Mari Collier's Blog, page 5
August 3, 2014
A Matter of Chemistry
There have been several “Aha” moments while cooking and baking. That is when I gained a better understanding of what I was doing. The finished product could always use an enhancement or adjustment to the recipe.
The first “aha” occurred before I was married and wonderment in the kitchen settled in my mind. What if a different spice or different flavoring were used instead of what the directions specified? Would the taste sensation be enhanced, improved, different, or not good at all? This speculation was easy to test and worked quite well with any type of chili or soup. Such spices as savory, marjoram, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon juice, or white pepper were some of the ingredients I tried. Gradually, I added other main dishes, vegetables, salads, you name the type, and I added or adjusted something.
The next revelation occurred after my marriage. I was discussing my mother’s disastrous cakes and incredibly delicious pies with a friend during a coffee klatch. Mama always insisted sugar “killed.” She then reduced by ¼ or 1/8 a cup the sugar called for in a recipe for cakes. She did not use a recipe for her wonderful fruit filled pies. The one cake-like dessert she made (called bird’s nest pudding) was also superb. The bird’s nest pudding was essentially a spice cake batter poured over fresh, sliced apples sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. The fruit she was using came from our garden or our orchard. It was not the hard or mushy tasteless fruit found in today’s supermarkets. We picked the fruit when ripe and used it immediately. Since the fruits were filled with their own natural sweetness, they needed far less sugar. Years later I discovered that we called bird’s nest pudding and the desert Southerners called Apple Pan Dowdy were the same.
Once I realized the natural sugar compensated for the sugar she left out, I realized that she cut the volume of dry ingredients in a cake. It couldn't rise properly if the dry ingredients weren't in ratio to the liquid and leavening used while under going a transformation by heat in the oven. I felt like shouting eureka. Heat transformed the batter. It was a form of science and mathematics; in other words chemistry. That meant I could make my own recipes as long as I kept the volume of dry and liquid ingredients in the proper proportion.
The better understanding came when preparing a white sauce. It starts out with a set of measured ingredients rather than the “use the grease from the roast or frying, add flour, mix until thickened and gradually add broth, potato water, and/or milk we did in the farm kitchen. Everything in a white sauce (or any sauce) is measured. Seasonings on the farm were to taste. No matter, I realized that gravy is thus a sauce, but usually made in larger quantities than the recipes in cookbooks, magazines, or the newspapers
Another aha revelation occurred when I was with my mother-in-law while visiting her renters at a home in Phoenix. I looked at the green chili and couldn't help but remark, “You have put peas in your green chili.
Bernice smiled at me. “Of course, but you have to realize that cooking in Mexico is like cooking anywhere. You use the products available. Just remember that Colorado (red) or Verde (green) chili are basically meat stews.”
This opened a whole new venue for my green chili. The red chili I didn't change. It was one of my husband’s favorites and contained nothing but meat, onions, garlic, and red chili peppers. I would occasionally mince bell pepper really fine and throw that in for flavor. The green chili, however, I could experiment and did. I used potatoes, carrots, bell peppers (along with the green chilies canned or fresh), onions, and garlic until I had a dish that we both liked. Later I added cumin.
While in Arizona, I did not have too many chances to experiment as my garden wasn't that large. Working outside the home also took away a big chunk of my time. It was while I was in Washington and not working outside the home that I began to really experiment and this is the story of one of them.
Wild fruit is abundant in Washington and there are farms and farmers markets with field fresh fruit from early spring until late fall at a price that makes canning and preserving cost effective. My mother-in-law lived with us and needed a certain amount of care. We also had an acre of over-grown wild shrubs and berry bushes to clear; plus two teenagers who were traumatized by the move from Arizona. We discovered a building we didn't know was there, several rhododendrons, and huckleberry bushes, both red and blue, while clearing the blackberry brambles. The blue huckleberries from two bushes were as large as blueberries. We did leave a number of the blackberry and the loganberry bushes.
Mark Twain named one of his main characters Huckleberry. Old stories mention huckleberry pie, but there were no recipes for huckleberry pie in modern cookbooks. Red huckleberries were easy to substitute when making jams or jellies, but making a pie was more difficult as huckleberries are not as juicy as blueberries and they are tarter.
I finally combined two of my favorite desserts: fruit pie and cheese cake. The recipe follows. Oh yes, if blue huckleberries are not common in your area, frozen blueberries work just as well. It was necessary to freeze the huckleberries to extract the amount of juice needed while cooking them. It was chemistry.
HUCK FINN CHEESE PIE
2 1/2 Cups frozen blue huckleberries 1 ½ Cups Sugar
(Substitute frozen blue berries) 8 Oz. Package Cream Cheese
3 Tbs. Cornstarch ½ Cup Milk
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice 1 Tsp. Vanilla
1/2 Tsp. Salt Dash of Cinnamon
2 Eggs 1 Unbaked 9 ½ to 10 In. pie flan (high rim)
Heat oven to 400
Defrost the huckleberries (or blueberries). Combine huckleberries, 1 cup of the sugar, 3 tablespoons of cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon of salt, lemon juice, and dash of cinnamon in three quart pan. Cook over moderate heat 5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently until thickened and clear. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.
While fruit mixture is cooling soften cream cheese (30 to 40 seconds in microwave) and blend in ½ cup of sugar and ¼ teaspoon salt. Beat in eggs one-at-a time using an electric mixer. Blend in milk and vanilla on low speed. Pour the blue huckleberry mixture into the unbaked pie shell. Next, pour the cream cheese mixture slowly over the top. Do this in a circular motion.
Bake on lowest shelf in oven at 400 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 and bake for 40 to 50 minutes longer until top is golden brown (not burned) and center is set. Let cool before serving. It tastes best if put into the refrigerator and served cold. You can use whipping cream as a topping, but this pie is rich enough without it.
Note: You can use a regular pie crust, a butter crust, or a crumb crust. My family preferred the regular pie crust.
The first “aha” occurred before I was married and wonderment in the kitchen settled in my mind. What if a different spice or different flavoring were used instead of what the directions specified? Would the taste sensation be enhanced, improved, different, or not good at all? This speculation was easy to test and worked quite well with any type of chili or soup. Such spices as savory, marjoram, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon juice, or white pepper were some of the ingredients I tried. Gradually, I added other main dishes, vegetables, salads, you name the type, and I added or adjusted something.
