Memory Monday: The Summer of Pies

Once upon a time, a long time ago, we had a house. It was an old house, but we had only just bought it, so to us it was new. We still live in that house.

The house had a yard. This was B.A. - Before the Addition - so the yard was of a decent size, though not large. As we saw it, it was ready to be turned into a veritable Garden of Eden and be filled with vegetables, flowers, and fruit. Our horticultural ambitions knew no limit.

In addition to carving out and building some raised beds, we planted a few fruit trees. Well, it was a few at first. But early success made us (overly) confident, and we started to add. One apple tree became two, then a peach tree joined them, then two cherry trees took up posts on either side of a vegetable bed, and finally a stick posing as a pear tree was planted to fill a small patch of unused land. By that time there was already a flourishing raspberry patch as well as a small boysenberry patch and a couple of blueberry bushes.

Our yard at the beginning of summer: 

A cherry tree is at the left, next to boysenberry vines; the peach tree is at the right

Our yard at the end of the summer: 

Next to the peach tree you can see the newly planted pear tree, 

covered in netting as protection against the Great Cicada Invasion

Much to our surprise, the trees (well, all but the pear tree) started to bear fruit pretty quickly. The cherries were the first to ripen, first a few, then many more, and had to be checked each day. The peaches followed, and they were delicious. My husband thought he was in heaven when the Empire applies were ready to pick.

We reveled in the joy of being able to go out into the yard, pick a piece of fruit, and eat it the same day.

But we could not keep up with the trees. Soon there was more than we - and our friends and coworkers - could eat.

Time to start baking pies.

Fresh pies at first. But soon we - and our friends and coworkers - could not keep up with the pies, either.

I don’t do canning, so I started to put the pie fillings in Tupperware containers and freeze them. Soon we had to buy more Tupperware containers. Each container could hold enough filling to make one deep-dish pie plus another regular-sized pie or several tarts.

Weekends were filled with picking fruit, cooking and freezing fruit, and making pie crusts. Cherries in particular took hours and hours of work.

At some point we lost the battle to keep up with the peach tree. Fruit became overly ripe, fell, rotted. Cicadas, having gotten drunk on the rotting fruit, would dive-bomb us. Peach clean-up was not a pleasant chore.

Finally fruit production started to abate. We felt like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice after the Sorcerer arrives. Even so, we had a freezer filled with 12 Tupperware containers - peach, apple, and cherry pie fillings and even an entire container of raspberry pie filling.

We ate pies up through Thanksgiving. They were delicious, so the effort seemed almost worth it.

The next summer, the worm appeared in the apple. Well, not in the apple exactly. It appeared in the peaches. And the cherries. And it was not actually a worm, it was the caterpillar of the codling moth. I was not going to make pies with worms in them, and without going all out, it is difficult to completely prevent infestation, so this seriously reduced pie production. But we still had to get rid of the fruit.

Within a few years, the peach and pear trees and blueberry bushes were sacrificed when we built the addition to our house. The cherry trees became weaker and less productive and eventually died.

The apple trees endured. We even had our deck built with a cut-off corner so that we did not have to get rid of the First Apple Tree. But I started to cast a critical eye on the second apple tree - it was in the middle of the remaining yard, taking up space and sunlight, and did not bear as profusely or reliably as the first apple tree.

“I think we need to cut the second apple tree down.” My husband, the great Pitier of Plants and Trees, was horrified. So we did nothing for another couple of years.

Then one day I came home to find that he had had the apple tree, or at least all of it but the bottom part of the trunk, cut down.

But it was not the second apple tree. It was the First. I went into shock. My husband explained that the branches the First Apple Tree extended too far over the deck and kept scratching up against the house, and we would always have to be cutting it back.

The idea of cutting down the second apple tree did not die right away; after the addition, yard space was at a premium, and by this time a silver maple had made sunny yard space even rarer. And the shade seemed to affect the quality of the apples borne by the second apple tree: they went from apples you could eat fresh to apples you could only use in pies to misshapen little things that were good for nothing except squirrel and insect food.

A few years ago, we decided to add bird feeders to our back yard. The first two we fastened onto the deck railing. But we wanted more. Over time we added a finch feeder, suet feeders, and a peanut feeder - and we put all of them on the Second Apple Tree.

For whatever stayed our hands from cutting down the Second Apple Tree, I am grateful. The birds love it. Those who are not at the feeders often use it as a waiting area. As our cats will tell you, it’s the best show in town.

First Apple Tree

(now serving as a squirrel and bird perch)

Second Apple Tree with bird feeders

Some guests:

Downy woodpecker

Nuthatch

Yellow finch

Memory Monday: We Were the Brady Bunch of Cat Families

Here’s the story ... of a crazy lady ... who was bringing up two naughty little cats.
Both of them were ... spoiled rotten ... they were on their way to being feline brats.

It’s the story ... of a kindly fellow ... who was raising two furry felines on his own.
They were living ... like wild animals ... to spoil them he was prone.

Then the day came when the lady and the fellow ... met and knew that it was going to be their fate -
That this group must somehow get together ... and they sat down to appoint the fateful date.

The Crazy Bunch, the Crazy Bunch, that's the way we became the Crazy Bunch.


(OK, so that’s only 2+2, not 3+3, and the “revised” lyrics don’t scan so well - neither do the original lyrics. But the story is much the same.)

Episode 1 - In Which We Meet the Brinlee Kids

Fred - the Older Brother - was a charmer and a favorite with all.

He was something of a good-time guy.

Rabbit - the Little Sister - was  the responsible one.

They were the perfect pair

... like bookends

... like yin and yang.

(A college friend’s family found Fred, along with his mother and siblings, in their back yard when the cats were abandoned there. We ran around catching all of the kittens, and I ended up taking Fred. He was with me in my dorm rooms and apartment throughout graduate school.

Near the end of my time in Cambridge, Rabbit was given to me by friends who found they were no longer able to take care of her. She and Fred hissed at each other at first, but then became best buddies.)

Episode 2 - In Which We Meet the Koehl Kids

Eleanor - the Older But Shorter Sister - was a bit of a yenta

and was always telling everyone what to do.

This tiny cat could bend any feline or human to her will 

- or so she thought.

Cinder - the Baby Sister - seemed to be a bit of an airhead, 

but had the sweetest personality.

Her talent was stuffing herself into small spaces.

(Stu took Eleanor with him when he moved out of his college dorm room. His roommate had brought her into the room, but never took care of her and seemed to have forgotten her when it was time to move out. Cinder was given to Stu by a friend who was no longer able to take care of her.  Cinder and Eleanor hissed at each other at first, but then became best buddies.)

Episode 3 - “Together Yet Apart”

Cinder decided to jump into a packing box 

and hope Dad would take the hint.

Eleanor acted out by reverting to old habits 

and rummaging in the garbage for food.

Fred and Rabbit did not know what to do.

They tried to comfort one another.

