A Marietta Gal's View

Old?! Not Me!

2012-01-11T22:52:00.000-05:00

There are those who say living with young people, will keep you young. There are also those who say, the earth is flat or that real butter will kill you. Obviously, they don’t know what they are talking about.

I’ve also heard it said that living with young people will age you before your time. Bah-loney! -------- only if you allow it to.

I live with a forty-ish daughter and a 15 year old grandson. Or they live with me, depending on how one looks at it. I guess it is safest to say that we just live together. They spoil me outrageously, which I encourage, and I do pay a greater percentage of the costs.

When I was 62 years old, my husband died from bone cancer. I lived alone for nine years. I got along pretty well after the initial adjustment, but as time went on, I began looking for other arrangements. I simply didn’t need a big, five bedroom house, large swimming pool, and lawns that I kept manicured. I looked for a two or three bedroom condo, in the same general area of Augusta where I lived, near friends and my niece and her family.

At about that same time, Dee adopted a little girl, from Russia.. Long story/short, we decided I would sell my home in Augusta and Dee would sell her nice condo, here in Atlanta, and we’d buy a house together, here. That’s what we did. Then Dee adopted a ten year old boy from Kazakhstan; her daughter grew up and left home; and here we are.

Getting old is not all bad, I’ve learned. What one has to remember is that it is perfectly OK to accept a little help, now and then. My daughter takes exquisite care of me, as she should. But that’s the kind of family we are. When the shoe was on the other foot, I did the same for her. When she was living alone, a few years ago, she had wisdom teeth pulled. Her brother, my son, drove all the way from Columbia, S.C. to be with her and he is a pretty good nurse.

One way that I give my kids full credit for helping me age more slowly mentally is through making me accept electronics.

While still living in Augusta, Bruce and Dee asked if I would like to have a computer. I said, absolutely not, no way. They ignored me.

My son arrived a few days later with a computer and - this is important - he said if I broke it, he’d fix it – “So just go ahead and give it a try, Mom!”

I did the computer a go, and even took a course up at Augusta State that was incredibly boring. I have a good time with my computer; stay in touch with 30-40 folks, depending on the season or who is on vacation. I research all kinds of people and everything else that interests me. When I can’t sleep, I often get on the computer for a little while until I get sleepy again.

Three close friends got computers about the same time I did. Not one of them enjoyed them or even learned to use them easily. I attribute that partly to the locations (they put them in back bedrooms, upstairs etc.) My first computer was placed on my desk, in my kitchen, along with my phone and small TV. I could check messages while the chicken was frying and answer the phone at the same time. (I have about the same set up here, in my bedroom.) All three of my friends got rid of their computers. Two woman became alcoholics before they died, and the third is depressed because she says no one pays any attention to her. A fourth, close friend died this past year also but she stayed active until nearly the end. Interestingly, all four long time friends were 83 yrs old last year, and they were all widows.

Last fall, Dee asked if I’d like to have a Kindle. I read all the time. Of course I said no because I love books and the feel of them in my hands. She ignored me. So I received a Kindle for Christmas and I am loving it. Have more to learn but have read two books so far and have about eight more loaded and ready. Mike is my “go to” person on the Kindle, and actually gets me out of trouble on the computer as well. I do have a cell phone for any emergency, but normally just use the house phone which is portable. Presently I have no need for all the other gadgets.

You know that thing about being only as old as you feel? That’s a bunch of whale poop! Actually, you’re only as old as you feel mentally! Physically, I feel about sixty-five , oooh maybe one or two hours per week. Other times, I’d say, somewhere between 78 and 95 ! My health is not perfect but problems are being controlled and I’m not complaining… (most of the time)

You know, I have a theory that other folks can tolerate a little grunting and groaning, once in a while. But a person who feels sorry for herself is a royal pain in the ass! When one is old, all the same rules we were taught as kids still apply. Kindness and reaching out to others still matter.

On my own, I decided to stop driving. I’ve never had even a fender bender or any kind of ticket. I am a good driver and, even my husband said I was a good driver. I used to enjoy driving my old Caddie and, later, my brand spanking new blue Toyota Highlander. The problem is that I have arthritis in my shoulders and knees. I’d grown uneasy that my response time, in case of even a small emergency, would be too slow. I’d never forgive myself if I hurt someone because I was too proud to stop driving.

Interestingly, Dee’s car died at about the same time so she now drives mine.

I enjoy doing crossword puzzles but seem to lack the time at present. I had written a dictionary, two volumes, but they got misplaced when I moved here. The title was, Words I can Never Think Of or Spell…… kind of tongue in cheek.

So that’s my take on aging and living an active life. Dee always says “Mom is sharp as a tack!” and she’s right. I am also never bored. Next time you hear of a senior who is depressed and/or bored with life, get them a computer or a Kindle, and show them how to use it!

I'm Thankful For...

2012-01-09T07:03:00.000-05:00

Anyone who knows me even a little bit, knows how thankful I am for my precious family. Goodness knows, I write about all of them often enough. But recently, I’ve thought about other things for which I’m thankful.

BLUE. I am thankful for blue in all its tints and shades except pale, baby, blue. Yes, I’ve known people who are seemingly unaffected by colors . In my own mind, I think of those folks as, well, space taker uppers.

Then, there are the beige people. These come in two kinds. There are the ones who paint everything in their homes beige. They have beige furniture, beige floors, and beige on their windows. When I encounter one of the former, I assume they have either just bought their home or are fixing to sell it. You know, don’t want to offend anyone if money is involved, especially theirs.

The other beige people are fairly easy to spot if you just pay attention. They are usually attractive, blonde, kind of blonde, kind of thin, mostly female, and kind of rich. You don’t see many poor folks decked out in beautifully coordinated beige outfits. If you see a beige street person, think dirt.

MUSIC. So thankful for music. Now, I am speaking of real music, not so much just classical because some of it is awful, to my ear. No, I mean music with nice melodies that one can hum or sing. I know very little about music that became popular in the most recent years. I simply cannot understand grown women who think singers who sound like ten year old boys, with whiney voices, are sexy. Yes, I love to hear normal kids sing, but I do not want a man to sing like he has been neutered. Then others sound like it has been slammed in a dresser drawer, if you know what I mean.

Some of our older, so called, country music is the closest thing we have to American Folk Music. I’ve heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing some of the old songs, and they were lovely. The same goes for our patriotic music. I think children should be taught the words to the Star Spangled Banner and NO person should be elected to office unless they know those lyrics. When I was growing up and when I taught, we sang it every morning and said the pledge. We also read one of the Psalms and said The Lord’s Prayer. I’m not talking about just one school but, several – in two different states.

The South. I am not only thankful to be an American, I’m extremely thankful to be a Southerner. Yes, I could write a book about this but there is no need. As the saying goes, few people retire to the north or other parts of this country. Yes, it gets hot in the summer but my husband would have told you that the worst heat he ever encountered was in Chicago, one summer when he was taking yet another graduate course. The following year, he switched to Batan Rouge, Louisiana and got along fine.

However, the South is about lots more than the weather or its beauty. My dad was a good example of a true southerner. He had lived in or traveled to most parts of this country. He was strong in every way, even tough when he needed to be. Not only was he very intelligent, he was a gentle person who showed respect for others. Actually, that pretty much describes the other men in my immediate family and my husband.

Coffee and Sweet Tea. Oh my, just love both of them, especially when they are good and strong. My dad did not allow us to drink coffee until we were about grown but we drank sweet tea all our lives. I do have to say that Mother’s sweet tea was almost always sweetened with artificial sweetner, not sugar, and lots of fruit juice. I used to always travel with a small container of instant coffee in my cosmetic bag. No, I don’t especially like instant coffee but it is better than no coffee. Now days, I am thankful for Starbucks, robust blend or whatever they call it.

Dogs. I just love dogs. When Tony asked me to marry him, I told him I wanted at least four kids and I had no intention of living my life without a dog. If he couldn’t handle that, there were lots of tall, skinny, cat loving girls, just the opposite of me. Our Yorkie-Poo Coco is the first tiny dog we’ve owned. We’ve tended more toward Labs, German Shepherds, and hounds. I truly feel they have enriched my life.

FOODS: Coke, Chocolate, and Pecans. They just brighten any day, so thank you, Lord. Guess I could have added homemade hot biscuits but I have to stop somewhere.

A Warm and Crazy Guy

2011-10-20T22:46:00.001-04:00

Being married to the same guy for forty years could, I suppose, have been dull, but I never had that problem. Tony could be a real pain in the ass, but he was never a bore.

Tony thoroughly enjoyed his TV and I have to say that I enjoyed lots of movies, watched on our old TV set. In fact, one Mother’s Day about twenty years ago, Tony ordered all the big musicals available to buy at that time. We watched those over and over. Some we’d originally seen in New York. He loved ‘Oklahoma’ and ‘Hello Dolly’ and could sing all the lyrics to “Poor Jud Is Dead.” Hello Dolly was another huge favorite. He thought the lyrics to “It Takes A Woman” ( “…to clean out the drains in the sink..” etc) were hilarious.

When Tony liked a song, he immediately learned all the lyrics --- or, even funnier, just made some up to suit himself. "Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine" Tom T. Hall’s great song, was a prime favorite. Knowing that he and his wife raised and loved Basset Hounds endeared him to Tony as well. Our little family has a fondness for the hounds – and I might add, Black Labs. Of course now we absolutely adore our tiny Yorky Poo, Coco, our very first very small dog but, alas, Tony died before I got Coco.

For the last twelve years we lived in Tennessee, Tony had to drive twenty-two miles, one way, into Knoxville, to the bank. He listened to country music on his car radio and got a big kick out of it. Another song Tony nearly ran me crazy singing was, "Old Hippie". You know, I’m just an old hippie, etc etc. He made up his own words to that one so I never knew which words were the real ones.

What made that song doubly funny was that Tony was about the direct opposite of a hippy. He was a successful banker and he wore nice, dark suits, white starched shirts, black shoes and socks, - but his ties often had a little color. I bought all his ties. ;0) The concept of “business casual” would never have happened when he was the boss. When he noticed one of his young officers wearing white socks, one morning, Tony handed the man a five dollar bill and sent him down the street to purchase a ”decent” pair of socks.

It took me years to get Tony to accept the fact that casual clothes could be really nice. On week ends, he looked like an ol’ timey garbage collector, especially if he was working in the yard. One of his favorite stories was that he was doing some work in our front yard when a kind of prissy lady, in a big car, stopped, and motioned him over. “Young man, what do you charge for doing yard work? Waal, I don’ rightly know, M’am. The lady whut lives here jest lets me sleep with her.” Looking horrified, the woman sped off. No, it was not true. He read it in Readers’ Digest or somewhere.

His favorite pair of jeans looked so awful that one day, I hid them. When he came in from work, he came back to the kitchen where I was cooking dinner and asked where his “good” jeans were. I never looked up. I said they have gone BY-BY. He never mentioned them again, so they really did go into the garbage the next day.

There’s an old John Wayne movie, where all the cavalry is lined up ready to go, when the bugle player plays the charge. Off they rush into battle. Tony took a tape recorder and recorded the bugle and the cries of “CHARGE!” At about two minutes until five, one afternoon at the bank, he put that on the PA System. So at exactly five o’clock, all the officers and employees heard the cries of charge and the bugle and horses’ hoofs as they rushed out of the bank. I seem to remember that our Chairman of the Board was not thrilled….. no sense of humor.

Oh, yeah, I’d really like to see the angels lined up waiting for Tony to enter heaven, to the sounds of the charge and the bugle. Maybe the Duke was there waiting too.

We Have Nothing to Fear...

2011-10-03T23:25:00.000-04:00

What are you afraid of? Everything? Nothing? I’d love to know. I’m not talking about major happenings - not war, famine, storms, nor the end of chocolate as we know it.

I well remember my dad calmly saying there is nothing to be afraid of—and my thinking, if I was as big as you, I wouldn’t be afraid of anything either. On the other hand, my mother was a chubby petite and one of the bravest women I ever knew. Of course, her bravery was sometimes augmented by the small shotgun she often had close around. She didn’t miss what she aimed at, either.

Once when my brothers and I were small, Mother was driving through south Georgia , on the way to visit her sister in Jacksonville. She came to a sawhorse in the middle of the two lane highway. There was a poorly lettered Detour sign attached with an arrow pointing to a narrow dirt road. She had no choice but to take the detour. When she had driven a short way, she saw three or four rough looking men standing in the middle of the road, signaling her to pull over. Well, she gunned the motor and plowed right through them. Yes, they jumped out of the way at the last moment. When I asked what she’d have done if she’d hit one of them, she said she’d just have kept going. One woman in a car with three children must have appeared to be easy pickins’ to those jerks. They didn’t know my mother!