The next revelation occurred after my marriage. I was discussing my mother’s disastrous cakes and incredibly delicious pies with a friend during a coffee klatch. Mama always insisted sugar “killed.” She then reduced by ¼ or 1/8 a cup the sugar called for in a recipe for cakes. She did not use a recipe for her wonderful fruit filled pies. The one cake-like dessert she made (called bird’s nest pudding) was also superb. The bird’s nest pudding was essentially a spice cake batter poured over fresh, sliced apples sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. The fruit she was using came from our garden or our orchard. It was not the hard or mushy tasteless fruit found in today’s supermarkets. We picked the fruit when ripe and used it immediately. Since the fruits were filled with their own natural sweetness, they needed far less sugar. Years later I discovered that we called bird’s nest pudding and the desert Southerners called Apple Pan Dowdy were the same.
Once I realized the natural sugar compensated for the sugar she left out, I realized that she cut the volume of dry ingredients in a cake. It couldn't rise properly if the dry ingredients weren't in ratio to the liquid and leavening used while under going a transformation by heat in the oven. I felt like shouting eureka. Heat transformed the batter. It was a form of science and mathematics; in other words chemistry. That meant I could make my own recipes as long as I kept the volume of dry and liquid ingredients in the proper proportion.
The better understanding came when preparing a white sauce. It starts out with a set of measured ingredients rather than the “use the grease from the roast or frying, add flour, mix until thickened and gradually add broth, potato water, and/or milk we did in the farm kitchen. Everything in a white sauce (or any sauce) is measured. Seasonings on the farm were to taste. No matter, I realized that gravy is thus a sauce, but usually made in larger quantities than the recipes in cookbooks, magazines, or the newspapers
Another aha revelation occurred when I was with my mother-in-law while visiting her renters at a home in Phoenix. I looked at the green chili and couldn't help but remark, “You have put peas in your green chili.
Bernice smiled at me. “Of course, but you have to realize that cooking in Mexico is like cooking anywhere. You use the products available. Just remember that Colorado (red) or Verde (green) chili are basically meat stews.”
This opened a whole new venue for my green chili. The red chili I didn't change. It was one of my husband’s favorites and contained nothing but meat, onions, garlic, and red chili peppers. I would occasionally mince bell pepper really fine and throw that in for flavor. The green chili, however, I could experiment and did. I used potatoes, carrots, bell peppers (along with the green chilies canned or fresh), onions, and garlic until I had a dish that we both liked. Later I added cumin.
While in Arizona, I did not have too many chances to experiment as my garden wasn't that large. Working outside the home also took away a big chunk of my time. It was while I was in Washington and not working outside the home that I began to really experiment and this is the story of one of them.
Wild fruit is abundant in Washington and there are farms and farmers markets with field fresh fruit from early spring until late fall at a price that makes canning and preserving cost effective. My mother-in-law lived with us and needed a certain amount of care. We also had an acre of over-grown wild shrubs and berry bushes to clear; plus two teenagers who were traumatized by the move from Arizona. We discovered a building we didn't know was there, several rhododendrons, and huckleberry bushes, both red and blue, while clearing the blackberry brambles. The blue huckleberries from two bushes were as large as blueberries. We did leave a number of the blackberry and the loganberry bushes.
Mark Twain named one of his main characters Huckleberry. Old stories mention huckleberry pie, but there were no recipes for huckleberry pie in modern cookbooks. Red huckleberries were easy to substitute when making jams or jellies, but making a pie was more difficult as huckleberries are not as juicy as blueberries and they are tarter.
I finally combined two of my favorite desserts: fruit pie and cheese cake. The recipe follows. Oh yes, if blue huckleberries are not common in your area, frozen blueberries work just as well. It was necessary to freeze the huckleberries to extract the amount of juice needed while cooking them. It was chemistry.
HUCK FINN CHEESE PIE
2 1/2 Cups frozen blue huckleberries 1 ½ Cups Sugar
(Substitute frozen blue berries) 8 Oz. Package Cream Cheese
3 Tbs. Cornstarch ½ Cup Milk
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice 1 Tsp. Vanilla
1/2 Tsp. Salt Dash of Cinnamon
2 Eggs 1 Unbaked 9 ½ to 10 In. pie flan (high rim)
Heat oven to 400
Defrost the huckleberries (or blueberries). Combine huckleberries, 1 cup of the sugar, 3 tablespoons of cornstarch, ¼ teaspoon of salt, lemon juice, and dash of cinnamon in three quart pan. Cook over moderate heat 5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently until thickened and clear. Remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly.
While fruit mixture is cooling soften cream cheese (30 to 40 seconds in microwave) and blend in ½ cup of sugar and ¼ teaspoon salt. Beat in eggs one-at-a time using an electric mixer. Blend in milk and vanilla on low speed. Pour the blue huckleberry mixture into the unbaked pie shell. Next, pour the cream cheese mixture slowly over the top. Do this in a circular motion.
Bake on lowest shelf in oven at 400 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 and bake for 40 to 50 minutes longer until top is golden brown (not burned) and center is set. Let cool before serving. It tastes best if put into the refrigerator and served cold. You can use whipping cream as a topping, but this pie is rich enough without it.
Note: You can use a regular pie crust, a butter crust, or a crumb crust. My family preferred the regular pie crust.
July 27, 2014
The Lesson
Mama loved creating things. When insomnia would strike, she would arise and do handicrafts by the light of kerosene lamp. One night she even made a Christmas tree out of a Readers Digest.
She was a master sewer, but her forte was crocheting. In our farm community, 99.9% of the women crocheted. Mother’s handiwork was so good that the local stores would buy hers for resale. As the only daughter she was determined that I learned that craft as well as embroidering and sewing.
My parents also saved everything for reuse. It was their way of life. What one could re-use, adapt, or remake meant that money was not spent. Mama even saved the paper and string the stores would use to wrap the packages when a purchase was made. The paper was put together as a booklet for my brother and me to color our own drawings. She would use it to cover the table surface for different tasks. When she made homemade noodles, she would put out the paper, then the wax paper, then the flour and place the pastry on top of the flour to roll out, let set, and cut before drying.
I had to wonder why she was saving the string. She would attach the string to the previous saved string and begin to roll them into a ball. Very little of the string would be the same size in diameter or the same color: different shades of white, ecru, and yellow. By the time I was twelve she had amassed a shoebox or more of rolled string. I should have known something evil was planned.
At the age of twelve, Mama was teaching me embroidering and the art of sewing on her treadle sewing machine. All of it was a chore to me as it took time away from reading or the outdoors. I really didn’t enjoy any of it, but was becoming rather proficient at the simpler steps. I had not graduated to petit fours in embroidering, but could at least do more than outline. Sewing I hated, but endured.
One summer afternoon she announced. “Now it is time for you to learn to crochet.” She did not bring out the colorful crochet thread she purchased. She took out one of the string-filled boxes from her closet, and then she patted the spot on the sofa next to her.