(When I decided to quit graduate school and get a job in Northern Virginia, Stu and I planned to get married and rent a house in the area. Simple enough for two people with few possessions, but ... there were the cats.

The move from Cambridge to Northern Virginia was interesting.  Stu and friend Dave drove a moving truck which had brake issues, and the cats and I rode with friend Steve in his car. To keep the cats calm, I purchased a sedative from the veterinarian and administered it to the cats right before we left.

Perhaps it would have been better just to deal with two frightened cats. During the entire trip (a long one) they howled and yowled drunkenly: “Aaa-wooooo!” “Yow-rooooo!”

Moving into the house with the cats was no better. For weeks and weeks the cats hissed and spat, chased one another, jumping up on tables, scattering and breaking dishes, and hiding under furniture when they ended up on the losing side. At best they tried to ignore one another, with Fred and Rabbit hunkered down at one end of the house and Cinder and Eleanor cowering at the other end.)

Episode 4 - “Together at Last”

Cinder made the first move.

The kids even started to sleep near one another, 

especially when it was cold.

It was as if they had always been friends.

Finale/Jump the Shark/Teaser for Revamped Show

But there was a new challenge looming 

... even more daunting than the integration of cat families.

Memory Monday: Sweets

I wish I could pretend that I was one of those strong, disciplined, superior people who can take or leave sweets - mostly leave - but I am not. I am a craven, undisciplined, weak slave of sweets. In fact, a humiliating number of my “memory” posts here have centered around or at least prominently featured sweets. Heck, even some of my genealogy foray posts involve “fortuitous” trips to candy establishments (“Knoxville Sights”). Some of the “sweets and candy” posts are:

"Family Food"
“Memory Monday: Sopping the Bowl” (wherein you learn that my family’s taste for sweets was so voracious that we sometimes ate them “raw”)
“Advent Calendar Day 14: Fruitcake”
“Memory Monday: I’ll Have Mine with Sugar”

This last post reveals how truly absolute my family’s addiction to sugar was. I mean, a family where major breakfast selections are cinnamon toast and peanut butter with syrup - that’s ... extreme.

There is even a post dedicate to a sweet drink: “Memory Monday: Iced Tea.” My entry for the GeneaBloggers Cookbook is a supercharged combo of fudge and oatmeal cookies called simply “Snack Bars.” Maybe I should just call this blog “Greta’s Genealogy and Sweets Bog.”

The sweet tooth was inherited from my father, and his was ferocious. Or, come to think of it, part of it might have come from my mother’s mother (“Grandma Moore, Banana Pudding, and the Telephone: An Evening of Terror”). Even my brother had a weakness for sugar cookies that landed him in the humiliating situation of having to ingratiate himself with his little sister (me - see "I'll Have Mine with Sugar" above).

As I have gotten older, the need for a high sugar content has leveled off somewhat, and my tastes have shifted toward subtle/subdued rather than rich. Even so, there are a few sinful, luscious, and adipose-adding items that are still irresistible: my Aunt Rene’s Candy Balls, my mother’s Easy No-Cook Divinity, and my Ho Ho Cake (adapted from a recipe given to me by a friend at church). Here are the recipes:

Candy Balls

Mix together 1 stick oleo, 1 can Eagle milk, 2 boxes powdered sugar, 2 cans coconut, 4 c. pecans; chill 2 hrs. Take out & roll into balls. Rechill. Melt in double boiler 2 packages chocolate chips, ¼ lb. paraffin. Stick toothpicks into balls & dip them into hot chocolate. Rechill. Dip them over as long as there is any chocolate left. For variety, dip balls into cherry juice before dipping in chocolate.

Easy No-Cook Divinity

In small mixer bowl, combine frosting mix (Fluffy white Betty Crocker dry mix), 1/3 cup corn syrup, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1/2 cup boiling water. Beat on highest speed until stiff peaks form, about 5 minutes. Transfer to large mixer bowl; on low speed, blend in 1 lb. confectioner’s sugar gradually. Stir in 1 cup nuts. Drop mixture by teaspoonsful onto waxed paper. When outside of candies seem firm, turn over. Allow to dry 12 hours or overnight. Store candies in airtight container. Makes 5 to 6 dozen candies.

Ho Ho Cake

Cake:

1 box German Chocolate Cake mix (pudding in the mix)
1 bar Baker’s German Chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
8 oz. sour cream
1/3 C. oil
1 C. water
6 oz. chocolate chips

Mix cake mix, chocolate, sour cream, oil, and water together. Mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into greased and floured pan (I use a 13x8 glass pan). Bake for 30-40 minutes at 350 degrees. (I leave it in the pan.) Cool completely.

Filling:

5 Talespoons flour
1 8-oz. stick butter, softened
1/2 C. Crisco shortening
1-1/4 C. milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 C. granulated sugar

Cook flour and milk in pan until thick. Let cool. Place in mixer bowl with softened butter, vanilla, Crisco, and sugar. Beat on high until light and fluffy, about 8 to 10 minutes. Spread evenly over cooled cake to about 1/4 inch from edge of pan. Chill.

Frosting:

4-1/2 squares (1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate
1-1/2 sticks (12 ounces) butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2-1/4 cups powdered sugar
6 Tablespoons light cream
1/8 teaspoon salt

Melt 1-1/2 sticks butter and chocolate. Let cool. Add vanilla and salt to it in mixer bowl. Heat cream slightly, add, and beat. Add powdered sugar gradually. Beat until smooth; don’t let it get lumpy. Spread evenly over filling.

Keep cake refrigerated.


This Memory Monday was written in response to a prompt from Amy Coffin’s 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History:

Week 13: Sweets. What was your favorite childhood candy or dessert? Have your tastes changed since then? What satisfies your sweet tooth today?

Memory Monday: TV and Radio

The prompt for Week 6 of “52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History” is: What was your favorite radio or television show from your childhood? What was the program about and who was in it?

Television shows are a subject that I have covered before, mostly in the two posts below:

Memory Monday: Television

Memory Monday: Scary Movies

This only scratches the surface of the TV watching we did, however. I could go on and list many other shows we watched and what they meant to me - in my pre-reading days in particular, these shows were the main fodder for my imaginative life. They most likely shaped many of my tastes in music, literature, and other arts. It was a good thing, then, that lots of cartoons had classical music, that there were lots of old British shows based on books (Scarlet Pimpernel, anyone?), and there was a lot of good old-fashioned adventure - the past (mainly the old West) and the future were my mental playgrounds. I never did buy into that “Vast Wasteland” stuff.

However, the prompt for this week’s 52 Weeks theme also mentions radio. And radio has also played something of a role in my life.

I remember two radio stations from our days in San Bernardino, California: KFXM and KMEN. These radio stations were, of course, my brother’s choice in listening (see “Memory Monday: My Brother’s Music”), but I was quite happy to listen along. They are the stations where we first heard the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones (and all the rest of the British Invasion). I remember KFXM as being the older, established popular music station, and the DJs had that funny, nasal sing-song delivery that was supposed to sound smooth. The KMEN were the new guys in town, and they brought goofiness and promotions such as treasure hunts into the mix.

