories

It was late afternoon on a glorious Monday in the middle of June. The weekend past exploded with celebrations as it is the season for graduations and weddings. Our little community also hosted hundreds that came to celebrate the life of a beloved coach.  In the blink of an eye the little kids that could barely see over the edge of the counter at the Wayside a moment ago are diving pell-mell into deeper pools; college, jobs, travel, internships. Passages, so many passages.

Now I was wending my way to the northern part of the state.  As I drove through the kind of scenery that Vermont cherishes on the kind of day that we wait longingly for throughout the winter months, I was in a pensive mood. I thought of change.  Who do we reach out to as we navigate these passages? Whose hand do we hold? Who will hold ours?

I was about to find some answers.

The reason for my trip was to attend the final exam of a public-speaking English class.  My grandson is one of the 14 young people whose assignment is to give an oral “Tribute Speech” -- to talk about someone who has influenced you, someone you want to honor or thank. My grandson had chosen to speak about his grandfather and spending time with him at our Sandgate homestead. I would have not missed it for the world. I had expected, in my quick-to-tear ways, to need the tissues tucked discretely in my sleeve.

What I had not expected was that while they spoke of their heroes -- the kind of heroes that do not exist in movies or video games or wear capes -- that these 14 would become my heroes.

Gangly cowlick-crowned boys with their shirts untucked mixed in with brawny skateboarders (yes, one brought his skateboard class) and more formally dressed young men. Young women in fancy dresses accessorized with stiletto heels sat beside plain dark frocks, cardigan sweaters and breezy short dresses showing off dancers’ calves.  There was no uniformity here.

One by one, they stepped up to the podium and began to tell their amazing stories. What courage did it take for these teenagers to talk with humor and conviction, with pathos and love about their honorees?

They spoke of renewed Christian faith fostered by a clergyman who remembered what it was like to be young and to keep the Faith.  They spoke of cultural acceptance, mixed-race families and step-families, sibling rivalries, crazy aunts, treasured grandparents and teachers who did not give up on them. They almost universally spoke of the work ethic and commitment that their mentors had exhibited. They revealed a host of memories and sacred moments. 

And one nervous young man spoke eloquently of death.  He made us fall in love with his quirky mentor. Then he paused, tore off his suit coat and shirt to expose an ALS T-shirt. His hero had died young but his influence lived on.

The teacher could easily have assigned a public-speaking assignment on a trip to the zoo or on how weather reports are generated.  The fundamental principles of speaking in public are the same no matter the topic. But she did not.  She had asked a simple question: “Who do you honor or remember?” And she got some very profound answers. Thank you.

Fourteen stories …

Their hands have been held.

They will hold the hand of others.

Heroes all.

“We’re all just walking each other home” -- Ram Dass

On Readin’ and Writin’

“They” say that if you want to be a writer you must be a reader.

Well … I guess I am that. A reader, I mean. At least when judged on the basis of frequency – the writing comes sparsely and sporadically.  I read about a book a week, sometimes more.  I am indiscriminate in my reading only having a penchant for fiction -- especially the fictional likelihood of historical or real events. I am the worst when it comes to knowing authors -- to my shame and their chagrin. I pick books from the canvas pop-up tent at the library book sale and from the musty shelves at Goodwill. I actually DO judge books by their covers; I pick them because of the way they look, the way their titles sound rolling off my tongue and even, sometimes, simply because of how a book feels in my hand.

I panic -- like someone out of “Hoarders” on TV -- when I have less than a dozen tomes awaiting, like patient pets, by my bedside. If, on a trip to the doctor’ office, I’ve forgotten to bring a book with me, I’ll read every last magazine in the waiting room. I have even resorted to reading candy bar wrappers and cast-off drugstore flyers when no other words are available to lay my eyes upon. I love words. But, more than that, I love the images they create in my mind. A candy bar wrapper, for example, can instantly conjure up the mental image of a laboratory where chemicals combine with cocoa, white-coated lab technicians smell, taste and research variations on a product in an effort to hit on the perfect mouth feel for the latest Hershey company offering.

But these wrapper-conjured images, as important as they are, pale by comparison to the places I travel and the people I become through the skill of someone’s prose. An olive orchard in Italy becomes my own, a train ride in China becomes my trip. I become the Queen of England one moment and a prairie wife the next. Time travel and shape-shifting are not only possible, they are my diet; consumed with relish and motivated by an unappeasable appetite. I am the tattooed lady on Coney Island. I am the super sleuth navigating the back alleys of Marrakech.  I am a lover in Paris and a beloved in Alabama. I am a murderess in Iceland and a condor feathering its wings to catch the thermals over the majesty of the Grand Canyon. I dip and soar and weep in the clouds of my down comforter, pillowed by the magical words of an author’s skill at arranging words into stories that transport me, inform and educate me, entertain and enlighten me.

