Get the Picture?

When I was born, one of my mother’s aunts (the one after whom I was named) began a photo album which she gave  to me when I was 13. . . a very wise move, since by then I was all knobby knees, frizzy perms,  braces, and terminal camera-shyness.

The album was a lovely idea.

The photos, all black and white, were taken in the days of boxy Brownie cameras and one-time usage flashbulbs which bubbled and popped and temporarily blinded a generation of startled babies.

I realized later that, although the album was full of photos,  it wasn’t exactly a pictorial diary of my childhood.  My aunt lived in another town, so the occasions that she visited and remembered to bring her camera weren’t that frequent.  A dozen or so photos of me as a baby show me in a sunsuit lying on a blanket on the front porch, along with another dozen or so of me as a toddler in a snowsuit.  A couple of pages were full of my cousin Margaret and me about 3 or 4, wearing the same plaid dresses in every picture.  After that, it skipped to a spring when I was 7 or 8.   I can tell that it was Easter by the corsage pinned to my jacket (which was called a “topper”) and my sporty white tam.

Welcome to the pre-digital camera age.

I got through childhood in four outfits.

When Dearly Beloved and I bought an expensive 35mm camera, digital cameras were already becoming popular, but we were purists.  Besides, DB was mightily impressed that big green camera case on a strap around his neck made him look so official that a press pass would have been superfluous.  He assumed the role of Photographer Pompous Presidentus.

He bought a magnifying lens after an impressive demonstration by the sales clerk allowed  him to read the Do not leave child unattended warning on a shopping cart left in the back of the parking lot across from the store.   I doubt that the lens cap was ever removed from that sucker.

Nevertheless, DB’s photography sessions mimicked my aunt’s except that his rarely included people.  The envelope of photos he’d probably have called Cardinal, would have been more aptly identified as Red Dot on a Branch.

The camera broke, the manufacturer went out of business, and we bought a Point and Shoot in which DB has absolutely no interest.  BUT, even though he protested when Good Egg Son gave him an iPhone for his birthday, he has surprised us by becoming an iPhone Fiend, regularly e-mailing pictures, especially to our kids.

Many are taken while walking on the beach.  He called this one Mother and Daughter in the subject line of his e-mail and included a note that he’d asked the woman’s permission before he snapped it.

Slacker explained the marijuana haze just ahead of him as he walked back to his car.

DB is merciless about sending pictures of sailboats and ocean waves to our son and SIL’s… during their working hours, of course.  They’re clearly recognizable as boats, not dots on the sea.   This one looks like an oil canvas to me.

Here’s  my current favorite.  He took it a couple of weeks ago, looking out the sunroom windows.  He thought of it as Reflections.

Thinking back to that red dot on the branch, I’d call it  Enlightened.

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
John Steinbeck

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?
Paul Sweeney

Anyone ‘Comin Thro The Rye’?

A British friend–the same friend who introduced me to Pimm’s Cup at a most memorable luncheon –wrote that she and her husband are hosting a party on January 25.  I love hearing about what is going on with her and I found this one especially fascinating.

The print on her e-mail was small and I read it as B-U-M-S night supper.  Her menu– Cullen Skink soup, haggis, bashed neaps and taties– didn’t disabuse me of that notion until I googled the various dishes to see what they were.  Turns out it’s a BURNS Night Supper to commemorate the birthdate of beloved Scottish poet Robert Burns.  His admirers have been holding these suppers for over 200 years, but don’t feel too bad if you have never attended one.  Meal-wise, you haven’t missed much; they serve the same thing every year.

As for the haggis, several of the websites I visited advised one to “eat it, don’t think about what’s in it.”  Easier said than done, I imagine, since haggis consists of sheep’s offal, tripe, suet, oatmeal, and spices cooked in a sheep’s stomach.  Traditionally it’s boiled, but I found baked and even deep-fried recipes… as if the cooking method is what is troubling about the dish.

I don’t think A-1, Heinz 57, or catsup are up to the challenge either.