During my junior high-school days, when my family was moving around a lot, one of the cities we lived in was Palo Alto, California, which happened to be in range of some interesting radio stations. I had a small portable AM radio (it was 1960s avocado green, as I recall), and at night when I could not sleep, I would see what programs I could tune into. One of my unexpected favorites was a show that featured old radio comedy programs from the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. One that I remember in particular was the "Battling Bickersons" with Don Ameche and Frances Langford. These shows were a revelation to me. I was familiar with all kinds of TV comedy, but on radio you couldn’t really do physical schtick. Everything was in the dialog and the voices of the performers, though sound effects did sometimes also play an important part. This was part of the beginning of my education in the fact that not everything that was intelligent, sophisticated, and witty began with my own generation. We did not invent everything; in fact, we did some pretty heavy borrowing from previous generations, up to and including our parents’ generation.

The next phase in my radio education took place in Boston, Massachusetts - the “Hub of the Universe.” As in, “Live from Boston, Massachusetts, THE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE: It’s WCRB Saturday Night!” - followed by the opening peals of Fucik’s Entry of the Gladiators. This would be followed by Richard L. Kaye’s voice, outlining the lineup for the night, which might include any or all of the following: Tom Lehrer, Victor Borge, Spike Milligan, Allan Sherman, Beyond the Fringe, and many more delectable specialty acts and classic routines. I think I remember music piped in from Pipe Organ Pizza as well. Richard L. Kaye has been called a “connoisseur of music-based humor” (see John Bishop’s article in the Diapason) and truer words were never spoken. WCRB Saturday Night was every bit as much of an education as graduate school was for me. It introduced me to a world that I had actually glimpsed before - my college friends had been big Lehrer fans, for instance, and I was already well on my way to becoming the rabid Danny Kaye fan that I am today. But to listen to this show was to join a veritable banquet of wit and culture - nothing snobby, snooty, or smarty-pants about it. It was a combination of silliness and keen observation, all packed into the late night hours.





I love TV and movies, and radio has not occupied nearly as much time in my life, but I have to say - it has provided some of the best hours of pure fun and stimulation for the imagination I have ever experienced.

Memory Monday: Emergency Bacon

In the meat drawer of our main refrigerator in the kitchen/family room, there is a slab of bacon. It is made by Valentine’s, a business run by a Mennonite family, and sold at our local farmers’ market. In the meat drawer of our second refrigerator (which came with the house in 1983; we only bought the other refrigerator because we thought this one was not long for this world, but it never died, so it is our second refrigerator) in the little pantry off of the butler’s pantry that used to be the galley-style kitchen of the main house, there is a second, newer, slab of bacon.

This is my Emergency Bacon. Bacon is not the first comestible in our family to have the adjective “emergency” appended to it. Coffee was - “Mom’s Emergency Coffee.” That is the second jar of instant coffee that is always kept on hand so that if Mom (me) wakes up, goes to make her breakfast coffee, and finds only an empty jar, there will always be a second jar on the shelf. (Gourmet coffees and coffee made from freshly ground beans in the coffee pot are all great things, but I’m the only coffee-drinker in the family, so I have become used to drinking the instant stuff. I even like it.)

My husband started making sure that we always have that second jar of coffee both because he is a kind person and because it is better for my family if they do not have to deal with a Mom who has not had her morning coffee. And bacon followed that pattern, though kindness, not fear, was the only reason behind it. I don’t eat lots of it, but occasionally like it for “breakfast for dinner” or on my grilled cheese sandwich.

But even these items are not my first experience with “emergency food.” It was probably when I was in my preteens that I began to see the usefulness of setting aside a small supply of extra food. Sometimes it might just be a couple of small sweets for snacks; my skinny Dad had a wicked sweet tooth and dessert and snack foods often disappeared alarmingly fast in our house.

But there were also times when the shelves were pretty bare of food in general and even a few times when I was on my own for a while. So it was useful to have a little extra that would tide me over for a day or two - preferably something that would not get moldy or stale quickly. A box of crackers usually did the job. I kept it next to my jar of ironing money and old silver dollars (which over the years gradually disappeared).

In my high school years the emergency food supply was helped by the fact that we always had a long slab of welfare cheese in the refrigerator. In my opinion, welfare cheese was the best-tasting American cheese ever - great for grilled cheese sandwiches and tuna and cheese sandwiches (my favorite at that time). Sometimes the stash also included a package of vanilla cream cookies bought from a nearby family-owned convenience store. They were not my favorite cookies, but it did not cost much to buy a largish package (four rows of 10-12 cookies each), so they made a good emergency staple.

These not-quite-hoarding instincts have been retained to the present day. But the worry behind them is of a different type, inspired not by fear of running out of food; my husband and I are both employed and we live near a 7-11, which is great for times when there are blizzards or hurricanes. Whatever the circumstances and reasoning behind it, our pantry is filled with large quantities of certain staples and luxury items: next to piles of pasta boxes and precarious soup can towers (stocked up by my husband, who was a Boy Scout for many years and grew up in a family where “Be Prepared” was a sternly enforced rule of life) are five boxes of Farina and multiple jars of my favorite pesto sauce and HP sauce, which are too often hit-or-miss items at the local stores. From need to indulgence; from resourceful to pampered.

This post was written as part of Amy (We Tree) Coffin’s series of 52 weekly blogging prompts (featured on Genea-Bloggers) for writing our personal genealogy and history. The original prompt was: What was your favorite food from childhood? If it was homemade, who made it? What was in this dish, and why was it your favorite? What is your favorite dish now?

As usual, my post has strayed somewhat from the original questions. To return a bit to the original intent, I’ll say that my favorite lunch was a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. And my favorite lunch now? The same thing, only white bread and American cheese have been replaced with Indian nan bread and curd cheese, and the tomato soup is not Campbell’s but Toigo Farms. And sometimes, for a treat, that sandwich includes two strips of last week’s Emergency Bacon, which is this week’s Regular Bacon.

Memory Monday: Home

The challenge for Week No. 4 is to “Write about your home.” For me that would be “homes,” plural. As you might gather from many of my “Memory” posts, I have lived in a lot of places. Some of them I don’t even remember. Either I was too young, or they went by so fast in a succession of moves that they are little more than a blur in my memory.

From my childhood, three places stand out for length of residence and for bringing the word “home” to mind for me: our house on Pico Street in San Bernardino (from about age 4 to age 8), Lankershim Street in Highland, California (first time, from about age 2 to 4, second time age 8 to 13), and the Housing Project on Pecan Street in Seymour, Texas (age 15 to 18). In addition to these there were all the places my father was posted in Pennsylvania, Texas, and California when he was in the Air Force (up to age 2 for me) and the four houses we lived in when I was in eighth and ninth grades.