My protests simply raised her ire and she glared at me with those black eyes. “You will learn. Now pay attention.” She began to chain.
“Now it’s your turn. Put the thread over your index finger like this and hold the crotchet needle thus.” And so it went. First the chain and then the different sized posts until she decided I was proficient enough to attempt making a dishrag. Of course, it was still the balls of different colored string of different diameters knotted at wherever they had ended.
You cannot imagine the looks of that dishrag when my inept attempt was finished. It had to be the most misshapen, lumpy dishrag ever produced. I cringed inside when I handed it to her as a finished product and waited for her critique. None came.
Tears gathered in Mama’s eyes and she held that lumpy dishrag to her chest and started for their bedroom.
“Where are you going with that?” I assumed she would throw it away, but her response was quite different.
“It goes into my cedar chest with the rest of my treasures. It is the first thing my daughter has ever crocheted.”
She was a master sewer, but her forte was crocheting. In our farm community, 99.9% of the women crocheted. Mother’s handiwork was so good that the local stores would buy hers for resale. As the only daughter she was determined that I learned that craft as well as embroidering and sewing.
My parents also saved everything for reuse. It was their way of life. What one could re-use, adapt, or remake meant that money was not spent. Mama even saved the paper and string the stores would use to wrap the packages when a purchase was made. The paper was put together as a booklet for my brother and me to color our own drawings. She would use it to cover the table surface for different tasks. When she made homemade noodles, she would put out the paper, then the wax paper, then the flour and place the pastry on top of the flour to roll out, let set, and cut before drying.
I had to wonder why she was saving the string. She would attach the string to the previous saved string and begin to roll them into a ball. Very little of the string would be the same size in diameter or the same color: different shades of white, ecru, and yellow. By the time I was twelve she had amassed a shoebox or more of rolled string. I should have known something evil was planned.
At the age of twelve, Mama was teaching me embroidering and the art of sewing on her treadle sewing machine. All of it was a chore to me as it took time away from reading or the outdoors. I really didn’t enjoy any of it, but was becoming rather proficient at the simpler steps. I had not graduated to petit fours in embroidering, but could at least do more than outline. Sewing I hated, but endured.
One summer afternoon she announced. “Now it is time for you to learn to crochet.” She did not bring out the colorful crochet thread she purchased. She took out one of the string-filled boxes from her closet, and then she patted the spot on the sofa next to her.
My protests simply raised her ire and she glared at me with those black eyes. “You will learn. Now pay attention.” She began to chain.
“Now it’s your turn. Put the thread over your index finger like this and hold the crotchet needle thus.” And so it went. First the chain and then the different sized posts until she decided I was proficient enough to attempt making a dishrag. Of course, it was still the balls of different colored string of different diameters knotted at wherever they had ended.
You cannot imagine the looks of that dishrag when my inept attempt was finished. It had to be the most misshapen, lumpy dishrag ever produced. I cringed inside when I handed it to her as a finished product and waited for her critique. None came.
Tears gathered in Mama’s eyes and she held that lumpy dishrag to her chest and started for their bedroom.
“Where are you going with that?” I assumed she would throw it away, but her response was quite different.
“It goes into my cedar chest with the rest of my treasures. It is the first thing my daughter has ever crocheted.”
July 20, 2014
A Tribute to My Oldest Brother
Rein was older than I by fifteen years and the oldest of my three siblings. He was also hands down the best looking, most graceful, and most musical. It wasn't that the rest of us weren't attractive, it is just that for the era when he was born, he looked like people expected a handsome man to look.
He had black hair, combed into a wave, but the sides would curl. His eyes were the perfect blue of my father’s people, and he stood five foot nine; the medium height for men in the 1940’s. His teeth were white and even, and his shoulders were broad.
He could play the guitar, the accordion, the piano accordion, and he could make a harmonica wail. His voice was a tenor. He sang the country and Western music of the day and could yodel like no one else in the community. He would listen to the radio or use our windup record player to hear the songs he wanted to memorize. Occasionally, he would buy the sheet music. This too was to learn the words, for he did not read notes.
Watching him tap dance was a show all its own. He could tap dance down the stairs from the second floor, across the kitchen, jump up on a kitchen chair, jump down, and never miss a tap.
He played guitar with a group of like minded young farm men. Remember, this was in the late 1930’s and Rock ‘N Roll had not happened. They would play for dances around the community. Sometimes they were the Farm Bureau meeting’s entertainment or they played at a birthday party for a member of a farm family. I remember one place where they were at the front of a large room with a wooden floor. A mishmash of wooden and metal chairs were set against the walls around this room or hall. My parents were dancing and visiting. I stretched out on two or three of the chairs and fell asleep as I could not have been more than three or four-years-old.
Rein also took us to watch an airplane do stunts at another farmer’s place. I do remember the family’s name, but once again, I was only four and there is no way I remember how they spelled it. This had to be before World War II as the gas wasn't rationed and there was a large crowd watching the plane roll and loop in the sky.
World War II started and Papa felt my brother should stay home as farmers were considered as contributing to the war effort and exempt. He had been sent to the University of Iowa hospital when he was 18. The doctors at the University of Iowa prescribed a strong barbiturate as a medication and the army declared him unfit for service.
He then went to San Francisco and worked in the shipyards until coming down with bronchitis or bronchial pneumonia. I was almost six-years-old by this time. The doctors in San Francisco told my brother that he could not work on the coast. The best cure was to return home. He was still weak and while walking towards my parent’s car he collapsed. A stranger helped my parents put him in their vehicle. The stranger also extracted a promise from my parents that they would bring him in for a treatment once he had recovered. “I can help him,” the man promised.
My brother did go see the man, a Palmer College graduate. He adjusted my brother’s neck and back. I do not know how many appointments, but I know my brother continued to see this practitioner until Rein, his wife, and family left Iowa. He even stopped taking the barbiturates. When they left, he was given a card with instructions (I think) coded or punched into it, and the admonition that if a chiropractor did not understand the instructions to find a different one.
In the previous paragraph I mentioned a wife. She like my brother was the physical representation of what was considered perfect looks. She was (and is) blond, petite, and at that time had a Betty Grable figure. If you don’t know what that means, go look it up. His wife was, and still is, one of most caring people I have ever met. She was also the “girl next door.” Since we lived on a farm that meant her family lived over the hill on the next farm.
They moved to Omaha to be close to his work, and then bought a home in Council Bluffs. They had two children and later moved to Phoenix. Both eventually worked for the county before retiring.