Having a Burns Night Supper without haggis would probably be worse than having a wiener roast without hot dogs.  After all, has anyone penned an eight-verse ode to a weenie.  (Perhaps it is worth mentioning that Burns also wrote six verses in Address to a Toothache, so an appropriate excuse for not eating the haggis might be that you are in need of a root canal.)

Yesterday’s e-mail from my friend sounded a bit anxious.  Some of her guests are “finding all kinds of excuses” not to eat haggis, including one who claims an allergy to onions.  My friend doesn’t understand it.  She said,  ”We used to boil up most of that stuff for our dogs and they seemed to like it.”

The neaps and taties–turnips or rutabagas and potatoes–sound divine by comparison.  I asked whether she’d considered one of the recipes out there for vegetarian haggis, but she fears flipping Robbie in his grave with the vegetarian substitution.  You can see why.  The man was definitely a carnivore.   Here’s his Selkirk Grace which is always recited at the suppers:

Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.

Even if there is not be a bagpiper in the group, Burns’ music should be a part of the evening and it always ends with Auld Lang Syne, which Burns loved, even if he didn’t write it.  Male guests wear kilts; it’s definitely a tartan night.  I’m not sure about the women.  How about something in a red, red rosy color?

There are speeches, toasts, recitations, songs, and plenty to drink–Scotch, of course, and perhaps wine as well.  Dessert, my friend says, will be shortbread and Cranachan–raspberries, cream, honey, Scotch, and toasted oatmeal are the main ingredients.  For awhile there she was considering clootie dumplings, but dismissed them as being “awfully stodgy.”

Too bad it wasn’t Burns who said that life is uncertain; eat dessert first.

My friend is holding her Burns Night Supper at her home, which was built about 300 years before Burns was even born.  (I don’t think she’d mind my sharing this picture.  She sent it to me last spring when we were trading gardening photos.  Note the thatched roof.)

If it’s too late for you to plan your own Burns Night Supper this year, how about a simpler commemoration? How about a nice bowl of cock a leekie soup and a toast with a raised tumbler of Scotch?  It’s exactly what it sounds like: chicken and leek soup with barley.

At least listen to Eddi Reader’s rendition of a favorite poem.  This is from her album of the songs of Robert Burns.

The Poke Salad Saga

Here’s another one of Dearly Beloved’s stories from his college days on the cattle ranch.

POKE SALAD

Yes, poke salad is real.  I had never had it unt il my junior year in college.  I was staying at a boarding house in the small town near the cattle farm where I worked.  After my morning classes I would go back to the boarding house and have lunch in the dining room with the locals.  Mr. and Mrs. S. ran the boarding house and turned the dining room into a family style restaurant at mealtimes.  Mrs. S. was an excellent cook and was well known for “down home” meals.

Prior to running the boarding house, Mr. and Mrs. S. ran a small restaurant in town, and Mrs. S. also cooked for the jail where Mr. S. was the jailer, working for the sheriff.  Mr. S. was a lazy man.  I’m not sure why they went into the boarding house business.  Maybe being the jailer was too much like work for Mr. S.  In any event, Mrs. S. did all the work at the boarding house, from cleaning the rooms, buying the groceries to cooking and serving the meals.  She was as industrious as Mr. S. was lazy.

She was slightly plump, wore a hairnet over her salt and pepper hair that was generally in a bun.  She always wore an apron except when she sat in one of the rocking chairs on the wrap around front porch.  This happened most nights after she had cooked three meals for 5 to 15 or so at each sitting, cleaned the house and taken care of the other chores.  She did this all with a smile, but there was a furrow in her forehead that never left.  In the evening, when everything was quiet and her work done, she would take off her apron and almost ceremoniously fold it over her rocking chair’s arm and sit peacefully.

There were five boarding rooms with two or three occupied by regulars and the others by short-timers that would stay for one night up to a month or so.  She was careful not to rent to troublemakers, but there were several who had checkered pasts.  Mr. S. was quick to declare his friendliness with Sheriff C., who lived around the corner, so there was never any real trouble.  Mrs. S. was nice to everyone.  Not so much, Mr. S.

