Archive | July 2023

Who Knew?

Jul26

 I glanced out the kitchen window and saw a school bus crossing the bridge near our house. Its red lights began to flash as it slowed down to stop at our driveway. Looking into the dining room, where my two grade-school-aged daughters sat eating breakfast, I informed them, “Your bus is here.”

Niki and Tammie popped the last of their toast into their mouths, picked up their school bags and rushed out the back door, yelling, “Bye, Mom!”

From our bedroom above the kitchen, I could hear my husband, Arnie, moving around. He liked it when I made breakfast for him on my days off from the hospital. I gathered what I needed from the refrigerator, set the table for us in the dining room, and began frying bacon.

Arnie walked into the kitchen just as I broke the last egg into the skillet. He gave me a peck on the cheek and asked, “What do you plan to do today?”

Turning away from the stove, I said, “Our garden gets planted today. I’m happy with the nice weather this morning. All week I’ve been worrying that it would be rainy on my day off. What are you planning to do today?”

While buttering his toast, Arnie listed the customers he needed to see after working his day shift at the plant, adding, “I need to pick up supplies, so I’ll see you when I swing by to pick them up this afternoon.”

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Guide Lines

Jul19

Crumpling the notebook pages in my hand, I quietly walked out of the farmhouse. I felt wounded, but I wasn’t crying.  Earlier that morning, I had shown my mother a story I had written. Mom disapproved of something she read and scolded me. The pain I felt was a deep, aching shame. Knowing what I needed to do, I crossed the farmyard towards the orchard.

Our freshly planted garden ran alongside the rows of trees. After tearing the notebook pages into small scraps, the size of snowflakes, I dug a hole in the soft soil near my favorite crabapple tree. Scooping up the white bits of paper, I threw them into the hole and covered them with the rich, dark brown soil.

At ten years of age, I didn’t know a single person who wrote anything other than letters to friends or relatives.  Yet, I wanted to write a book someday. Who knows where I’d gotten an idea like that. The teachers at my grade school certainly hadn’t covered anything like the different types of writing a person could do, nor how to construct stories that had realistic conflict, climax and satisfying resolutions.

The desire to write never left me. Every several years I’d pull out my notepad and do some writing. The people who saw these first literary attempts gave me honest critiques. Being thin-skinned, their advice on how to improve felt like personal attacks. The result each time was the same. I’d throw my notebook back into the desk and try to forget about it.

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Also Known As

Jul12

To entertain my older siblings, I put on an old hat, sunglasses, and wrapped myself in a shawl. Clutching a large, empty purse, I knocked and entered the bedroom my sisters, Mary and Betty, shared. In a high-pitched, whiny voice I announced, “My name is Mrs. Humperditzel, and I’m here to drink a cup of tea with you.” My sisters screamed with laughter and began to ask my alter-ego questions. Mrs. Humperditzel answered in a snooty voice, “Yes, of course I live nearby; in the haymow. I’ll have my tea with lots of sugar!“  

I grew up with several siblings who were much older me. Life had handed me an excellent invitation to be an entertainer, and I took advantage of the opportunity with gusto. My repertoire included several eccentric individuals. Mrs. Humperditzel was an old woman who liked to dress up and make Sunday afternoon visits. Erma Peabody on the other hand was an outgoing woman who did unexpected, outlandish things. My favorite persona was Rosie Spearmint. She was a young girl who lived in the orchard in an apple tree. Her solemn father liked to twirl a button on a string, and his full name was Spearmint Spearmint.

One drought-marred summer afternoon, I took on the persona of a famous mud pie chef. It was so oppressively hot that July day, I didn’t even bother to give him a name. After gathering the ingredients needed to make a mud pie, I gratefully sank down on the grassy lawn in the shade of a backyard tree next to one of Mom’s meticulously tended flower beds. High overhead, the hot July sun glared down on the farm. The dappled shade provided by the young tree gave me scant relief from the scorching summer heat, but I knew that if I stopped moving around and stayed in the shade, I would eventually feel cooler.

I slowly organized my equipment and ingredients on the grass next to where I was sitting. Mom’s old kettle, usually used to carry scraps to the chickens or barn cats, was my mixing bowl. Instead of using a stick to stir, I lifted an old spoon from the kitchen. Mom had used it for so many years that one side of spoon’s bowl was rubbed flat.

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Bat Bouncer

Jul5

I lifted the lid off a pan on the stove, and a cloud of steam billowed up from it along with the mouthwatering smell of well-seasoned meat. I turned the burner off so that it wouldn’t burn. My husband walked into the kitchen just as I was checking the other kettles on the stove. Arnie exclaimed, “Supper smells great! How soon do we get to eat?”

Turning to face him, I announced, “The carrots and potatoes are tender, so we can eat right now if you’re ready.”

While Arnie washed his hands, I called our middle-school aged children to join us in the dining room and placed our meal on the table. I had worked all day at the hospital, so I was happy that I had been able to produce an appealing meal for the family before anyone became grumpy.

Just as I finished my meal, a dark shadow swooped through the room. It was there and then gone in the blink of an eye. Frowning, I wondered what I had seen. Arnie had been about to take a bite of the buttered bread in his hand. Still holding the bread close to his lips, he looked around and concluded, “There’s a bat in the house.” Fourth grader Tammie and eighth grader Niki screamed.

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