Reblog – Veteran’s Day

The following is a post that was originally published in 2012.

With great love and In Memory of Grandpa Ray:

When my oldest daughter was about 3 or 4 years old,  we were at the grocery store one day and there was a man selling poppies for Veteran’s Day.  Of course she loved the bright red bloom and wanted one, so I bought it.

When we got into the car she asked “Mama, why was that man selling flowers”, so I explained that he was a Veteran and he was selling the poppies for Veteran’s day. This was of course followed by another question: “What is a veteran?”  I explained to her that a Veteran was someone who served our country, a soldier. I told her that her Grandpas were both Veterans, and in fact, her Grandpa Ray was in World War II. I told her that we were thankful to all of these soldiers who served their country and protected us and that we should be proud that we had Veteran’s in our own family.  We continued our conversation about Veterans and soldiers and wars for a bit, but moved on to other things.

The very next day we visited Grandpa Ray at his house and my daughter immediately asked him about being a soldier.  I was afraid that this might be a subject that my father-in-law, who was a Marine and had seen active duty in the war, might not want to discuss with a three-year old child.  Ray has always been the “happy man” of the family, our children’s delightful, cheerful mentor and subjects that are unpleasant are usually met with a change of subject from him.

This was not the case at all though.  He took her into the other room and answered her questions and told her about some of his days as a soldier.  I don’t know what the conversation was, exactly, because they were out of earshot.  Ray has never talked much about his time in the service or what he experienced there.  The family respects his silence on the subject and does not ask for many details.  Grandpa and oldest grandchild talked for a bit and then joined Grandma and me in the kitchen for cookies or some other treat, as I recall.

The amazing thing to me is how that short conversation has stayed with her all these years.  She has remembered her Grandpa each Veteran’s day since then…first by making sure we always purchased a poppy and then, as she got older and moved to different cities by phone calls to wish him a Happy Veteran’s Day and thank him for his service. Each November 11 they have talked – without so much as a reminder from me. Birthdays and anniversaries have come and gone and sometimes I have had to send notes to say….”Don’t forget”, but no matter how far apart the two of them have been, they have never missed a single Veteran’s Day.

This year, Grandpa is unable to take her phone call.  He is recovering from a recent illness in a Rehab facility, and his speech isn’t what it once was.  She did remember, though,  and sent him a lovely bouquet of flowers – red, white and blue, thanking him once again for his service. They were delivered on Saturday, because this year the holiday falls on a Sunday and the florist does not deliver.   He smiled with pride when he got them, and I know he was remembering that conversation that the two of them had all those years ago. It made me proud to be his Daughter-in-Law and also proud to be her Mother.

Thank you to Ray and all of the other Veteran’s out there who have served us in so many ways.  We are proud of all of you!

Flashback Friday – 10cc “Hotel”

So many of my life’s memories revolve around music.  Specific songs take me back to places and times in my past that will be with me forever.

Chautauqua Institution 1976. Hanging out in the winter time at the home of friends. Doing nothing, avoiding any responsibility, just being a teenager. Why is it that hours upon hours of total inactivity bring back such strong memories?

We were the “cool kids” – the ones that parents probably didn’t want their children to hang around with.  I was on the fringe…afraid to be too bad, but enjoying the feeling of rebellion.

Levi’s, work boots, leather wristbands. Long hair parted in the middle (on both the girls and the boys)  A pack of Newports in my coat pocket that I would hide before I got back home.

That was the winter that I discovered 10cc.  I loved this song – I don’t really know why.  I still have the album. I think I memorized every word to every song. In order.

Ah, youth.

Flashback Friday – The Carpenters “Superstar”

So many of my life’s memories revolve around music.  Specific songs take me back to places and times in my past that will be with me forever.

I think we were in 5th grade – maybe 6th. That would make it around 1971 or 1972.

I loved visiting my friend Jan’s house. She had a RECORD PLAYER! We sat in her room for hours listening to 45’s on the small portable…changing the little yellow disks each time we put on a new tune. I remember the Carpenter’s singing this song over and over.  It was a love song – what did we know about love? We were eleven!