Mr. S. was a big man, well over 6-feet.  He had broad shoulders, large hands, but looked soft, and he was.  He had red hair, a large hooknose and always wore a 10-gallon cowboy hat, except when he was eating.  He had no teeth.  Well, he had some, but never put them in.  Eating was somewhat of a problem, but he accomplished it nonetheless.  He was partial to Mrs. S.’s biscuits with honey and chicken and dumplings.  He constantly smoked Pall Mall cigarettes through an FDR type cigarette holder.  There was nothing else about him that would remind you of FDR, other than he was always sitting.  His favorite TV program was “The Rifleman”, which he never missed.  He was fond of saying “Wooo!” about things he liked, which he would say about most anything the Rifleman did.

After lunch each day, I would change clothes and go work at the farm.  One afternoon I was trying to build a new feed trough for the cattle.  I wasn’t having much success.  The incessant cackling of a bantam rooster increased my exasperation.  Just when I slammed the hammer into my thumb, the rooster ran across the yard.  He was about 20 yards away, but seemed like he was in my ear, cackling louder than ever.  Now it sounded more like a loud laugh.  I turned and in one motion threw the hammer at him.  The hammerhead hit him in his head.  He was dead immediately.

The rooster was wild and had hung around the barn living off of whatever bugs and seed he could find.  Apparently he had not done too good a job of it because he was skinny.  Nevertheless, I thought Mrs. S. could put him to good use, so I put him in a burlap bag and headed to the boarding house.

I arrived several hours before I normally did and Mrs. S. was in the kitchen.  She was delighted when I showed her the rooster.  She had planned for supper to be a redo of lunch.  In addition to Mr. S., there were others who would have supper that also had lunch there.  She was ingenious at leftovers, but there was only so much even she could do.  And she took pride in her meals.

She immediately began work on the rooster and asked me to go outside and pick some poke.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  She said, “It looks like a cross between dandelions and turnips.  It’s wild.  You’ll know it when you see it.”  Outside I went.  I knew it when I saw it, picked a grocery bag full and brought it in.

She said she didn’t need my help any more.  She would call me for supper.  I went upstairs to study.

Dinner came and she had a nice crowd of about 10 or so.  The menu was chicken and dumplings cooked with more butter, pepper and salt than normal.  The green side was poke salad.

When I sat down, Mrs. S. put a finger to her lips signaling me to say nothing.  The normal chatter included compliments about Mrs. S.’s cooking and this night was no different.  Mr. S. let out a “Wooo” when he tasted the chicken and dumplings.  She had worked magic cooking that tough skinny old rooster.  We had homemade chocolate pie for dessert.

Later that evening, I went out.  As I drove away I saw Mrs. S. sitting peacefully by herself on the front porch, her apron folded neatly on her rocker.

Cowed!

I’ve mentioned before that Dearly Beloved ran a cattle farm one year when he was a full-time college student.  His stories about that period are alternately funny, sad, and amazing.  It was a memorable year for him.

He has kept the book he used to consult about raising Angus cattle and it holds a place of honor on a shelf alongside a photo of our family at a Cubs game and a purple pencil cup that daughter Pogo made for him when she was in kindergarten.

(He also holds on to at least a half-dozen broken briefcases, his entry numbers from races he ran years ago, and several pairs of old tennis shoes “for working out in the yard.” But that’s beside the point.)

This video of a Utah jazz band playing for a herd of cattle in France is familiar to about 4,000,000+ people, but when someone sent it to me again recently, I showed it to DB, thinking he would like it, too.  The video links are being temperamental, but you can see the ‘official’ version on the band’s website.

He was not impressed.

“That’s nothing.  I used to yell ‘Hoooooo, COW’ and 300 cows would come running.”

I’ve been telling him that he should write a book about that year.  He has written a few stories and maybe I’ll post some if he agrees.  It’s a shame he has no pictures from that time.  I suppose I could video him doing his cow call.

Wouldn’t it be hilarious if Miss Piggy came running.

City Lights, Pretty Lights

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“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

’tis indeed the season of miracles… a squirrel, a mouse, and a rabbit pictured here and not a curse word in sight. . . !