Truly, I think the fear of parents is for the safety of their children. Oh, yes, we may have all kinds of hopes and dreams for our kids but their physical safety is basic. With a son who was career military, I’ve only been able to sleep at night because I put him in the Lord’s care. Oddly enough, the computer helped me during this last deployment to Iraq. While he didn’t have time for long letters, just a one sentence -” I’m fine” - e mail kept me sane -- and able to sleep at least a little. Also, it was good that Dee and I were already living together during that time. I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d still been living alone.

Honestly, I don’t know how my poor mother in law managed to exist with her two oldest sons serving during World War II. At least her husband was still living then. But mail was so often very long in coming plus much – or most- that they could not share. No, my son did not share everything either but we knew where he was and he could receive our boxes and email. I mostly just sent funnies to him. One night, when I could not sleep, maybe three a.m., I sent a cute joke. I got an immediate rather stern reply: “Mom, what are you doing up this time of night? I am fine. Now please go back to bed and get some rest.” I had to laugh, guess he knew me too well.

As we get older, we learn to separate feelings of actual fear from just dislike. I’ve known several people who seemed to actually fear gaining a pound or two. I truly despise snakes, even tiny ones, but I don’t fear them to the extent that I used to. One person I know has a pure dislike of palmetto bugs but I don’t think she really fears them.

I believe I do have some fear about the direction this country is taking but I am encouraged to learn that I am not alone. Lots of people - younger, stronger, much more able than I am - are trying to work out solutions. For awhile, I was afraid that just folks in my general age group were concerned but I am learning different. I’m thrilled to see people the ages of my children who are standing for public office. Yes, even younger folks too and many have wonderful, concrete values that we can be proud of.

Yesterday, I told Dee about a person running for president, who is two months younger that she is. She was horrified! “A guy my age is too young to be president.” I had to giggle because a guy my age is too darn old to be president!

Remember the story about President Lyndon Johnson having a phone installed in the private bathroom of one of his aides? He said the ship of state could not be held up while Mr. Blank ran to the bathroom every few minutes. I suspect the language was more colorful but you get the point. Hmmm, wonder how old that fellow was.

Fear of flying is one we often used to hear about, but these days it is more the aggravation of flying that deters some folks. I don’t like traveling over high bridges and usually close my eyes until we are on level ground again. However, I have learned that if I am driving, I have much less (or no) fear. Some people are frightened to speak or perform before a group but I enjoy it--- just a ham at heart, I suppose.

Hey, in 25 words or less, tell me what you are afraid of. Just one word is OK - like, may- be, oooh --- clowns or turtles -- You don’t even have to sign your name …….

[Note from Dee: I am afraid of kangaroos.]

My Bucket List

2011-09-19T23:20:00.000-04:00

Recently, we watched an old movie about two men with terminal cancer, hospital roommates. One had made a bucket list of things to do before he died. The other man had the money for them to carry out their end of life wishes, and they went traveling together, doing everything on their respective Bucket Lists.

It started my thinking about a bucket list for myself.

First, I’d have to make some rules:

Would these just pertain to my situation now --- or before Tony died, in 1996 ? I suppose it would boil down to reality or fantasy. Hmmmmmmn , think I’ll stay with the here and now.

Would they only be things I can easily afford – or what I could afford before the financial mess hit this country – and my bank account ? OK, a little of both, I think.

The truth is that I’ve done lots of the things that would have been on my list some years ago. I used to love to travel, wanted to see everything in this country and in Europe.

I’ve come to a time in my life where I no longer want to have to fly to get somewhere. My arthritis may have something to do with that. I need to move around before I get too stiff and walking on planes, even the big ones, can be a challenge. I rather enjoy the actual flying and looking out the window. There’s a feeling of elation at the beginning, when the plane levels off, which is nice, but I have to honestly say I love to feel those wheels touch the runway at the end of a flight.

Before we flew to Germany the first time, I read several books about the fear of flying and I found them helpful. I guess it was the really long flight plus being over the ocean that had me a tad uneasy. Thankfully, one of the books, written by a pilot, explained all the bumps and noises so I didn’t have to worry about the plane falling apart.

I’ve always said I’m a fairly good swimmer, excellent floater, but I can’t fly worth a darn! Consequently, the thought of taking a cruise has always appealed to me. By the time Tony and I took some cruises, we could afford rather elegant accommodations. I say this because Tony would have been miserable in some of the small staterooms I peeped into on the ships. He was claustrophobic, plus, like so many others, on his first trip, he’d crossed the Atlantic on a troop ship, a miserable experience. We thoroughly enjoyed the cruises and actually lost a couple of pounds. We mostly lived on the delicious, fresh seafood and salads and walked miles around the decks. (In contrast, we had a dear friend, an MD, who gained twenty pounds on a one week cruise. His wife said he just ate all day and night.)

So a bit of a list for the bucket would be, actually, a short cruise down the coast from Charleston to Key West – and back—or perhaps leave from Savannah. However, I wouldn’t want to do even that without my children.

I’d love to see a live whale but not enough to go to Alaska or some far off place to see one. I always enjoy watching the dolphins when I am at the coast.

As I’ve grown older, lots of wishes, daydreams, desires have narrowed considerably. I don’t want to do anything at all where I’d have to “rough it”. [I can just hear Dee saying, when did you ever?! We both agree, sleeping with the window open is as rough as we want to get!]

I enjoy a ride through the Smoky mountains, especially since the roads are so good. I might like to do a little people watching at Cherokee, N.C. Sometimes when I’ve needed a vision to calm my soul, I take a mental trip through Cades Cove. I love that area. Catherine Marshall’s book, Christy, about going to English Mountain as a young teacher, is one worth rereading.

When I was a child, my parents would get us up early, usually on a Sunday morning, and we’d ride up to and through the Smokies; have a picnic lunch; and return by a different route. Mother always either planned or actually cooked her Sunday dinner, on Saturday. So our picnic lunch could be most anything. Most often, she cooked big pieces of meat like roasts, in a big, black, iron Dutch Oven. She and Dad would just wrap the entire pot and lid in heavy newspapers and it stayed fairly hot – or cold- until lunch. We rarely had paper products so plates, cups, forks etc went into a basket. It seems to me we did always have a big thermos of fruity iced tea. One trip, in November, we stopped and Dad cut a Christmas tree which they tied to the car some way. Boy, that wouldn’t happen now. Perhaps those sweet memories enhance my love of the mountains.

I’ve always enjoyed singing whether before an audience or alone. But I do think it would be fun to get a group together just to harmonize on some of the old time hymns and songs.

I’ve been to most of the Florida beaches, not Miami, all the Georgia, nearly all the South Carolina beaches, and a few French beaches. But I’ll always love Hilton Head most of all. We first went there before it was developed and only had a rickity, scary wood bridge. Even though it is now built up and more closely resembles a city, I still love going there. I haven’t missed too many years getting there for a week or two. I like to stay in a condo at Ocean One, right on the beach, often just sitting on the balcony, watching the ocean. For years, we had a time share at the Sea Crest, in January. We met several couples, long time friends, there and it was a bit like a house party. I tried to carry friends and return, several times, after Tony died --- but finally just gave up. I gave the condo back to the Sea Crest as Tony had suggested I do if it became too sad. I was the youngest in our group and all but one other wife are dead. Since then, though, I’ve gone several times with Dee, and my grands, and those have been good times, too.

In Augusta, I lived alone for nine years and got along OK , just a different dynamic …. Several friends are also widows and three couples were folks I was very comfortable with. Each of those men has died now. Tony’s family lived there also but we were no longer close. They were very nice but memories were too painful, I think, looking back.

People ask, “If you could do it all over, would you?” My answer would be, only if I knew then what I know now. However, as I’ve thought about a bucket list, I realize that I’ve done much that would have been on the list plus some things I’d never even dreamed of. I’m so lazy and content these days, let’s don’t rock the boat.

Tennessee Memories

2011-09-06T23:04:00.000-04:00

A recent blog of mine mentioned a woman I met years ago in TN who had a tacky, superior attitude. I want to make clear that she was definitely not from TN. or anywhere south of there. My best guess would be that she was from Worms Hole, MA. Years ago, we were on the ferry from Nantucket back to Woods Hole, MA, and a drunk kept walking around asking passengers when we were going to arrive at Worms Hole. I’ve never forgotten that. It’s just the sort of place to spawn a witchy women like I mentioned in my blog. (I want to make clear, however, that none of my TN friends reading this blog was that woman!)

Having been the family of a small town banker, we were awfully tired of feeling that we were on display every time we went out to eat or did anything at all in public. When we moved there in 1971, Knoxville represented a new freedom for our little family—a very welcome one! We did not select a house in the more elite part of Knoxville, close to down town and UT. Instead, we bought a new house, in a fairly new subdivision, out from town. That way, we got a lot more house for our money. We were blessed with good neighbors and are still close to some of them.

At the end of our first week, in Tennessee, we took our kids and went to a big store that kind of sold everything. I guess it was more like present day Target. We bought jeans and boots for everyone, even me. This was before women wore pants everywhere like they do now. The time was early January and it snowed off and on all day that day. People were just going about their business as if there was no snow. I found that really difficult to believe. In Georgia, snow flurries signal immediate trips to buy bread and milk. Then everything closes and people go home. I seem to remember that being one of the snowiest winters we had up there and we loved it. I insisted that Tony put snow tires on my car – but then I refused to drive if there were more than ten snowflakes around. We sold those tires at a garage sale some time later.

Tony and I made some plans and promises to take effect in our new state and they were a new beginning for our little family. We agreed that we would not take part in organizations that required our being apart in the evenings. Lunch time activities were allowed but not for me in the summer. Tony and Bruce went hunting a few times in the fall and Dee went to my Saturday DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) meetings with me a few times but I soon stopped going to those. They were terribly boring and I couldn’t keep refusing the jobs they wanted me to do.

For the most part, instead of going out, we had folks over to our house, kids’ friends as well as our own and lots of the young bank crowd who worked for Tony. I doubt that more than two or three neighbors knew what Tony did for a living. We were just us- not someone’s daughter or son, as we had been known in Georgia. Without the required and demanding social schedule, I had time to read a little, cook as much as I was in the mood for, learn to knit etc.

One recipe that we enjoyed a lot was for Baked Manicotti.

Baked Manicotti

2 cups Ricotta cheese

½ cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 cup mazarella cheese [grated]

salt and pepper [about1/4 tsp]

2 eggs

Add all the above and beat together til smooth

12 manicotti shells

tomato sauce [recipe follows],

grated cheese

Cook shells in boiling salted water until slightly underdone. Drain. Fill shells with cheese mix and place in lightly greased baking dish.

Cover with basic tomato sauce. Sprinkle with lots of grated cheese - your choice, or a mixture is good.

Bake in preheated 400 degree oven, about 20 minutes or until sauce bubbles around the edges. This can be completely done ahead except for baking. May take a little longer to bake if it has been chilled.

I have used a tsp to poke the filling into the shells – and sometimes have just slit them open, filled, and placed seam side down in the dish.

Recently, we tried some of those big,pasta sea shells instead of the manicotti and they were good too. Pepperoni added to the cheese mix or sauce is delicious.

Do Not Overcook, you don’t want it to dry out.

BASIC TOMATO SAUCE

4 tbl olive oil ,heat in heavy saucepan, add 1 medium finely chopped onion and sauté until soft but not brown.

1 -16 oz can tomato sauce

1 – 6 oz can tomato paste, diluted with 1 cup very hot water

¼ -cup sherry

½ tsp sugar

½ tsp basil

½ tsp oregano

1 garlic clove, crushed

salt and pepper to taste

Add everything to the onion, blend well, allow to simmer slowly about an hour and a half, until smooth and thick.

I’ve made this many times using fresh tomatoes , very ripe. Just push them through a strainer, using a wooden spoon. Can also use a 16oz can of tomatoes, strained. Throw away the pulp.

Actually, this is best made a day before and wonderful to have on hand.

I like to make a large dish of this and hope for leftovers.

The above recipe, served with good bread and maybe a green salad is heavenly on a snowy, evening, before a blazing wood fire!

Who's Old?!

2011-08-09T23:19:00.000-04:00

I had to laugh at my daughter’s remarks about me in a recent blog, saying I am 77 ½ ! Dang tootin’ and proud of it. When I want something from a stranger, I sometimes say I am nearly 80. Doesn’t work with the older members of my family tho’ cause most are older than I am. Just saw an ad on Facebook that said, Stop Aging! Is that a nice way of saying”Drop Dead” ?

