Floor Polish and Paint

Dec11

I sat cross-legged on one of the red vinyl and chrome kitchen chairs, watching Mom at the kitchen counter vigorously kneading bread dough. Christmas was next week but I felt like I couldn’t stand the suspense until the big day! I knew better than to complain that time was passing too slowly. Mom’s answer to that was, “Stop wishing your life away!” I stared at the large red and black Stratford State Bank calendar hanging on the side of a cupboard. Some of my nine-year-old classmates at school talked about having their trees up already, but I knew our tree would not be put up until the afternoon of December 24th.

I perked up when the back door slammed. A minute later my 20-year-old brother, Billy, stepped into the house. He was carrying a can of paint. He announced, “I’m going to give the entrance a fresh coat of paint.”

Mom questioned with surprise, “Does it really need a fresh coat of paint?

Grinning, Billy explained, “It could probably wait, but Christmas isn’t Christmas for me unless I can smell fresh paint.”

“How strange”, I thought, “What does paint have to do with Christmas?” I looked forward to things like listening to WDLB, the local radio station. Besides Christmas songs, during the weeks leading up to Christmas, they had a program every evening devoted to someone reading the letters to Santa that children mailed to them. Then, there was my family’s Christmas cookie decorating night, a tradition carried out each year within a week or two of Christmas.

The cookie night had taken place just last evening. When I came home from school yesterday afternoon, the house smelled of freshly baked cookies. Mom had filled a large roaster to overflowing with cut-out cookies. It took Mom, my sisters and I all evening to decorate them. My brothers even decorated a few when they came in from doing barn chores.

Remembering not only the cookies, but Sister Florence’s instructions on how to correctly use the words, “may and can”, I politely requested, “Mom, may I please have a Christmas cookie to eat?”

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Redeemed Souls

Dec4

Mom watched me reach into my cereal bowl to take another candy. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the kitchen table and commented, “Saint Nicholas was very generous with you again this year.” Today, the feast of Saint Nicholas was a red-letter day. I circled December 6th on the calendar each year and looked forward to it with excitement. It didn’t matter that I no longer believed in Santa Claus, now that I was eleven years old. I enjoyed the yearly tradition of receiving pre-Christmas candy.

Happily chewing the chocolate-covered caramel I’d just popped into my mouth, I grinned and agreeably answered, “Oh! Yes!” but with my mouth so full, my words sounded more like I had hummed them. Early winter darkness had settled over our farmyard an hour ago. Daddy and my brother Billy were in the barn milling the cows.

Last night at bedtime, my brothers and sisters placed cereal bowls on the kitchen table where we usually sit to eat meals, as we do each December 5th. We put letters to Santa in the bowls, in which we tell him what gifts we want to receive for Christmas. During the night, Saint Nicholas takes the letters and fills our bowls with peanuts, candy canes, and chocolate bridge mix.

I found my treat-filled bowl this morning when I came down to eat breakfast. Mom let me have a few pieces of candy, but said I had to leave the rest until after school. I thought about eating candy all day!

My classmates and I were restless all day at school and had a hard time keeping our minds on the lessons our teacher, Mrs. Miller, wanted us to learn. Then there was a big surprise after the afternoon recess. When we filed back into our classroom, we found small brown paper bags on every desk. The bags were from Saint Nichloas, and contained oranges, candy canes, popcorn balls, Christmas taffy, and peanuts.

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Necessary but Thankless Jobs

Nov27

Daddy stood up and pushed back his chair. He addressed my brother, Billy, “Time for us to get going. Our cows are waiting to be milked.”

Glancing around at all the used supper dishes on the table, Mom addressed my sisters, Betty and Mary, “Time for us to get to work, too. The supper dishes need to be washed.”

I turned to leave the kitchen, but Betty stopped me in my tracks by demanding, “What about Kathy? Why do Mary and I always have to wash and dry the dishes? She’s old enough to take a turn!”

Grabbing a kettle filled with kitchen scraps off a kitchen counter, I announced, “I’m taking this out to feed the pigs.” Everyone in my family knew I absolutely hated washing dishes and threw a fit whenever I was forced to do it. I usually got away with this avoidance tactic because I was the spoiled baby of the family. Besides, up till then, there had always been plenty of others to do the jobs that I hated. Unfortunately, the dynamics of our family were changing now that the oldest siblings were leaving home.

Mom sighed and nodded. “Kathy, I’ll help you do the dishes tonight.” Mary and Betty disappeared before I was able to melt down into full tantrum mode.

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Living In Denial

Nov20

There are no mice in my house!

I schlepped a bag of Goodwill donations out to my SUV in the backyard garage. Unwilling to make a second trip, I also carried a large, reusable grocery bag, my ten-pound purse and a water bottle. Stowing everything in the vehicle, I thankfully slid behind the wheel and pressed the car’s start button. Recognizing me, or rather, the key fob in my purse, the engine in the smart car immediately jumped to life.