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Abridgement

While we were in West Virginia for our By-gosh-we-actually-pulled-this-off Thanksgiving weekend, the whole family visited the New River Gorge Bridge Visitors’ Center, run by the National Park Service.  We had driven across the bridge to get to our destination, but to really appreciate the marvel of engineering, the bridge has to be seen from below.  For instance, here is the view when we were crossing the bridge.  It didn’t feel or sound like a bridge, so as long as I kept my eyes shut or straight ahead (after making sure Dearly Beloved had both hands on the steering wheel) I didn’t get bridge-o-phobia.  

The strip of road visible in the photo below is actually part of the bridge.  The steps are a pathway to an observation deck…

…where I took this picture. To clarify, cars ride atop the bridge.  That ^^^^ section just underneath it is open for walking (it’s even handicapped accessible) should strolling on an two-ft. wide, 876-ft. high catwalk for 1/4 mile strike your fancy.  My fancy remained unstruck.  It’s the fifth highest vehicular bridge in the world.  The Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, and the Lincoln Memorial could be stacked atop each other and pass underneath with enough clearance to spare for you to hop aboard.

The gorge was so deep that this is as close as I got to the river:

The hardier members of our group took a second hike, this one on Kaymoor Miners Trail. which took them down to the New River and the ghost town of Kaymoor, one of about 60 towns built along the New River after the (1873) completion of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad opened the area to coal mining.  Everything in the towns was owned by the coal companies– schools, churches, saloons, pool halls, stores, scrip*, theaters, houses, as well as the coke ovens, tipples, and other structures used in mining.  In reality, there were four Kaymoors- two in the gorge, one on the rim of the canyon, and one where the south pier of the arch bridge is located.

The coal camp towns were so remote that when coal became scarce in a vein, that town was simply abandoned.  The ruins of the ghost town my family visited are now owned by the National Park Service and were reached by a strenuous trail which ended in  a 821- stairstep descent.  (And what goes down, DEFINITELY wants to get back up!)

In 1978, the National Park Service took over about 53 miles along the river to protect and maintain the area.  The cleanup and management efforts have made it a popular site for whitewater rafting.  The ruins of the towns are barely visible now, having been reclaimed by the forests.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the supermarket cashier who overheard my conversation about our pending trip to “Nowhere, West Virginia” and how she told me that she was from that area.  A few days ago, I was in her checkout line again. She remembered me and asked how our weekend had gone.  She particularly wanted to know if we’d seen the New River Gorge Bridge. I said that we had and were very impressed with it.

“I was in high school in 1977 when they opened that bridge,” she said, smiling broadly.  “I marched across it on opening day, twirling my baton.”  

I know nothing about this woman’s life other than what is etched on her face.  I hope that one day she will tell her grandchildren of that day.  She can show them the West Virginia quarter, which has a rendering of that bridge.   The next time my own grandchildren visit, I want to take them to the supermarket and introduce them to the lady who marched across the bridge on the very first day it opened.   Her story and her smile deserve an encore.

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.
Isaac Newton

————————————————————————————————-

More about coal mining along the New River Gorge:

Photo website showing some of the towns and buildings.

Kaymoor site with photos of ruins.

*Scrip was the term for the “truck system” whereby non-transferable vouchers were used to pay the workers.  The vouchers could be used only at the company-owned stores.  It was this system which inspired the song, Sixteen Tons, believed to have been written by former coal miner and folk singer George S. Davis.

You load sixteen tons what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store.

This One?

There is nothing like the beach for one’s health, so that is exactly where I asked Dearly Beloved to take that annoying dog of ours so that I could stay here and sleep through the night and get rid of my creeping crud.

The final straw in her nighttime annoyances routine happened when I had to take her outside at 3 AM and I heard voices from across the street.  Earlier in the week it had been five ladies jogging, but this time, three teenaged boys in hoodies were walking down the block, laughing and talking.  While I thought of calling the police, I did not.  They weren’t being furtive or casing the neighborhood as far as I could tell.  I don’t know whether we have a curfew or not, so the only obvious charge I could think of was “poor parenting.”

The next morning I asked Dearly Beloved to think about getting Miss Piggy out of the house for a few days.  Nudged into selflessness by the sunny, low 70′s weather reports on the coast, he agreed that a trip to the beach–theirs–might be good for me.

