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Birthday Combustion

Aug6

Mom brought a cake to the table and set it down. A single unlit birthday candle stood tall and proud in the center of the cake amid chocolate frosting. I clapped my hands with happy anticipation. We were celebrating my nephew David’s first birthday. He was born March 27th, 1960, the year I turned ten. My brother-in-law had enlisted in the army amid the Berlin Crisis, so he and my sister, along with David, had recently moved away to an army base. Even though he wasn’t with us to celebrate his special day, I insisted Mom make a birthday cake for David.

Taking a wooden matchstick from a box, Daddy reached under his chair to drag it across the rough underside to ignite it. Suddenly, with an aggressive roar, flames shot out of the cold air-return grate next to where he was sitting.

Seeing large orange flames coming from inside the wall of my much-loved home, I jumped up from the table and screamed. As a ten-year-old, I figured that everyone was responsible for their own escape from the house. I ran from the kitchen, through the entryway, and out the back door. A few minutes later, my brother Billy found me standing on the sidewalk behind the house, sobbing. He said, “The fire is out. Everything’s okay.”

I returned to our supper table to find Mom had placed a serving of the birthday cake at my place. It was like nothing had happened. I felt confused and as though I needed to run around the block several times to get rid of the residual panic in my system. A few fork loads of frosted cake went a long way towards making me feel better. I hic-upped, “What happened? Why did the house catch fire? It happened so suddenly!”

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Never JUST Right

Jul30

Mom sat in the front seat of the family car. I and a few of my siblings piled into the back seat. Daddy got in behind the wheel and slammed the car door shut. One of Daddy’s favorite things to do on Sunday afternoons during the summer, was to take slow, meandering drives on country roads. I liked to go along because I always hoped we’d stop for a treat, and occasionally, we did!

As Daddy drove the country roads, he examined our neighbor’s corn field. With an approving nod, he announced, “Mark’s corn looks good. It’s as far along as mine.” With his attention not on the road, the car began to veer towards the left ditch. Mom and the older kids yelled, “Watch the road!” This happened again when Daddy noted that our neighbor Tony had already finished taking in his first crop of hay. Sunday afternoon drives were always exciting during the summer months. My father took his job of inspecting local farm crops then comparing them with his own crops, seriously.

While getting ready for one of our Sunday drives, Mom told me, “We’re going to stop at a custard stand today.” I wondered what sort of treat a custard was. At ten years of age, I thought a custard was just a pudding. A good treat, for sure, but it seemed to be an odd sort of thing to be selling from a stand.

            That day I sat between Mom and Daddy in the front seat, because more of my siblings were coming along. I shrugged and commented, “Okay. I like puddings.”

            Mom smiled as she corrected, “It isn’t pudding. It looks and tastes like ice cream, but it’s soft. Instead of being scooped out of a box, it comes out of a machine when a button is pushed. The server puts the custard into an ice cream cone.”

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Religiously Exercising

Jul23

Because the sides of my hoop building garden were open, I could feel a gentle breeze. But the late May sun made everything within the protective confines of its plastic walls feel hot. There were only four more small nursery plants for me to tuck into the garden row, so I doggedly continued. I made a slit in the plastic mulch covering the drip-taped row. Then I scooped a handful of the soft, warm, moist soil out from the opening. After placing the infant plant in the hole, I poured a cup of water over its roots and covered it with soil. I did this three more times before standing up.

Pulling off my gardening gloves, I sat on the steps of my deck. A small, cool breeze swirled around the corner of the house. It felt good, but I wanted a stronger breeze. It occurred to me that by going for a bike ride, I’d cool off. Moments later, I was pedaling my bike away from home.

Having recently retired from the hospital, I felt fit and capable. I tilled and planted my own garden each spring. In late summer, I washed every window in the house. Before winter arrived, I’d buy six tons of wood pellets and throw the 40 pound sacks into the basement and stack at least half of them. My only physical limitation was the distance I could walk, due to arthritic foot joints.

My life became more sedentary as the years passed, especially during the winter. I didn’t work outside the home anymore and the cold and snow kept me mostly indoors. One day I realized that a stationary exercise bike would be the perfect thing for me to buy to get me moving. At the store I picked out a mid-price one that showed how many minutes an exercise session lasted, the speed, calories burned, and distance covered.

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Licking a Dirty Banana

Jul16
Macaroni and Cheese (Mac) playing with his still new banana cat toy!

“Rasp! Rasp! Rasp!”  A repetitive sound pulled my attention away from the article I was reading. I glanced around my living room, and then with a frown closed the magazine on my lap. Whatever had made that sound was nearby. The dry scratchy noise made me recall the time my mother scraped a knife across a slice of bread that got too dark in the toaster. After having scraped off the darkly toasted breadcrumbs, she buttered and ate the crisp bread.

Peeking behind my chair, I saw my cat Jerry playing with a cat-toy that my daughter forgot to take home after one of the visits she’d made with her cats. Looking blissful, Jerry rubbed his face against the old, soiled toy. Stopping mid rub, he began to lick the stained canvas. His moist, textured tongue dragged across the dry canvas. This made the rasping sound that I’d heard earlier. My mouth watered and I shivered convulsively.