I used to know a very pretty woman, in Augusta, who, when we returned after being away for 20 years, looked exactly the same as before. She was at least one year ahead of me at UGA so I know generally how old she is. Anyway, when we encountered her and her husband at dinner one night, I did about three double takes. When I mentioned this to someone, they said, next time look at her hands. Well, yippee! Her hands looked as old as mine. That gal could wear gloves – and not look a day over 75!

Much good can be said about getting older, for instance, it “beats the alternative.” My main quarrel with it is the “last illness.” Why can’t we just draw a number that gives a final day and that’s that! Let’s see, Elva, you are leaving earth on March third so on March second, be sure to eat lots of chocolate and tell that crabby ol’ guy down the street to kiss your foot.

You know, there really is no typical old person any more than there is a typical young or middle aged person. All have different sets of values, backgrounds, personalities etc. My mother used to describe certain women as ”sweet ol’ ladies.” Well, I’ll give you a clue. If they were not sweet young ladies, they are less than sweet old ladies. In fact, some mean young women turn into real ogres. (No, I am not describing myself. I’ve always been this way…)

There are many factors that go into making a person’s personality. Just one of those is geography. I don’t remember if ol’ Frood , as my actually very intelligent aunt used to call him, ever figured that one out. Having grown up in the south and being raised by southern parents and grandparents, I was taught certain rules that were just absolutely not to be broken. Those rules were pretty basic, and boiled down , were mostly about kindness. In almost all instances, you can say what you need to say to someone without being caustic. Quite often, what you feel you need to say is just that you want to vent your feelings and let that person know you think they are stupid….. as in, “ what were you thinking of , don’t you know better, why on earth would you do ----- , etc etc etc”.

Southern customs , to my way of thinking, are just easier to swallow. Almost within the first month I’d lived in TN, I attended, a parents meeting at my children’s school. As we were walking down the hall afterwards, several of us were chatting. One woman said her husband worked at Oak Ridge. Brightly, I asked ”Oh, is he a scientist?” This woman who three minutes earlier, had been quite lovely, turned on me and snarled through her nose, “A scientist? A scientist!? What exactly is a scientist, blah blah blah.” I was so taken aback, I turned and quickly walked in the opposite direction. One of her friends caught up with me and related that the woman was annoyed that people were so sloppy in their use of the word “scientist.” Oh, OK, but that’s not my problem, I wanted to say. I carefully avoided that nasal sharp tongue for the rest of the time our kids were in the same school. I tend to go for the jugular when I lose my temper so I refused to let that heifer’s superior attitude set me off.

Anyway, I am glad I live in the south, and I plan to die here, but not for a long time...

Summertime Thoughts

2011-07-26T21:04:00.000-04:00

I was thirty-five years old before I lived in a house that had central air conditioning. Yes, we’d lived in some fairly nice homes but central ac was just not very common.

We knew how to cope with the heat, though. We opened windows; closed blinds when the sun beamed through; wore cotton clothes; and cooked early in the day. If at all possible, you did not want to use the oven, thus heat up the kitchen. This resulted in our eating dinner fairly late during summer months. We did have an old ac unit in the window of our master bedroom. Our kids most often slept in our room on very hot nights.

My dad had a white, linen suit which he wore during hot weather. It had two pairs of pants and he would change into the second, pressed pair when the first looked rumpled. He was a big man and preferred tailor-made suits because clothes off the rack rarely fit him properly. So his suits most often did have two pairs of pants. He never wore short sleeve dress shirts nor did my husband. Of course, both wore sportshirts. Lots of southern men had white suits for summer and some wore seersucker suits – just not my men. They most often wore white shoes with the suits.

Do you own an ice pick? If you are under about 40 yrs old, do you even know what one is? I needed to punch a hole in something, recently, but one was not to be found in this house. We used to buy big chunks of ice, at the ice house, place it in a tin tub to chop up for the hand turned ice cream freezer. Nowadays, we still buy ice for parties etc but it is already chopped and clean. I wonder how many of those tin - aluminum- ice trays with the wiggly metal inserts, that made cubes, I have empted and refilled?! Woe be unto the fellow who used the ice without refilling the tray.

Years ago, before Bruce was born, we were invited out to play bridge with friends, on an extremely hot Saturday night…. Again, no air conditioning, of course. For an early, quick, dinner, I made huge vegetable salads for Tony and me. The salads had a little spring lettuce, chopped carrots, tomatoes, scallions, cukes, peppers, cheese cubes, and Vienna sausages [which we liked]. I served them with homemade thousand island dressing. I also made grilled cheese sandwiches. Tony enjoyed his and polished it off. Later as soon as we arrived at our hosts’ home, Tony went around eating all the peanuts and little candies. He explained that he had not had dinner and was hungry. I could have snatched him bald headed and stomped him! All the women agreed with me – but the men understood! Years later, I finally got him housebroken but it sho took some doing!

During extremely hot weather, we like main course salads but I learned to make them with something fairly substantial. One of our favorites was shrimp salad, sometimes served over a vine ripened, quartered tomato. I make chicken salad the easy way, just using poached chicken breasts, cubed, finely chopped celery, and mayo thinned with a little fresh lime juice. Of course you can add a few toasted, chopped pecans, green grapes etc. Recently, Dee made divine Curried Chicken Salad for our silver tea, at church. I believe she used Ina Garten’s recipe.

Dee has been making tuna salad for our family since she was so small, she had to stand in a chair to reach the counter. My friend Anna swears Dee was making it when she was a year old! Dee just makes a well seasoned deviled egg salad, then dumps a can of tuna into it. I think she adds a little onion and garlic powders, and fresh lime juice.

Mother did not serve salads as a main dish, in the evening, but she often served them for luncheons. Her rule was that one hot item should also be served. Quite often, it would be her fabulous, tiny, hot biscuits, or rolls. Fresh asparagus spears, tiny green peas, sliced tomatoes, sliced pineapple with a ball of cream cheese and chopped pecans etc., or a pear half with grated cheddar might also be on the plate.

When we lived in our big, old, white framed house, on 9^th street, my dad would place a large box fan in the center hall, upstairs. The four bedrooms surrounded the hall with a large bath off to the side. My parents thought a person should not sleep with a fan blowing directly on them. The large, screened windows would be open to catch any breezes but it was still hot. Sometimes, Dad would grab a bottle of rubbing alcohol and go to each room and give us a back rub with alcohol. Then, he’d fan us with an old timey, cardboard fan and the next thing I’d know, it was morning.

Those fans were often given away by funeral homes in the area. They were less than a foot wide; kind of seashell shaped; with a pretty picture on the front and advertising on the back. They had a flat, wooden handle that looked like a tongue depressor. There were always several around the house. Guess we went to lots of funerals in warm weather --- you know, early March through the end of October. Those fans were often placed in the racks at the back of the church pews along with the hymnals.

Speaking of funeral homes, there is one in Marietta, Ga. whose owner was a man Dad had grown up with. People said the guy was “bad to drink.” I mean, he ran a funeral home, who could blame him? Anyway, he bought a dog and named him Dammit. It was said that the fellow would be walking around Marietta, late at night, yelling, “Come here, Dammit!”

Another Marietta story, Mother told me, was that the police chief (this was the 1920’s) came home unexpectedly (obviously) for lunch one day. He caught his wife and the mayor, naked. He marched them, naked, all the way across the middle of town, in front of his shotgun. I asked Mother why they were naked and she’d just laugh and say, must have been hot that day! [She was probably telling the story to another lady and I was listening.]

Being near a body of water was always soothing to Tony and me, during summer, especially. When we first moved to Tennessee, about 1970, we bought a dilapidated old cottage, on beautiful Douglas Lake. It actually had 3 tiny bedrooms, 2 baths, and a kitchen-great room, plus a screened in front porch. I believe the entire cottage would fit into our family room, here. We spent every week-end there from Memorial Day through Labor Day. At first, we had no TV, no radio, no phone, just our little family. We carried the dogs and cat in the car and used the boat as a trailer, every Friday afternoon and back to Knoxville every Sunday evening, about an hour’s drive. Tony and the kids spent part of the time at the lake nailing the boards back on the cottage, repairing the roof, etc. Tony always said those were the happiest days of his life. After 8 years, we sold the cottage and built a home on Melton Hill Lake. Our kids were teenagers and Bruce was gone to college, and it was not as much fun.

Yes, this is definitely a hot hot summer but most southern summers are hot. I feel sorry for some friends up north and in the midwest because they are feeling the heat too. They are not accustomed to this much heat, plus many lack air conditioning in their homes.

Below, Dee and Bruce on the dock of the Douglas Lake cottage, probably about 1973

More Things I Love

2011-06-12T09:18:00.000-04:00

Now, how on earth could I write about what I like, or quite possibly love, without mentioning Krispy Kreme doughnuts ?! Yes, the plain glazed are quite possibly the best in the land. If one goes over to the main store in Atlanta, on Ponce de Leon, and buys them while they are still warm, one could possibly manage to eat at least six, if one had not eaten in a while. Oh, may be 3 or 4 hours, perhaps, one could eat even more. Just sayin’ - one doesn’t have to share everything if the size of one’s fanny is of little to no importance to one……. After all, it really is behind one …

I love bright red lipstick. I’ve been wearing Revlon’s LOVE THAT RED # 725 , for as long as I remember. I’ve tried paler shades and have found that they make me look .. uh, pale.

I don’t even remember the last time I went to a theatre to see a movie. My husband enjoyed movies a lot, so as soon as my kids got old enough to go with him, I mostly opted to stay home. Dee continued to go with him for years and that was something they had in common and enjoyed doing together. However, we’ve either rented or bought lots of movies. I’ve loved the big musicals, Hello Dolly, My Fair Lady, etc.

One movie we watched so often, we knew most of the lines. That one was Hopscotch, with Walter Mattheu. Another that I like and have watched several times is Local Hero. Also, I like James Garner so I’ve watched Murphy’s Romance several times and enjoyed the fact that his character is an older man. I suppose Gregory Peck is my all time favorite so I watch Roman Holiday every chance I get. Think I could just listen to that man read the phone book!

My enjoyment in reading biographies is something I’ve written about before and the lives of my favorite actresses interest me. Ingrid Bergman, born 1915, and Audrey Hepburn, born 1929, are two of my favorites. Julia Childs was such an interesting person with multiple layers of personality and talents that books by and about her would be an inspiration to anyone, to try their wings. Cherie Blair’s Autobiography taught me lots about life in England. Even though I don’t agree with all her politics, I admire much about her. Her life in the Prime Minister’s residence was in great contrast to the life of our president’s family, at least when she first got there. I don’t have her book in front of me but I believe she said Laura Bush gave her some pointers, at least to get some help. She was even trying to do all the cooking a long with all her other duties plus having young children. Oh dear, now I want to read the book again.

Don’t think I’ve written much about it, but I loved teaching my 5^th graders, in North Augusta, S.C. I’d taught younger children but by 5^th grade the kids’ personalities had jelled somewhat. It helped if I could discover their interests and make learning meaningful for them. I usually had about 30 students. My last year, I had 24 boys and 5 girls. I allowed the girls to pull their desks into a little ”sewing circle” up near my desk so we could roll our eyes and giggle at some of the boys’ antics. We worked very hard; 5^th is not an easy grade and there were certain skills I was determined they’d have by the time they left my class. For example, their language arts textboook was just silly. Therefore, I taught their grammar from my old college text book. Our school was scheduled to departmentalize the coming fall of my last year. I was being given charge of the math-science department, based on my grades on the National Teachers’ Exam, we were required to take. However, that spring, my son decided he was ready to enter this world --- and that ended my teaching career. Back then, pregnant ladies did not teach school.

I’m going to share a little trick I used with my school children and later, with Bruce and Dee. I assured them that I had eyes in the back of my head. Yep, and I often proved it. In any classroom, there are always a couple of wiggletails or mischiefs. When you notice one starting to get out of his seat, toss a paper airplane etc, immediately turn your back, then say something like, ”Henry, sit down,” or “Suzy, bring me the note you are passing etc”. At first, they say they were not doing anything but then you say,” Yes, you were, I saw you.” After a while, they finally accept the fact that you do indeed, have eyes in the back of your head. Just a note: don’t bother to try this with husbands…..