Thoughtful husband that he is, DB assembled the supplies he thought I might need before he returned:  he brought down the Christmas decoration boxes from the attic and set up the ironing board for me.

DB and Miss Piggy hit the road, I slid the boxes under the ironing board, then plopped on the sofa, and everybody was happy.

A couple of days after they left, I roused myself, thinking to at least set up my mother’s old ceramic tree with the lightbulb inside.  I picked through the boxes, looking for the “FRAGILE” marked box.  When I couldn’t find it, I called DB.

He said he’d probably left it in the attic–he could picture it in his mind now, straight ahead if I went up the steps.  Normally, I don’t “do” attic stuff, so I said I’d wait until he got back.  However, even I got a whiff of wussiness from myself, so as a matter of pride,  I pulled down the old disappearing stairs to find the darned box.

Those suckers are into their seventh decade and “glide” isn’t a word that came to mind during my efforts.  In previous houses, it was a one-motion thing… pull down the door, unfold the steps, and start climbing.  THIS contraption has a latch at the base of the stairs which has to be undone in order to release the actual stepladder.  There is no folding.

I wasn’t expecting that, so I was pulling on a wooden stairway that refused to move.  In the meantime the entire heavy door contraption is sort of, well… dangling.  Finally I noticed the latch and with some effort, popped it to unleash the stepladder.

By that time, the door had been at so many angles, I didn’t know which one was the correct one.  It didn’t seem to have a set point.  I tried the steps at several different points on the floor before they felt sturdy enough to climb.

I was about 2/3 of the way up when I heard a loud pop and something metal made a spinning noise.  I’m not sure exactly why I climbed UP the Hindenburg instead of going back down. I quickly plopped on the attic floor with my feet hanging into the hole to assess the situation.  It was possible I could be there awhile. Days, even.

I looked around and saw the ceramic tree box right where DB had said it would be and crawled over to pull it toward me.  I noticed a box of old framed photographs and pulled it back to the opening with me also. I lost myself in old family pictures, delaying my er… departure.

The phone rang.  I decided not to chance a quick descent to get it.  In fact, I was none too sure about a slow descent either.

I saw a small metal pulley jiggling on the left side, the source of the POP,  and could see a broken rope hanging down. That didn’t look like something that would make the whole thing fall, so I decided to make a run for it.  At first I wanted to take both boxes, but the mental picture of myself going down with boxes in each hand wasn’t working for me, so I abandoned the idea and carefully climbed down with only the tree in hand.

I set down the box, shoved the steps back into place, then pushed the doorway toward the ceiling.  It rose like an elevator, then stopped… about 18 inches shy of the ceiling.

I wiggled the door slightly, then pushed again.  Nothing.

This is embarrassing, but my solution was to e-mail my knitting/reading group for advice, as none are short of opinions.  The best one this time was, “Call a neighbor.”   However, among the immediate neighbors, it’s usually DB that gets called.

I did, too.  I took photos of the dangling rope, the jiggling pulley, and the gaping attic door and e-mailed them to DB.

He knows me.  He really, really knows me.  He called and told me to make certain that the springs on either side of the steps weren’t catching on anything to impede closure, then asked, “Could you have left a box close enough to the opening that the stairs can’t lie flat?”

Gulp.

“UM… maybe.”

I told him I’d go check on that and get back with him later.

“Ohhhh no,” he said.  “Take the phone.  I want to go with you.”  

Of course the box of pictures was directly in the path of the staircase, so I pushed it to the side, descended the steps, and sure enough the door closed smoothly and tightly.  Never again!

Then I remembered the phone– still lying on the attic floor. I had to open the door, remount the steps, and grab the cordless phone.  DB was still on the line, of course.

When I wrote the post recently about DB’s shopping experience–the one where he kept phoning me from the store for instructions–he called from the beach and said drily, “You know… that’s not the story I expected to read.”

Might it have been this one, DB?

Only one pulley pulling...

