Oh Momma!

Aug23

Trembling, I slid up onto the huge dentist chair. It was big and roomy even for an adult, but since I was just starting second grade the chair felt as big as a room. It was hard and slippery. To the left of the chair was a small round white spit sink. Despite being so young, I was familiar with dentist visits. My teeth were riddled with cavities.

Today was a school day. In the waiting room Daddy had told me that I could either go to school for the rest of the day or go back home after my appointment. In first grade, my teacher had been Sister Donna; this year I had Sister Mary Michaleen. Even though she was older and stricter, I still preferred being in school over visiting the dentist.

I hated the waiting room. I always heard the horrible whine of the drill as the dentist worked on someone else. There was always a bitter smell in the air, too. My brother once told me that teeth burn from the friction of the drill. The smell reminded me of Mom singeing the hair and pinfeathers off chickens before cooking them.

If waiting in the waiting room was horrible, waiting for the dentist in his huge, hard chair with nothing to do but stare out the window in front of me was far worse. I wanted to cry, but my Mama would have said I was too old to do that.

The dentist finally stepped into the room and briefly peered into my mouth at the tooth he wanted to fix. Then he stood directly in front of me and slowly began to fill a syringe with Novocain. It had a very long needle. That was all I could look at as my body went icy cold with terror. Continue reading →

Hot Fishing Spot

Aug16

Sweat dripped off my face as I carried my suitcase from the bedroom to the entryway. Putting it down, I said to my daughter sitting at the dining room table, “The name and the telephone number of the fishing resort where we’ll be staying is on the table.

Fanning herself, Tammie sighed, “Don’t worry Mom. I’ll be fine. I just hope it’s cooler in Canada for you and Daddy.”

Stepping out onto the back deck, I watched my husband tighten the trailer straps holding our boat down. Heat radiated up from the wooden deck boards, making my feet uncomfortably hot. Arnie glanced over at me and said, “Thelma and Gene will be here soon. Bring our suitcases out and put them in the truck.”

Shaking my head wearily, I said, “It’s 100 degrees today. I’m leaving them in the house until we’re absolutely ready to drive away so our toiletries don’t get cooked and ruined!” Continue reading →

Special Treat

Aug9

Nearly vibrating with excitement, I climbed out of the family car Daddy had parked on a side street. My family lived on a farm near the village of Stratford and in the late 1950’s we didn’t visit the big city of Marshfield often. My being able to come along on shopping trips was even more infrequent since I’d started attending grade school four years ago. What little I remembered from preschool visits, served to fill me with inflated expectations.

Mom sewed all the dresses that my sisters and I wore, so I knew we would be visiting fabric stores, but those didn’t interest me as much as the drug, jewelry, stationery and five and dime stores. The first place my mother visited was J C Penney’s fabric section. I thought, “Good, we can get this part of our shopping trip out of the way first, then do the fun stuff.”

Looking at floral fabrics that Mom would sew into pretty dresses wasn’t so bad, but then she sat down at a table to look at pattern books. After what felt like hours I begged, “Are you all most done?” She wasn’t. We visited two other fabric stores. Finally, laden with packages, we visited a drug store for a special hair tonic to prevent Mom’s graying hair from turning yellow, a jewelry store to drop off a broken watch for fixing and a stationery store for a writing tablet. Continue reading →

Holba Dodgen

Aug2

Glancing out the window, I noticed shadows cast by trees and shrubs in the yard had grown long, finally appearing cool and friendly. Sunset was an hour away. Earlier in the day the sun had been hot and the air overly humid so I had stayed indoors. Now was my chance to comfortably enjoy my backyard.

One of the first things I wanted to do was visit my newly transplanted apple tree near the backside of my property. It made me happy to see how healthy his leaves were. I greeted him, “Hello Harold Haralson, have the deer been leaving you alone?” Several silver reflective ribbons that I’d tied to a few of his branches flapped in the breeze, glinting brightly in the late evening sunshine. As if answering a comment he’d made, I answered as I turned to continue my yard inspection, “Yes. It does look that way. Very good. Carry on.” Continue reading →

The Millionaire

Jul26

The school bus lumbered to a stop at our mailbox. I lightly bounced down the steps and ran toward the house across the small bridge that spanned the ditch. Through the years Daddy had taken my six siblings and me to school every morning and come to pick us up every afternoon. This year, only Betty and I were still going to school so we started taking the bus. I was in sixth grade.

 Autumn sunshine was slowly turning the world golden. I raced to change my clothes so I could play outside until supper. When I burst into the living room, I found my brother-in-law Jim plugging in a television set. Shock made me stop and stare. Our neighbors had one, but Mom and Daddy had repeatedly said they didn’t want a television.