Me, my mother, and Buster the dog 

in front of our house on Lankershim Street (first residence, pre-addition)

The main quality that characterized our early houses is something I can only describe as “the potential exceeded the reality.” As in, “We can fix this up.” I’ve written several posts that describe the house on Lankershim Street:

Memory Monday: My Playhouse

Memory Monday: Construction

Memory Monday: Junk in Our Yard

Memory Monday: Fire

Memory Monday: The Mulberry Tree

I suppose I haven’t really written much about the house on Pico Street. It had three bedrooms and one bath. It had one of those rambler designs: you entered the living room, the kitchen/dining room was on the right, and the bedrooms and bathroom were on the left. There was a carport in front and a patio in the back. Pretty bare bones, but it seem nice and comfortable to us. I remember the pyracantha bushes and the lady ferns. We knew and were friends with many of our neighbors.

I “visit” the Pico Street house and the Lankershim Street house occasionally on Google Maps; they’re both still there. The neighborhoods look a bit more threadbare now than they did then.

We now live in the same house we’ve lived in since 1983. It’s more modest and decrepit than the homes of most of our friends and acquaintances.  But still, I do not want to move.

Many of our friends and associates are starting to talk about retiring and “getting out of the Washington, D.C. area” - with good reason. As in many “metro areas,” especially those that are not dying off from blight, traffic and congestion have been getting worse and worse and civility is often a casualty of those developments. These friends would like to move to warmer - in terms of both weather and local attitude - climes. Towns and small cities where you can walk to many of the places you need and want to visit regularly. Or even, for a while, cozy little urban enclaves in the cities of their youth, where both sophisticated entertainment and convenience stores are close at hand.

Still, I do not want to move. This is home. We have five cats and a lizard buried here. We have half a lifetime of memories, and I do not want to be physically separated from those memories. There are so many things that need to be repaired and the walls almost bulge with our collections of books and music that verge on hoarder status. But I grew up with “ramshackle,” “needs fixin’,” and “runnin’ outa room,” and I am used to it. So I ain’t moving.

Memory Monday: Shokoladka

Shokoladka was the name of the first car my husband and I owned. The name was given to her by her previous owner, a friend and colleague from work. Her family background was Russian and the little 1976 Honda Civic CVCC was brown - hence the name.

We paid $1000 for her in 1982. She had over 90,000 miles on her at the time. I learned to drive with Shokoladka in a cemetery (see “Learning to Drive in Oakwood Cemetery” at The Graveyard Rabbit of Northern Virginia).

For a few years Shokoladka was a reliable commuter car. My husband drove her the first couple of years; then I learned to drive and we bought another Civic - one of only two cars that we have ever bought new, the other one being a Stratos Blue 1986 Honda Civic Wagon (my baby for 20 years; we finally sold her for $500 in 2007).

We took a few trips in Shokoladka, mostly to New York to visit my husband’s parents. I remember one winter trip when a snowstorm whipped up right after we had started back to Virginia. The heater was not working very well, and the windshield started to frost up. My husband had to drive with the side windows rolled down and both of us looking out the side windows until he could pull over and scrape the ice off. It was so cold in the car that we could see our breath.

It was when I started driving Shokoladka that she finally started to show her age. She had more than 120,000 miles on her and began to get a bit temperamental. In the cold weather she was still surprisingly reliable (with the exception of that heater), but she definitely balked at travel during the hot summer months, often stalling from “vapor lock” when we stopped at a crossroads.

We brought her to a trusted mechanic, who told us that we should probably be looking for a new car. We were reluctant to do so (whether from sentimentality or strained finances, I cannot remember now), so he said that we could try buying a rebuilt engine for her. That is the choice we made, though why we decided to spend almost as much on that rebuilt engine as we did purchasing the car is a mystery to me.

The first rebuilt engine was a bust; it died after less than 10,000 miles. After much wrangling back and forth, we persuaded the company that sold the engine to replace it. The second engine did better, but by 1987 we realized we needed to replace Shokoladka, and that was when we bought Little Blue. We sold Shokoladka to a neighbor family with a teenage daughter for $100, having warned them that Shokoladka did not like hot summer days very much. The girl did not mind; she was thrilled with her cute little car.

As I mentioned above, I drove Little Blue for many years afterward. Even when she was well into her dotage, mechanics at gas stations would spot her and offer us money.

Our neighbors' little boy "driving" Little Blue

Our one non-Honda was a gold 1996 Dodge Grand Caravan. It gave us more trouble than all of the other cars we have ever owned combined. I remember once when I was driving my daughters home from a school event, the power steering went out just as I was turning onto a major road - scary! I managed to get the car home, and we could see that the steering fluid was leaking.

We traded the “Gold Lemon” in for an Odyssey, a reliable car that has moved tons of stuff, including my younger daughter’s harp to numerous events and my older daughter’s possessions to and from college. At some point my in-laws gave us their old 1989 Honda Civic, a little red car that has seen a lot of action, though it is also showing its age now. After selling Little Blue in 2007 we bought a 2004 Honda CRV - my new baby. My husband likes to tease me that it actually belongs to my older daughter. It’s true that I let her drive it during her senior year in high school while I drove Little Red Civic. She was one of the carpool drivers for her high school crew team, and they had a 50-mile round-trip commute to the boat house each day after school, so she needed a reliable car that could hold crew gear. We call the CRV “New Hotness” (points to anyone who can quote the movie this name comes from).

I plan on driving New Hotness forever.

(You can read about one of the cars my family had when I was growing up in “Memory Monday: Our Edsel.”)

This is the prompt for Week 3 for Amy Coffin’s series of prompts entitled 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History: Cars.  What was your first car? Describe the make, model and color, but also any memories you have of the vehicle. You can also expand on this topic and describe the car(s) your parents drove and any childhood memories attached to it.

Memory Monday: Winter

When I was growing up in Southern California and Texas, I would have given an arm and a leg to have snow in the winter. Well, maybe not. You can’t make a decent snow angel with only one arm and one leg.

And making snow angels was definitely an experience I wanted to have. And throwing snowballs. And building a snow fort.

But San Bernardino is in a desert. And northeast Texas is something worse. Winters are mild, which suits most people’s preferences, I guess. But I felt deprived.

Once in San Bernardino when I was growing up it snowed. The flakes melted as they hit the ground.

We got an ice storm in Texas one winter. It created a frozen layer over the ground. No one could walk anywhere for a couple of days, because you could not even stand up on the slippery ice.

My brother Don and I got to experience snow a couple of times when Mom and Dad took us to Big Bear Lake. I can remember two things from those trips: throwing snowballs and altitude sickness.

I applied to only two colleges, one in Texas and one on the East Coast. When I was accepted at both, I chose to attend the one out on the East Coast, because I figured it would have more interesting weather.