L, My Name Is Loopy

When our kids were young, we used to play word games at dinner.  I’d unearthed my old box of vocabulary cards from Jr. High and we’d attempt to learn a new word together each day.  (The success of that one came and went, to be honest.)  More likely, we’d get silly and play alphabet games.  I still remember our son struggling to think of a food that began with the letter X.  He came up with Xavier Cugat-prepared salad which sent us all howling.  I can’t imagine that he had any idea who Xavier Cugat was, as DB and I barely knew ourselves.

We’d also toss out alliterative adjectives to go with our first or last names.  I remember coming up with Marvelous Mary. That one didn’t catch on.

Occasionally, I still dust off some of those silly names, batt my eyes, and use them with Dearly Beloved.  I did so last week when I forwarded to him an article I’d found online.

I wish I hadn’t.

Since I am the Neighborhood Watch coordinator for our area, my computer is loaded with several hundred e-mail addresses of people I don’t actually know–police, college officials, city council people, as well as friends and neighbors, not to mention that string of names which stick when someone sends me a group e-mail without using the BCC feature.  I try to be extra observant when sending e-mails because sometimes my computer auto-fill sneaks in names that definitely aren’t the intended recipients.

I fear that’s what happened to the article meant for Dearly Beloved.  He’s checked his Inbox several days now and it simply isn’t there.

Even though I don’t recall what it was that I sent nor have any idea who might have received it, I do have a searing recollection of the name I filled in as Sender:

Perchance, did any of you receive a mysterious forwarded article from someone named LUSCIOUS…?  

So Soon?

Last week one of our daughters sent out a family e-mail asking did everyone want to get together for a family vacation… rent a large house together at some fun destination.

The last time we did that was in 1997.

We’d found a large rental house in the mountains… plenty of bedrooms and “breathtaking views,” according to the rental brochure. The guys planned to hike on the Appalachian Trail, play golf, and watch sports, while the girls and I looked forward to browsing the town shops and relaxing in the cool mountain air.

With daughter Pogo (then a college student), Dearly Beloved and I arrived a day ahead of the rest of the family. That evening, after we’d unpacked and made the beds, we were tired but not ready for sleep. Pogo joined us in our king-sized bed to watch a TV show, thirty toes lined up across the foot of the bed.

The show was interrupted with news of Princess Diana’s auto accident in Paris.  Transfixed, Pogo and I watched throughout the night, long after Dearly Beloved had drifted into sleep.

The next morning Pogo and I planted ourselves in front of the downstairs TV, absorbed in the story.  The rest of the family arrived that afternoon and daughter Boo, tissues in hand, claimed a spot on the sofa with Pogo and me, watching with us.

The guys were really ready for the all-day hike they had planned.  Watching three women snivel and snort was not what they had signed on for.  DB had selected a 13-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail, accessible from the Blue Ridge Parkway.  They would hike all day and we’d pick them up eight hours later at a pre-appointed time and place.  We held a dry run to make sure there was no confusion about the pickup spot:  left side of parkway,  overlook, big rock, Appalachian Trail marker.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve got it.    

The next day, we drove the hikers, their belts clinking with water and energy bars, to their starting point, headed to town for our own adventure.  Boo had just announced she was pregnant (our first grandchild) and we couldn’t wait to look at baby items.

That afternoon, we drove back to retrieve the hikers as scheduled.

Big rock, trail entrance sign, left wide of the Parkway, check. We parked and waited.  And waited.  Pogo even walked a ways up the trail, listening for them.  It began to rain.  We sat in the car and discussed possible scenarios.  Lost… sprains… broken bones… bears… slides….

Finally, we drove back to a Ranger station we’d passed, described our hikers, and left a phone number should someone report… um…  remains.  In case they were able to crawl out into civilization,  we drove Son’s battered old car out to The Spot and left it, unlocked, key under the mat– one of the upsides of having a car not worth stealing.

When we could think of nothing else to do, we returned to the house to await the grim news from the trail while we watched the grim news from Europe.

We heard the old car about two hours later.  The hikers emerged– wet, grim-faced, and exhausted.  Perhaps it was our demand of “Why isn’t one of you limping?” that set their jaws permanently and set their temple veins to pulsing for the rest of the week.

I will not divulge the “discussion” which ensued.  Too soon.  But WHO KNEW there could be another big rock, trail marker, parking on left side of Parkway very similar and only two miles before the … um… CORRECT spot?

