The Morning

About 52 years ago, on a Saturday sometime in May, I woke early.

My parents were still asleep, as was my brother. No one was up but me. 

We lived in an old farmhouse at the time. It had a row of boxwoods across the front next to the road.

For whatever reason, when I rose, I decided I was going to trim the boxwoods. We did chores back in those days - maybe I had been told I was going to be doing that over the weekend. In any event, I was nine years old, and I was going to do a job. I dressed myself, ate a Pop Tart, found the hedge clippers, and went out front.

Snip. Snip. I vaguely remember the pile of greenery growing up around me as I trimmed. I recall it wasn't hot but a mild day, and the work was, if not fun, pleasurable. I was doing what needed to be done. I imagined that inside the boxwoods lived all manner of creatures - fairies, gnomes, talking rabbits. I carried on quite a conversation with my imaginary friends hidden in the greenery as I moved the clippers across the boxwoods, cutting away the excess growth.

I was so engrossed in my work that I never heard my parents calling for me inside the house. Nor did I hear my mother's calls out the back door.

It wasn't until she came around front calling my name that I stopped and looked up from my trimming of the hedge to see her worried face.

Her face changed from worry to shock as she stood there taking in the sight of me. I wasn't missing - I was working. And nearly finished, at that. I had been at it for well over an hour.

My mother has been gone for almost 25 years. Today is no special day; I have no reason for this memory. Sometimes, though, I forget what my mother's voice sounded like. It has been many years, after all, since I last heard her say something.

But when I call up this memory, when I hear her calling out my name as she rounds the corner of the house, concern echoing in the timbre of her shout, I remember every time.

The Button Box

My extra present at Christmas was something old.

It was my mother's button box. Well, actually it's a fruitcake tin from the 1960s, full of buttons.

I had mentioned it on a blog post about my mother back in June, when Thursday landed on her birthday. I wrote about some of my memories of my mother for Thursday 13, and mentioned the button box, wondering what had happened to it. My mother passed away in 2000 from pancreatic cancer. Most of her things remained with my father.

My stepmother saw my blog post (I didn't know she read my blog), and she knew where the button box was. She pulled it out of the basement and cleaned it up and gave it to me for Christmas.

She was quite emotional when she gave it to me. I probably did not offer up the expected reaction - I am not one to cry, especially in front of other people, but I was certainly shocked and surprised to see it.

I imagine many women of my mother's generation had a button box. Waste not, want not and all of that. My brother and I used to make a kind of toy out of the buttons and a string, a zinger type thing that I am not describing well. It was always fun to comb through the box and see what was there.

Long ago, I probably remembered what some of the buttons came off of and thought about those garments as I sorted through the buttons. Now, I have no idea, but there are certainly a lot of buttons in there, as well as needles and a die from a game, among other things.

It was incredibly kind of my stepmother to clean up the box and give this to me as a keepsake. I really appreciate her thoughtfulness.

Christmas Eve

The older I get, the more nostalgic I seem to be for those Christmas Eves long ago. The ones where my parents threw a big party, and loads of people came, and my brother and I opened our presents to one another - an effort by my parents to calm us down.

So many people, and Santa Claus coming? What kid wouldn't be wound up tighter than a corkscrew in a wine bottle?

We were supposed to go to bed, but we generally stayed up as long as we could, peering around the corner, watching the grownups talk, dance, and play music. How were we to sleep with all of that noise, anyway?

On one particularly memorable Christmas Eve, (and I may have told this story before) I remember hearing shrieks from women. I peeked around the corner and the ladies were pointing toward the refrigerator.

A drunken mouse was roaming around the floor. I am not sure where the men were - playing music or standing around outside, maybe - but the mouse was there. He'd obviously been imbibing on something.

My mother very calmly and quickly slipped off her shoe. Thwack! She slammed it down on the mouse, amidst the cries of the other women. Then she got the broom and dustpan and swept it up off of the linoleum and took it outside.

She came back in like nothing had happened. I was not surprised, having seen my mother do amazing things, but the other women were either aghast or admiring.

