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Mary’s Christmas

Dec13

Mary smiled when I walked into her room at the Stoney River Assisted Living Facility. She exclaimed, “My sweet little baby sister!” I laughed and kissed her cheek. She had often called me that when we were growing up in our childhood home.

Holding out a small vase filled with lovely red and yellow tea rose blossoms for her to see, I marveled, “Despite the cold nights this past week, the rose bushes in my garden are blossoming. All the plastic walls of the greenhouse do is block the wind, but that must be enough to allow some healthy plants to thrive this late into fall.”

My sister lightly touched a blossom and observed, “They’re pretty.”

Placing my flowers on the dresser across from her bed, I commented, “It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just a little over two months from now! As a little girl, I loved when you told me your memories of moving into the new farmhouse two days after Christmas the year before I was born.”

Mary nodded and explained, “Daddy said the varnish on the woodwork wasn’t dry until then. A bed sheet was wrapped around the Christmas tree, and it was carried across the snowy yard to our new house. Only one ornament fell and broke.”

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“The Look”

Oct4

I kneeled when everyone else did, but unlike the adults, most of my body was below the pew. Uncomfortable and bored, I hooked my arm pits over the wooden backrest in front of me and stretched out my arms to flop them about this way and that. Hearing the thumping sounds that I was making, one of the children in the pew ahead of ours turned around to stare at me.

Mom cleared her throat. It wasn’t a normal throat-clearing sound. It was a signal, and I knew I was in trouble. To meet Mom’s gaze, we both had to lean back a little to see around Daddy and one of my sisters who were kneeling between us. Mom didn’t frown. She just looked at me, but her gray eyes somehow managed to flip switches in my conscience. Her look made me feel ashamed of how I was behaving. Knowing I’d caused her to feel disappointed in me was like a heavy weight on my spirit.

Being a sensitive kid, Mom didn’t need to discipline me with spankings, angry scolding’s, time-outs, or suspended privileges. All it took to hurt my feelings and make me want to obey, was her giving me, “The Look”.

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When in Rome

Sep20

When I was a child, I loved listening to the radio when Dean Martin sang, “That’s Amore”.

The sun wanted to burn me to a crisp. Quickly gathering as many ground cherries as I could, I hurried into the shady, coolness of the farmhouse. In the kitchen, I dumped my golden treasure onto the table and sat down to take their husks off.

As usual, Mom’s ever-playing radio on the counter was tuned to WDLB, our local station. The DJ announced, “And for all you tender-hearted lovers, here’s ‘Sukiyaki’.” I loved this Japanese song despite not understanding a single word. The tenderness of how it sounded touched my fourteen-year-old heart. At one point the singer whistles the song’s tune. It sounded so beautiful. I wished I knew how to whistle.

From upstairs, Mom’s voice floated down to me, “Kathy, come up here and try on the dress I’m sewing for you.”

When I got upstairs, Mom was still guiding material under the rapidly moving sewing machine needle. I asked, “Mom, can you teach me how to whistle?”

Pulling the material out from under the needle and cutting the thread, Mom turned to me and commented dourly, “Crowing hens and whistling women always come to a bad end.”

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Growing With the Times

Aug23

I pulled the refrigerator door open and looked for possible snacks. Mom, energetically kneading a large ball of bread dough at the kitchen counter, asked without pausing, “What are you looking for?”

Reaching for a plastic-covered metal bowl on the middle shelf, I announced, “I want the leftover chocolate tapioca pudding.”

Still kneading, Mom protested, “I thought that could be dessert with our next meal.”

Looking at the contents of the bowl, I said doubtfully, “It doesn’t look like there’s enough for everybody.”

Mom rapidly cut and rolled small balls of dough for buns as she answered, “Someone must have snacked on the pudding last night after supper. Go ahead then, eat the rest of it.”

With the bowl in one hand, I slammed the refrigerator door shut. Until now, I thought that the round-shouldered refrigerator was large. Suddenly, I realized that I had grown taller than it. Dropping down onto a red vinyl and chrome chair at our kitchen table, I commented with mixed emotions, “Mom, I’m getting really tall.”

Turning away from the pans of raising buns, Mom said, “You’ve grown like a weed the last few months. Ever since you started fifth grade. I’ve been sewing new school dresses for you every week, trying to keep up.”

Putting down a spoonful of pudding, I worriedly questioned, “Is that normal? How tall am I going to get?”

Mom reassured me that I’d grow as tall as the other girls in the family. Daddy walked into the kitchen then, and announced, “I’m going into town to grind oats for cow feed. Do you need me to get you anything?”

“Yes,” Mom said, “Bring meat home from the locker. I want a roast and two packages of hamburger.” Daddy nodded agreeably as he turned to leave.

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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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Haymow Cats

Jun21

Daddy swung a bucket strap over a Holstein cow’s back and leaned down to hook it below. Being a well-seasoned milking cow, the old black and white bovine never flinched. I stood behind her in the barn’s center aisle chattering non-stop as I watched, enjoying the smells, the sounds, and the way the cows acted. My father good-humoredly smiled, nodded, and looked pleased as if he enjoyed a talkative six-year-old’s company while he worked.

Mom called me Daddy’s shadow because I followed him everywhere on the farm. Starting school limited the time I could spend with him, but school supplied more topics to talk about as he worked. This typical summer evening took place in 1957.