Ah … that enlightenment element … How I wish I could tell you of the wisdom contained in in the humblest of bound pages! It is a treasure hunt to find these nuggets but the search is often rewarded. Sometimes a wise author urges me to embrace humor (I have been known to giggle like a school girl in my solitary reading) and to look to the absurd to cushion the trials of everyday life. Sometimes an author will take me on a much-needed vacation to a place that refreshes my soul. Sometimes the philosophy of the author comes through with startling gut-punching clarity and lets me own it. 

“What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed.”  (from “Animal Dreams” by Barbara Kingsolver)

You see?

I am envious of the skill, in awe of the research, intrigued by the plot twists and the lives and minds behind them. I love these authors’ willingness to share. If the seed of the Great American Novel has not taken root in the soil of my writing, I can at least write about reading.

“Sometimes I’m asked what my advice would be for emerging writers, and it is always simply, to read.” (author Hannah Kent)

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” (the oh-so-wise Dr. Seuss)

Read I will continue to do with much frequency. And write too – even if sparsely and sporadically.

Previous Posts: 

Forget Friday the 13th 

A Pearl Harbor Birthday Wish 

I'm in Trouble ... Two-Dollar Bill's Worth

Forget Friday the 13th ...

I am not superstitious.  I Am NOT superstitious.  However, I do not walk under ladders, a faint shiver of shame creeps up my spine as I am aware of a black cat crossing my path, and, if I enter an appointment on my calendar for Friday the 13^th of any month, I wonder if the appointment will have dire consequences.

2017 has not started out well.  As one son put it: “We are only a week into the year and it feels like we are a year into the week.”  It has been plagued with enormous distress in our little quaint Vermont community as the first homicide -- yet unsolved --  burst our bubble of safety.  Couple that with medical concerns in the family, alternate subzero temps and rain creating icy falls and dented fenders.  One can only hope that like the month of March that is known to come in like a lion and leave like a lamb, this year of our Lord 2017 will leave in a more gentle and benevolent manner than it arrived.

With this background, I was, on Thursday the 12^th, terribly aware -- shamefully aware in my non-superstitious nature -- that the next day would be a Friday the 13^th.  How then did it happen that, while eating my favorite morning treat, crusty sesame semolina toast with a smear of butter and a dollop of organic blueberry jam, I lost a tooth.  Yes, it was lost … gone … not to be found … swallowed with the crunchy crust. Fake tooth that it was, there was no pain except to my vanity … how could I go out in public without smiling?  And how could I smile with that front tooth missing?

The day progressed with the local school bus going off the road in icy conditions and a massive power outage that crashed all that computer-driven technology in our businesses.  With no way to scan prices or ring up sales, we reverted to the pen and paper method of trying to stay open and record sales; sometimes guessing at prices or relying on running back and forth to check shelf labels with head lamps and flashlights.  And, when the power did come back on, the computers did not.  And this Friday the 13^th occurring on Thursday the 12^th ground down to a blessed end with frayed nerves and fatigue.

But here is the lesson: My dentist’s office got me in in a matter of hours and replaced the lost tooth. Who knew that they had a drawer of “emergency teeth” and a crackerjack technician to restore my smile?

No one was hurt in the school bus incident and people in the tiny little town were more tolerant and understanding of the road crew and their hard work in difficult conditions than usual.

Customers were grateful we were open at all. Help at the store stayed on past their shifts and restored the technology with the help of our IT company so that, by closing, we were fully functioning again. People altered their schedules to adjust without a complaint or second thought.

Bad luck?  I think not.  It is not the day; it is the support we give each other in major or minor crises that dictates how any given date on the calendar goes. As 2017 begins to roll out its days, of that I am absolutely sure -- evenif my spine still tingles a bit when a black cat crosses my path.

Previous Posts:

A Pearl Harbor Birthday Wish

I'm in Trouble ... Two Dollar Bill's Worth

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A Pearl Harbor Birthday Wish

December 7, 2016

Today is my birthday.

I tell you this not to elicit Facebook or other birthday greetings (as pleasant and appreciated as they are) but because this date also commemorates the 75^th anniversary of a fateful day in our country’s history -- the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Each birthday, though there have been many happy ones, carries the ghost, the shadow, of what happened there as TV spots and newspaper blurbs recall December 7, 1941.