It did. During my first semester at Georgetown, we had a big snowstorm in October. Heaven. I could not stand to go inside to study. It was just too much fun, too exciting. All of my East-Coast-born-and-bred college friends laughed at me, but I think they secretly enjoyed it all, too.

I decided to go to graduate school in the Northeast, and the weather there didn’t disappoint, either. As a matter of fact, I was there during the Blizzard of 1978. Bob Ryan, then a weatherman for the Boston area, predicted that we would only get a “light dusting” of one to three inches. I, the Snow Amateur, went outside to look at the sky. It looked heavy, really heavy; there was no way we were going to avoid a Major Storm. I went to the local grocery store to stock up on food. That night the area got between 27 and 36 inches of snow, which formed deep banks in places as the result of high winds. After taking a vote (!?), the powers-that-be at Harvard decided that classes would actually be canceled for a few days. I became acquainted with the pleasures of winter hibernation.

Because we live in the mid-Atlantic area, my daughters have grown up with the Joy of Snow. They experienced the Blizzard of ’96 and, more recently, Snowmagaddon. People with young children learn something about snow-enforced hibernation: Cabin Fever. A couple of days after the snow had finally stopped, my husband and the dad of my daughters’ friends across the street dug a tunnel connecting the two houses. The next day two other dads of friends dug connector tunnels into that. We credit the survival of our children and our sanity to those tunnels and the opportunity they provided for our kids to visit, play, and run off some steam. It didn't hurt that we were within dig-out distance of a 7-11 Store, either.

Daughter B and a neighbor after a snowfall in the early 1990s

Daughter E after the Blizzard of ’96 with a bucket-and-holly snowman

We also learned that our street never gets plowed by the DOT. That is, not until after our neighbor’s friend is able to get here with his plow and do a darn creditable job clearing our residential street. Then the DOT plow shows up and, without clearing a speck of snow off of the middle part of the road, pushes the big piles we have made back into our parking places and in front of our newly cleared driveways.

In between the two storms that formed Snowmageddon out here in the mid-Atlantic, I did the unthinkable: I drove my husband to the airport. What was I thinking? Why had I abandoned my sanity? It was, in fact, one of those times that I knew I owed my husband a Big Favor. And that is the last time I will ever do that. I delivered him and I got home safely. It helps a lot when it’s just you and the Department of Transportation out there. Because Everyone with Half a Mind Is Smart Enough to Say Off the Roads. Did you know that driving down a curving, sloping onramp onto an interstate after a big snowstorm brings many of those same thrills that one gets on a roller coaster? White knuckles optional.

The view from our back porch after the first snowfall of Snowmageddon

Even at my arthritic age, driving in the snow is still probably the only thing that does not please me about winter and snow. Winter is for play, for sinfully long winter naps, and for hearty soups and more coffee than is good for you.

This is part of Amy Coffin’s (We Tree) series of prompts entitled 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History. When the subject is not one covered in a previous Memory Monday posting, I will try to sync the topics with my Memory Monday posts this year.

This is the prompt for week 2: Winter. What was winter like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.

Memory Monday: The Flower Bowl

The inspiration for this story was provided by “The Pink Bowl” at Karen's Ancestor Soup.


It is amazing what emotions can be inspired by a simple piece of crockery.

The bowl itself both is and is not part of a set. It is part of a set because it is one of eight Corelle bowls that we picked up at reduced prices in one of those promotional sales grocery stores have. It is not part of a set because it is the only bowl that does not match the other seven. You know how it is – you start collecting one design in dishes, and the next Saturday when you go food shopping, the store is featuring a different design. “We don’t have any more of the green ones.”

So you resign yourself to having one bowl and three coffee cups with green flowers and the rest of the dishes in the set with a single red stripe. The three coffee cups died the death cheap dishes often meet, but the flower bowl soldiers on.

One bowl has a red stripe at the top, the other green flowers at the bottom – a huge difference

It’s not as though most of our non-holiday dishes aren’t odds and ends, anyway. There are two Mickey Mouse tumblers picked up at a dollar store whose bouncy “old” Mickey has long since faded to ghostly outlines from repeated washings in the dishwater. There is my old chipped coffee cup that has always been one of my favorite gifts from my mother. A very nice, solid off-white dessert plate from a neighbor who sent over a piece of cake and then moved before we had a chance to return the dish. A knife that belonged to an old boyfriend’s mother; it has the initial of her maiden name.

The flower bowl, perhaps by virtue of its “uniqueness,” at least in the eyes of my daughters when they were very young, had a status enjoyed by few other household items or even toys in our home.

It was the dish to have at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The arguments over it started when my younger daughter was barely old enough to speak in full sentences, let alone have the judgment or patience to be able to wait for her turn to use it. And there was often confusion over whose turn it was. If Mom had served lunch, how would Dad know at dinner who had last eaten from the coveted dish? And if Little Sister was demanding and whiny, Big Sister was sneaky.

One day the usual argument erupted. It had not been a good day. Both daughters had long since used up all of their good behavior credits and gone deep into debt at Mom’s Bank of Good Will.

“You had it this morning. It’s my turn.”

“Wanna have it. My turn.”

One double grab for it, an overturned milk glass, and a high, piercing wail later, Mom was at the table with eyes glaring and mouth pursed into that grim line that meant only trouble and sorrow for all concerned.

I let silence fill the air for several seconds as my daughters turned to look at me with wide, alarmed eyes.

And then I let loose. On only one other occasion has the Mom Screech ever been so loud and so long. (It was in the car, after a long day, with two mindlessly arguing children. Oh, so you’ve been there, too.)

Only one lucid sentence was among the outburst of tired, mindless fury: “I am putting Flower Bowl away in the attic, and neither one of you will ever get to eat from it again.”

At the end of it, it was not the “reasonable” older child who broke the second long stretch of silence following this tirade, but the daughter who I thought would never emerge from irrational toddlerhood:

“Please, mama, don’t put it away. She can have it.”

The ensuing sound that resembled air escaping from a balloon was my indignation evaporating. I put the bowl up in the cupboard and cleaned up the milk, with the girls’ help. The next day the flower bowl was out again at breakfast and resumed its daily routine of being passed back and forth between the daughters from meal to meal.

It was sometime after my older daughter started middle school that the carefully kept schedule gradually faded away, though I noticed that whichever daughter set the table for dinner usually gave herself the honors.

And these days, when I put up the dishes from the dishwasher as my last chore in the evening before going to bed, I put the flower bowl at the top of the stack of bowls.

Because tomorrow morning I will take it out and have my cereal in it.

Memory Monday: Fire

My family lived in a succession of houses and a couple of apartments when I was growing up. All were rentals except for one – the house in Highland, California.

That house started very modestly – two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen-dining room combination, and small living room. It was located in a not very posh neighborhood that still retained a rural feel to it; there were a couple of houses on our street that were not much more than shacks. That’s probably why my parents could afford to buy it.