One of the first things I try to do when I move into a new home, is to plant gardenias. If the climate is right, they are fairly easy to care for. Presently, we have about six bushes and they are in full bloom. I have a Red River Pottery pitcher that Bruce bought for me, in Texas, when he was stationed at Fort Hood. After she waters everything each morning, Dee has been cutting long stem gardenias for the pitcher. Their fragrance fills that part of the family room and I enjoy it so much. Eons ago, when I tried to do more formal flower arrangements, gardenia greenery was helpful for filler in vases. Now days I believe the trend is for more natural flower arrangements and I find that a nice improvement.

For several years before I moved here, I enjoyed shopping in a boutique type store, right near the French Market Grill, in Augusta, Ga. I tried to make a point of eating there at least once a week, often more. Music is seldom just background to me, I hear it even as I do other things and am very much aware of it. Some of the music I loved in the boutique was really nice piano music. The piano player is Emile Pandolfi and his selection of songs on the CDs suits me very well. For example, the signature song on the CD I am listening to, is My Foolish Heart. Others on there are, All The Things You Are, When I Fall In Love, Deep Purple, Tenderly, The Very Thought Of You, and others. Guess that really shows my age! Anyway, my CDS are about worn out from constant playing and I just checked Amazon to see if Pandolfi is still available and he is. I know lots of folks have all those new fangled contraptions to listen to music but I have no desire to change.

Well, my word, I could write a book I guess. Perhaps if I wrote about what I don’t like, the piece would be shorter. Let’s see: I don’t like to wear brown, eat liver, listen to most of the kids’ music, or go to the dentist. That’s all I can think of at the moment. We just won’t mention politics!

The Art of Culinary Improvisation

2011-06-02T16:00:00.002-04:00

If you are a food snob or so-called “gourmet,” you may as well go read the phone book. This blog is not for you.

My husband was one of those trusting souls who loved to bring home extra people for dinner, most often the hungry young bank officers who worked for him. I quickly learned to wait until I had a head count before cooking dinner.

The first time this happened, I’d only been married about a month and knew very little about cooking. One dish I did know how to cook was Tuna Casserole. Tony called and said he was bringing his uncle home with him, to eat lunch. I nearly panicked but made the casserole and Uncle Jake raved over it, said it was the best thing he’d ever eaten. He even told my mother in law how much he’d enjoyed it - most likely because he could chew it. This was 1957 and tuna casserole was still new. That dear man spent lots of time with us over the years and always bragged on my cooking. At one time, he’d been produce buyer for the group of grocery stores my husband was in charge of, when we married. So, though he was older when I met him, he taught me lots about fruit and vegetables.

I picked up some ideas for quick and easy party foods early in my marriage.

In Atlanta, that year, onion dip - made by adding a package of Liptons dry onion soup mix to a pint of sour cream - was quite popular. It was served with chips, at parties. Of course it needed an hour or two, or longer, to combine properly. I had the fun of being the first to serve that to party guests not long after we married. Maybe just because it was something new, everyone devoured it.

Another party food still kind of new that year, was Chex Mix, made with several cereals and nuts, then baked slowly with some seasonings. I’ve probably made a bathtub of this over the last 55 years. I’ve given it for tiny Christmas gifts several times. It is nutritious and fairly cheap. The recipe is on the Chex boxes tho’ I usually jazz mine up a bit with soy sauce, onion powder and garlic salt, etc.

But back to meal stretching - here are some tips and recipes.

Grocery list for emergency meal stretching:

Rice, macaroni, spaghetti, boxed real potato flakes, potatoes, canned cream soups, tuna, canned chicken, Del Monte Blue Lake green beans, Le Seur Party Peas.

We ate lots of tuna back then. When we got tired of tuna, I gave it a good rinse (it was all oil-packed), patted it dry with paper towels, and diced it up fine so we could have chicken salad. (It’s easier than cooking and dicing chicken!)

Our first “home” was in an apartment complex, surrounded by lots of other young couples. We married in February, and I could not get a teaching job that time of year, in Augusta, a town new to me. It was a good situation for me because the other wives were so sweet to me and taught me lots about cooking etc. There was no leash law and there were always dogs and a few cats around, to eat the mistakes I threw out the back door for them.

Since I became an expert at stretching and improvising when I was married, I thought it would be fun to share some of my hard-won knowledge.

Stretch Pork Chops

How to stretch 4 pork chops into dinner for a crowd, at the last minute, with no time for a trip to the store:

2 cups dry rice, cooked in 4 cups water to which 4 chicken bouillon cubes have been added (or cooked in chicken broth)

4 pork chops, cubed into small cubes, browned in vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 red or green pepper, chopped, if you have it or a jar of pimentos (drained)

1 can small green peas drained

additional liquid: soup or just plain water. Add after tasting –

Now, fold all together and TASTE! May need salt, pepper, onion powder, a shot of Soy Sauce, Tabasco, or whatever your family likes.

This needs to be slightly soupy. Place in a greased casserole dish and heat at 350 until it bubbles around the edges. Can add bread crumbs, grated cheese, etc. for a topping if desired. Obviously, this can be changed lots of ways but you get the picture. I certainly prefer not to cook this way but someone asked me recently how to stretch something like pork chops .

Another easy dish to have on hand is ---

Frozen Fruit Salad

In a large mixing bowl, combine:

1 can cherry pie filling

1 large can crushed pineapple, drained

8 oz sour cream

1 can condensed milk

large carton thawed Cool Whip

2 cups miniature marshmallows

Freeze in loaf pans or paper muffin cups, placed in regular muffin pans [place in ziplock bags when frozen]. Slice and serve on a lettuce leaf or in the muffin wraps. Actually, I usually doubled this. It is good and convenient to have on hand. Tony and Bruce used to get these out of the freezer and eat them like popsicles.

Hot Dog Chili

(This is supposed to be the Varsity’s Original Recipe but I doubt it. At any rate, it works and is nice when making chili dogs. Freezes well, too.)

2 pounds lean ground beef

1- 2 ½ oz box hot chili powder

1 tsp salt [I use less]

2 cups water

Mix in a saucepan; bring to a boil; simmer on low until slightly thick, about one hour.

Curried Tuna Melts

Prepare your usual tuna salad except add curry powder, starting with about one teaspoon, then taste. Can add more to suit yourself. On a baking sheet, divide the salad between slices of toast, maybe about four. Place a slice of cheese on top of the salad. Place the baking sheet under the broiler, just until the cheese starts to melt. Remove and serve.

Well, there you have a few food bites. I’m sure anyone who has cooked for a while could add lots more and definitely better ideas. However writing this gives me something to do – and keeps me off the streets.

I Love

2011-05-16T10:04:00.001-04:00

I was thinking recently about the many things that I love, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

I love roses that smell good. So many roses, these days, have been “ de-smelled.” Recently, my son sent a dozen roses to me. Not only are they still fresh looking after almost a week but they smell divine! They arrived on Mothers’ Day morning, by UPS. The long box contained the roses, a lovely clear glass vase, plant saver, AND a box of very nice chocolates! The long stem roses are red, white, yellow, peach etc.—just so lovely!

I love the feeling I get when I look up the road ahead and see mountains. It is almost as if I can catch a really deep breath and all my senses come alert. All my life I’ve been going to the Smoky Mountains, and I never tire of them.

It’s not just the Smokies that affect me, either. Interestingly enough, my first glimpse of the Alps almost took my breath away and I felt tears running down my cheeks. That night, we stayed in a lovely small hotel, on the Swiss border, and I was up early the next morning because I wanted to walk in those mountains and feel their dirt under my feet.

Later that morning, but still early, I was the first person to arrive in the small dining room. A waitress asked if I’d like coffee, I said, “Yes, but when my husband comes down, he’ll want hot tea.” Moments later, all three waitresses faced me, “Why do all Americans always ask for HOT tea? Do they think we’d serve them cold tea?” Of course, I had to explain in the south, we drink lots of iced tea – or as we usually just say, ICE TEA.

Breakfast was served buffet style and I could hardly get enough of one dish. Finally, the chef came out and sat down at the table with Tony, Bruce, and me. He told me how to make the dish I liked so much. I used to make it fairly often back home.

SWISS BREAKFAST FRUIT-

1 LARGE CARTON PLAIN YOGURT

½ tsp PURE VANILLA

2 OR 3 TBL SUGAR

LARGE WHIPPED OR VERY SOFT CREAM CHEESE

FRUIT TO YOUR TASTE OR AVAILABILITY, SUCH AS BLUEBERRIES OR OTHER BERRIES, FRESH PEACHES [ADD A FEW DROPS OF ALMOND FLAVORING], TOASTED WALNUTS , ALMONDS ETC.

LIGHTEN THE CREAM CHEESE BY MIXING IN A LITTLE YOGURT. THEN FOLD EVERYTHING TOGETHER.

OPTIONAL: CAN FOLD INTO THE MIX, ABOUT 1 CUP , OR TO TASTE, QUICK COOKING OATMEAL [ NOT INSTANT ]. IF YOU ADD OATMEAL, LET IT SET UP OVERNIGHT.

I PREFER MAKING IT THE NIGHT BEFORE, ESPECIALLY IF THERE ARE HOUSEGUESTS.

I love ol’ timey church hymns. I have a fairly large collection of old hymn books, and often I’ve used some of the hymns as solos. Every time I sang one, people would come up afterwards and thank me. Then, they would ask why we no longer sing them in the church service. I don’t really know. If singing with a group, it is fun to harmonize on them too. Just think, what is more beautiful than, “What A Friend We Have In Jesus,” or “In The Garden.” Do you remember this one? “ I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And He walks with me … and He talks with me… and He tells me I am His own.” Oh, My, what memories!

I love Basset Hounds so much that we bought three in a row, over about a thirty year period of time. They are the only breed that we bought as purebreds. They are very intelligent; easy to train; soft and huggable; and just plain darn funny! They also boss the other dogs and any people who allow it.

Every article you read these days, says that chocolate will kill a dog. We didn’t know that when we had our big dogs, so they always had a bite of candy etc. Molly, our last Basset licked every brownie, mixing bowl that I used, at least once a week, chocolate, raw egg, and sugar etc. When she finished with the bowl, she spent the next hour slurping her ears and getting them all nice and clean. She never had a weight problem but when we visited the vet, she’d march right in and position her cute self on the scale until someone recorded her weight.

I don’t know that I love a singing group called, IL DIVO, but I really do enjoy their music and beautiful, well trained voices. They are four tenors and as a former singer, I have had my troubles with tenors and their egos. But I am not singing with this group so I can just enjoy them. If possible, I want Dee to include a music thingy on here so I can share my guys plus any of your favorites. [Here's the "thingy", Mom!] You can just listen to your favorites on your pc. My sweet friend, in California sent it and I do thank him.

I love BLUE !!! Can’t help it, just think that is the most beautiful color, all shades and tints. But my least favorite is a pale, pallid, baby blue. I want my blues to be strong, come meet me at the door, and help me find a chair. Also, I don’t mind a little green mixed in for interest. Actually, I just love strong colors. Black is not a color but I love black too and really enjoy wearing it….

OK, I’ll admit it - I love my darn computer! In some cases, I stay in almost constant touch with family and friends. I no longer, go out all that much plus even a trip to Augusta where I still have dear friends , takes me over three hours to drive. ( I drive the speed limit plus about five, never faster than ten mph over.) I OBVIOUSLY have no business driving the expressways or interstates --- so don’t. I feel that the computer is a major help for old people. I have former friends who are quite bitter and, frankly, unpleasant to talk with because all they do is complain. They refuse to use a computer and are just plain annoyed with folks who do. Two of those ff’s had quite nice computers installed in their guest bedrooms but never used them. Don’t get me started on grumpy old people, trying to remain positive here.

I love Hilton Head Island. I’ve been visiting there since there were only two motels and a grocery store. The bridge was wooden and rickety. I have tons of happy memories centered on the island. We used to go at least twice a year, and I continued after Tony died. In recent years, I’ve rented condos at a place on the beach, called Ocean One, and it suits me just fine. It is very nice but not swanky and I can sit on the balcony, breathe the ocean air, and watch the dolphins and shrimp boats. We have our favorite places to eat and shop and I feel at home there.

Since I now live with my daughter, the sight I love most is seeing my son’s truck turn into our driveway. After his military service, the last in Iraq, I feel we’ve paid our dues as a military family. I love most, in this world, just having my children and grands, close around.

When I start to feel blue, it comforts me to reflect on these things I love. What do you love?

This is Dee when she was in her early 20's, with our Basset, Molly.

Billie

2011-05-07T08:35:00.000-04:00

Mother’s Day is Sunday, and I have been thinking a lot about my mother, Wilma Butler Hasty.

Talk about your middle child syndrome, my mother had it going and coming. She was the middle child of seven daughters, with three older brothers and one younger. She was also the smallest of the entire crowd. She hated swimming pools because she said every time she got close to the one in their yard, someone would grab her and throw her in. She never learned to swim, understandably.