The toy had started out many years earlier as a bright yellow, plump banana, made of canvas and stuffed with catnip. Tammie’s cat, Mac, loved this toy and often rolled around on it and licked it, just like Jerry was doing. After being played with this way for years, the yellow color faded, and the middle had turned brown, as if it really was an over ripe fruit. The banana was no longer plump, either.

I should have thrown the old cat toy out, especially since Mac is no longer among the living. But I have trouble getting rid of things that can still be used. I’m more like my mother than I care to admit. Just as my mother had scraped off burnt crumbs, buttered and ate the bread, I’m frugal. Besides, Jerry obviously isn’t repulsed by Mac’s dried saliva!

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Panning for Gold

Jul9

I carried two cups of tea into the dining room and placed one on the table in front of my daughter Tammie. Glancing up at me, she questioned, “Did you put sweetener in mine?”

Sitting down across from her, I admitted, “Your tea might be sweeter than you like.”

Taking a sip, my daughter raised her eyebrows and chuckled, “It is pretty sweet!”

I offered, “Would you like me to get you a fresh cup?”

“No, it’ll be fine.” Tammie assured me. “I want you to stay at the table with me so we can discuss where we will go for our vacation this year.”

Cupping my cold hands around the warm mug of tea, I confidently suggested, “This is the year we should go to Alaska.”

With a broad smile, Tammie commented, “We’ve talked about going to visit Alaska for the last dozen years. Somehow, it just never happened. Why do you suppose that was?”

Nodding, I admitted, “The idea of going there has always appealed to me, but we never could agree on what we wanted to see or do while in Alaska. We talked about going salmon fishing on the ocean, but I felt really reluctant about it. This year I’ve finally realized that fishing would be fun to do if Arnie were still with us, but not for us to do alone. A fishing trip like that was something he would have absolutely loved, but that doesn’t mean we have to do it! We also talked about Alaska’s gold rush history and how much fun it would be to try panning for gold in a stream. We never investigated finding a guide for that.”

             Tammie added more reasons why our plans to visit Alaska other years just never worked out, “We never could come to an agreement about which cities to visit, where to stay, nor how long to stay.”

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What Was That?

Jul2

The loud, frighting bang against the living room window and a flash of light happened simultaneously. Something had entered the house and zipped past me into the dining room, then I heard what sounded like shattering glass.

What had come into my house? Although I didn’t exactly see whatever it was, my eyes had tracked its movement as it entered the dining room. Where was the broken glass? I got out of my rocking chair to investigate.

Earlier in the evening, ominous dark clouds had filled the sky. The air in my backyard was still, like it often is right before a storm. Standing at my back door, I studied the dark, roiling clouds overhead. Then my cell phone buzzed, and a business-like woman’s voice announced, “Attention please! Tornado warning in this area until 7 P.M. Take shelter now! Check media.”

Having to deal with something scary like an approaching tornado makes me think of my late husband. If he was still with me, he’d probably would’ve stood on the back deck and not retreat to the basement unless he saw, with his own eyes, a funnel cloud approaching. I didn’t want to sit in my unfinished farmhouse basement for three-quarters of an hour, so I compromised by wrapping up in a blanket and sitting in the stairwell to the basement. Fortunately, the power didn’t go out, so I had lights and WIFI.

The worst of the storm passed, so I returned to the living room where I sat down in a rocking chair across the room from the room’s large window. The drapes on the window were open a few inches so I could still see the flashes of lightning. On the television, a meteorologist was pointing to a map, showing where tornadoes had been sighted.

I wasn’t expecting anything to happen, but by chance I glanced at the big window just as a ball of light, about the size of a basketball, struck the center of the window with a bang and I sensed something zipping past me into the dining room and nearly simultaneously hearing glass break.

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Cow Pasture Daisies

Jun25

I rolled around on the grass in the backyard, playing with our beagle, Dopy, and a barn cat who stopped off for a visit on her way back to the barn after an afternoon of mousing in the orchard. Mama cat enjoyed my attention, but she was in a hurry. She didn’t want to miss getting her share of the soppy milk filter from the milk strainer that Daddy threw into the cat food dish when the milking chores were finished.

The June afternoon had been hot, but the grass on our back lawn was in the shade of the house, so it felt cool against my skin. Laying on my back, I watched a few fluffy clouds slowly move across the blue sky, listened to birds twittering, a bee buzzing, a heifer in the barnyard bawling, and the comforting, rhythmic thrum of the Surge vacuum pump in the barn. I loved the sound of it. It meant I knew where Daddy was, and that the cows were getting milked. All was right with the world.

Nearby, Mom worked like her energy was endless. On her knees, she dug and smoothed the flowerbed soil to repair last winter’s damage. Freshly sprouted perennial plants had their dead stems cut away, while annual plants killed by the cold were removed and replaced with new, blossoming plants.