I shifted to reverse and backed out of the garage. The engine of my car usually purrs like a kitten, but not today. It was going, “Ugha-ugha-ugha!” Then, an unfamiliar computer message on the dashboard suddenly popped up on the screen.

Forgetting the errands I had planned to do; I drove straight to the dealership where I had bought the car. After the mechanic there did a brief examination, he said, “There’s a mouse nest in the engine compartment and the mice who live there chewed on several important wires and harnesses that bundle the wires together. Your car isn’t safe to be driven until it’s fixed.”

There was a distinct, dirty smell of mouse droppings in the car when it came back from the garage. Why hadn’t I noticed that smell before it needed fixing? Maybe it was the power of suggestion. My ability to smell things other than orange peels and basil is very poor.

One day that week I found a dead mouse in the trunk. Picking it up with two pieces of cardboard and putting it in the garbage can, I reflected on what the mechanic said I could do to repel mice. Apparently, to dissuade mice from setting up a home in the engine compartment again, I should stuff dryer sheets in various nooks and crannies around the engine. He never told me where to tuck the dryer sheets. I worried that if I put them in the wrong place, I’d cause an engine compartment fire!

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Adulthood Crash Course

Nov13

I parked in front of Stratford’s Allington & Van Ryzen Red Owl store and sat for a moment before getting out of the car. The damp, overcast sky made the day feel like it was much later in fall, and not just a chilly end of August afternoon. Clutching my purse, I slowly walked up the steps to enter the small-town general store. My mission that afternoon was to shop for and buy a pair of khaki pants.

At seventeen years of age, the only preparation for adulthood that I had made was to learn how to drive a car and get my license. Many of the activities that most teenagers experience were not checked off in my life. I had never cooked a meal, thought about what I wanted to do after graduating from high school, entered a store by myself to buy clothing, experimented with makeup, or gone on a date. I was far behind the social development of other kids my age.

Perhaps the reason I was so far behind had to do with my being the youngest of a large family, living in the country on a farm, being an introverted person. I felt afraid of adulthood and thought it was too far a stretch for me. 

Pausing for a moment after entering the store, I glanced around appreciatively. To my right was the grocery side of the store. Although it was small with about four short aisles, there was a refrigerated counter along the back wall with a butcher there, cutting and packaging meat. The check-out register was next to the entrance. I smiled, remembering the times I visited the store with Mom and my sister’s boyfriend was working at the cash register. He liked to joke and tease people, and it felt like he was a big brother even before he really was.

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Garden Report Card

Nov6
Who’s their Mama and Papa?

I waded through enthusiastically growing plants, checking on their progress. The amount that plants manage to grow in 30 to 40 days after the seeds and nursery babies are put into the ground never fails to impress me. Beautiful, large leaves umbrellaed over the zucchini and melons, tomato plants, once skinny and delicate looking now looked like happy, healthy, large balls of green leaves and yellow blossoms. Even the slow-to-start carrots showed up bushy and vigorous.

There were few, if any, weeds around the plants and none in the walkway since it was still so early in the summer. When my eyes spotted a row of stubbles instead of green bean plants, I came to a stop and glanced around. Along the empty row I spotted rabbit pellets. “Those darn rabbits!” I huffed angerly. “There’s so much for them to eat outside of the garden this time of the year, why do they have to come in here to eat?”

My garden building was over twenty years old. The structure was showing its age: wooden boards were rotted; a plastic panel was missing from one end, and the plastic skin that covered the whole building was full of holes. Until it was repaired, there was no way I could block the rabbits and deer from entering the garden to graze. There were several places where the hooves of a deer had punctured holes in the plastic mulch sheets. Where the rabbits munched on low-growing plants, deer nibble on taller vegetables. The peas and sunflowers didn’t survive their midnight snacks, either.

At the end of July, a work crew came to replace rotting wood support boards on the hoop building garden and swapped its leaking plastic covering with fresh material. Before they did the work, I weeded the walkway. After they left, I went to work spreading woodchips on the perimeter of the garden. The rabbits continued to visit, but since the peas, beans and sunflowers were gone, they limited themselves to just eating lower leaves.

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Moon Rock Bread

Oct30
It wasn’t pretty to start with, but Arnie’s photo makes it look worse than it was.

Like the good, brand-new wife that I was, I made Arnie, my young husband, a scrambled egg and fried bratwurst breakfast. This was my one day off from working as a nursing assistant for the week, so I planned to crawl back into bed for a couple more hours of sleep the minute I kissed Arnie good-bye.

After he left for his job at the Praschak Machine Company, the house felt too quiet, so on my way back to bed, I stopped in the living room to turn on the stereo. 

A few hours later when I crawled out from under the covers, the sun was much higher in the sky. I felt guilty for spending so much of my day off in bed, but I rationalized, “I needed the extra sleep because I’m in my second trimester of pregnancy.” From the living room I could hear, “The Age of Aquarius” by the 5th Dimensions playing on the stereo. They were singing, “When the moon is in the 7th house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars…” It made me think of how, though hard to imagine, just a little over a year ago astronauts had landed on the moon.