Jim looked over his shoulder and said “Hi squirt.” Seeing my surprised expression, he explained, “This is my television set. I’m giving it to your folks because I rejoined the army. Agnes and I are moving.” Continue reading →

Job Related Injury

Jul19

Rummaging through a box in the middle of the kitchen, I said, “I’ll make lunch first, then we can get down to work unpacking the bedroom and bathroom boxes.” I shouted with triumph at finding a kettle. In a nearby box I found dinner plates. I knew there was sausage in the refrigerator, but where was my silverware and the canned goods? I wasn’t about to eat kielbasa without pork and beans!

My Mom, who had come to help me unpack boxes, entertained Niki, my 18-month-old daughter, as I searched for and prepared our first meal in the new house. My husband Arnie had done all the heavy lifting the day before, but today he was steering clear of the household chaos.

When we finished eating, I stacked the plates alongside the sink and said, “I’ll wash these later today. Right now, I want to unpack as many boxes as I can.” My toddler was standing at the dining room doorway. Impulsively, I leaned down to give her a hug and a kiss. At the same time, my daughter joyfully threw her hands up to receive my embrace.

In that one fraction of a second, my plans for the day and my future took a dramatic, unwanted twist. One of Niki’s fingers poked into my left eye. The sudden, severe pain was unlike anything I had ever experienced before in my life. Involuntary tears gushed out of my eye, while buckets of water ran out of my nose. The slightest movement of my eye or eye lid caused the already incredible pain to increase. Continue reading →

Cold War’s Plan ‘B’

Jul12

I stood and stared uncertainly at the flowerbed under my kitchen windows for a few minutes. My hands holding the shovel clenched. I was scared to start dismantling it, but just as scared that if I didn’t start working on it soon I’d chicken-out. This flowerbed hadn’t been dug up for more than eight years. Would I be physically able to pull the dense vegetation apart, let alone out of the ground?

The original four small Russian Sage plants that I’d planted there now dominated 75 percent of the bed. Jammed between them were great whorls of purple bearded irises and purple spider wort that had gone crazy by sending roots to where there wasn’t even soil. Fat clumps of double daffodils fought for space with tall stalks of quack grass and even taller yellow mystery flowers. Continue reading →

Dark Age

Jul5

My dark age years began one evening when I was about six years old and fresh from the bathtub. I’m sure Mom didn’t expect me to slip outdoors and timidly join the game my big brothers and sisters were playing. I was afraid of the dark and had never done it before.

My siblings called the game “seven steps around the house.” They didn’t stop to explain the rules of the game to me, but I quickly gathered that a player was not to be seen by the person who was IT taking more than seven steps. The overall goal for each player to run around the farmhouse, starting at the back door and ending there. The person who was IT couldn’t stay at the back door to tag players as they ran away and returned from their run. He or she had to run around the house, too.

Bushes in the flowerbeds beside the house quivered as giggling siblings hid behind them in the darkening yard. I heard scampering footsteps pounding the dewy grass when players thought the coast was clear. What fun I had! My clean, bare feet turned muddy. My fresh nighty picked-up a grass stain. Continue reading →

Half-Cats

Jun28

I turned off the highway and onto the road where my house is located. Not a trace of the setting sun remained in the sky. Stars twinkled from a dark-blue, velvety ceiling. A bright sliver of the moon smiled crookedly down upon us. Slowing down to drive the final mile to the house, I told my daughter Tammie, “It’s such a nice summer night. Let’s open the windows and enjoy the night-time smells and sounds.”

We immediately caught the faint scent of a skunk and heard tree frogs croaking friendly greetings to one another. Then the beam of my headlights picked up the reflective eyes of a small creature in the grass alongside the road. I said, “I see a half-cat.”

After taking a sniff of the air my daughter answered with a chuckle, “Half cat, as in half cat and half skunk?”

Glancing over at Tammie with a grin on my face, I said, “No, this creature looks like it is all cat. The skunk we smell is hiding somewhere. I’m calling it a half-cat because it isn’t home and there isn’t a house nearby.”

Sounding perplexed, Tammie questioned, “How does that make it a half-cat?” Continue reading →

Stress-Free Zone

Jun21

My heart began to pound. I felt ill with anxiety. Would the man whom I had grown to genuinely like, survive the ambush? Unable to hold still, I jumped to my feet and left the living room. The rest of my family sat still, eyes riveted on the television screen. They seemed to be truly enjoying the movie.

Skulking around in my kitchen, wondering what to do with myself, I wished for the one millionth time in my life that I wasn’t such a big baby. Why can’t I avidly watch and enjoy all the horrible stuff that everyone else watches?

The answer is that I just can’t. All my life I have had a hard time watching movies and television shows. The minute there is tension, violence, or anything embarrassing, I feel so emotionally uncomfortable that I need to escape. One of the last movies my late husband took me to affected me this way. I left the theater more than once and I cried as we drove home. Not understanding why I felt the way I did, Arnie exclaimed, “I’m never taking you to a movie again!” Continue reading →