My brother always had beautiful flowers, kept a perfect lawn, loved dancing, and traveling with his family. They were regulars at the square dances around Phoenix. They bought an RV and then another to accommodate their growing family. They traveled to Iowa, California, Washington, and other states. He lived long enough to see his first great-grand child before he passed away. Somehow I know he is still singing up in heaven.
He had black hair, combed into a wave, but the sides would curl. His eyes were the perfect blue of my father’s people, and he stood five foot nine; the medium height for men in the 1940’s. His teeth were white and even, and his shoulders were broad.
He could play the guitar, the accordion, the piano accordion, and he could make a harmonica wail. His voice was a tenor. He sang the country and Western music of the day and could yodel like no one else in the community. He would listen to the radio or use our windup record player to hear the songs he wanted to memorize. Occasionally, he would buy the sheet music. This too was to learn the words, for he did not read notes.
Watching him tap dance was a show all its own. He could tap dance down the stairs from the second floor, across the kitchen, jump up on a kitchen chair, jump down, and never miss a tap.
He played guitar with a group of like minded young farm men. Remember, this was in the late 1930’s and Rock ‘N Roll had not happened. They would play for dances around the community. Sometimes they were the Farm Bureau meeting’s entertainment or they played at a birthday party for a member of a farm family. I remember one place where they were at the front of a large room with a wooden floor. A mishmash of wooden and metal chairs were set against the walls around this room or hall. My parents were dancing and visiting. I stretched out on two or three of the chairs and fell asleep as I could not have been more than three or four-years-old.
Rein also took us to watch an airplane do stunts at another farmer’s place. I do remember the family’s name, but once again, I was only four and there is no way I remember how they spelled it. This had to be before World War II as the gas wasn't rationed and there was a large crowd watching the plane roll and loop in the sky.
World War II started and Papa felt my brother should stay home as farmers were considered as contributing to the war effort and exempt. He had been sent to the University of Iowa hospital when he was 18. The doctors at the University of Iowa prescribed a strong barbiturate as a medication and the army declared him unfit for service.
He then went to San Francisco and worked in the shipyards until coming down with bronchitis or bronchial pneumonia. I was almost six-years-old by this time. The doctors in San Francisco told my brother that he could not work on the coast. The best cure was to return home. He was still weak and while walking towards my parent’s car he collapsed. A stranger helped my parents put him in their vehicle. The stranger also extracted a promise from my parents that they would bring him in for a treatment once he had recovered. “I can help him,” the man promised.
My brother did go see the man, a Palmer College graduate. He adjusted my brother’s neck and back. I do not know how many appointments, but I know my brother continued to see this practitioner until Rein, his wife, and family left Iowa. He even stopped taking the barbiturates. When they left, he was given a card with instructions (I think) coded or punched into it, and the admonition that if a chiropractor did not understand the instructions to find a different one.
In the previous paragraph I mentioned a wife. She like my brother was the physical representation of what was considered perfect looks. She was (and is) blond, petite, and at that time had a Betty Grable figure. If you don’t know what that means, go look it up. His wife was, and still is, one of most caring people I have ever met. She was also the “girl next door.” Since we lived on a farm that meant her family lived over the hill on the next farm.
They moved to Omaha to be close to his work, and then bought a home in Council Bluffs. They had two children and later moved to Phoenix. Both eventually worked for the county before retiring.
My brother always had beautiful flowers, kept a perfect lawn, loved dancing, and traveling with his family. They were regulars at the square dances around Phoenix. They bought an RV and then another to accommodate their growing family. They traveled to Iowa, California, Washington, and other states. He lived long enough to see his first great-grand child before he passed away. Somehow I know he is still singing up in heaven.
A Tribute to My Oldest Brother
Rein was older than I by fifteen years and the oldest of my three siblings. He was also hands down the best looking, most graceful, and most musical. It wasn't that the rest of us weren't attractive, it is just that for the era when he was born, he looked like people expected a handsome man to look.
He had black hair, combed into a wave, but the sides would curl. His eyes were the perfect blue of my father’s people, and he stood five foot nine; the medium height for men in the 1940’s. His teeth were white and even, and his shoulders were broad.
He could play the guitar, the accordion, the piano accordion, and he could make a harmonica wail. His voice was a tenor. He sang the country and Western music of the day and could yodel like no one else in the community. He would listen to the radio or use our windup record player to hear the songs he wanted to memorize. Occasionally, he would buy the sheet music. This too was to learn the words, for he did not read notes.
Watching him tap dance was a show all its own. He could tap dance down the stairs from the second floor, across the kitchen, jump up on a kitchen chair, jump down, and never miss a tap.
He played guitar with a group of like minded young farm men. Remember, this was in the late 1930’s and Rock ‘N Roll had not happened. They would play for dances around the community. Sometimes they were the Farm Bureau meeting’s entertainment or they played at a birthday party for a member of a farm family. I remember one place where they were at the front of a large room with a wooden floor. A mishmash of wooden and metal chairs were set against the walls around this room or hall. My parents were dancing and visiting. I stretched out on two or three of the chairs and fell asleep as I could not have been more than three or four-years-old.
Rein also took us to watch an airplane do stunts at another farmer’s place. I do remember the family’s name, but once again, I was only four and there is no way I remember how they spelled it. This had to be before World War II as the gas wasn't rationed and there was a large crowd watching the plane roll and loop in the sky.
World War II started and Papa felt my brother should stay home as farmers were considered as contributing to the war effort and exempt. He had been sent to the University of Iowa hospital when he was 18. The doctors at the University of Iowa prescribed a strong barbiturate as a medication and the army declared him unfit for service.
He then went to San Francisco and worked in the shipyards until coming down with bronchitis or bronchial pneumonia. I was almost six-years-old by this time. The doctors in San Francisco told my brother that he could not work on the coast. The best cure was to return home. He was still weak and while walking towards my parent’s car he collapsed. A stranger helped my parents put him in their vehicle. The stranger also extracted a promise from my parents that they would bring him in for a treatment once he had recovered. “I can help him,” the man promised.
My brother did go see the man, a Palmer College graduate. He adjusted my brother’s neck and back. I do not know how many appointments, but I know my brother continued to see this practitioner until Rein, his wife, and family left Iowa. He even stopped taking the barbiturates. When they left, he was given a card with instructions (I think) coded or punched into it, and the admonition that if a chiropractor did not understand the instructions to find a different one.
In the previous paragraph I mentioned a wife. She like my brother was the physical representation of what was considered perfect looks. She was (and is) blond, petite, and at that time had a Betty Grable figure. If you don’t know what that means, go look it up. His wife was, and still is, one of most caring people I have ever met. She was also the “girl next door.” Since we lived on a farm that meant her family lived over the hill on the next farm.