She admitted to being born in 1900 but we think, at least, a year or two sooner. When asked, she’d say something like, “Oh, around the turn of the century.” She was named Wilma Elizabeth Butler. When she was young, her nickname was Billie and a few folks called her that all her life. She was a very talented person. She had a lovely singing voice, played the piano, wrote poetry etc. she was also very intelligent. She attended Bessie Tift College where she exempted out of her freshman courses after taking a series of tests.

By the standards of those days, Billie was a bit wild. She was the first girl in Marietta, Georgia to bob her very long hair. She was a flapper and could dance a mean Charleston. She smoked cigarettes but always said she didn’t drink, just enjoyed a highball occasionally. (I suppose that was instead of just drinking straight whiskey?!)

Her three oldest brothers all owned automobile dealerships, so there were plenty of cars around, and she started driving when her feet reached the pedals, about age 11. She enjoyed driving around town with her sister Hazel when they were just kids.

I suppose by the time I remember my mother, she was a more proper matron, about 34 or 35 when I was born. I have two older brothers, bobby and Don.

Mother was a character, even when I knew her.

No one ever told me the ”facts of life,” so the advice I was given by Mother and her sisters made no sense to me at all. She said I should never let a boy hold my hand because he might get excited and go crazy. Well, I just had to try it but I never got one to go crazy. Used to wonder what I was doing wrong there. She also said I should never accept food from a boy because they touched their “things” and probably didn’t wash their hands afterwards. This was when I was in the first grade and I always wondered what their “things” were. Yes, I had brothers and uncles and lots of men in my life but I was very sheltered.

Dee recalls her grandmother telling her the exact same thing when she started first grade: “Never let a boy touch you because they are not clean. They never wash their hands!” Dee thought that was funny.

Mother was raised in a very well to do home, but when the Depression hit, she and my dad were in the same boat as everyone else, with very little money. My earliest memories are of the 1930’s, and my mother had to be thrifty.

Mother was a whirlwind of activity. She was a grand organizer, liked to get things done. She organized and supervised the soup kitchen, in the school in our small town. She’d majored in nutrition in college. She saw that hungry children got a bowl of vegetable soup, cornbread, and a piece of fruit, every day. It was about 1940, I think, kind of the end of the depression.

Back then, tramps came to our door, asking for food. She never turned one away but often had them sweep off the walk or bring in some wood, just anything to let them feel they’d earned their food. Small as she was, I don’t think she was ever afraid, but she most likely had her shotgun close by and would kill a chicken by shooting its head off.

Dee takes after my mother in a lot of ways – both are energetic and industrious, intelligent, and funny. My brother Bobby and I used to laugh and say “Mother will never die, as long as Dee is alive.”

Mother was taken from us in 1976 when she had a massive stroke, and she never really recovered. I miss her every day.

Long Ago

2011-03-25T15:56:00.000-04:00

I was thinking recently about how many things that were common when I was young [curb feelers, aprons, picnics, to name just a few] are just not seen today.

Recently, a funny message came around that talked about curb feelers, among other things. When I was a kid here in Atlanta, we lived on 9^th St. hill, near Piedmont Park, and it really was steep, especially to a kid trying to learn to drive. My dad favored Buicks so trying to park those heavy cars, going up the hill, on the right, was a challenge to me. Remember, no automatic gear shift, power steering, or power brakes, plus I couldn’t see over the front of the car real well. Dad was a kind person so really did not scold about his tires getting scratched. However, he did install curb feelers – and I loved them. I’ve often wished I had them on other cars.

I don’t recall walking into anyone’s kitchen, in the last few years, and discovering them wearing an apron. Mother had a kitchen drawer full of aprons. There were the plain everyday ones all the way to fancy cocktail aprons to wear when serving guests. If she was doing some heavy cooking, she’d wear one of the plain white, cotton aprons that could be bleached. Then, just before guests arrived, she’d change into a pretty apron that complemented her nice dress. Dad most often helped Mother in the kitchen, especially when we were having guests, after church on Sundays. That meant he would be wearing nice suit pants and a starched, white, dress shirt and tie. So he had Mother sew him aprons that suited him lots better than her small, frilly aprons. Remember he was about 6’4” and she was barely 5 feet tall. I believe we still have a couple of Dad’s aprons and they are very dear to us. I don’t recall Mother or her six sisters ever buying an apron.

Gifts were a big part of Christmas for Mother and her six sisters, but nothing expensive. Either Mother or my Aunt Jennie sewed all the aprons for the sisters. Sometimes, they would make cute pot holders to match the aprons. The sisters all gave each other Christmas presents and birthday presents and most often, each received one or two new aprons as well as other gifts.

My Aunt Miriam didn’t sew. She always gave panties. She and her family lived in an apartment, on the corner of Peachtree Place and Peachtree St. On the opposite corner was a quite nice ladies’ clothing shop, called Jean’s Shop. Miss Jean was a friend of my aunt. Miriam knew the correct size, style, fabric etc for each of her sisters and me. Before a birthday, she’d call and order her panties present, have it gift wrapped, charged to her husband, and delivered across the street. Mother thought it was funny but I loved receiving the beautiful undies. (Wonder what she’d think about the tiny, band aide size panties that girls wear now! Hardly worth the bother of wearing them, seems like.)

My parents, as well as the rest of the family, just loved going on picnics. They had a system of what to carry and just how to pack it. This was mostly before Tupperware, Styrofoam, canned drinks, and lots of convenience items. We did have a large thermos jug which would be filled with a combination of sweet tea and fruit juices - delicious! Also, there was no plastic wrap or foil – but waxed paper was fine. The food was about what one would expect: fried chicken, potato salad, ham, fruit salad, slaw, cold biscuits, usually a pot of green beans with ham hock, and someone always brought a wonderful home baked cake, and cobblers, and pies. They kept the old tablecloths for picnics. We always met at the Atlanta area parks that had nice picnic tables, most often with thatched appearing roofs, or a pavilion. We have nice weather about seven or eight months a year though it can get most too hot at times, in July or August. The adults would sit around and visit and the young folks would take long walks around the park, after the meal. The parks where we most often met were Piedmont Park and North Fulton [now called Chastain Park].

Both of the above parks had nice swimming pools but we were not allowed to swim in them nor were my cousins. Everyone was afraid of Polio and rumor had it that it could be caught at public pools. I’ll never forget the great relief everyone felt when the vaccine was developed. Tony and I took our little ones to the nearest school, in Augusta, and we were given the vaccine on sugar cubes, near as I remember. Later, we got shots. I haven’t researched this but think that’s what we did.

My mother had beautiful china for 12 people. She and Dad bought it at Wannamakers’ store, in Philadelphia. I have it now and we’ve never broken a single piece – of course, Dee says that’s because we don’t use it with the kids. Our dining room table seated 12 people so it was a perfect fit. However, there were Spur gas stations all around the state that gave free dishes when you bought gas from them. Those dishes were fairly heavy, kind of embossed, deep pink or maybe red. And we kids had a great time collecting them. Think we finally had a complete set of about 10 or 14. There were platters, bowls etc too. Ours are long gone but I was amused to see some in an antique store not too long ago.

Life was not so complicated back then when it came to school. Nowadays you have to set up meetings and fill out forms, etc. With all the notes and e mails that Dee has to send to school to handle things with her kids, I am reminded of a situation when I was in the 7^th grade, at O’Keefe Jr. High. The girls’ PE class had to dress out, run tract on a dirt track, then come into the gym and most often, play basketball. By the time I got back into the gym, my asthma always kicked in and I could barely breathe. My mother sent a note but it was not accepted— I was supposed to have a doctor’s certificate. That posed a problem, because we didn’t have much money, especially not extra money for a doctor visit when I wasn’t sick.

The next day after I told mother her note wasn’t accepted. Dad went to the office of the principal and told the secretary he needed to speak to the principal, Mr.Hastings. She said he’d have to make an appointment. He said, “I don’t need one because the man is sitting right there in his office, not doing anything.” With that, he walked into the principal’s office, introduced himself, and said, ”Your PE class is causing my daughter to have asthma attacks – so she won’t be taking the class from now on.” Hastings sputtered and said I’d have to have a doctor’s excuse. Dad, all 6’4 and 220 lbs of him, simply looked at the man and said quietly ”No, she does not. You have my word on this – and that is all you need.” I never had to dress out or take PE again. When I got to class that day, the teacher told me I could spend the rest of the time, reading, in her office. That evening, I overheard Dad telling Mother what had happened. That was the first time I heard about it. As far as I remember, that was the only time my dad ever went to school on my account, unless I was singing a solo. That next fall, the school system was changed to elementary schools and neighborhood high schools. I went to Henry Grady High school from grades 8-12, took the required PE and had no trouble with it. (I didn’t have to contend with the dirt track.)

Making ice cream was a favorite activity of our family. Recently, we watched Ina Garten make ice cream, on her Barefoot Contessa show on Food channel. It was so simple, she just removed a frozen, hollow cylinder from her freezer; poured into it, some concoction; turned a switch; and 20 minutes later; had ice cream. Wow! My parents had the most wonderful wooden ice cream freezer. It made about a gallon of ice cream but, oh my, not in twenty minutes. First, Mother made whatever recipe they’d decided on that day. I’m not at all sure but think sometimes it was a cooked custard or it was made using a product called “Junket”, always vanilla . This was placed in a metal cylinder which was then placed in the wooden freezer. Ice was packed around it with ice cream salt sprinkled over the ice to make it thaw, I think. Of course, this involved buying 25 lbs of ice from an ice house and placing it in a tin tub so it could be chipped up for the freezer. Then a handle had to be turned to make the cylinder revolve and gradually freeze. The more frozen it became, the harder it would be to turn, and sometimes it wanted to jump up off the floor a bit. This is where I came in. Being the youngest, thus smallest, person in the house, I was summoned to sit on the top of the freezer so it wouldn’t jump. They usually were kind enough to place folded newspapers over the icy top so my bottom wouldn’t freeze. This is where I acquired the nickname… oh well, never mind, but it really was the best ice cream in the world. Wish I had some now!

The world has changed a lot, but I have some wonderful memories.

Small Pleasures

2011-03-12T13:13:00.000-05:00

For those of you who follow my daughter’s blog, you will know by now that I recently spent some time in the hospital. I had been feeling poorly for a while, and finally on February 21st I fainted and was having a tough time of it, and Dee and I decided it was best for me to go to the hospital and get checked out. They found that I had an electrical problem with my heart, and a pacemaker was implanted. It was no fun whatsoever, but the nurses were very caring, and my children were with me 95% of the time. Now I feel much better, except for the usual arthritis issues.

The post below was started before I went to the hospital and just today I decided to finish it.

Everyone should have a retreat of some sort. Growing up, mine was quite often the big porch swing on our front porch.

When I was a teenager, our elderly swing squeaked something awful. When I came home from a date, the guys often suggested we sit in the swing and visit a bit before they had to go home. That was fine because it was very comfortable out there. Mother had her pot plants, rocking chairs etc and there was often a breeze. Our big ol’white frame house was not air conditioned, anyway. Few were in those days. Finally, that squeak started bothering me and I asked Dad to oil it or do something to silence it. His and Mother’s bedroom was on the front of the upstairs and, of course, their windows were open. “Oh no, he said, as long as I hear that swing squeaking, I just sleep so good but when it stops, I wake right up!” Oh, Ok, ---

For various reasons, I spend a lot of time in my room, here at home. It is large and I have my computer, tv, bed, small sofa, easy chair, CD’s, desk, phone, and comfortable rolling desk chair etc. Seated at my desk, I can look out into our back yard and enjoy the Cardinals who live in the huge hydrangea bush, just under my window. Of course, my bathroom joins my room also. So this is my sanctuary, my refuge, if you will and one of several reasons we bought this particular house when Dee and I decided to live together, in 2005. An outside door to our patio is four steps, through the laundry room, from my bedroom [I just counted ]. Perhaps I should explain that Dee has the master bedroom and the kids have their rooms and baths, at the opposite side of the house, upstairs. So we all have our space. At night, Dee and I can communicate with our Walkie-talkies and I have various bells and an air horn in the bath as well as in here.

Coco mostly stays close to me. She always sleeps with me, as she has all her life. When Alesia first came home and we moved in together, Coco cheerfully went up to bed with Alesia and stayed until she got her to sleep. Then, Coco came down and stayed with me. Coco dearly loves to play with the kids but when she comes flying into my room and dives under my bed, the kids are not allowed to follow. Her little doggie bed is out in the kitchen for daytime naps. Coco has her sanctuary too and we respect that. Recently, when I was in the hospital, Alesia had Coco sleep with her, and I was so grateful.