I thought it was hilarious.

Once we finally went to sleep, and the guests left, my parents would do the Santa thing, placing our gifts under the tree. At some point in the wee hours of the morning, my brother would shake me awake.

"Santa's come! Santa's come!" he would whisper excitedly.

I would climb out of bed and follow him to the living room, where we could see our bounty spread out beneath the tree. Then we'd go back to bed until our parents called us in.

When we arrived in the room and did not look surprised, my father would look at my mother. "They got up again," he would say.

This happened nearly every year, even when we were teenagers, though by then most of our presents were wrapped, not left out. After all, we knew who Santa was.

The excitement held for a long time.

I sure miss those days.

Getting Ready

I was getting ready for company earlier today, and I was struck by a memory of my mother doing the same thing.

My mother, though, had a routine that would make mine look like child's play. She was the ultimate personal hairstylist and makeup artist for herself.

She teased her hair up until she was too ill to do that anymore. And she wore makeup almost constantly; I seldom remember seeing her without it.

My mother always looked beautiful when she went out, even if only to the grocery store. She would be totally decked out, well dressed, and dignified.

I'm not sure she owned a pair of blue jeans.

I, on the other hand, had a routine that included hair and makeup, but I have always had easy to manage haircuts - blow, maybe a bit of a curling iron, brush, and done. My makeup routine was foundation, eye shadow, mascara, a little blush, a powder to top it off - done. I could usually be dressed in 30 minutes and my wardrobe of choice was pants and a top. Occasionally, I wore a skirt.

Dresses and I did not get along. I have always had trouble with shoes, because I have trouble with my feet. I once was told at a law office that I would never get promoted because I did not wear heels.

I opted for dress flats back then.

These days, I do my hair, still, but it remains in an easy-to-handle cut. My makeup is now nonexistent because I can't find any makeup to which I am not allergic. I can be ready in 15 minutes, 10 if I push it, not counting a shower.

My mother would be appalled to see me going out to the grocery stores in blue jeans, a t-shirt, and no makeup. I wear nothing but sneakers. I own a pair of black sneakers for dress shoes, if you can believe that.

If I stop and think about it, I'm a little appalled myself, but I haven't found a way around it. I am always neat and clean, if not decked out. It's hard to find decent clothes in my size, and since I am home more often than not, I don't know that it matters too much.

Mom sure could do herself up, though. She always looked her best.

My mom & dad, mid 1990s, maybe?

Contentment - Day 6

I thumbed through old papers this morning, looking for a manual on a piece of machinery my husband couldn't find.

In doing so, I stumbled over an envelope full of photos. I pulled it out and began looking through them. They were pictures of me from school and a large picture of my grandmother as a young girl that I would have sworn was of my mother if not for the name written on the back. And there were pictures of my mom.

The envelope was one of the last things she gave me before she died.

It wasn't the pictures that got to me though - they were just images. What did get to me was the smell.

The envelope smelled not of old paper, but of my mother. A smell that I'd not thought of in many years, and one that even now I cannot describe.

Something like a cross between makeup, hairspray, and light perfume.

Nothing that comes from a bottle.

Just my mom.

Happiness - Day 24

This should have been yesterday's notation, but here goes.

Last night we went to my father's to visit with my cousin and his wife who were in from California.

They live in Chico, near the Park Fire. They came in last weekend but went to Myrtle Beach with my father and stepmother, so I did not get to see them until last night.

We had a good time sharing memories of differing childhoods, one on the west coast, and my brother and I on the east coast.

Kids are kids though. I also heard stories about my cousins that I hadn't heard before. I have always been a little sad that I don't know my father's side of the family that well. They moved to California when I was 6 months old. My dad and mother stayed here.

At any rate, we all had tacos, made by my cousin who wanted to cook, and enjoyed an evening on the deck telling tales.

Everyone but me: from left, my cousin Steve, my
brother's girlfriend, Steve's wife Lisa, my stepmother,
my father, my husband, and my brother.

______________________

Happy August Happiness Challenge!

 

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

The Day Elvis Died

There are many things that happened nationally that I remember because I remember where I was and what I was doing.