They moved to Omaha to be close to his work, and then bought a home in Council Bluffs. They had two children and later moved to Phoenix. Both eventually worked for the county before retiring.
My brother always had beautiful flowers, kept a perfect lawn, loved dancing, and traveling with his family. They were regulars at the square dances around Phoenix. They bought an RV and then another to accommodate their growing family. They traveled to Iowa, California, Washington, and other states. He lived long enough to see his first great-grand child before he passed away. Somehow I know he is still singing up in heaven.
He had black hair, combed into a wave, but the sides would curl. His eyes were the perfect blue of my father’s people, and he stood five foot nine; the medium height for men in the 1940’s. His teeth were white and even, and his shoulders were broad.
He could play the guitar, the accordion, the piano accordion, and he could make a harmonica wail. His voice was a tenor. He sang the country and Western music of the day and could yodel like no one else in the community. He would listen to the radio or use our windup record player to hear the songs he wanted to memorize. Occasionally, he would buy the sheet music. This too was to learn the words, for he did not read notes.
Watching him tap dance was a show all its own. He could tap dance down the stairs from the second floor, across the kitchen, jump up on a kitchen chair, jump down, and never miss a tap.
He played guitar with a group of like minded young farm men. Remember, this was in the late 1930’s and Rock ‘N Roll had not happened. They would play for dances around the community. Sometimes they were the Farm Bureau meeting’s entertainment or they played at a birthday party for a member of a farm family. I remember one place where they were at the front of a large room with a wooden floor. A mishmash of wooden and metal chairs were set against the walls around this room or hall. My parents were dancing and visiting. I stretched out on two or three of the chairs and fell asleep as I could not have been more than three or four-years-old.
Rein also took us to watch an airplane do stunts at another farmer’s place. I do remember the family’s name, but once again, I was only four and there is no way I remember how they spelled it. This had to be before World War II as the gas wasn't rationed and there was a large crowd watching the plane roll and loop in the sky.
World War II started and Papa felt my brother should stay home as farmers were considered as contributing to the war effort and exempt. He had been sent to the University of Iowa hospital when he was 18. The doctors at the University of Iowa prescribed a strong barbiturate as a medication and the army declared him unfit for service.
He then went to San Francisco and worked in the shipyards until coming down with bronchitis or bronchial pneumonia. I was almost six-years-old by this time. The doctors in San Francisco told my brother that he could not work on the coast. The best cure was to return home. He was still weak and while walking towards my parent’s car he collapsed. A stranger helped my parents put him in their vehicle. The stranger also extracted a promise from my parents that they would bring him in for a treatment once he had recovered. “I can help him,” the man promised.
My brother did go see the man, a Palmer College graduate. He adjusted my brother’s neck and back. I do not know how many appointments, but I know my brother continued to see this practitioner until Rein, his wife, and family left Iowa. He even stopped taking the barbiturates. When they left, he was given a card with instructions (I think) coded or punched into it, and the admonition that if a chiropractor did not understand the instructions to find a different one.
In the previous paragraph I mentioned a wife. She like my brother was the physical representation of what was considered perfect looks. She was (and is) blond, petite, and at that time had a Betty Grable figure. If you don’t know what that means, go look it up. His wife was, and still is, one of most caring people I have ever met. She was also the “girl next door.” Since we lived on a farm that meant her family lived over the hill on the next farm.
They moved to Omaha to be close to his work, and then bought a home in Council Bluffs. They had two children and later moved to Phoenix. Both eventually worked for the county before retiring.
My brother always had beautiful flowers, kept a perfect lawn, loved dancing, and traveling with his family. They were regulars at the square dances around Phoenix. They bought an RV and then another to accommodate their growing family. They traveled to Iowa, California, Washington, and other states. He lived long enough to see his first great-grand child before he passed away. Somehow I know he is still singing up in heaven.
July 6, 2014
The Most Miserable Day of My Life
In my last post, I mentioned that I had returned to Iowa with my brother, Norman and cousin. It had been two years since I had been there. I was looking forward to meeting up with old friends, but first my oldest brother, his wife, and their two children arrived. My cousin would return with them to Council Bluffs to visit her sister before going on to Waterloo.
That summer was filled with work on the farm, visiting relatives, meeting up with friends that I had known. I was seventeen and knew I had dresses, shoes, and accessories (bought with my own money) that they would not find in the nearest small towns. Mode O Day just could not compete with the likes of Korricks or even Lerners. Lerners and Korricks sold Junior sizes that fit much better than the Misses sizes in the other stores.
It was a fun summer of reconnecting with one of my best friends, but one of the others had moved to Colorado. I thought all contact was lost between us. Hurry for the internet and Classmates, but that is another tale.
My brother Norman and I promptly embarrassed our younger brother by laughing uproariously while attending the movie theater in town when they showed Call Me Madam starring Ethel Merman and Donald O’Connor. It was a musical, but also a satire that made fun of the State Department and diplomats.
Rock ‘N Roll was big in the cities. Rock Around the Clock and Buddy Holly were the rage then, but not in Iowa. When I went to a dance one night with my youngest brother and friend, I asked the band to play one of those songs. They had never heard of it. I asked them, “What is the fastest tune you know? I couldn't believe it when they replied, “Tiger Rag.”
Since I had promised to show my youngest brother and friend what Rock ‘N Roll was, I said, “Go ahead. I’ll see if I can rock.”
I proved you can rock ‘n roll to Tiger Rag and the farm boys began cheering. That so upset my youngest brother that we went on home.
The summer was hot, humid, and steamy, but somehow there was always someone to date on the weekends. It was my summer of fun as I knew the school year would be brutal as I would need to work half days and take all the necessary courses to graduate.
After one rather late date, I managed to crawl into bed at two o’clock. At six o’clock, there was my mother shaking me and saying, “Are you going to sleep all day? I've been up since three o’clock picking spinach. I need to finish making breakfast. After breakfast, I’ll have dishes and the canning jars to get ready while you are washing spinach”
Arguing with Mam was always futile when it came to work. It was there. It needed to be done. I drug myself out of bed, dressed, went to the outhouse, returned to the house for a quick breakfast of cold cereal, and went out to the washhouse.
There were two laundry tubs, and four buckets of spinach. The one empty dishpan was for me to start washing the spinach. I really wondered where I’d put the spinach from the tubs once I had the four buckets washed. Silly me.
The next thing I knew Mama was out there with two huge pots. The clean spinach was to go in there and she would start cooking it. Then it would go into the hot canning jars she was readying in the kitchen. She also started the fire in the wood stove (dry cobs were the fuel) as she intended to use both ovens and the pressure cooker for the canning.