A few families in the neighborhood carried out improvements on their houses and my Dad began to think about doing the same with our house, but we just didn’t have the money. Then my Dad broke his back on a construction job, and the disability check from the accident gave him enough of a nest egg to put an addition onto the house.

The centerpiece of the addition was a living room, and the centerpiece of the living room was a large fireplace with a raised hearth, which extended out in front and to the sides so that there was plenty of room to put firewood or potted plants or even sit down on it. The bricks were carefully chosen in different shades so that it didn’t just look like a solid block of bricks, and artfully interwoven with the brick exterior of the chimney both inside the house and out were igneous rocks of striking shapes. Dad had definitely cashed in some chips with his brick mason friend to get this level of craftsmanship.

It was magnificent. It was the closest I ever felt to being rich and living in a fancy house.

The problem was, Southern California is a rather warm place for most of the year. Sure, there are some colder nights and even a freeze or two. I remember snow once; it melted as it hit the ground, but my friends and I were incredibly excited nevertheless. We danced around and stuck out our tongues to catch the falling snowflakes. 

This dearth of cold-weather days meant that any night on which the temperature dipped under 45 degrees dictated a specific routine: clean out the ashes of the previous (perhaps long-ago) fire, gather some firewood and old newspapers, find the popcorn popper and marshmallow skewers, and light that fire.

It was sort of like a little worship service at the hearth. Finding kindling and firewood was almost never a problem, since we had lots of scrub trees on our property and my Dad knew several firewood haulers who owed him favors. And there was always a hopeful pile of newspapers on the hearth, ready to go into service. Finding the stowed away popper and fresh popcorn, not to mention marshmallows that hadn’t hardened into rocks, was sometimes a challenge, but at least the grocery store was not far away.

Dad and I preferred our marshmallows burned, and the popcorn not burned, though the bottom kernels usually got singed no matter how much we shook the pan. Though the grease and sticky factors were high, it was a delicious meal. And especially on nights that were rainy and actually cold, we felt that we had conquered the elements. It was definitely better than turning the furnace on.

When my husband and I bought our house, there was no question or debate – the house had to have a fireplace. And while the rest of the house was somewhat ramshackle, I think our stone fireplace is magnificent. (See “Tinner Hill: Desegregation, Graveyards, and My Fireplace.”)

But I still get a twinge of envy when I think about the fact that someone else – someone who did not build that fireplace – is worshiping at that raised hearth back in California.

Memory Monday: Voting

The first election I remember was the Kennedy-Nixon faceoff in 1960. I had never heard my parents express political views before (I was only about six, so no surprise there), but I actually heard my father voice his opinions of the candidates during the nightly news. My parents were still Texan enough to be “yellow dog Democrats” and were not bothered by the fact that Kennedy was a Catholic, though my Dad didn’t think much of Joseph Kennedy.

But what really made me remember that election was the fact that my friend Janie and I got into trouble for creating our own play version of an election debate. If adults could go on TV and argue with one another, then we could ape them and add a few childish twists of our own. We decided, cartoon-style, that we would jump up and down on the sofa, shooting water guns and hurling insults at one another. We thought it was hysterically funny; we cracked ourselves up.

But not my Dad. He did not think that it was funny. And my mother did not think getting her beautiful new sofa wet was in the least bit humorous. Janie and I received a severe chastening. No screaming, no punishment, just words. Janie was a much better behaved child than I, and this probably came as a shock to her. Even I had the wind taken out of me. I came away with the impression that elections and new sofas were serious things.

When I went off to college in 1972, the newly lowered voting age of 18 had been in effect for a couple of years. So that was the first time I cast a vote.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t remember much about it. I cannot remember whether I voted through absentee ballot in Texas or directly at a polling place in Washington, D.C., where I attended Georgetown University. But I do know that I voted, because my college friends and I were all excited at being able to do so.

And Nixon was still around.

For years now, I have voted at a local community center that used to be an elementary school. It is now being remodeled back into an elementary school, so this year we voted at another nearby elementary school. I wondered whether it would feel strange to vote at another location, even though I am familiar with the school from the year or two that my daughters were in Brownies there.

But some of the people handing out sample ballots were familiar faces, so it felt perfectly comfortable. I accepted my “I voted” sticker after voting, and felt a little wistful that my daughters were no longer young enough to fight over who would get the sticker when I got home. In fact, my husband and I realized with some chagrin that our younger daughter turned old enough to vote several days before the election and we could have taken her to register to vote.

Our older daughter was set to vote in the 2008 elections, but on the day before the elections she received her crumpled application with a note saying that it had been submitted too late. She had filled it out and sent it off in late August to change her voting place from Virginia to Philadelphia and apparently someone had misplaced it until it was too late. Next time she’s voting absentee from Virginia.

So neither daughter got to participate in what should have been their first election. We’ll see to it that they vote in the next one.

Memory Monday: Unsupervised

I was a latchkey child. Only I didn’t know it. Because back in the Stone Age, when I was a child, most of us were “free-range” kids. That didn’t necessarily mean that our moms weren’t at home when we got out of school, but we certainly did spend a lot of time … unsupervised.

My parents certainly wouldn’t leave me alone for long periods of time, at least until I was 9 or 10. An evening out for them usually meant that my brother would be called upon for duty (see “Memory Monday: My Brother the Babysitter”).

But there were shorter periods of time I spent by myself while my mother went on a quick errand. And there was this matter of roaming the neighborhood on my own….

We all did it. If you had already joined up with a friend for play or you just wanted to spend some imagination-game time on your own, you might play in your back yard. If you wanted to advertise for playmates, however, you played in your front yard. And once you had paired off, if backyard entertainments didn't suffice, the neighborhood became your playground.

On Pico Street, there were no playmates on either side of our house. To the left, in the corner house, lived the Marquioli family. Margaret was older than I and her older brother was a bully. To the right was the Donaldson family. The three children were all junior high and high school age, but this house was a sort of Mecca for Children Who Love Toys, Gifts, Candy, and Lots of Attention. The mother, Kathleen Donaldson, was a generous soul who adored children and loved to give things away. Her daughter Arlene occasionally babysat for me; it was she who taught me how to make paper doll clothes. Another reason I loved this family was that they all had red hair and freckles, so I didn’t feel self-conscious about my own looks. I managed to find various excuses to invite myself over to visit the Donaldsons.

Janie lived across the street and down a house. Janie’s mother always had a disapproving look on her face and was forever worried that we would break something in the house. So we always ended up playing outside. But that didn’t seem to ward off disaster. Janie and I would do experiments. One day we got carried away harvesting marigold seeds and decimated Janie’s mother’s perfect circle of marigolds in her front yard. Then there was Janie’s disastrous encounter with the rock salt we used with our ice-cream maker. Six-year-old child, salt = food, that’s all I’m gonna say.