I know exactly where I was when the second plane hit the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. I know where I was when Challenger exploded. I know where I was when I heard President Reagan had been shot. I know where I was when I learned John Lennon had been shot. I know where I was on November 9, 2016, when I learned that Hillary Clinton lost the election even though she won the popular vote.

And I know where I was when the radio announcer said, in solemn tones, "The King is dead."

We were driving through some flat area of Kansas or someplace like that, my parents, my brother, my grandmother, my two young uncles, and me, all piled into a bus-van type contraption that my father had found for a trip across the country.

My father had been flipping radio stations to find something to listen to, and that was what we heard, "The King is dead." We were all hushed while my father tried to find a station to figure out what was going on. At first, we were confused - what king? King of a country? Not the king of rock and roll, surely. He was only 42 years old.

After much fiddling with the radio dials - we were, after all, in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest - my father found another station.

"Elvis Presley is dead," the announcer said.

My father gasped, my mother shrugged, my grandmother said something to the effect of that being too bad.

My brother and two uncles went back to playing cards in the back of the bus-van, my grandmother returned to her nap, and my father drove, his hands tight on the steering wheel, not yelling at the boys for making noises they made as they messed around in the back.

I sat behind my father, and I watched him. I was only 13, but I knew this was important.

I have never asked Dad what that meant to him, to have someone he had idolized die and have no one to share it with when it happened. He didn't talk about it, didn't make much of it. He just kept driving.

My father was a big Elvis fan. My father had a band of his own and he sang many Elvis songs. He idealized himself as a "B" version of Elvis, or so I thought. My mother, who was riding shotgun in the bus-van, didn't seem to care one way or another, but I remember feeling the change in my father's mood even though he didn't say a word.

I remember his sadness, though he made sure no one saw him sad.

He wasn't alone, of course, we were all there in the bus-van. I knew he was feeling something, but we have never been a very lovey-dovey touchy-feely kind of family. I don't know if I was the only one who knew that this was a blow to my father. I've never talked about it with anyone, though my father asked me some time ago if I remembered where we were when we heard about Elvis's death. He was pleased that I remembered, right down to the cornfields along the side of the long stretch of highway.

Wise men say many things; others say very little. I always equate Elvis Presley with my father, and I always have that memory following me around, the memory of me, the young girl-woman in the seat behind her father, watching without comment while the man she once thought hung the moon absorbed devastating news.

His New Favorite Picture

 

A love note from our great niece put my husband in a fine mood. We have it proudly displayed on the refrigerator.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today is my father's birthday. He is 83.

My mother, my father, me, and my brother
 on the day of my wedding.

My father sang in a band. Still does.

The younger version of my father with his kids.

My father and brother at Dad's 80th birthday party.

My father dancing with my stepmother.

My father enjoying the outdoors in 2021.

Thursday Thirteen #865

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 80 years old today. Here are 13 things about her.

My mother as a young girl.

1. She was madly, fiercely, and desperately in love with my father.

2. By the numbers: She had her first child when she was 18 (that would be me) and her second (my brother) when she was 21. Mom was 38 years old when I married. She retired in her late 40s (I can't remember exactly how old she was), and she passed away at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer. I was 37 when she died and my brother was 34.

My mother bringing home my brother.

3. Mom could sew well and up until I was old enough to pitch a fit and ask for store-bought clothing, she made most of my clothes.

4. She followed my father to live on a farm that was adjacent to the property on which her father grew up. She diligently canned green beans, helped kill and pluck feathers from chickens, and kept a fire burning for heat, all while working a 40-hour week job that was a 45-minute drive away from home and taking care of her husband and two children.

5. Mom had a button box that was full of glittery things that I liked to play with. It wasn't a box, actually. It was a metal fruitcake tin. But it certainly had a lot of buttons in it. I wonder what happened to it.

6. She could be very creative with arts and crafts. She painted small houses to use for Christmas decor and made mushrooms out of some kind of plaster that she painted up nice.