Do you have any idea how hot it can be in a building when the temperature outside is over ninety, the humidity at seventy or eighty percent, and a hot fire going in a wood stove? True, the windows and door were all open and the normal Iowa prairie wind was blowing, but that provides no relief. The kitchen and dining room inside the house were really no different. I have no idea where my brothers and father were that morning, but they were not working inside that steam filled room with sweat pouring down from their heads to their feet.
It did no good to tell my mother that it wasn't safe to can something like spinach (not enough acid) in the oven. She replied, "I've been doing it all my married life and no has sickened and died after nearly twenty years."
She was so accustomed to that humid heat that it wasn't too hot to prepare the large noon meal in the kitchen as it was still “in the morning” when she was cooking and running back and forth between the washhouse and kitchen. She had mashed potatoes, gravy, spinach fried pork chops, fresh applesauce, milk, breads, two or three kinds of homemade jelly, and coffee. The noon meal was always the huge one. My father and brothers promptly disappeared again.
I think we had what Mama called chili that night. She made it on the kerosene stove as the house was too hot. We had that, soda crackers (flour tortillas weren’t available in the Midwest then), a salad from the garden with her homemade dressing, and cold milk from the icebox. Yes, it was an icebox, something that ran on electricity.
After dinner, Mama decreed we would be carrying the cooled jars of canned spinach to the cave. It was one of the few nights that I did not stay up reading.
That summer was filled with work on the farm, visiting relatives, meeting up with friends that I had known. I was seventeen and knew I had dresses, shoes, and accessories (bought with my own money) that they would not find in the nearest small towns. Mode O Day just could not compete with the likes of Korricks or even Lerners. Lerners and Korricks sold Junior sizes that fit much better than the Misses sizes in the other stores.
It was a fun summer of reconnecting with one of my best friends, but one of the others had moved to Colorado. I thought all contact was lost between us. Hurry for the internet and Classmates, but that is another tale.
My brother Norman and I promptly embarrassed our younger brother by laughing uproariously while attending the movie theater in town when they showed Call Me Madam starring Ethel Merman and Donald O’Connor. It was a musical, but also a satire that made fun of the State Department and diplomats.
Rock ‘N Roll was big in the cities. Rock Around the Clock and Buddy Holly were the rage then, but not in Iowa. When I went to a dance one night with my youngest brother and friend, I asked the band to play one of those songs. They had never heard of it. I asked them, “What is the fastest tune you know? I couldn't believe it when they replied, “Tiger Rag.”
Since I had promised to show my youngest brother and friend what Rock ‘N Roll was, I said, “Go ahead. I’ll see if I can rock.”
I proved you can rock ‘n roll to Tiger Rag and the farm boys began cheering. That so upset my youngest brother that we went on home.
The summer was hot, humid, and steamy, but somehow there was always someone to date on the weekends. It was my summer of fun as I knew the school year would be brutal as I would need to work half days and take all the necessary courses to graduate.
After one rather late date, I managed to crawl into bed at two o’clock. At six o’clock, there was my mother shaking me and saying, “Are you going to sleep all day? I've been up since three o’clock picking spinach. I need to finish making breakfast. After breakfast, I’ll have dishes and the canning jars to get ready while you are washing spinach”
Arguing with Mam was always futile when it came to work. It was there. It needed to be done. I drug myself out of bed, dressed, went to the outhouse, returned to the house for a quick breakfast of cold cereal, and went out to the washhouse.
There were two laundry tubs, and four buckets of spinach. The one empty dishpan was for me to start washing the spinach. I really wondered where I’d put the spinach from the tubs once I had the four buckets washed. Silly me.
The next thing I knew Mama was out there with two huge pots. The clean spinach was to go in there and she would start cooking it. Then it would go into the hot canning jars she was readying in the kitchen. She also started the fire in the wood stove (dry cobs were the fuel) as she intended to use both ovens and the pressure cooker for the canning.
Do you have any idea how hot it can be in a building when the temperature outside is over ninety, the humidity at seventy or eighty percent, and a hot fire going in a wood stove? True, the windows and door were all open and the normal Iowa prairie wind was blowing, but that provides no relief. The kitchen and dining room inside the house were really no different. I have no idea where my brothers and father were that morning, but they were not working inside that steam filled room with sweat pouring down from their heads to their feet.
It did no good to tell my mother that it wasn't safe to can something like spinach (not enough acid) in the oven. She replied, "I've been doing it all my married life and no has sickened and died after nearly twenty years."
She was so accustomed to that humid heat that it wasn't too hot to prepare the large noon meal in the kitchen as it was still “in the morning” when she was cooking and running back and forth between the washhouse and kitchen. She had mashed potatoes, gravy, spinach fried pork chops, fresh applesauce, milk, breads, two or three kinds of homemade jelly, and coffee. The noon meal was always the huge one. My father and brothers promptly disappeared again.
I think we had what Mama called chili that night. She made it on the kerosene stove as the house was too hot. We had that, soda crackers (flour tortillas weren’t available in the Midwest then), a salad from the garden with her homemade dressing, and cold milk from the icebox. Yes, it was an icebox, something that ran on electricity.
After dinner, Mama decreed we would be carrying the cooled jars of canned spinach to the cave. It was one of the few nights that I did not stay up reading.
June 29, 2014
A Tribute to my Brother
My siblings numbered three brothers and no sisters until my older brothers married. Two of my brothers were fifteen years and thirteen years and eleven months older than I am. The other brother was almost a year younger. I love them all for they are my brothers. There was one that inspired me when I was younger and in some ways I wanted to emulate him.
My first memory of him was when I was seventeen months old. He came home from high school and right where he was to park his bicycle, I had made a mud puddle and was making mud pies. He scolded me for taking his place. Years later when I asked him about the incident, Norman looked at me dumbfounded. “How could you remember that? You weren’t even two years old.” Just why our parents had decreed he must park his bicycle there I never discovered.
Brothers that much older than you, tend to ignore you as they are teenagers and my oldest brother did have a license to drive. Plus our male cousins, who lived two hundred miles north of us also had drivers’ licenses. They would bring other family members to visit, and “the boys” as my mother called them would disappear.
Norman was known as the “Professor” at the local high school for his academic abilities. Pneumonia laid him low twice prior to his graduation from high school. There were no antibiotics then. Mama stayed up for forty-eight hours while nursing him. I do not know who watched us, perhaps our other older brother and father took turns. Perhaps we were sent to my grandmother’s farm. I do know that Norman said that, “Mama almost killed herself,” while nursing him. During his recovery he would read to me from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses.