An advantage of my room placement is that everyone comes to visit at various times. I love and enjoy that. I get to hear various interesting news, happy and sad, and really, just good visits. I’m always amused when one of the kids comes in, kicks off their shoes, and piles up in the middle of my bed to talk. Most often, I am in my desk chair. I have labeled this blog as ”small pleasures” but visits really are a large pleasure.

With a touch of early spring in the air, I am beginning to get my taster set for a tomato sandwich made with peeled, sliced, home grown tomatoes, lots of Dukes’ mayo, and white bread. Actually, a couple slices of crisp bacon just wouldn’t hurt a thing……… but NO lettuce. I like lettuce, especially the soft varieties, with my own salad dressing, but to my way of thinking, it does not belong in a BLT. So—a BT ? Surely not a TB !

When I was a child, there were some characters in a story, whose names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter. These days, when I look into a mirror, I often think I can really identify with the first two. After I reached the ripe ol’ age of 75, I decided there was no earthly reason to have to live so gussied up and harnessed all the time …… or any time, actually ! So I’ve pretty much tossed everything but what folks used to call drawers, I think .Whoo – hoo, no belts and pullys ------ what I’d definitely call small pleasures !

I threw out high heels, medium heels, chunky heels etc a good while back. Now I mostly wear my Easy Spirits all the time. I have a pair of black ones for church – that’s as formal as it gets. I no longer own a pair of panty hose. Several friends about my age, or older, still teeter totter around on their heels and look just plain silly. A couple of them have had several falls. I don’t understand why they won’t wear sensible shoes.

I have found that as I have grown older, there are still many things which give me pleasure, or perhaps the better word is contentment. I have my room, my books, my friends, my children, and my grandchildren, and that’s enough, for now.. For you young folks, I hope you can find a place of spiritual contentment and sanctuary, when you reach the senior years..

Listen Up

2011-02-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

All those folks I dearly love, like, tolerate, can barely stand to be in the same room with, and some I only love because Jesus wasn’t kidding when HE said I have to love them, have one, to me, major fault in common. They don’t listen! Have you ever carefully tried to relate some piece of information to someone only to hear it repeated totally wrong? I’m not talking about teaching, here. Of course, sometimes they think they have listened but just had a brain short circuit.

One time, at a funeral home, visiting with the rest of the family before the service, an older lady cousin, asked about my Dee and what sort of job she had. I don’t think she really was listening when I told her ” Dee is a Paralegal.” She replied ” Oh, I have a friend at the courthouse whose son is a Paraplegic.” I had to cough hard, cover my mouth, and rush to another room, I was so tickled. Later, seated for the funeral, next to my brother, Bob, he asked if I was OK and what had happened a few minutes before? I quickly whispered my little story so then he got tickled. He was a really tall, broad man and knew if he actually laughed, they’d hear him across the street. So he sat with his handkerchief across his face as if he was crying. His wife, my husband, and cousin Frank knew we had the giggles but don’t think anyone else did. Later, at the cemetery, thankfully after the brief service, Frank whispered to me and said, ”Ok, tell me what was so darn funny.” When I told him, he laughed out loud before he could stop himself. Now my very smart lady cousin knew perfectly well that she’d misspoken, but her brain played a funny trick on her.

I try to be a good listener, but sometimes I listen too well. I still have problems watching and hearing a person walking around talking to themselves out loud. It started while I still lived in Augusta, more than 5 years ago. I had not seen the newer, tiny cell phones that are fitted right on the ear. I was grocery shopping, in the produce section, at Publix. A youngish middle-aged man was talking to the fruit. Yes, he was! He’d pick up an orange, look at it, chat with it a minute, then return it to the bin. I couldn’t get quite close enough to hear all he said but a time or two, he seemed to argue with it. Then he moved on to the vegetables. When he picked up the cucumber, I nearly lost it. I was having a fit to follow him to the fresh meat section, wondering what he’d have to say to the pork chops. But alas, he’d started giving me dirty looks so my plan to ask him if he’d say a few words to my bunch of turnip greens kind of fell through.

Both of my grandchildren are very bright but there are times when only I know that. They don’t listen to me all the times. It took me some time to remember to look at them and see if they had “earbuds” in. Something as simple as, please go get the mail and pick up that trash by the driveway, is met with a total, blank stare, and no movement at all. Only then do I walk around to their side and see strange things sticking out of their ears. I don’t know if those things go all the way through their brains or if they just meet in the middle. One interesting part of that is, if the kid kind of jiggles or hitches his or her bottom up and down I know there’s brain activity. I hope to heaven some substitute for real music is causing this and not bedbugs.

I’ve listened to many sermons, but one in particular will never be forgotten.

First, some background. When I was growing up, we usually went to Sunday School and Church, on Sunday morning. Then, after we moved back to Atlanta, we often went on Sunday night, also. We were members of First Baptist but on Sunday nights, my dad liked to go to First Methodist to hear his old baseball pal, Dr. Pierce Harris, preach. Dr. Harris most often had a little interesting or funny story included in his sermon. If he spotted Dad, he always introduced him from the pulpit so folks who wanted to could visit with Dad, after church. From the time I was a young teen-ager, I sang in church choirs all over town. As I got older, of course, I did lots of solo work. My point is that I heard lots and lots of sermons. And, without really realizing it, I trained myself to ignore the sermons, just tune them out. Sometimes, I’d even plan what I was going to think about during the sermon. I think lots of folks do that and if sermons are so dull, who can blame them!

My parents, aunt and uncle, and lots of their friends, sat in the front quarter, right side, of our church. One Sunday, a really tall, kind of horse faced, Georgia Tech professor (Dr. Adams) got settled down for his “sermon nap” and just went right to sleep. Things were kind of quiet for a moment. Then Dr. Adams started a long, very loud snore that sounded like a train engine chugging over logs! Of course, he woke himself up to the laughter of half the church, even the pastor lost it. Mrs. Adams was offered lots of sympathy for all her years of sleeping with that guy. Thankfully, the sermons at our little Episcopal Church are usually interesting and quite good.

In the Episcopal church there is an unspoken sort of rule that sermons do not go over 10-15 minutes. My husband used to like to usher in church, and he’d glare at the priest and tap his watch if the sermon went too long. Of course, the priest usually ignored him. Tony listened, but only up to a point.

Listening to someone else is not just a physical act, it’s simple courtesy. We all need to remember that. When I was young, I remember reading somewhere that Good Manners are essentially just kindness. There is surely much truth there. My dad had beautiful manners and I think they could be traced, primarily to his concern for others. He sat at the head of our table and never took the first bite or sip of anything until he’d made sure that everyone was served, even when it was just our family. He also listened carefully, and responded thoughtfully. I believe that his innate kindness was passed on to my brother, and yes, to our children.

Farm Days Revisited

2011-01-26T11:08:00.001-05:00

[NOTE: I've written about the WWII years before here and in other posts, but Dee asked me to elaborate on life in those days, so I added some memories here, and included some from brother Don]

Our family life was vastly changed by World War Two. My dad tried to enlist after December 7, 1941, but he was turned down as being too old. He was over 45 years old and had been a sergeant in the first world war.

The war was very scary for folks who knew what a war could do and the effect it could have on people. After working many different jobs in the 1930’s, we were living in Smyrana, Georgia when the war started. I was 7 years old. Dad decided he would move us to a farm way out in the country. It was a short distance from Spartanburg, S.C. His job was to manage a very large farm, maybe 1000 acres. It was the first time in many years that his job was not tied to playing or coaching a baseball team.

We had a nice white farmhouse with a pretty front porch and a big screened porch out back. There were several other buildings, a huge barn, and a long tractor shed among them.

As usual though, all was not perfect. The house had a really nice bathroom but because of the war, pipes were not available. We quickly learned to use an outdoor toilet. Dad would not allow my mother and me to go there after dark so we had little potties in the other wise unusable house bath.

At first, we had no running water inside the house. We had a well outside the kitchen .After having the water tested, Dad built a house over the well and finally installed a pump. Then he ran a pipe into the kitchen sink so we could get water inside though we still had to pump it into the kitchen sink. We had to heat it to bathe and wash dishes. The heavy water kettle was always on the back of the stove.

I asked my brother Don to share some of his recollections of those days: “When we first moved to the farm, we had no central heat, no a/c, no running water, no plumbing and no electricity. We had wood stoves and wood fireplaces. Light at night was provided by lanterns and oil lamps. I was always cold. We had hot water bottles in bed in winter to keep my feet somewhat warm. Pa installed a bathtub in what would become the bathroom later and cut a hole in the floor to drain the tub onto the open ground below. We heated big pots of water on the kitchen wood cook stove for baths. Needless to say, short baths and sporadic occurrences. I never did like baths in bathtubs.... Don't now. I can tolerate showers.

Pa built the shed over the water pump out back in order for us to take showers during the warm months. Of course, when it was cool/cold outside, I didn't go there - I'd get cold just going and coming, much less getting wet. We had small outside steps to get up there. He put a big tub on top and filled it with water. Since it was all in the sun, the sun warmed the water. He constructed a drain line down thru the floor and attached a shower head. We undressed and dressed inside. We opened the drain line below to run the shower. After each shower, we would hand pump water up to refill the tub for the next time. No back-to-back showers. Gravity is a good thing.”

My mother’s nice gas range was stored because of course there was no gas available out there. They bought a great big black wood burning stove that looked about like what I thought the devil must look like. I hated that stove that was either too hot or too cold, that burned me every time I had to mess with it. The fire would get too low or, if I was around, die dead just to aggravate me. I have to say the stove held up pretty good under some really hard kicks—just grinned at me, in fact. Some male person brought fire wood into the kitchen every day and placed it in a basket. The monster would gobble up the wood then die again. Washing dishes was one of my chores and just using icy well water was not allowed [unless I got caught].

Some more recollections from Don: “Sometime later, Pa had a cannery built in a field down the way from our house and barn. We canned all kinds of fruits and vegetables in the summer. We kept many of the cans and also gave bunches to the three owners - most likely some to the farm tenants too. We had big vats inside to do all the cooking.

On off days and evenings, Bobby, Pa and I went down there, filled up the vats with warm water and took baths. For the most part, this was ok, so long as it wasn't too often. Sanitation inspectors would have had a big fit. Undress and dress, then back home. Only had to walk about two blocks to take a tub bath. No showers. Exciting.

All these good things reserved for men of course, no females allowed.”

Just as everything else was being used for the war effort, so were power lines. We were on a long waiting list but got by without electricity for a while. I don’t remember how long. Our farm was essentially an agri-business, feeding a good many people. It was owned by three men: Sitton, Ligon, and Ligon. One or all of them either drove out for food or Dad carried it in to them every week that it was available. Also, we had seven large tenant families who worked for wages. They got their houses free plus big garden plots. We shared seeds etc with them and they pastured their animals in the farm’s big pastures.

We had a beautiful pine dining room table that seated twelve comfortably and a big hutch cabinet. There was also about a 5 or 6 foot serving table etc. One winter, when he was off from playing ball, my dad built the dining room furniture, with the help of my brother Bobby. My parents had seen this dining room furniture in Wannermakers’ store, in Philadelphia and had fallen in love with it. It was terribly expensive so they decided to just replicate it. Mother drew pictures of each piece and Dad measured them. For seating, he built long benches for each side and they purchased large cane bottom chairs for the ends. I grew up sitting on those benches and sometimes at night lying down on one so I could stay up a little while longer. Our night meals were never finished in under an hour.

When we first moved to the farm, they placed three or four big, kerosene lamps down the center of the table. That’s where all evening activity took place. We did our homework; they read the paper; wrote letters; kept the farm books, etc. right there. We also had an open fireplace in the large dining room, for heat and light. Early in the mornings, during winter, Dad would start a roaring fire in the fireplace and we would scoot into the dining room to dress. Later when we finally got electricity, I spent many hours each day sitting in an easy chair, listening to the radio in that room. All the family listened together at night, most often to the war news. [Note for younger readers: nobody had a TV in the WWII years]

Listening to music on the radio was where I learned all the lyrics to the popular songs. I forced myself to memorize the tunes and lyrics, then practiced singing them. Eventually, I pretty much knew all the popular songs. If there were other people in the house when I wanted to sing, I walked a long way out to the creek and down a steep hill to a spring that fed it. The acoustics were fabulous in that little hollow and I thought I could belt out my songs and no one would hear. Of course with its being in the pasture, I was often joined by cows, horses, mules, dogs etc. I did catch a cow or two looking at me strangely a few times. Guess they wondered why I hadn’t been taught to moo properly. They were my only playmates as I had no friends the entire time we lived on the farm. I still remember the songs I liked best and used them in later years when I did the USO shows. Some of them were; “I’ll Be Seeing You,” “Just A Prayer Away,” “I’ll Get By,” “Always,” “The White Cliffs of Dover,” “Together” and many more. [If you’d like to hear many of these songs and more, check out this website: The Music of WWII ]

All the young doctors and dentists went to war where our service people needed them. So we were left with those willing to come out of retirement. Anything other than a dire emergency required long, long waiting periods. I recall going to a family type MD only once. This created a very scary situation for our family on one occasion. Mother stepped into a post hole and pulled all the ligaments in one knee, so of course it had to be taken to the doctor. All he did was tell her to stay off it until it healed. That knee bothered her the rest of her life.