7.  She was a great cook, although not necessarily with breakfast. (I think that was because, like me, she just wasn't an early morning person.) I remember Dad on Sundays (when Mom wanted to sleep in) would start yelling, "Hungry!" and then he'd get us to join in until we were all shouting, "Hungry" one right after the other. She would stomp into the kitchen muttering and start throwing stuff onto the skillet. She liked to try new things to cook, including a mud duck that tasted like . . . mud. She made a pumpkin pie once that we called pumpkin pudding because it did not set up properly. But most of her meals were delicious.

8. She was always well-dressed and her hair perfectly coiffed. She wore her hair the same way all of her life.

9. She was pretty in a traditional way, though she had freckles and she disliked those immensely. My paternal grandfather used to call her "Liz" because he said she reminded him of Elizabeth Taylor.

Does she look like Liz
Taylor?

10. She was a wonderful grandmother to her grandson before she passed away.

11. She was not afraid of mice. Once during a party, a mouse strode out into the kitchen and Mom took off her shoe, whapped the mouse dead, and then scooped it up with some paper and tossed it outside.

12. She had a decent singing voice but never really got the hang of playing an instrument. She could accompany herself a bit on the organ, though.

This is the way I remember her.

13. She was loyal to her friends and family.

______________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 865th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Tomorrow's the Day

Tomorrow is my birthday. I already have my present, a new iPhone SE. Yes, I am still behind with an SE model, but I don't like those big bulky phones they have out at the moment. I'm a short little fat person and I need something small.

I used to like birthdays and holidays, but I do not find them as enjoyable as I once did. More and more, they're just other days. It's not like all of those birthday greetings on Facebook actually mean anything. FB makes it easy to wish someone a happy birthday (and at the moment I don't even know if my notification is turned on, I have turned it off in the past).

That's part of growing old, I guess. Life kind of sucks the joy right out of everything, once you've been around the block a time or two.

Anyway, tomorrow's Saturday, and I was born on a Saturday. The story goes that my mother worked Friday, went into labor at the office, and gave birth to me in the wee hours of the morning. My father said I had the cutest little ears. Or maybe that was my grandfather. Somebody said it, anyway.

I still have cute little ears. Ha. One of them is a bit tender because I accidentally hit it with a hot curling iron yesterday.

So happy birthday to me!

Toodling Around a Town

After we left The Old Brick Hotel in New Castle, we decided to walk the block of Main Street to see what there was to see.

This used to be a bank building when I was writing over there.

The Craig County Courthouse from the front.

Main Street. It looked like someone had spruced up the buildings with fresh paint.

They have a brand-new farmers market.

It looks really nice and should be a great addition to the community.

We walked back toward the car, and I said, "Let's go in here." The shop was called The Emporium, and it was set up kind of as an old-fashioned grocery and had a small bookstore in the rear.

I saw a man enter just after us and I thought he looked familiar, but I had written over there for a long time and many people would look familiar. I was looking around up at the front when I heard someone say my last name out loud.

My husband responded, "Well, how are you!"

I went back to discover, to my surprise, a former firefighter who used to work with my husband. He is also my aunt's ex-husband's brother, making him my cousin's uncle. So family. Sort of.

We did not go to New Castle expecting to run into anyone we knew. To run into someone we considered extended family was incredibly unexpected. We hadn't seen this long-distance relative since 2017 and hadn't had much of a chance to speak then as we were at a concert.

We spent a pleasant 15 minutes or so catching up on family news.

Definitely a nice surprise. Given the earlier surprise of finding paperwork that dealt with my father's family in a county that was not known for that family, (plus seeing a camel), we felt like this afternoon drive had a bit of cosmic coincidence going on with it.

Then we drove around the town some more and saw a cemetery that I couldn't recall seeing before:

I really liked the angel on top. I love old cemeteries anyway; they give off such a cool vibe. They don't make statues like that in new cemeteries.

And that was the end of our adventure. We really should get out of the house more often.

New Castle

Our destination on our Friday drive, wherein we saw a camel unexpectedly en route, was to New Castle, Virginia.