While eating buttered toast, I wondered what to make for supper. My inexperienced kitchen skills limited me to what I could make. My husband’s brand of pickiness also limited me. He’d once told me, “I’m not a picky eater. Just make me meat and potatoes and I’ll be happy.”

It never occurred to Arnie that he really was a picky eater. He hated most vegetables, wouldn’t eat casseroles, and he considered it fancy cooking when I added a can of mushrooms to fried venison steak. Many years passed before my husband eventually learned to eat and enjoy more than meat and potatoes.

I felt pleased with myself after settling on making boiled potatoes, heating a can of sauerkraut, and using leftover bratwurst for supper. Then, a daring thought came to me. It would be nice to make a loaf of rye bread!

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Fired Up for Fire

Oct23

I was excited and couldn’t stop moving around. My mother, trying hard to button my coat, exclaimed with exasperation, “Hold still!” From where I stood in the farmhouse entryway, I could see through the back door window to a snow covered back yard that I wanted to play in. Turning my head slightly to the right, I could see a pan of freshly baked cookies on the top of the stove. The smell of them made me want one so badly that my mouth watered. Tying a scarf tightly under my chin, Mom exclaimed, “There! Done! Now you can go outside with the big kids.”

One of my brothers asked, “Can we take cookies with us?” Mom got the pan and held it out to us. We each scooped up a warm, sweet treat before turning to leave the house.

Although I wanted to play in the fluffy, white, fresh snow, I dutifully followed my brothers and sisters to the backside of our farmyard. The boys put down bags of household garbage on a small pile of wood scraps and dried weeds. Striking a match, my brother set the kitchen garbage on fire.

The bright orange flame revealed what was in the bag as it burned. I watched it devour a bloody paper that the butcher had wrapped around the stew bone Mom was using to make soup. It delicately licked at a brown apple core, then turned it black before finishing it off. The fire warmed my face as I got closer to see what the flames would do to an empty soda-cracker box. My eldest brother snapped, “Back away from the fire, Kathy. You’re too close to it!”

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The Chaperone

Oct16

I wrung out the dish cloth and laid it on the counter and left the kitchen to look out the living room window to check on my children. I still felt I needed to periodically check on them even though they weren’t little anymore. 14-year-old Niki and 10-year-old Tammie were old enough to take care of themselves while I did housework.

The first few times my daughters played in our backyard when they were younger, I never got anything done in the house because I was constantly peeking out of the windows to make sure they were safe. My friends didn’t seem to feel the need to constantly chaperone their children as I did. Was I an overly anxious mother? My way of thinking was that if one of them got hurt, it wouldn’t be because they were unsupervised.  

The phone rang. It was my mother. She had gone shopping and wanted to tell me about what she’d bought. I sneezed. She commented, “I hope you aren’t coming down with a cold.”

From the window, I spotted my two girls playing badminton on the back lawn. Feeling silly, I paused before asking, “Mom?” 

On the other end of the telephone line, my 86-year-old mother responded, “Yes?”

I repeated, “Mom, when does a mother stop worrying so much about her children?”

My mother answered with a slow, impish drawl, “Umm…. I don’t know!”

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A Famous Relative

Oct9

Excited to attend the fair, my two daughters, Niki, Tammie and their neighborhood friend Dee-Dee, raced ahead of me through the parking lot toward the entry gate. I stopped to make sure my car was locked and was amazed that even this far from the midway, I could hear the screams of people enjoying the carnival rides. A gentle, easterly breeze carried the smell of deep-fried foods to us, but also the smell of animals that were entered at the fair. The unique combination of smells didn’t bother me because through the years I’d grown used to them.  

Of all the Marshfield fairground buildings, the first one and easiest to see from a distance is the huge red one that has a sign on it announcing that it is, “the world’s largest round barn.”  Tammie, my younger daughter, proudly informed her friend Dee-Dee, “My great uncle and his brothers built that round barn!” I smiled to hear my daughter repeating what I tell my children each year when attending the fair.

Knowing that my uncle, Henry Felhofer, and his brothers built this local landmark has always made me feel proud to be related to them. What they achieved was remarkable for so many reasons. The Felhofer brothers bid to the Central Wisconsin Holstein Breeders Association for the job was lower than any of the other bids because the brothers planned to do without using scaffolding.

Although the Felhofer brothers were thoroughly experienced in the building trade, this was the only round barn they ever built. They began to work on Thanksgiving Day, in 1915. Working through a bitterly cold winter, they cut the fingers off their gloves to keep warm and yet be able to handle the nails. Since the building had a round roof, the brothers were not sure how many shingles to order. They made an educated guess which turned out to be spot-on! They had only a handful of shingles left when they were done working. The 150-foot wide, 70-foot-tall barn was completed in the spring of 1916 and used for the fair that summer and ever since.

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