Debbie’s family lived kitty corner across from the Marquioli family, at the very “edge of civilization” before the desert started. Her family was large and loud. It seemed that everyone over the age of 12 smoked. There was a brother named Arky who looked and acted like a fusion of James Dean, the Fonz, and Elvis Presley. Debbie and I also had a gift for getting into trouble. Once when we were playing “jump across the ditch” I fell onto a cactus in the ditch. Not the kind with a few large needles, but the kind with thousands of very fine needles.

Kathy lived across the street and around the corner. Her parents were schoolteachers and were into health food before it was really fashionable. Kathy and I never did anything risky. We never roamed the neighborhood and usually never even played outside. I usually got bored and left early.

The Pattersons were the last to move in; they bought the house on the other side of the Donaldsons. Pam Patterson and I would often go on our own made-up treasure hunts around the neighborhood, but usually we could not go very far. This was because her younger sister, who was deaf and was not allowed to go more than a couple of houses away without an adult, often wanted to tag along with us. So instead we would plan camping trips. Trips without parents. And without siblings. Just us.

And what was there in our neighborhood that attracted us kids? Sometimes it was the desert, which was filled with road construction debris and an assortment of desert animals. Sometimes we would sneak across the lawn of Old Man Smith’s house. He was a recluse who was known to shout obscenities through the door at Halloween trick-or-treaters or other trespassers.

And our parents? They were around, sort of. If there was a real emergency, we could run home to them. But they didn’t stand around in the front yard watching us. Well, sometimes Janie’s mother did. But mostly we were left on our own to engage in not-quite-dangerous-but-not-totally-safe minor acts of dare-deviltry.

Memory Monday: The Mulberry Tree

When we lived on Lankershim Avenue in Highland, California, there were quite a few trees on our property, but they were mostly pretty scrubby. The locust trees were the tallest, but they were skinny and didn’t really give a lot of shade. Our very small front yard would have looked much better without the row of sickly junipers. There was a crepe myrtle tree, the much beloved pet of my mother (I inherited her love for these reliable brighteners of the dog days of summer).

And there were two trees that produced fruit: the apricot tree and the mulberry tree. The apricot produced fruit that my mother turned into delicious turnovers. The fresh fruit has never really caught on with me, but apricots cooked into desserts and dried apricots are high on my list of most delicious treats.

And mulberries – well, they are not really good for anything but making home-made wine. Sort of like weed strawberries. But I didn’t know that as a child. To a child, fruit = sweet = delicious. I tried them unripe, almost ripe, ripe, and overripe. No good.

It was some consolation that the leaves from the tree made excellent food for silkworms. That earned me the prestigious privilege of taking the class silkworms home for spring break in the third grade. As a result, I was the only child in my class who got to see the silkworms spin their cocoons.

But the main distinction of our mulberry tree was that it served as the centerpiece of the island paradise habitat of the Beach Bum Club.

The Beach Bum Club. Membership: 3. Rex and Doug, the two boys for whom my mother babysat, and me. We were castaways, sort of like Swiss Family Robinson, only with more of a laid-back, devil-may-care attitude. We didn’t really want to be rescued; we liked our carefree life the way it was.

Our wardrobe consisted the cast-off t-shirts from my mother’s of dust rag pile and our own shorts or pedal-pushers, and the look was sometimes enhanced with scraggly facial stubble drawn on using my mother’s eyebrow pencil.

The boys and I tried to put together something that would pass for an island shack, but our carpentry skills were not up to anything resembling Swiss Family Robinson standards. And a tree house – my dream – was out of the question. There was no tree in our yard remotely suitable; only the mulberry tree had anything approaching the right shape, and its lower branches would support only our 5-, 7-, and 8-year old bodies.

So, the mulberry tree became the focus of our very-well-ventilated beach house. Scrap lumber from my father’s garage workshop became sunken ship remnants that had washed ashore and were used for the walls. Branches and twigs provided additional detail. There was a firepit lined with rocks. The shape was something like an oval, with the tree slightly to the side of the center. And the tree? It made a great lookout post. We took turns climbing up and searching for ships with the aid of toy binoculars from the dime store.

I have pulled up images of our old house and yard on Google Maps, and the yard looks even barer now than it did many years ago. The mulberry tree, apricot tree, and maybe even the crepe myrtle are most likely long gone. The physical me lived in the house, but the dream me lived in that mulberry tree.

Memory Monday: Iced Tea

“Got any tea?” This was often a greeting, or at least a response to a greeting, in my home town of Seymour, Texas. You knocked on your relative’s/neighbor’s/friend’s door, they answered “Why, hello! Come on in!” and you asked “Got any tea?” Only it was pronounced more like “Gotneetea?”

This was the South, so we are not referring to hot tea, but iced tea (“ice tea”), the nectar of the South. And it was always sweet. However, contrary to the belief of many Northerners – who may only have experienced presweetened tea in chain restaurants or out of bottles – homemade iced tea is not icky sweet. To avoid “icky sweet” tea in restaurants, my husband the New Yorker and I always order our iced tea unsweetened and then add sugar, but it does not quite get the same effect.

Homemade iced tea had its own little ritual of preparation, and I was surprised when I later learned about Russian tea customs to see that there were actually some points of similarity – well, at least in the preparation. Two separated ingredients are prepared and then combined – the sweet water and the concentrated tea.

The sweet water does not start out cold, because the sugar will not dissolve as well as it does in hot water. Usually very hot water from the tap will be sufficient not to leave any undissolved sugar at the bottom, but you do have to stir for a good while. Ideally the proper combination of sugar and hot water is learned over time in the course of trial and error – it will result in tea that is exactly “sweet enough.” We had a clear glass pitcher and an extra large spoon that were reserved solely for making iced tea.

Next comes preparation of the tea concentrate – and this is the part that is like the Russian zavarka. This is an area where most Southerners are not purists when it comes to bag vs. loose tea leaves and a strainer – you can use either. The main thing is to make sure that the tea concentrate is very strong, because you can always add water if it is too strong, but weak tea is, well … pointless.

I remember that Mom and I had a mangy little pot that we used to boil our tea in. It was made of something more sturdy than aluminum, but it was old, small, dark from repeated use, and kind of banged up. But we knew exactly the right amount of water to put in it, so we never used anything else.

While the tea was heating up, we would toss a few ice cubes (not many) into the sugar water to lower the temperature a bit. The tea concentrate was then added and stirred, and a few more ice cubes were added to bring the temperature down again. The result was not iced tea – that’s what the ice cubes in the glass were for – but the temperature would be something approaching lukewarm, and that could be moved to the refrigerator without disaster or poured over ice cubes without melting them to the point of weakening the tea too much.

This was the drink over which socializing was done. By socializing I mean talking, and by talking I mean mostly gossiping. This was a small town, after all. If someone came over to visit, the TV and radio were turned off. It was a social convention that I never questioned. Visitors received our full attention, even if they were relatives whom we saw several times a week. And besides, full attention has a way of bringing out the juiciest morsels of information from the speaker.