Her brothers would bother us occasionally, which would result in a loud complaint to her Mom, and protests of denial from the younger sibs. We would slam the door and return to our music. What else did we listen to? Probably Donny Osmond or Bobby Sherman, but I remember the Carpenters the most vividly. I think I still know the lyrics to every song.

Their household was so different from ours. Her family moved to the area from an exotic, faraway place – Eastern Pennsylvania! They knew about things I had never heard about before like the Pennsylvania Dutch. I remember singing the song “Shenandoah” in the kitchen with (or maybe for) her Mom. Her Mom talked to us like we were adults and had certain expectations of how we should act and behave. She was astounded that I didn’t like peanut butter. Her Dad was an executive. He wore a suit to work. He also wore sweaters, like the Dad’s on TV.

We played cribbage in their family room and skated in their basement. There was a button underneath their dining room table that rang a bell in the kitchen. I believe it was put there to call the maid. I don’t think they had a maid. It was cool, though.

Sometimes at school we would switch lunches. Jan would bring me lebanon bologna sandwiches on white bread with cream cheese. I had a “Holly Hobbie” lunchbox. I don’t remember what my Mom would make for her. I am sure it was boring in comparison.

Every time I hear the Carpenters I think of Jan. I am so glad that we found each other again a few years ago via Facebook. We met for dinner a few summers ago and reminisced about all of these things and more. I learned about her family and told her about mine. We actually have a lot of things in common and she is a wonderful, supportive force in my life.  It is nice that we can still find that easy, comfortable rapport.

I went back to the house (where her Mom still lives) to visit with a group of classmates and plan a reunion last winter. We looked for the bell in the dining room, but we couldn’t find it. No matter…they still don’t have a maid.

Coming Clean

I have a confession to make.

I do not own a dishwasher.

I guess that this is not very common these days, but to me it is normal.  In all of my adult life I have only had one (secondhand, portable) dishwasher. It was messy and sprayed water all over the kitchen. It was cumbersome and loud.  I used its butcher block top for extra counter space for a while and stored my Tupperware cake keeper in it, but I think I used it less than a dozen times.

A conversation that I had recently with an acquaintance went something like this:

She “I could not LIVE without a dishwasher.”

Me “Never really wanted one.”

She (horrified gasp) “That is unimaginable!”

By the tone of her reaction you would have thought that I had said that I preferred an outhouse to indoor plumbing! It is true, though.  In my 30+ years up here on the hill I have wanted many things…a hot tub, a sidewalk, even a bathtub for a time (but that’s another story), but a dishwasher is not one of them.

Another friend whose own dishwasher broke down right before the Thanksgiving holiday one year told me that she couldn’t possibly host the festivities without one.  To her the dishwasher was as important as the oven itself!

Don’t get me wrong – when I was a teenager and washing the dishes was a chore that had to be accomplished before I could slip away to be with friends, I hated the job.  I would do anything to get out of it, including trickery and deceit. I would make promises to my siblings that I never intended to keep so that they would relieve me of the job, and I was quite often successful.

When my own children were growing up washing the dishes and folding the clothes were the two main chores that they had to do each day. They will tell you that if I came home to a sink full of dirty dishes there would be much commotion. It is true that when I was exhausted from a long day at the office and needed the sink for meal preparation, I did not relish the task.

The kitchen sink is the heart of our home. Each member of our family has spent a significant amount of time in front of it.  We’ve bathed our children (and now our grandchild) there, pulled up chairs so that they could help us and taught them to do it on their own.  Thousands of basins of soapy water have been drawn there. My memories contain hours of telephone conversations had while scrubbing and rinsing and drying, watching the seasons pass by through the windows that are situated just above it. Gossip was shared, tears were shed, good news was revealed and bad news received – if only those walls could talk! Long conversations had while cleaning up after large family gatherings – holidays, reunions, graduation parties and even a rehearsal dinner brought friends and family members together long after the meals were finished and the table was cleared.