That was not the only mishap. Don slid off a two horse wagonload of hay and the wheel rolled on his arm. Dad heard him screaming as did I. Dad lifted the entire front end of that wagon and Joe, who worked for us, pulled Don out from under it. The entire time they were working to free Don, our big, red horse stood on three legs holding up his right back leg because he’d have stepped on Don if he put it down. Later, after things calmed down and they got back from the hospital, Dad marveled at the intelligence of that big horse. I’ll hear Don’s screams the rest of my life, I suppose, my hands are shaking as I write this. I must have been about nine years old which would make Don about twelve at that time.

Dental appointments were running months behind, in the small town near us. My dad got a terrible toothache that was running him crazy, as strong and stoic as he was. Finally, he could take no more. He picked up a pair of pliers; walked a long way from the house; and pulled his own tooth. He did not drink alcohol at all and I doubt that he even had an aspirin. When he came back to the house and Mother found out what he’d done, she nearly had a nervous breakdown.

My mother was not accustomed to farm life and it was a very difficult adjustment for her. Mother had grown up in Marietta, the daughter of the man who owned the bank and lots of other businesses. She was a debutante who married a well to do, well known, baseball player, son of an extensive land owner farmer who had donated land for various churches etc. My mother was a tiny, cute, very intelligent woman, with a vast amount of energy, talented in music, etc. I doubt that she ever dreamed of being a farm wife but she made the best of it and, I think, actually enjoyed parts of it.

Farming is hard work and hurting her knee was really a blow, but when she wasn’t laid up Mother did a lot. (Remember, she was a 4’11, 120+ lbs. lady.) I don’t recall ever seeing her enter the barn, or other out buildings or, heaven forbid, harvest anything at all. She paid women from the tenant families to do the laundry and heavy cleaning. However, she cooked, did a lot of the cleaning, and had many duties.

Of course, since it was a farm there were many animals, and Mother didn’t let her size stop her from anything. She raised the chickens and turkeys from eggs to chicks to the frying pan. She killed the chickens she wanted to fry by shooting their heads off with her little shot gun. Trust me here, she didn’t waste ammo, and she didn’t miss. The yard around the house was fenced so sometimes when the grass got high, Dad would let some of the stock graze within the yard. I enjoyed seeing Mother open the back screened door and call out. Seconds later, a horse or two, maybe a cow, seven cats, two or three dogs, chickens etc would gather round for treats. The porch was several steps off the ground so she could look the big animals right in the eyes as she tossed out stale biscuits etc.

In looking back, I can see there were many good things about living on a farm, even though there were hardships, too. Dad just felt like if the US was invaded – a genuine fear shared by many Americans – that a remote farm would be a fairly safe place, and we’d have enough to eat. We got through those years and the ones that followed by the strength and perseverance of my parents and the grace of God.

My New Favorite Things

2011-01-04T17:58:00.000-05:00

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens are definitely not my favorite things, although I absolutely adore hearing my daughter sing the song from the Sound of Music. Just recently, a woman whose blog I much enjoy reading listed some of her favorite things and that caused me to start thinking along those lines too. Interestingly, to me at least, is the fact that my tastes have changed over the years. I’m just listing things as they come to mind so they are not in any order, at all.

Children and dogs have to be first, at any rate. No, I don’t like all of them mainly because I know I can’t have all of them. Also, the only reason to dislike a young child, under 12 or 14, for example, is lack of training and direction. Children are like baby animals that have to be civilized. It is a full time job –and no, it doesn’t take a village. It takes an adult with the common sense God gave a billy goat to hang in there and do the job. I could write a book about this.

Another favorite thing is my jar opener and paring knife. I received a jar opener from our bank in about 1971 and I carry it everywhere I know I’ll be doing some cooking. Also, I often carry a sharp paring knife in my purse. I’m delighted to help with dinner but I have little tolerance for a dull knife. When I first married, I would ask my mother in law if I could help with dinner. She would hand me a dull knife and say to peel the tomatoes. I finally stopped asking.

Eggs- cooked any way at all. Years ago my internist said they are the perfect food and I agree. They are easy to prepare, nutritious, cheap, and perfect for old people on a budget. (I have eaten them most days for the past forty years and I have never had high cholesterol, either.) Years ago, when my husband’s family was having breakfast in a restaurant, a small boy sitting nearby wanted to order by himself. Reading from the menu, he announced he’d like to order “eggs any style”. Of course, his older brothers never let him forget it, poor little guy.

The fragrances of fresh pine and a wood fire, especially during cold weather.

A good writing pen is a thing of joy, even if just writing a grocery list. Ballpoint pens are from the devil. My cursive writing is not so good anymore. It was never beautiful but was very clear. Having taught 5^th grade, I found that my smallest quirk or mistake in penmanship, would be picked up immediately. Back then, I wrote on the blackboard a lot while the kids copied what I wrote. A member of our family had the most beautiful penmanship, looked almost like a picture. Only trouble was that it was nearly impossible to read. Yes, she was an artist.

Five years ago, I fell and broke both shoulders. Arthritis settled in the shoulders plus I lack full use of my left arm. Fortunately, I am right handed. The point I am making is that there are plenty of gadgets that are quite helpful, plus available. One that I use several times a day is what I call my grabber. It is less than a yard long and gives me the ability to pick up fallen objects plus reach items that are not close. I have one in my bedroom and another in the kitchen.. Coco hates it so if I snap it at her she drops whatever she has gotten into.

Another item I enjoy is a long handled hair brush that allows me to reach the back of my head. It is slightly curved, light weight, easy to clean and use. So many helpers are out there if one does a little research. The grabbers were purchased at a local drug store.

There are many favorite foods:

I am amazed that I no longer actually crave chocolate. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it. However, I can live without it. I’m pretty much that way about all sweets, especially after a big meal.
Mid morning or, better still, mid afternoon is a better time for a piece of my homemade pecan pie and a cup of hot Starbucks coffee.. Mike and I agree on a couple of desserts: Flan and Tiramisu. They are not difficult to prepare but are a tiny bit time consuming.[For more on Tiramisu see here]
I remember my mother’s wonderful, homemade hot bisquits and I can make them nearly as good, though I haven’t made them for ages. One of those bisquits with a little Smuckers cherry preserves is mighty good.

These days, a really good book, fiction or nonfiction, is a wonderful gift. Some years back, when we lived on a lake [a river, really] I saved the more serious books to read during winter. That way, if I was snowed in [read - over one inch of snow] I was happy as a pig in sunshine. Often, I reviewed books for the AAUW, in Knoxville and Oak Ridge, and I usually tried to talk about one fiction, one nonfiction, and one fairly lighthearted. I decided early on that talking about just one book for 45 minutes was boring to me. Also, it was very tempting to just teach the book. Actually, some of the little old ladies wanted me to teach the books. That way, they thought they could discuss the book intelligently without bothering to read it.

More than ever, these days, I enjoy staying in touch with old friends. The computer has been a major help in that regard. Sometimes the communication is just a funny or a political opinion but it allows me to touch base. Of course, we do trade letters and comments too. I’d probably never send a snail mail note with just a couple of lines – but I often send an e mail that short. Having, at my fingertips, the ability to research any subject I can think of is interesting and entertaining. Once I learned to Google, I was off and running.

Computers can be wonderful for seniors. I have two longtime friends who bought their computers about the time my kids gave me my first one. Yes, I made all kinds of mistakes, still do in fact. Every now and then, I make mistakes so bad, I have to pay someone to come fix them. But I have persevered and received many hours of enjoyment from my computer. One of my friends who has an MA plus years of teaching said she just couldn’t learn to use it. Now she is depressed and bored--------- and rather boring as well. The other friend, a clinical psychologist, has serious health problems and is being forced to stay home most of the time. She too is bored and depressed. She also decided learning to use her computer was too much trouble. One mistake both of these women made was to locate their computers too far away from their traffic areas. In my previous house, my computer was in my kitchen. In this house, it is in my bedroom, which is large.

For today, my last new favorite thing is actually a long time favorite thing. By thunder, my bright red lipstick just makes me feel better! When I glance in the mirror and see myself without it, I am not a happy camper. But, add the color--- and I think, the ol’ girl may be around awhile longer.

Tinfoil Icicles and Paper Bells

2010-12-13T23:05:00.001-05:00

I was born on the last day of 1933. The first Christmas I remember was getting up and being told that Santa had come but we had to eat our breakfast before we could go into the living room to see our presents. Looking back, I believe this was more about Mother wanting her coffee than concern about our nutrition.

Later, walking into the room, all I saw was about half the room’s furniture covered with white bed sheets. Guess Santa stopped off at Mother’s linen closet because I recognized some of her pretty linens. When we were small and still believed in Santa, my folks did not wrap those presents. There would be a filled stocking kind of propped up among the doll and toys. I’m sure I do not remember each Christmas but those that I do, I relate to the doll I got that year. Several of those dolls are upstairs in a tall glass case along with Dee’s mostly Madame Alexander dolls. [When I was still buying dolls for Dee, I thought the Madame Alexanders were by far the best.] For some reason, I always insisted that my dad look at every single little present and he was exceedingly patient.

A Christmas tree is, and has always been, a thing of great beauty to me. If my family would stand for it, I’d keep one up all year. Mother believed in our making decorations so we had construction paper chains and other odd and assorted little objects. She did have to buy new tinsel most every year though because brothers and boy cousins loved to wad up the tinfoil tinsel and throw it into the tree. Of course it did not in any way look like icicles but more like shiny rocks and stones hanging crazily on tree limbs. After I got old enough to notice other folks’ trees, and realized how pretty they could be, I staged a major, for me, rebellion. The upshot was like so much else in life , if I didn’t like the way they decorated, I was welcome to do it by myself………. So, at about six years old I became a tinsel hanger! Mother and I were the only “girls” and she had her hands full with everything else she did.

Times were awfully hard in the thirties and modern equipment such as we take for granted just didn’t exist. Mother’s family had been quite well off. They had lots of servants, a governess, a school teacher etc. but they all had to pitch in and help with that huge family [12 kids]. In our little family, Mother did it all except the big laundry. She and Dad loved Christmas though and made it a happy time for us. We did not have cute, decorated felt stockings. Apparently, Mother saved her stockings for us. They were much bigger plus being stretchy. They held lots more plus larger objects. Only trouble was that we got lots of fruit in our stockings plus un-shelled pecans.

Mother’s brother Dan married a lady whose family owned orange groves, near Largo, Florida. At that time, they had three kids and they most often spent Christmas with us. When they arrived, they came in with crates of oranges and other citrus fruits. Often, the oranges were their natural color, much paler than store bought. After dinner, at night, my dad would sit at the dining room table and peel oranges and grapefruit for everyone. He always cut off each end, then scored the fruit from top to bottom in about six places, then just sort of lifted off the peel.

Mother and Dad loved coconut cake. She always made one or two , using the old 1,2,3,4 cake recipe with cooked, 7 minute white icing. [See the end of this post for the cake recipe.] She added the coconut to the icing, then sprinkled more on the top. These were tall three layer cakes, perhaps 6-8 inches tall. Of course, Dad spent half a day opening and grating the fresh coconut, a really tedious job. He also loved fresh black walnut cake, made the same way except substituting the walnuts for the coconut. I well remember Dad out back with a hammer, opening walnuts, eating a few as he went along. Mother always made a lemon cheese cake, with something kind of like lemon curd as the filling, then seven minute icing on the top and sides. Sometimes, there would be a pound cake, fruit cake or Devils Food. In later years, when my parents visited me for Christmas, I made the cake layers and icing but insisted that Mother put them together. She enjoyed that but I didn’t.