This is where I wrote for a newspaper for a number of years - almost a decade, from about 1995 to 2004. I recently filled in and did some freelancing for the paper again while they looked for a new writer who lives over that way (it's a 40-minute drive from my house). 

I discovered during my little return to writing there that the bound copies of the newspaper - the morgue, as it were - were missing, and the current editor had no idea where they were. I vaguely remembered that the owners had wanted the old bound books tossed, and I also remember my alarm at this loss of history. I recall suggesting to someone that they should give the books to the historical society.

So, it was the historical society and its museum that was our true destination. I wanted to look for myself to see if the bound books where there.

The museum is located in what is known as "The Old Brick Hotel," although it's had numerous names over the years.

Inside, there are the usual museum things:

The Civil War display, found mostly in the southern U.S.

Other military display.

The dining area of the hotel/bar.

A kitchen replica.

Some plates I liked showcasing various things about the community.

The museum office/welcoming section. We saw this last because we went in the back door.

We took a tour of the museum, and I picked up a few history books to purchase. I found the old newspapers I was seeking, and also learned they were moldy and probably not something I really wanted to look through. I have moldy and dusty papers tucked away in a tub in the shed that I could get to just as easily.

One odd thing happened. I mentioned that my father had lived in New Castle for a few short years when he was a young lad, and one of the older ladies asked me his last name. I told her, and she jumped up and started looking for a piece of paper. "There are no members of that family here," she said, "but I have this."

And she handed me a piece of paper that showed where my ancestors, who were doctors in the Civil War, had kept records of their treatment of local residents. She was as surprised as I was to have this weird coincidence with my father's name turn up.

But we still had yet one more surprise to come.

A Tribute to an Uncle

Last week we visited the Salem Museum. As we walked along the brick-lined entrance, we started reading names on the bricks.

Imagine our surprise when we found my husband's uncle's name on one of the bricks!

Uncle Dale was a long-time coach at Salem High School. Dale Foster is known for his long-standing role at Salem High School in Salem, Virginia. He served as the athletic director before moving to an assistant principal position at Andrew Lewis Middle School.

We don't know who put the brick in, whether it was family or students who remember Uncle Dale. But it was cool to find, anyway.

Going Backwards

When I was 5, my father had me and my brother in a vehicle when he stopped at a convenience store on Apperson Drive.

I don't recall what kind of car we had in 1968, but I want to say it was a Dodge Charger. At any rate, he left us both in the car while he went in to fetch whatever he was after.

In 1968 I suppose there were car seats, but we didn't use them. I don't think we used seat belts either, for that matter. Yes, I am of the generation that rode in the bed of the pickup truck, drank from water hoses, and lived to tell about it.

After my father hopped out of the car, my brother climbed into the driver's seat so he could pretend to be driving. I don't remember if the car was running, but I'm guessing my father left it in neutral and put on the parking brake. I think the parking brake was located where today most people would find a cup holder and a console.

Somehow my brother disengaged something, and the car started rolling backwards.

As in, out of a small parking lot and into a busy highway.

My brother seemed oblivious to what he'd done, but as soon as I realized the car was moving, I started to scream. That made him cry. I remember feeling terrified because while I didn't know how to stop the car, I knew we were in trouble and that if the car went into traffic, we would be hurt. I was screaming and crying and trying to get my brother out of the driver's seat while at the same time looking at the store where my father was. 

"Daddy, Daddy!" I screamed, all the while trying to tug my sobbing brother away from the steering wheel. Somehow, I managed to hit the car horn.

I don't know if he heard me, but I saw Dad look up and realize what was happening. He dropped whatever he had in his hands on the store counter and ran toward the car. I was still screaming when my father wrenched the door open and stuck his foot inside and on the brake. I was able to grab my brother then and pull him over to me in the front side passenger's seat.

It was a close call.

My father yelled at me for not stopping the car (like a 5-year-old is going to be anything other than scared to death in this scenario) as he got in the driver's seat, pulled the car back up, put it in park, and went back in to pay for his stuff. I imagine it shook him up a little, we were so close to rolling out into the road.