I remember my mother standing at my sink washing the dishes, even as her health began to fail.  She would bend from the waist, leaning on her elbows as she cleaned each plate and glass and pot.  She taught my sister and me that it was rude to leave someone’s kitchen without offering to help with the dishes, and I know that both of us feel the same way to this day. Sometimes when I am at the sink by myself I catch myself standing the same way she did as my back begins to ache from a long day of preparation and celebration. I smile to myself remembering how important this task was to her.

I would love to have my big country kitchen remodeled. I have thought many times about how I would arrange things, and what kind of cupboards and flooring I might have.  I have added marble counter tops, farmhouse sinks and tile floor coverings to my Pinterest boards, dreaming of how beautiful it might be.  The one thing that I never make room for in my imagination, though, is the dishwasher.  To me it is just unnecessary.

Think of all of those missed opportunities for memory making….

“Unimaginable!”

My least favorite holiday

I have to admit that I woke up this morning feeling a bit sorry for myself. Eating, cooking, family drama….Thanksgiving has the makings for a stress-filled day. One that I usually face with a considerable amount of trepidation.

I had worked myself up to a pretty good level of self-pity.  This year felt different. Two of our children (and a granddaughter and a son-in-law) would not be home. Two of our parents (my Mom and his Dad) are no longer here to share the holiday with us. My father has a different living situation this year and it has caused us quite a bit of family strife. I had even written a blog post yesterday to be posted this morning about the reasons that I dislike the holiday (hence the title, previously written).

Then I got a call from a friend’s husband letting me know that her mother had died last night. I haven’t been a very good friend lately – I have been too tied up in my own misery to pay much attention to anyone else’s distress. I only learned that her Mom was gravely ill a few nights ago because I had been so out of touch.  I didn’t know what to do to help, so I offered my prayers. It didn’t feel like enough, but it was all that I had.

The phone call made me think. I have been spending way too much time thinking about how I feel and not enough about everyone else in my life. So many people have it so much worse that I do at this moment. I felt selfish and petty. If I were TRULY thankful I should have realized how lucky I am to be able to celebrate the holiday at all. A lifetime of Thanksgivings had set me up with a certain expectation of what the day should bring, but I was looking at them with the wrong focus.

Tonight I took a look back at the photos that I have stored on my computer of past Thanksgivings that we have shared with our family up here on the Hill. Yes, there has been a good amount of stress and drama during our past 30+ years here, but there has also been much laughter and happiness. Looking in to the faces of the people in the pictures I saw what I should have been seeing all along.  We are, indeed, truly blessed to have what we have here in the place where my husband has spent over 50 Thanksgivings. A lot of living has happened here on the Hill.

I am thankful to have been a part of it.

It’s all over but the shouting…

The laundry is all caught up, the cars are packed and in a little over two hours we will be leaving for our very last “move-in” of an undergraduate student. Our youngest is beginning her senior year of college in a few days and I wonder where the time has gone!

It seems like only a short time ago that we set off on our first journey – to Sewanee, The University of the South – with our oldest.  That 12 hour trip was tackled with my in-laws, who accompanied us to Tennessee, completely loaded down with what we thought were all of the necessities of college life. That was ten years ago! It is amazing that we have spent the last decade supporting the lives of our children in college. Since then we have moved in to three other colleges – St Bonaventure University, Penn State – Behrend and Baldwin Wallace University née College , and we have the T-shirts to prove it!

We have moved our three daughters into double rooms, single rooms and apartments. We’ve carried refrigerators and extra chairs and clothes up three flights of stairs in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity and into basement apartments in pouring rain – assisted by siblings and boyfriends and acquaintances.  We have unloaded in New York, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and met so many roommates and sorority sisters over the years that we can’t remember who belongs to whom.

Sam Walton has been the beneficiary of hundreds (if not thousands) of our hard-earned dollars as we purchased over-the-door hooks, and sticky goo to hang posters, clothes hangers, plastic tubs and shower mats. I have always been the official “bed-maker”. I am sure that it is my mothering instinct that wants to make sure they have a place to lie their heads when the flurry of that first day is over.