Stepping out from between the cow to be milked and its neighbor, Daddy picked up the Surge milk bucket on the limed walkway next to me and hung it on the strap under the cow. Connecting the vacuum tube to a vacuum valve installed on the stanchion, he then leaned over to introduce the inflation cups to the cow’s teats from where they dangled on the lid of the vacuum bucket. He did this slowly, one by one as to not startle the cow. The teats quickly slipped into the cups by suction.

Stepping out from between the cows again, Daddy pulled a washcloth from a bucket of water and stepped between two cows across the aisle and began to wash mud off the next cow’s teats and udder. Just as he was finishing, the milker on the cow across the aisle began to make loud squealing sounds. The cow brought up her hind right leg, as though she didn’t like the tickle caused by the loss of suction. But she didn’t kick as some of the cows would. Moving quickly, Daddy stepped next to her, removed the inflation cups, and checked to see if she was finished milking.

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Something Blue

May10

This is a vintage ‘Forget Me Not’ earring and brooch set made by Krementz. I wish they were in my jewelry box! I only have the posts that I wore on my wedding day. I’d bought them from Zweck’s Jewelry story in Marshfield.

I leaned forward to look closely at my reflection in the mirror. There were just a few more things for me to do to be ready. White wedding dress lace spilled from my lap to the bedroom’s wooden floorboards. Gazing down at the pretty design, I marveled, “I’m getting married today!” As the baby of my family, I’d watched all four of my big sisters get married. Finally, it was my turn to walk down that aisle.

Smiling, I picked up the earrings I’d wear on my special day and thought about the old Victorian wedding rhyme, “Brides should always wear something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.” My jewelry was little ‘forget-me-not’ flower posts by Krementz. Gold petals painted blue surrounded a pearl standing in the place of a stamen for the blue in my trousseau.

Several things qualified for the borrowed item in my wedding. For instance, I couldn’t remember buying the Muguet Des Bois perfume by Coty. A small vial labeled with a spray of tiny white flowers enclosed the cherished scent of a pure, sweet little flower called ‘lily in the valley’. I dabbed some of the precious fragrance behind my ear lobes.

Earlier this morning, Mom had given me one of her old, lacy handkerchiefs for my ‘something old’ bridal goods. Everything else I wore for the day fit in the category of ‘something new’.

 Nervously glancing around, I wondered, “Am I ready? Have I done everything I planned to do?” The pink bedroom I was sitting in had been my sister Betty’s room. When Mom and my sister painted the room pink, the dressing table and mirror frame had been painted pink also. The stool I sat on was nothing more than a small oil can covered with a pale-pink gathered skirt to hide its common origins and topped with a soft cushion for comfort.

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Pronouncing Judgement

Apr5

After noon recess, we found the classroom windows open. A stack of papers on the windowsill fluttered in the balmy breeze. I heard red-winged black birds calling to each other and wished I could go back outside. The custodian started to mow the lawn between the school and church rectory. I closed my eyes listening to the familiar roar of the mower. The scent of freshly cut grass made me giddy with joy. The school day was half over. School would be out for the summer in a few weeks. Beautiful summer was finally returning to Wisconsin after six months of ice and snow.

My classmates and I could tell Sister Wilhelmina was in a good mood. She had a smile on her wrinkled face. At least I thought it was a smile, because that wasn’t something she did often. Standing in front of the chalkboard, Sister shared, “I love the scent of freshly mown grass. It makes me think of my childhood.” After a pause she uncharacteristically suggested, “Someone tell me what they like and will always remember about their childhood.”

A boy waved his hand in the air and eagerly shared, “I have two things. There’s a crick behind our house that I play in, and I kin crawl out of my bedroom window onto the ruf.”

Sister sat down heavily at her desk, clearly struggling with what to address first, his dangerous pastimes, sloppy speech, or his mispronounced words. Having decided, she weakly questioned, “Do you remember the proper way to pronounce words like ‘creek’ and ‘roof’?”

Red faced, the boy nodded and said in a rush, “Saying those words the way you want me to, don’t feel right.”

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Nom De Plume

Mar22

This baby just found out what name his parents decided to give him.

Our teacher, a petite nun, wrote the words, “nom de plume”, in large letters as high as she could on the classroom blackboard. Putting down the chalk, she dusted off her hands and faced the class to ask, “Who knows what these words mean.”

I raised my hand. Sister nodded at me. I proudly announced, “A nom de plume is a name.”

Sister exclaimed happily, “That’s right! But what kind of name?” That question had me stymied. As far as I knew, a name was just a name. I frowned and gave her a quizzical look. Sister explained, “A nom de plume is a pen name, or a pseudonym. It’s a fictitious name that many writers adopt, instead of their own. Does anyone in class know of a writer who has done this?”

One of my classmates tentatively raised his hand and following Sister’s nod, answered, “When I was reading the book Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain last summer, Mom told me the writer’s real name was Samuel Clemens.”

I wanted to be a writer someday, so this tidbit of information made me wonder indignantly, “Why wouldn’t a writer want people know who had really written something? If I ever write a book, I know very well that I would never use a false name for my by-line!”

Someone else in class felt the same way I did. I listened closely to Sister’s explanation. “In the past many women authors used masculine pen names to conceal their femininity. Publishers often considered books written by women a poor investment.”

Without raising his hand and waiting for Sister’s nod, someone blurted, “But Samuel Clemens was a man. Why did he use a fictitious name?”

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