I'm also pretty sure he told us not to tell our mother what happened. I don't remember if I ever did.

Mostly I remember feeling so angry that he blamed me for something my brother did that the fear went away, to be replaced with a seething darkness. I couldn't tell him how unfair he was being - I did not have those kinds of words yet, or that kind of courage - nor could I take it out on anybody (except maybe my brother, but I was a good girl). Maybe I went home and beat up a Barbie doll. I don't recall. But this incident has always stood out in my mind as a fine example of unfairness tinged with total terror, and it comes back to me when I have the feeling that I'm going backwards in life instead of moving ahead.

I'm not really going backwards. Being sick for a month has set me back. I was doing more physically before I caught this respiratory thing, and now I'm going to have to work to build up my stamina again. I went to Food Lion today and it wiped me out. 

For some reason, though, my life does feel like I'm trapped in an uncontrolled vehicle slowing heading into traffic, with no idea how to hit the gas or the brake pedal because my legs aren't long enough.

So, This Was Christmas

We officially now have what I refer to as "old people's" Christmas. The children are grown, leaving only us older folks to gather around. The younger crowd is off doing their own thing, more or less.

So this was our "old people's" Christmas -

My stepmother and stepsister.

My father.

My husband (left) and my father.

My mother-in-law (left), stepmother, and stepsister.

I think my stepsister is giving me the eye while I snap photos.

My mother-in-law.

My brother's girlfriend and my niece. My niece is not an old
person, she is in college but was visiting her dad and came
over with him.

Somehow, I missed getting a picture of my brother. 

The family came in two waves; my father, stepmother, and stepsister came along around 2, and then my brother and his family came later. My mother-in-law spanned both visits, which, incidentally, took place on Christmas Eve.

At dark, I noticed my tree reflecting in the patio door.

My brother gave me a Lord of the Rings puzzle.

He also gave me a Royal Mint collector's coin that features Tolkien.

I gave my father a throw for the couch that had acoustic guitars on it, Dolly Parton's CD, and a book. I gave my stepmother a cape and some storage things. I gave my stepsister a gift basket that unfortunately had a lot of stuff in it she can't eat because I forget she's diabetic.

I gave my brother collector's edition books of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, along with a 3-D light of the Starship U.S.S. Enterprise and a Bendyfig of Captain Kirk. I gave his girlfriend a book that offers up daily spiritual sayings. I have a copy of the book and like it so I thought she'd like it. My niece received money.

My husband and I had our Christmas on Christmas Day. He gave me some guitar stuff and a new microphone to replace the one I have that has a short in it. I also received a couple of books and a package of Omaha meat.

I gave my husband clothes, mostly. And a kiss for good measure.

On Christmas Day, we also spent some time with my mother-in-law. My brother called to tell me that my niece had woke in the night with a sore throat and tested positive for Covid, so now we are all holding our breath to see if anyone gets sick. I need to check the CDC site for symptoms and incubation period. I hope no one becomes ill.

Somehow, I have managed to go this long with this being my first known exposure to Covid. Fingers crossed.

We Made It!

Today is our 40th wedding anniversary!

Happiness Challenge - Day 27

 

Today I ate a chocolate cupcake. It was big and it had a lot of chocolate on it, and it tasted very good.

It was much sweeter than I anticipated, too.

I may regret this later.

Anyway, I spent time with my father, brother, stepmother, brother's girlfriend, and husband for my stepmother's birthday this afternoon. I was polite and did not ask her age. :-)

I also was able to help someone out with some Word 2007 issues over the phone. That's a bit tough to do, but I managed.

Yay me.

***

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

This meme comes from The Gal Herself.

Happiness Challenge - Day 25

 

A surprise package came in the mailbox.

My brother sent me two plastic jars along with a note telling me not to deny his brother-in-law his beloved pickles simply because he is clumsy. 

I had to laugh, as I had been researching plastic jars for pickles but hadn't yet made a purchase. My brother said he uses these for pickles. 

So I am happy that my brother thought enough of my husband to send him plastic jars for his pickles, and I had a good chuckle.