It seems as though this is the end of an era for us on the Hill.  Sure, there will be future apartments in new cities with new roommates and perhaps even spouses, but this is the last true college move-in day. As I explained in a previous post, these days are bittersweet to me, as I never attended a residential college. As exhausting as the day is sure to be, I truly do enjoy the feeling of excitement that I get when we arrive on campus – the shouts of welcome from their friends who they missed over the summer, the newly decorated (and clean – for a short time, anyways) dorm rooms, the bookstore, the ever-present oak trees, even the squirrels.

I am going to miss this annual ritual and the feelings of hope and promise that it fills me with each year. I am sure the year will fly by and before we know it we will be leaving for commencement!

Man, I am getting old.

Tradition, Family and Rememberance

Memorial Day has always been a special holiday in our family. For my own children it mostly meant the beginning of summer, a day off from school and a family picnic.  During family visits like this we would always gather around the table and gossip talk and laugh. My girls always liked to spend time with their Grandma Prudie, because she seemed to always have a funny observation or story to tell.  Every year on Memorial Day she would remind us of the time in grade school when she was required to memorize the poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McRae, a remembrance written during the first World War. She would recite it word for word, and we were always impressed that she could remember it all of these years later. We would talk of their Great Grandfather, who served in that war, but whom they had never met. A few years before she died, she challenged my youngest daughter to memorize it as well. She did, and now she can recite it (almost) as well as her Grandmother could! The poem now serves to remind our family of my Mom as well as the soldiers that it was written about.

This past weekend I tagged along with my sister and my 5-year-old nephew to the cemetery to plant flowers at my Mother’s grave and to visit the graves of our maternal grandparents. This tradition is one that my sister and mother shared for years before my Mother’s death. I was never really a part of the ritual, but I respected the fact that they did it together every year and it was meaningful to both of them.  I have joined my sister and her son the last few years to keep her company. I felt that it might be difficult for her to do this without my Mom,  and also because I wanted to spend more time with her family.

Cemeteries have never really been “my thing”.  I guess that I felt that I would rather remember loved ones in places that I had memories of them.  I have told my own family that I have no interest in being buried in a cemetery – I want my ashes scattered and have told them to “plant a tree or something” if they need a visiting place. Better yet – they can go to Mexico and feel my spirit there!

This year Memorial Day  seems to hold an even more significant meaning for our family, because we lost another of our children’s grandparents last fall. Grandpa Ray, who was such a large part of their lives, was a Veteran.  He is buried in the Soldier’s Circle at one of our local Cemeteries.  His stone was recently placed, and Jim and I had a plan to visit his grave later in the weekend.

The time spent in the cemetery listening to my nephew’s observations, and his mother’s patient responses, along with the first visit to my father-in-law’s resting place have given me a better appreciation for Memorial Day and what it means to those of us that are left behind when loved ones pass away. The history that is present there and the lives and stories that the sites represent seem so much more meaningful when there is a recent connection. The love and care shown by family members trying to give something back, to make an adequate tribute, is touching and personal. I have a new-found respect for this annual tradition.

My children are very lucky to have had such involved grandparents on both sides of our family. They had the chance to know them and love them and learn from them. I am lucky that my sister feels so strongly about keeping up this yearly practice. It gave me a chance to think about what family means to me and how much richer my life is because of all of them.

Happy Memorial Day! Hold your loved ones close today and be thankful for the sacrifices of the ones that have gone before us so that we could enjoy this day.

Photographs and memories

I have no photographs of my mother and me together.  There may be some from when I was a child, but I do not have them in my possession. It makes me sad that I can only visit our time together on this earth in my memories.

The relationship between mother and daughter is a tough one.  Women, in general, tend to be comparative beings.  We measure our worth and our esteem based on what we see in other women. Our mothers are our first love and our first rival. As the mother of three daughters, I have experienced this relationship on both sides and since my own mother’s death I have spent a lot of time thinking about the various complexities of how mothers and daughters relate.

As the oldest daughter, I know that I took my mother for granted.  She was a woman born and raised in a different generation. Her experience was of marriage and family and friends.  She had made some life choices that she was not happy with, but she did not feel empowered to modify them.  This was difficult for me to understand. During my own adolescent years the world was beginning to teach girls that they could do anything.  If my mother was not happy with her circumstance, I could not see why she would not just try and change it. As a perpetual “fixer” this frustrated me, and on that level my mother and I did not communicate well.