I knew when Daddy finished milking the cows and had let them out to pasture for the night. The Surge vacuum pump was turned off and shortly after that, he came to see what Mom was doing. Excitedly, Mom showed him all the work she had done while he was doing his chores. He admired the beautiful flowerbed arraignment and smiled with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Daddy teased, “Those are pretty flowers, but I saw some that look just like them growing wild along one of the line fences.” Mom made an indignant huffing sound and began to gather up her gardening tools for the night. Daddy gave her a clumsy hug.

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One Job

Jun18

I picked up my long-handled clippers from the garage and walked across the lawn towards one of the pine trees in the backyard. Sunday afternoons are for relaxing and not working, but I looked forward to cutting down the unwanted clumps of false elderberry bushes and other invasive saplings growing under the trees. This one job done on a Sunday afternoon would be easy to do, and a pleasure to have out of the way.

Visiting and checking on flowerbeds around the backyard on this pleasant early summer afternoon was a joy. Birds warbled happy tunes to announce that they had returned from their winter vacations. A busy little wren sang to warn other birds to stay away from his nest. An oriole singing from a tree top sounded wistful, like he was begging for jelly to eat.

Arriving at the tree patch, I stood looking at the plethora of weeds growing in profusion under the pine’s branches. I wondered where to start. The area had never been touched by a lawn mower. I ducked under the closest tree’s bottom branches and boldly waded into the tangled mess. My goal was to cut down the tallest and bushiest first. Instantly, a legion of no-see-ums rose up and swarmed across my face, neck and hair. The small, biting midges got behind my glass lenses and in my ears where they buzzed frantically and bounced against my skin like pinballs in a pinball machine. Sputtering, I spit out the no-see-ums that were trying to get into my mouth.

Swatting at the small insects was futile; they moved too fast. Suddenly, my one, small Sunday afternoon job felt like a hard-fought, protracted war and I was a stubborn soldier who refused to leave until the job I came to do was done. The enemy crawled all over my arms and legs. Dozens of midges started to take samples of blood from my hairline. I leaned over and quickly lopped off the bushes and invasive trees.

            Once I’d accomplished my goal, I rushed to escape. Taking a hasty step forward, one of the plant stem stubbles stabbed me in the ankle. Gasping, I limped out of the bramble onto the lawn. My leg hurt and blood trickled from the wound.

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Precious Essence

Jun11

I wrote a history book twenty-five years ago. It told when, how, and who made Saint John the Baptist Church in Marshfield become the first Catholic parish in our newly formed Central Wisconsin city 125 years before. To accomplish this, I borrowed a friend’s Publisher program. Being relatively new to computers, and totally without instructions on how to use the program, I went to work making a desk-top book.

Saint John the Baptist Church will celebrate 150 years as a parish in 2027. Father Thelen, our current pastor recently asked me if I was interested in updating my history book for that event. I instantly felt panic. I’d changed computers at least three times since 2002. Would I still have a copy of the book?

The word serendipity came to mind when I looked in my file cabinet and saw a CD labeled; my documents 2004. A friend visited me one evening, two years after I wrote the history book. She told me I should occasionally make a copy of what I had on my computer, so if it ever crashed, I would have my work saved. Computer CDs were new to me, but Val had one with her and proceeded to make a copy of my writing program. It was the only time I have ever made a copy of my computer’s contents.

My lack of computer experience and total lack of knowledge of the Publisher program turned making the book into a major struggle. One unsurmountable technical difficulty I had 25 years ago, was how to put pictures into the book. Unable to solve this problem, I ended up taking my digital book stored on a floppy disk, to the printer and proceeded to physically lay the pictures out where I wanted them. Surprisingly, the printer let me do this, and even more surprisingly, the book turned out. I returned all those photos and original documents to the church rectory and parishioners.

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Strawberry Robbers

Jun4

After checking the carrots and potatoes in stovetop kettles, I loudly announced, “Everything is ready. Let’s pray, so we can sit down to eat.”

My four youngest grandchildren, Luke, Jacob, Gemma and Blaise, wandered into the kitchen where my daughter Niki, sisters Rosie and Agnes, and I stood. Looking around, Jacob questioned, “What are we having?”

I’d made a fresh loaf of bread. Rosie brought a bowl of fruit salad, and Agnes brought a jar of pickled okra, and cheese curds to go with supper. Niki made roasted chicken thighs. She instructed, “The plates and silverware are on the counter next to the stove. Mom’s bread is on the counter next to the refrigerator. When you have what you want, find a place to sit at the table. The rest is on the table.”

This was our weekly Tuesday night family meal, where each week we enjoy good food and conversation. When the meal was over, my company started to think about going home to relax for the night. Agnes and Rosie hugged each other, then they hugged me and Niki, then the children hugged my sisters and me.

I stepped out the back door of my house, pleasantly surprised at how velvety warm the evening spring air felt. A chorus of spring peepers from by the nearby river were peeping loudly and a flock of birds in a grove of trees sounded like they were squabbling over which branches to roost on for the night. Stepping out of the house to join me on the deck, my sister Rosie chirped, “It’s been lovely! I’ll see you all next week.” I watched everyone get into their cars and drive away.

From a tree next to the house, a robin warbled a song of praise and thanksgiving. From the top of the yard light pole, another robin joyfully answered. The sound was delightfully pure.

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