This devastating attack (2,500 killed, 1,000 wounded) occurred after the U.S. refused to continue trading iron and gasoline to Japan which sorely needed them to continue to execute its conflict with China. The magnitude of the death and destruction ... the surprise raid ... left the United States with little choice but to abandon its isolationist policy and join World War II already in progress.

My earliest memory, after being primed for a birthday celebration, was to see my mother crying. This was supposed to be a happy day. Clearly it was not. A big, wooden, domed radio with a blue star-spangled dial, once so magical, now spewed forth a series of staticky announcements and became an instrument of fright and tears. Other adults gathered around and a tiny birthday cake with three pink candles sat forgotten and forlorn on the round oak table.

I was too young to understand then and for several years to come. My brother and I played with sticks and stones and rope swings. We played tag and Red Rover, hide-and-seek ... toys were scarce. Only toward the end of the war when we went to Saturday-afternoon matinees and were a captive audience to the dramatic newsreels of tanks and bombs (no changing channels here) did I comprehend that the bits of tin foil we were saving from sticks of gum were for the "war effort" and what the magnitude of that effort was. Victory gardens sprouted again as they had in World War I. Blackout drills were held in homes and schools. Families coalesced as grandparents and older siblings took on parenting roles while mothers went to work and fathers were conscripted into military service.

Perhaps the thing I remember most is rationing. I was old enough to walk to the corner store with the thin leather wallet containing the tiny perforated stamps that I could exchange for the family's supply of sugar and coffee. I never saw my normally placid mother so angry as when my brother and I ruined a whole pound of rationed coffee by contaminating it with every dark colored spice we could find in the cupboard (cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg) in an ill-conceived April Fools’ Day joke. My mother's ire was no joke as she went without her morning coffee for two weeks -- her allotment had been spoiled and there was no getting more at any price.

If I had the ability to create a montage here, I would show you a split-screen documentary of the years from 1941 to 2016. One half would depict the country in all its progress (television, microwave ovens, the moon landing, and computers), conflicts (Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, 9/11) and social movements (Civil Rights and school desegregation, hippies, woman's liberation). The other half would show the chapters of my personal life: education, military service (where I met my husband), marriage, children, moving to Vermont to follow a dream, advancing to grandparenthood and the joy of great-grandparenting.

Oddly enough, both halves merge at about the same place. The two split-screens would become one where people from all walks of life started furiously and furtively poking their fingers and drumming their thumbs on the surface of tiny devices that contained all the knowledge of the world. The Encyclopedia Britannica, once a prized family possession, became nothing more than a doorstop, castoff relics that not even libraries would take in. Traditional modes of communication like writing letters and placing telephone calls have been outpaced by the expediency of e-mails and text messages. From The Donald's tweets to Hillary's e-mails, the media has climbed on board with the power of fast and brief communication and its fearsome capacity to affect us.

Relationships, personal and political, are made or broken in a few twitches of spastic digits and family members text each other across the dinner table. It is a curious phenomenon that has become as pervasive throughout the country as it has in our personal lives. We have indeed crossed the Rubicon (yes, I Googled it to make sure my understanding was correct) when it comes to technology. Good or bad, We the People are left to cope with the advances we have made.

We are now both literally and figuratively at arm’s-length from each other -- and especially from our troops. In World War II, the entire civilian population was involved through rationing, conserving, saving and guarding against the possibility of attack on U.S. soil. So why are we now so horribly disconnected now when we have the ability to be more connected than ever?

As my latest birthday cake – crammed with enough candles to burn a house down -- is being prepared, we as a country are trying desperately to figure out how best to honor and connect with the few remaining military men and women from that long-ago conflict. Would they even look at the memes passed through the social media channels – the ones that show a flag waving against the silhouette of a soldier in the background and a curly script in the foreground that says: "Thank You," (as well-intentioned and appreciated as they are)?

There has to be something more – and better -- than that.

Those aging veterans didn't have PTSD -- but there was an abundance of "shellshock." They endured and suffered to bring you and me the power to act as we think or say what we want without hindrance or restraint -- the very dictionary definition of freedom. We must, simply must, guard and respect those freedoms and use them with accountability for they came at a very steep price.

So here’s an idea: Why not use that clever little device just off the end of your fingertips to Google: "How to honor a veteran"? You’ll instantly be served up hundreds of ideas from providing a ride to buying a meal to arranging for the adoption of a companion dog. The one I like best? Listen to their stories; story-telling is a connectedness like no other. And if you listen to one vet's stories, in a sense, you have listened to them all ... the fear, the deprivation, camaraderie, courage and deep longing for peace.