In the course of a visit, one guest, Mom, and I could polish off a full pitcher of tea and make a significant dent in a second one. Our corner of Texas is very dry and large infusions of liquid are always a good idea.

I miss those leisurely Texas social customs. Visiting wasn’t something that was crowded in between work and “activities” – it was the main entertainment and activity outside of work. And to me, “Got any tea?” will always mean “Let’s talk!”

Memory Monday: Housekeeping

I learned so much about housekeeping from my mother.

Most of it is useless today.

Mary Warren’s post “Remember the Basic Rules for Clothes Lines?” at Mary’s Musings reminded me of this.

Clotheslines and clothespins … yeah. And the “science of the sprinkler bottle.”

Clothes come in from clothes line. Clothes are sprinkled with water from sprinkler bottle (Classic Coke bottle with special sprinkler adapter in top). Clothes are divided into “starch” and “no starch” piles, carefully rolled or folded up, and put into plastic bags. Bags are placed in freezer until ready to iron.

Clothespins had their own rituals. Ours went into a red plastic bucket that formerly held a large quantity of vanilla ice cream. These were not the old single-piece clothespins but the spring-action ones. Both were perfect for various craft projects. Second and third grade were big craft years, and around that time a whole bunch of our clothes pins disappeared and became residents of Clothespin Town.

The day Mom and I brought home our first dryer was an occasion of tremendous joy for both of us. We no longer had to rig up an ineffective clothesline system inside the house to dry clothes in the dead of winter and ironing was reduced to a minimum.

One thing was missing – the smell of clothes fresh from the clothesline and freshly starched and ironed clothes. Now we have to add those little scented sheet thingies to try to duplicate those fragrances.

Speaking of science, getting stains out of the carpet was an advanced science. First, there was the choice of cleaning solvent. Then – brush or rag? And finally, should the solvent be cold, warm, or hot and what kind of motion was best for what kind of rug?

These days there are no carpets in my house and only a few small rugs. Allergies run rampant in my family, and it’s bad enough that we have cats (yeah, I know, not smart for a family like ours, but I direct you to a previous article – The Language of Cats – which explains how and why we are Crazy Cat People). I’m more into the Science of Mopping these days.

Not all housecleaning is science. Some of it is art. Like stacking and drying dishes. That was one of the first chores I had to do as a child. The dishes had to be stacked in absolutely perfect, logical, artful order (my requirement, not my parents’). (I still do this in the dishwasher. Problem is, my concept of art is not my husband’s concept. When we’re not reversing the direction of the toilet paper on the roller after the other one has put on a new roll, we’re redoing the loading of the dishes in the dishwasher.) Terry-cloth towels were a no-no. It was bad form to leave little knots of cloth on the dishes. Linen towels – thick enough to last through a good-sized batch of dishes without getting sopping wet – were the thing. The real trick was to rinse the dishes in very hot water (the job of the dishwasher (= person washing the dishes, not the machine) – hopeless case when my brother filled that role) and then let them sit for about half an hour (a breeze is nice if possible). Then one towel will suffice.

Some years ago my in-laws bought us The World’s Greatest Dishwasher. It’s my baby. Stacking is still an art, but the rest is up to Modern Science.

Waxing the floor was also an art. I never mastered it. I like wooden floors better, anyway, and linoleum no longer needs to be waxed.

Then there was The Iron Arm. It was necessary to develop an Iron Arm for several regular and occasional chores: vacuuming (vacuums were hopelessly low-powered in those days, so a lot more movement of the wand was required, and they were also extremely heavy and difficult to lug around), fruit cake preparation (see Advent Calendar Day 14: Fruitcake), and window washing. These days I have a modern, lighter, and more effective vacuum; I enjoy eating my mother-in-law’s fruitcakes at Christmastime; and washing the windows – yeah, I’ll get around to that some time….

By my calculations, I had mastered about half the arts and sciences necessary for the degree of Domestic Goddess by the time I was 12 years old. But modern science has eliminated the need for those skills. However, there is one thing that modern science has not done: it has not resulted in the invention of a Fail-Proof Junk and Crud Picker-Upper. And that’s why, science or no science, art or no art, my house is still a mess.

Memory Monday: My Brother's Music

Once again, Barbara at Life from the Roots has provided me with inspiration for a post. Thank you, Barbara!

She posted about the Beach Boys. I commented that the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean were the soundtrack to my childhood in Southern California.

But the Beach Boys were my brother’s music. That is not saying that I didn’t adore their music – I did – but I wasn’t the one in the family to “discover” or “own” their music the way I did with the Beatles or the Stones. My brother had the singles and some of the albums; there was no reason for me to ask for my own records. (Even though he would never let me play his music on my own.)

Even though I was a preteen when I discovered the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion, all of that music was really part of my teenage life.

But my childhood was defined by My Brother’s Music.

He had only singles (45s) until the very early sixties. And he had those little plastic thingies you had to put in the circular hole in the center to put it on the record player spindle. At some point it became possible to stack the records above the record that was playing, and after it had finished and the arm had retracted, the next record would slip down the spindle. I was fascinated by all these motions and by how the record player always knew what to do next.

I cannot remember the earliest music he would play, though one that has stuck in my mind is the song “Searchin’” by the Coasters. I also remember the yellow ATCO label. I must have been about three then. I also remember “Yakety Yak” by the Coasters, “Wake Up, Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers, “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry, “Blueberry Hill” by Fats Domino, “All Shook Up” by Elvis Presley, “Peggy Sue” by Buddy Holly, and “Chantilly Lace” by the Big Bopper. I remember that my mother loved a lot of these songs, too. Dad was more a pure C&W guy.

But the music that defined my brother’s tastes for me was played by the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. Perhaps that was because he looked like a surfer. He wasn’t one – we lived in San Bernardino and only got to the beach a few times when I was little – but he had the looks: blond hair, blue eyes, tanned easily. And in that Southern California sun I usually looked like a boiled tomato. More appropriate for a fan of the British Invasion.

My brother Don, who could pass for a surfer

But the music of the Beach Boys was so beautiful. Yes, beautiful. The harmonies of “Good Vibrations,” “Sloop John B,” “Help Me Rhonda,” and “California Girls” still give me chills. Other male groups made high-pitched/falsetto singing a part of their signature, but the Beach Boys made it work. It was a sound not to be spoofed but to be emulated.

And then there were the infectious rhythm and fun of “Surfin’ USA,” “Little Douce Coup,” “I Get Around,” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.” All this music makes me think not so much of the beach, but simply of the bright, glaring Southern California sun, long summer days with nothing to do but play and have fun, running through sprinklers, and that pathetic little blow-up wading pool we had. It makes me remember when we were glad to greet the dreaded 12-week TV rerun season, because who wanted to stay inside watching TV when you could be outside running around and acting goofy at 9:00 p.m. with your friends, music boppin’ in the background, while the sun was finally faded away for the day?


The Beach Boys singing "Surfin' USA"