When I was four, World War II started. Norman had a birth defect that kept him from being in the Army. The Army did not want him for any reason, not even as an office boy as he put. He became quite bitter and started college at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. I do not know how he funded all of those years to acquire at Master of Arts degree. Our father certainly would not have paid for it.
Norman would send his laundry home by the train and Mama would wash and iron them before sending them back the same way. That cost less than Norman hiring a cleaner to do the clothes. I know he somehow existed on four hours of sleep while working and attending college. I do not know how he managed as I tried that when going to college. I couldn't handle it, but he did.
He would sometimes spend part of the summer with us and other times he would continue working at jobs in Iowa City or in Omaha. The jobs in and around Omaha paid more. Norman would spend Christmas vacations with us. I remember him holding me on his lap reading from Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood when I was about four or five. We were at the kitchen table (the kitchen was always warm in an Iowa winter) and I would bang my heel against the chair leg in rhythm with the meter of his voice.
Norman would also spend Christmas with us. Once he brought two books as my Christmas gifts. One was The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde and the other The Boy’s King Arthur. This was Sir Thomas Malory’s History edited for Boys by Sidney Lanier. Yes, they really were that sexist in the 1940’s. Fortunately, my brother wasn't. I still treasure both books.
I have written about some of his visits and his graduation from the University. Just go to some of the earlier blogs if you are interested. We did not see much of Norman while he was studying for his Master’s degree. He did send his “library” home with us after graduation and he went to New York City. It was not a good match. It was far too urban and hectic for him. That summer he was back long enough to say “hello” eat fresh tomatoes and corn from the garden and he left for San Francisco.
California wanted him to have other courses to become an educator or instructor in high school. Once again he worked at lower paying employment, but this time he went to night school. He also explored San Francisco.
During this time, I had become ill in Iowa and Mama had taken me to Phoenix. We would return to Iowa once school was out and each time I became ill again. The third summer Norman suggested I come to San Francisco and stay with him. He would help me find employment. What a glorious three months that turned out to be.
He helped me find employment at Foster’s Cafeteria and during the times we weren’t working he took me around San Francisco. Better than all the sights I saw and the restaurants we frequented was the literature and art he put into my hands and head. There I first read science fiction and fell in love with Isaac Asimov, Fredrick Brown, Zenna Washington, and the list goes on. He also introduced me to Kraft-Ebbing. He thought it would be too far advanced for me and almost died of shock as I continued to read. I did need to ask him to translate some of the Latin words as high schools were no longer teaching it. I still remember him sitting there and shuddering, “Don’t tell our Mother I let you read that.”
I almost told him the Mama would never have heard of it and then remembered that she had taken nurses training. She might have heard of it indeed.
The next summer, I joined him for one month while he finalized his teaching certificates and where he would be teaching. Then he purchased an automobile and our cousin, Ruth, joined us on a return to Iowa for two months.
We had planned on me either going to California the next summer or Norman would look for employment as a teacher in the Phoenix area. That plan went bye-bye when his letter describing the tall, red-headed Venus that had agreed to marry him.
They’ve been wed almost sixty years and raised two beautiful, intelligent daughters. He is once again fighting for his health, but whatever the outcome I’ll always remember the brother that read me Winnie the Pooh.
My first memory of him was when I was seventeen months old. He came home from high school and right where he was to park his bicycle, I had made a mud puddle and was making mud pies. He scolded me for taking his place. Years later when I asked him about the incident, Norman looked at me dumbfounded. “How could you remember that? You weren’t even two years old.” Just why our parents had decreed he must park his bicycle there I never discovered.
Brothers that much older than you, tend to ignore you as they are teenagers and my oldest brother did have a license to drive. Plus our male cousins, who lived two hundred miles north of us also had drivers’ licenses. They would bring other family members to visit, and “the boys” as my mother called them would disappear.
Norman was known as the “Professor” at the local high school for his academic abilities. Pneumonia laid him low twice prior to his graduation from high school. There were no antibiotics then. Mama stayed up for forty-eight hours while nursing him. I do not know who watched us, perhaps our other older brother and father took turns. Perhaps we were sent to my grandmother’s farm. I do know that Norman said that, “Mama almost killed herself,” while nursing him. During his recovery he would read to me from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses.
When I was four, World War II started. Norman had a birth defect that kept him from being in the Army. The Army did not want him for any reason, not even as an office boy as he put. He became quite bitter and started college at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. I do not know how he funded all of those years to acquire at Master of Arts degree. Our father certainly would not have paid for it.
Norman would send his laundry home by the train and Mama would wash and iron them before sending them back the same way. That cost less than Norman hiring a cleaner to do the clothes. I know he somehow existed on four hours of sleep while working and attending college. I do not know how he managed as I tried that when going to college. I couldn't handle it, but he did.
He would sometimes spend part of the summer with us and other times he would continue working at jobs in Iowa City or in Omaha. The jobs in and around Omaha paid more. Norman would spend Christmas vacations with us. I remember him holding me on his lap reading from Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood when I was about four or five. We were at the kitchen table (the kitchen was always warm in an Iowa winter) and I would bang my heel against the chair leg in rhythm with the meter of his voice.
Norman would also spend Christmas with us. Once he brought two books as my Christmas gifts. One was The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde and the other The Boy’s King Arthur. This was Sir Thomas Malory’s History edited for Boys by Sidney Lanier. Yes, they really were that sexist in the 1940’s. Fortunately, my brother wasn't. I still treasure both books.
I have written about some of his visits and his graduation from the University. Just go to some of the earlier blogs if you are interested. We did not see much of Norman while he was studying for his Master’s degree. He did send his “library” home with us after graduation and he went to New York City. It was not a good match. It was far too urban and hectic for him. That summer he was back long enough to say “hello” eat fresh tomatoes and corn from the garden and he left for San Francisco.
California wanted him to have other courses to become an educator or instructor in high school. Once again he worked at lower paying employment, but this time he went to night school. He also explored San Francisco.
During this time, I had become ill in Iowa and Mama had taken me to Phoenix. We would return to Iowa once school was out and each time I became ill again. The third summer Norman suggested I come to San Francisco and stay with him. He would help me find employment. What a glorious three months that turned out to be.
He helped me find employment at Foster’s Cafeteria and during the times we weren’t working he took me around San Francisco. Better than all the sights I saw and the restaurants we frequented was the literature and art he put into my hands and head. There I first read science fiction and fell in love with Isaac Asimov, Fredrick Brown, Zenna Washington, and the list goes on. He also introduced me to Kraft-Ebbing. He thought it would be too far advanced for me and almost died of shock as I continued to read. I did need to ask him to translate some of the Latin words as high schools were no longer teaching it. I still remember him sitting there and shuddering, “Don’t tell our Mother I let you read that.”