As a child, I always thought our house was just beautiful after Mother decorated. She’d take out the decorations and there were always red, tissue paper bells, large and larger. They stayed folded flat but opened into bells that had to be clipped with a gym clip. Two or three of these with ribbon and fresh pine cuttings would be placed around the house. She dipped pine cones in various paints and used magnolia leaves plus other natural objects. Wish I could remember all of them.

We always had fresh trees, usually pines. In later years, our family made a trip to the huge, Farmers Market, south of Atlanta, to buy our tree. We would drive up and down the rows looking, trying to decide who was selling the best trees.

Christmas during the war years was different. We lived on the farm, away from Atlanta. In many ways it was better for us than for other people because we had chickens, eggs, cows, butter, etc. so there was plenty to eat. So food rationing didn’t affect us. We had to get gas, shoes, and tires with ration books, though. Vanilla flavoring was hard to get, as was pineapple, and canned asparagus. We didn’t get our usual fruit from Uncle Dan. Sugar was rationed but Mother made do. In the newspaper there would be columns about how to make cakes without much sugar. Everyone shared tips on how to get by without things like sugar or eggs. We made fewer Christmas cakes. We had plenty of chickens and turkeys on the farm. We certainly ate well.

Mother sewed all the time. She sent aprons, clothes, potholders, placemats, etc. for everyone in her family for Christmas. She sewed beautifully. She mostly used feed sacks. Back then they were beautiful, with prints, some of them. The white ones were bleached. I think they were heavy cotton. The manufacturers of the chicken feed, for instance, sent the feed in sacks, so that was a source of cloth. We still have a couple of feed sack aprons. They have lasted many years.

Of course, my mother’s family consisted of 12 siblings, and there was Granny Butler. Grandaddy Butler died when I was small. Granny proceeded to live with her children for the rest of her life.

At Christmas, Granny Butler sat around like the Queen of Sheba and everyone bowed and scraped. She would have 40-50 presents to open. She was a real matriarch. Granny took no crap from anybody, but she was very much a lady.

When I was a child, Christmas was always a happy time. I always loved seeing the presents, but I loved seeing the family, particularly my cousins and my grandmother.

1,2,3,4 Cake [Mrs. Dull**]

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

3 cups flour

4 eggs

1 scant cup milk or water

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter, sugar until fluffy; add eggs one at a time. Start alternating flour and liquid; sift powders with flour, add alternately with liquid. Add vanilla. Bake at 375 degrees for about 35-40 minutes if you’re making layers.

** Mrs. Dull was an Atlanta institution. You can read more about her here.

From the Inside Looking Out

2010-12-02T10:50:00.000-05:00

Not too long ago, I glanced into a store window as I walked past and thought, “I know that old soul but who is she? Oh, damn, she has on my good coat and scarf! What’s going on here?” As I thought I’d step inside and say hello, I came face to face with a mirrored wall. Oh, nooooooo, is she me? HER? Dang, woman, what’d you do with the rest of me? I mean, I know I’m no beauty at almost 77 years old, never was much of one, anyway. But I didn’t scare little kids and turn the milk sour.

I guess because I am exceedingly, pleasingly plump :o), I am, perhaps, not as wrinkled as, say, one of those 150 pound scarecrows who never made an iron skillet of Lewis Grizzard’s wonderfully rich cornbread and slathered it with real butter. [Thanks to my SIL Diddy for that just about perfect recipe.] Guess I’m thinking of cornbread because I made a huge pan for my Thanksgiving cornbread dressing. I always have to make enough cornbread for the dressing plus some to just pig out on.

When I was growing up, I had two redheaded girl cousins who lived in a rather fancy apartment, over on Peachtree Place. They were walking distance from our house and I spent lots of time with them, especially the one just older than I am. But I never got enough to eat in their apartment. They’d say things like come have lunch and we’ll go swimming at the club or to a movie at the Fox or the 10^th Street Theatre, or to the Art Theatre, all within walking distance. Their idea of lunch was HALF of a sandwich with lots of lettuce, and a glass of tea. On a good day, we might have one bought cookie! Now I had just walked ten or twelve blocks to get there and I was hungry….. Well, rest of the story ……….. they were no skinnier than I ----- they just suffered more :O) They were also the kind of swimmers who never got their hair wet , if that tells you something. They have kept their wrinkles pretty well filled out too.

I love flowers and this time of year they are mostly gone from our yard. In recent years, our Kroger store has a fairly good selection. My favorites are white daisies with yellow centers; they just look so fresh to me. Recently, I read a book by John Carter Cash about his mother, June Carter. In talking about his mother, he said ”She loved flowers so much, we should say in her obit, ‘in lieu of memorials, please send flowers.’” Obviously, I liked that!

For the most part, I am enjoying my old age. Oh, yes, I have my share of aches and pains and the frustration of being unable to physically do what I’d like or need to do. However, I am so blessed to be with Dee and the kids, plus Bruce comes often and helps us in lots of ways. From the time when we moved to Tennessee in the early 70’s, Bruce and Dee had chores and helped me in the kitchen. I tried to gently give them jobs I thought they could do well, plus the fun part of cooking.

During Bruce’s most recent visit, I enjoyed watching as they got meals on the table and did the clean up afterwards, easily working together, talking, laughing. Dee and Bruce both love to cook and to eat, and they make some wonderful meals together. It’s so good to know I did something right and that my children are friends. Their dad helped around the house too as did my dad, about whom I often write, but he wasn’t a great cook.

That reminds me that some time after my dad died, when we were visiting my mother, she told me her vacuum cleaner was broken. Now, it was an old Electrolux that didn’t have much in it to break. It seemed to be made of concrete. When I turned it on, dust flew everywhere so I asked her when she’d empted it. Her totally blank look answered my question. She never vacuumed a floor until after Dad died and had never cleaned the dust out. Of course, it was good as new as soon as we cleaned it up. It was about thirty years old at that point. Both my dad and my husband liked to vacuum for some strange reason. Grandson Mike has that job, here, these days.

I suppose that what I am trying to say is that I pretty much do what I want to do, with exceptions, of course. I am “waited on” much more than I deserve but, don’t tell anyone, I enjoy it! They do for me what I could do for myself --- but with a whole lot of effort and some fair amount of pain on my part. I’ve cared for other folks most of my adult life and have no regrets.

I’ve thought about other grandparents who don’t live with their grands. They appear to spoil them more or at least do more fun things with them. But Alesia was a very young 13 when she came home and we’ve had to pack so much learning into the years we’ve had her, not the least of which is that she is loved unconditionally. She seems, finally, to understand and is showing lovely maturity, these days.

Mike, in many ways, has been easier but he is still just 14 years old so time will tell. Both children have an innate sweetness that arrived with them. Even in times when Alesia has been slightly out of sorts with me, she scolds if I do something for myself that she considers her job. Yep, they take care of their granny--- and don’t I love it!!! I used to say to my Tony, we are so lucky to have these good kids and he always said, luck has nothing to do with it! I’m sure he’d say the same thing about these grands.

So, I’m happy to be the age I am. I really would not like to do it all over unless I knew what I know now. Just this afternoon, Alesia, while sitting in the middle of my bed with Coco asleep in her lap, said, “Granny, wouldn’t you like to have a boyfriend?” Be proud of me! Completely serious, I replied ”No Sweetie, 40 years was long enough. I’m too old to have to start and housebreak another one!”

A Potent Wizard

2010-11-16T15:24:00.001-05:00

Recently, I picked up a leather purse and the fragrant leather reminded me of my dad. He had great respect for good leather and took exquisite care of his leather baseball shoes and gloves. I remember him sitting on the back porch working on them while my brothers worked on their baseball gloves. I believe they rubbed oil into the gloves to make them softer, but I’m not sure on that.

When I was a young mother, kid gloves had come back into fashion. I had a collection I’d carefully gathered: black kid long plus shorty gloves, also white kid were elegant. I still keep them in my top drawer and sniff them from time to time!

It’s fascinating that the sense of smell is directly linked to our brain and memories from the past. Here is more on that: Despite the tight wiring, however, smells would not trigger memories if it weren't for conditioned responses. When you first smell a new scent, you link it to an event, a person, a thing or even a moment. Your brain forges a link between the smell and a memory -- associating the smell of chlorine with summers at the pool or lilies with a funeral.

When I smell things that recall my childhood, like leather or coffee, I have a sense of well-being.

My mother perked coffee on top of her gas range, in a Pyrex coffee maker. Once in a while, she’d use her big electric percolator, when she served a crowd. Either way, the fragrance of that coffee was heavenly, long before I even drank coffee.

One of the year’s best smells was Thanksgiving dinner. Early in the day, Mother always simmered the chopped celery and onions in a little broth, before adding it to the cornbread dressing. Of course, the huge turkey would already be baking. Now that’s how Thanksgiving dinner is supposed to smell!

During my college years, I had a date every Thanksgiving with the same guy. Thinking back, I see the reason for the pattern. We always had homemade pumpkin pie, and often one of Mother’s delicious three layer cakes. I don’t think he was all that crazy about me, but he loved my mother’s cooking!

On the big dinner days, Dad was always in the kitchen with Mother. They made a great team. They never owned an automatic dishwasher so he stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and pots as she prepared the food. He used to laugh and say he tried to keep ahead of her, otherwise the kitchen would be a disaster area. Her fried chicken was the world’s best, and I could identify our dinner from the fragrances coming from the kitchen. She cooked the chicken in those big, heavy iron skillets so of course Dad was needed to clean them.

I used to love nothing better than to find honeysuckle in bloom. While walking around outdoors, its scent was delightful. I would break off the bloom and suck the “honey” out of it, just a teeny, sweet droplet. I tried this not long ago when I found honeysuckle growing in my neighbor’s hedge but it had no flavor at all…sigh…….

My Tony did not want to have his dinner the very minute he came home from work. He wanted time to change clothes and unwind a bit. In warm weather, he usually walked out to the dock and after we moved back to Augusta, he often swam in our pool. However, he needed reassurance that he was going to be fed. He would get very upset with me if he walked in the house and didn’t smell food cooking. I finally figured out that if there was something cooking, he was fine. So if we were having anything with onions, peppers etc, I made sure to saute them a little to get the old scent going. I have been known to throw some cinnamon and cloves into a pot of water and simmer that a few minutes before he got home. I used to make a lot of homemade applesauce, so the spices were not so far fetched.

In one of her columns, Erma Bombeck said she just dabbed some vanilla flavoring behind her ears when she heard her husband come through the door.

Walking outside on a cool fall evening with the smell of a wood fire in the area is comforting to me. Our big gas grill that came with the house when we bought it is really convenient and we use it a lot. But it can never compete with a charcoal fire, no way. Alesia and Michael also love the smell of a wood fire.

A neighbor, in Tennessee, had an adorable basset hound. Who knew that he had figured out the relationship between a fire in the grill – and something good to eat?! One Saturday evening while sitting out on their patio having a beer, Herman came strolling up with a huge, thick steak he had removed from someone’s grill.

Driving across the causeway or bridge to one of the Georgia or South Carolina barrier islands, the smell of the marshes and later the sea is always soothing to me. I can actually breathe deeply and totally relax once again. Conversely, I feel the same way while in the Smoky Mountains. No smell of the sea, of course, but the clean fresh air of the mountains. Hmmmn, perhaps that’s the heritage of a Cherokee Great-grandmother. I don’t have to go far for those smells, either. A lovely thing about my state is that Georgia has mountains, plains, and beautiful coast.

Have you ever picked fresh tomatoes right off the vine? The scent of the tomato leaves smells fresh and clean to me, also the scent of very fresh corn on the cob. My dad and I liked to cook fresh tomatoes, okra, and corn just cut off the cob, all together just til tender. Some folks call it soup mix etc. but we just called it corn, okra, and tomatoes. So good!

Dee and I agree that the fresh smell of rain on sun-warmed sidewalks, in the city, is a smell we love. When I was young and dating a lot, I often walked down Peachtree Street, after a movie, in the evening, with my sandals in hand. Quite often, the fireman would open a hydrant to wash the sidewalks and the clean, cool water on the pavement felt so good to bare feet and smelled so good!

I’ve left until last two of the loveliest fragrances. One is the lemony, sweet Magnolia blossoms. One doesn’t want to stick one’s nose into the blossom, however, because one is likely to snort a couple of ants - best to love it from a distance, like some people we know.

The other is my all time favorite - gardenias. They were the only flowers used in my wedding and I think I’ve planted them everywhere we’ve lived, tho’ the climate was nearly too cold in Tennessee. They thrive here so we have six healthy bushes.

I leave you with this quote from the remarkable Helen Keller:

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.