And do it now -- don't wait for next Veteran’s Day to roll around or even next Memorial Day. And don't, for heaven's sake, wait 75 years! 

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I'm in Trouble - Two Dollar Bill's Worth

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I'm In Trouble ... Two-Dollar Bill's Worth

The Prelude ...

It is no secret that those of us that are intimately involved in running a cash register at a little country store watch for what, in my family, is called "funny money."  Now I am not talking about counterfeit bills though occasionally we do receive notices from the Vermont State Police that fake scrip is making the rounds in the area.

What I am talking about is the occasional bit of silver coin, 50-cent pieces, wheat pennies, a two-

dollar bill or anything out of the ordinary. Just last week, I found a buffalo nickel -- standing out like a bison in deer country -- as I counted the cash drawer. Turns out it’s worth about six cents without a readable date. I saved it anyway. I always think about the stories those odd bits of coin would tell if only they could speak of the hands that had spent them over the years.

The Story ...

Today I went to a flea market where the modest size and mellow weather dictated chit-chat with the motley crew of vendors. If you have time to really explore a flea market you will find it part history lesson (American Flyer sleds, coal shuttles, grinders for everything from meat to raisins), part creative entrepreneurship (crocks and wooden wheelbarrows planted with geraniums and necklaces woven and beaded with ladder yarn) and part Comedy Central (where else could you find a prosthetic leg complete with tube sock and worn sneaker?).

Always drawn to the closed glass cases that house shiny bits of old jewelry and miniature treasures, I stopped in the shade to gaze at an array of coins ... Mercury dimes, Indian-head pennies and the like. Telling the scruffy and bearded tender of this stall of the family penchant for saving oddities out of the cash register, he launched into the curious story of his old friend, Constantine.

Constantine, it seems, ran a little country store with his longtime girlfriend, Gracy.  He kept a little waste basket under the cash register where he placed every two-dollar bill that came his way. He promised Gracy that when the basket was full he would take her to the altar and marry her.

Now, Gracy had been his trusted employee for a long time and she was a patient woman but her patience was growing thin and the basket's contents grew ever so slowly. Over the years she had helped Constantine solve a lot of problems and now she set about solving what she saw as the problem of her lengthening spinsterhood.  She called everyone she knew and enlisted their help to call everyone they knew to come to the store and pay for their purchases with two-dollar bills. If the bank tellers in the small Vermont town knew the reason for the sudden requests for two dollar bills, they kept the secret.

In a surprisingly short time the little waste basket was full, almost overflowing. Constantine knew he was in trouble. For so many years his word had been his bond and it did not even occur to him to renege on this most solemn promise. Besides, he did love her and knew she would not be a troublesome wife.

And so, the wedding was held, paid for by two-dollar bills. Because they were modest people, the ceremony was modest, with wildflowers picked from the meadow and iced tea and cupcakes for the guests.  After so many years of hard work, Constantine and Gracy wanted to spend their money on a trip ... a real honeymoon.

So off they set for Cape Cod. They didn’t live so very far away but this seemed like a charmed place of mystical and mythical proportions. Dressed in his best new Carhartt pants and a new plaid shirt, over a thousand dollars’ worth of two-dollar bills secured by red rubber bands tucked here and there among their modest luggage, Constantine stepped up to the registration desk at the Holiday Inn. 

No, he did not want to pay with a credit card ... he had cash. So he began to unroll the bills and place them in front of the startled registrar.

It may have been company policy. It may have been the very strangeness of the transaction. Whatever it was, the authorities were called, and before Constantine and Gracy had their first honeymoon Heineken, the Massachusetts State Police were at their door wanting to know where he had obtained such a stash of cash. They were quite convinced that no one would have come by this legally.

It took a bit of explaining and a half-dozen phone calls to corroborate their story, but suspicion was eventually cleared and the newlyweds enjoyed their honeymoon -- tipping lavishly with two dollar bills -- and laughing at the new credit card society that had been thrust on them. They spent every last one of those two-dollar bills before returning to the comfort of their small town and cozy little store

They figured that if this was the worst of their troubles then their union would be blessed. And it was ... a dime and a dollar at a time they prospered and chuckled at their old-fashioned notion that cash was king!

I wonder, in the days of fraud, stolen identity, and massive debt, if Constantine and Gracy were so far off the mark. After all, a piece of plastic will never be able to tell the stories of a coin or a crumpled banknote. A piece of plastic will never have the appeal of a two dollar bill with old Tom Jefferson, peering as mysteriously as the Mona Lisa from his engraved minting.

How many stories like Constantine and Gracy’s would he tell if he could only speak?

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R.I.P