Despite this conflict, there were areas in which I envied my mother.  She was a friend to many while I have struggled with the ability to maintain female friendships my entire life. She lived in the town where she grew up and those people who were part of her core group had been with her for most of it.  They had strong, long standing relationships based on shared experiences and memories.  They talked and gossiped often over hot coffee at the kitchen table. They sent each other cards and gave each other small gifts of books and trinkets. I remember sitting at the table with them when I was a teenager and feeling like a part of the group. When I became an adult many of them provided me with advice about children and parenting, always available to lend an ear to my problems. I was friends vicariously with many of her friends for a time and it made me feel good to know that they were interested in my life and my own family.

My mother had a wonderful sense of humor.  She was witty and funny and her self-depreciating style was amusing to all who met her.  She would do and say the most absurd things.  We have photographs of her with a hundred toothpicks in her hair, or wearing a dirty cowboy hat from my father’s garage, always smiling and laughing.  One time when she and I visited my sister in her college dorm for a night we actually started to write a book of silly things that she said. Funny statements and sayings like “Do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?” As I sit here now, I can’t remember most of them, but my sister has them written down – we talk of having them printed. Sometimes I will open my mouth and her words and voice will come out, especially when I am talking to my granddaughter.  It always startles me when this happens, as if she were actually here with us.

I was a difficult teenager and I am sure that it was not at all easy to parent me. My mother seemed to take it in stride, though, and she let me make many decisions that I know were not easy for her to watch.  She was often the “middle man” between her children and our father, who was always the head of the household and had the final word on any issue. This was taxing to her and made her job as our Mom even more demanding. She did the best that she could with the circumstances and I do believe that her biggest hope was that we would all be happy and content with our lives.

As I became a mother myself, I began to realize how challenging her job had been.  I have to say that I was not quite so diplomatic at times, and I chose to be much more involved in my daughter’s lives and decisions.  Sometimes my mother and I disagreed on the choices that I made as a parent, but for the most part I relied on her experience and wisdom during many times of uncertainty and struggle with my children.  I feel that often times her guidance was my saving grace during those years, even if I chose not to take her advice.

My children were very fortunate to have had her in their lives.  She is a very large part of their childhood memories.  Our family gatherings were always centered around her presence and we have struggled to continue on without her, as many families do when they lose their matriarch. Holidays and Sunday suppers are just not the same without her laughter and her smile. She took great joy in her grandchildren and always made them feel special.

The last few years of her life were difficult for the both of us.  We did not agree on a few issues, and that caused us to be at odds.  We still maintained close contact, and talked to each other regularly, but we didn’t see each other as much as we should have – mostly due to my stubbornness and inability to understand her situation. As a result, her friends, who I once considered my own had distanced me, and while I understand their reasoning – they were merely being protective of her – it hurts me to have lost them as well.

I knew that her health was deteriorating, but I did not focus on it.  I felt that by acknowledging her weakness I was giving her permission to give up. My mother was a constant to me, and I refused to admit that she would not always be there. Sometimes I feel that I failed to listen to the things she was trying to tell me.  I didn’t hear her voice because I was too busy justifying my own.

At that time I believed that the struggle we were having would pass and we would regain the closeness that we once shared.  I have a picture in my mind of the two of us a few years from now.  My children are grown and we are watching them and our (great) grandchildren playing on the lawn after a Sunday Supper. I cherish this picture, even if it is not a real photograph.

I always thought that we would have more time.

I grew up in Mayberry

Photo credit: http://www.retroweb.com/40acres_tour_pt3.html

That’s the God’s honest truth.  The small town that I grew up in might as well have been Mayberry RFD.  As a matter of fact, many of the people that I grew up with (especially the ones that moved away) actually call it “Mayberry”.  My hometown is a small town on the Northeastern end of a 17 mile lake in Western New York State.  When I was a child there were a couple of factories there, a small school and a relatively busy business district.  You could get anything that you needed there, there was not much need to leave the village limits, and we rarely did.