We’d sat for two hours at the wrong spot while they’d waited on the side of the road for two hours.  They began to walk back to the town, a distance considerably longer than the original hike.

They came upon the car two miles into their trek, another upside of having the most beat-up car around.  Had we parked it two miles past the meeting place, however, there might have bodies after all.  Ours.

The rest of the week we tiptoed around one another.  The “completely equipped” kitchen turned out to have two pots–a small saucepan–no lid– and  a pasta pot of a size suitable for bathing a Golden Retriever.  The coffee maker didn’t have all of his parts.  There weren’t enough drinking glasses.  It rained some more.

The “breathtaking view” from the deck was blocked by a stand of scraggly sweetgum saplings, but it didn’t matter.   Fog hid even the saplings.

The sad reports from Britain continued the rest of the week.   The girls and I watched on the upstairs television, having decided it best to surrender the downstairs TV.

No one lamented not being able to stay for a second week.

Did the news of the Royal Wedding trigger some niggling memory in daughter’s brain without a full recall of why?  Will she rescind her suggestion if a picture of Diana flashes in her mind?

Our daughter-in-law, new enough to the fold that she may not have heard of That Vacation, volunteered to look into destinations.  I offered that we could all rent RV’s and meet someplace, circling the wagons so no one could escape.

DB and I think it would be grand.  With five grandsons now in the mix, we’d love any chance to see them together.

One of the sons-in-law mentioned Team Skydiving and in response,  I volunteered to head Team Diarrhea… on the ground.

Daughter mentioned the beach as one possibility, bantering that her husband “looks fantastic in a Speedo” and that she herself is “a blast to be around.”

Silence from the rest of the family on the idea.

Perhaps they’re thinking. . . so soon?

When Stomping Means I Love You

When my mother’s cousin wrote recently, lamenting the fact that many of the houses on my long-dead grandmother’s street had been torn down,  I wasn’t upset.  The city probably took action to prevent the spread of crazy cooties.   The street seemed a haven for the oddball, the eccentric, and the bat-sh*t crazy.   They swept their sidewalks, held down jobs, and fed their children.  Beyond that, raising kids meant sending them outside to play.  And we could stay out long after dark.  No wonder I liked staying there.

Valentine’s Eve was a big deal.  The tradition was to deliver valentines after dark, depositing the little cards on porches, stomping on said porch, then running away before anyone could get to the door.  Sure, there were doorbells, but jumping up and down was more fun.  We had Valentine boxes at school, but ‘hood deliveries had intrigue.

I’d hear the stamping feet and turn on the porch light, scamper out, and pick up the white envelopes.  I’d made my deliveries early, so as not to miss any of my own.

One of the stomps was always by the much older Barker twins, who lived in the next block.  Valentine’s Eve was their one foray into pretend sociability.  The twins were from one of the “not right” families.  They never played with the other kids and it was rumored that their daddy beat their momma with his wooden leg.

Their card was easy to spot–it was never in an envelope–and the string they’d tied to it was visible.  I knew they planned to yank it out of reach as soon as I went for it.  I could have simply ignored it and gone back inside, leaving them squatting in disappointment in the hydrangeas, but I didn’t.  I’d reach for that valentine and they’d jerk the string and laugh in the darkness as they ran up the street to the next sucker.  I’d go back inside, wishing I’d tried to step on it instead.

Other than on Numnut Avenue,  I never knew any other children who followed that custom.   Was it a holdover from Victorian times or a sneaky custom followed by Romanian gypsies?  On that street, it could have been either.

NPR had a segment yesterday about “The Dark Origins of Valentine’s Day” and it made me think of the Barker twins.   More aptly, their daddy, since one of the traditions involved beating women with animal skins.

Much more fun to think about today is the six-word love story challenge offered by the NYTimes and Smith Magazine.  Darn it, “Love’s like chocolates.   Picked, processed, pooped.” has already been submitted.  Got one of your own?  Spill it, clever ones!  Here’s a link to the story in case you’d like to send it in to the Times, but do share it here, too!

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/whats-your-six-word-love-story/