I was a child of the 60’s; my early childhood was spent in the golden days before the civil unrest of the end of the decade. Our mothers – for the most part – were there to greet us when we came home from school at 3:15 and our fathers were to be feared when they walked in the door at 5:30. Most everyone had jobs that they could walk to and most families were one income, two parents.

There was much about this time (politically and socially) that I do not agree with today, but let me say that it was definitely a time of innocence for me as a 7 year old child.  I was blissfully unaware of things like divorce or poverty. The world outside our own little bubble did not really exist for me.  I had very little exposure to the world as it actually was because our family only owned one black and white TV and my father had control of it in the evening, watching the news (which I found extremely boring) and variety shows like Ed Sullivan or Laugh-In.

My family knew everyone in the small town, from the grocer to the mechanic to the insurance agent down the street.  We lived a block from the school, in the house that my mother grew up in. It was a duplex and the next door neighbor was the proprietor of a ladies dress shop downtown.  She was an older woman who lived alone.  I used to knock on her door and visit with her from time to time.  It was nice knowing that there was someone there – I guess it was comforting.

After school and on weekends all of the neighborhood children moved from back yard to back yard to play and our mothers each had their own special way of calling us home to dinner.  I believe my mother used a large cow bell at one point, but my memory is slightly fuzzy, so this may be an exaggeration.  We spent most of our time outdoors; I still remember my mother kicking me out of the house and telling me to “Go get some fresh air!”

We were sent to the store with a handwritten note to buy a pack of cigarettes for our parents, along with a carton of milk or a loaf of bread. We had Coca Colas at the Sweet Shop with our grandparents on Sunday and for an extra special treat we went to the local “Dog and Suds” for a dinner out (actually delivered to our car on a tray that hooked to the window) of gourmet hot dogs, fries and root beers.

We walked to school, going cross lots through the morning dew, or following the sidewalk plows in the winter.  We would wear sandwich bags inside our boots to keep our feet dry when it snowed, since most of us were wearing hand-me-down winter boots. The school was small, so everyone knew each other – the younger kids looked up to the older ones in awe and fear.  We would pray for specific teachers and be sad when we got one of the “mean” ones – we relied on our older siblings (or in my case my friends older siblings) to give us the inside information on which one was good or bad.

Summers were spent at the lakeside.  The bus would pick us up on the corner to take us to the park for swimming lessons and arts and crafts.  We would eat soggy bologna sandwiches that our mothers had packed for us in the morning for lunch, or if we were lucky and had a quarter or two we could order French fries or a frozen Milkshake candy bar for a special treat.  I still remember the smell of French fries mixed with the damp smell of the towels we sat on while we ate them.

The holidays were a special time when we all looked forward to the annual Christmas drawing.  Each of the merchants would donate an item or two, which would be displayed in one of the larger shops windows for the period of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Every time anyone made a purchase in any of the shops they would enter their name and address on a small slip of paper and drop it into a container at the register.

The week before Christmas, the big event would be held outside on the main street downtown.  The entire community would come out – everyone bundled up against the cold – and wait as each item was given away one at a time.  There were usually dozens of gifts given away.  One year I won a die cast piggy bank made by the local plastics factory. Santa Claus would appear at the end of the evening, handing out oranges and candy canes to all of the children who were there.

In the wake of the events of the past weeks I think about the world that our children grow up in today and I can’t help but be nostalgic for those simple times. Part of me wishes that my own children and grandchildren could grow up in that world.   Don’t get me wrong – my childhood was far from picture perfect, but on days like today I choose to remember it that way.

I cannot imagine my adult life without the advances that were made in the past few decades in terms of women’s and minority rights and modern conveniences. I would never have become the person that I am today with the wealth of opportunity that I have now. My ability to travel and experience other cultures and the fact that my children have been exposed to a world much larger than that small town are blessing that I have been very fortunate to have.

Perhaps it was just my youth and inexperience that make those days seem golden. Maybe most seven year olds look at the world; however changed it is from the years of my childhood, with the same sense of comfort and security. I wonder what my own children’s recollections of their early years will be.  I can only hope that for all of our advances and improvements they can still keep that feeling that I recall. As I sit here with my memories I am so very thankful to have had those times.