I almost told him the Mama would never have heard of it and then remembered that she had taken nurses training. She might have heard of it indeed.
The next summer, I joined him for one month while he finalized his teaching certificates and where he would be teaching. Then he purchased an automobile and our cousin, Ruth, joined us on a return to Iowa for two months.
We had planned on me either going to California the next summer or Norman would look for employment as a teacher in the Phoenix area. That plan went bye-bye when his letter describing the tall, red-headed Venus that had agreed to marry him.
They’ve been wed almost sixty years and raised two beautiful, intelligent daughters. He is once again fighting for his health, but whatever the outcome I’ll always remember the brother that read me Winnie the Pooh.
June 20, 2014
A Question
Have you ever noticed during the question and answer period of book signing events, one of the questions that will be asked every time is, “Who is your favorite author?”
My answer tends to confuse them as I write science fiction, but my favorite author is a historian. I do have other favorite authors, but I do not limit myself to one author or one genre of fiction. The favorite ones do have something in common. They write sweeping epics following the generations into another century or more
My first acquaintance with such a novel was The Awakening Land by Conrad Richter. His family moves out of Pennsylvania into Ohio in the seventeen hundreds and he tells of their lives, loves, and family until after the Civil War. Another is Alex Haley’s Roots. Roots like the Awakening Land trilogy, takes one from the seventeen hundreds through the aftermath of the Civil War.
I did not realize when I read King Rat by James Clavell that one of the characters in there related to another story that he wrote years later. The family and their business enterprises begin with the novel Tai Pan and continues through Whirlwind, the fifth of his Asian saga. It really saddened me when I read of his death as I knew I would never read another of his novels for I had read all of his published ones.
The most famous science fiction novels following a family and theme through the generations and centuries are the six Dune novels by Frank Herbert. Yes, I have read all of those too.
Another favorite was The People by Zenna Henderson. It was never a full novel, but it was about aliens living on Earth and trying to avoid being recognized as different.
Somehow I've managed to mix all those elements in my novels about the MacDonald and Rolfe families. Earthbound (Volume I), http://www.amazon.com/Earthbound-1-Ma..., begins the saga of a man from the planet Thalia trapped on Earth. He manages to survive in a violent, primitive world. He takes the name of Zebadiah L. MacDonald. Before the novel ends, he has discovered that another alien has survived on Earth. He will marry and there is a mixed alien-Earth child.
Gather the Children, http://www.amazon.com/Gather-Children..., continues where the first novel stops. It is just after the Civil War. Texas and the South are broken lands filled mostly with broken families. The North needs beef, and MacDonald and Rolfe have beef to spare. The other alien does come after MacDonald and his family, and the Texans aren’t happy about Rolfe and MacDonald siding with the North.
The third novel, Before We Leave, http://www.amazon.com/Before-We-Leave..., follows the MacDonald’s and the Rolfe’s through the middle of the twentieth century. They endure Comanche and outlaw raids, blizzards, hangings, and betrayals.
Return of the Maca, http://www.amazon.com/Return-Maca-Vol..., is the fourth novel. MacDonald returns to his home planet with some of his Earth family. Nothing is ever quite that simple and the battle begins over the control of the planet Thalia.
Several of my fans have asked if this would be the last novel of the series. How can it be? Lorenz has found a new love and his Earth grandson is about to discover that living alone on Thalia can be a lonely proposition. MacDonald has his name and his land back and he intends to replenish his House.
How many of you have been asked, “Who is your favorite author?”
My answer tends to confuse them as I write science fiction, but my favorite author is a historian. I do have other favorite authors, but I do not limit myself to one author or one genre of fiction. The favorite ones do have something in common. They write sweeping epics following the generations into another century or more
My first acquaintance with such a novel was The Awakening Land by Conrad Richter. His family moves out of Pennsylvania into Ohio in the seventeen hundreds and he tells of their lives, loves, and family until after the Civil War. Another is Alex Haley’s Roots. Roots like the Awakening Land trilogy, takes one from the seventeen hundreds through the aftermath of the Civil War.
I did not realize when I read King Rat by James Clavell that one of the characters in there related to another story that he wrote years later. The family and their business enterprises begin with the novel Tai Pan and continues through Whirlwind, the fifth of his Asian saga. It really saddened me when I read of his death as I knew I would never read another of his novels for I had read all of his published ones.
The most famous science fiction novels following a family and theme through the generations and centuries are the six Dune novels by Frank Herbert. Yes, I have read all of those too.
Another favorite was The People by Zenna Henderson. It was never a full novel, but it was about aliens living on Earth and trying to avoid being recognized as different.
Somehow I've managed to mix all those elements in my novels about the MacDonald and Rolfe families. Earthbound (Volume I), http://www.amazon.com/Earthbound-1-Ma..., begins the saga of a man from the planet Thalia trapped on Earth. He manages to survive in a violent, primitive world. He takes the name of Zebadiah L. MacDonald. Before the novel ends, he has discovered that another alien has survived on Earth. He will marry and there is a mixed alien-Earth child.
Gather the Children, http://www.amazon.com/Gather-Children..., continues where the first novel stops. It is just after the Civil War. Texas and the South are broken lands filled mostly with broken families. The North needs beef, and MacDonald and Rolfe have beef to spare. The other alien does come after MacDonald and his family, and the Texans aren’t happy about Rolfe and MacDonald siding with the North.
The third novel, Before We Leave, http://www.amazon.com/Before-We-Leave..., follows the MacDonald’s and the Rolfe’s through the middle of the twentieth century. They endure Comanche and outlaw raids, blizzards, hangings, and betrayals.
Return of the Maca, http://www.amazon.com/Return-Maca-Vol..., is the fourth novel. MacDonald returns to his home planet with some of his Earth family. Nothing is ever quite that simple and the battle begins over the control of the planet Thalia.
Several of my fans have asked if this would be the last novel of the series. How can it be? Lorenz has found a new love and his Earth grandson is about to discover that living alone on Thalia can be a lonely proposition. MacDonald has his name and his land back and he intends to replenish his House.
How many of you have been asked, “Who is your favorite author?”
June 8, 2014
The Day I Took Down The Wall
No, not the Berlin Wall, nor was it some kind of wall in my own mind. It was a wall inside of our house that I wanted down before the carpeting.
We had been married for eleven years when we bought our second house. It had three bedrooms, one-and-a half baths, a huge sandstone fireplace that reached to the top of the vaulted ceiling and opened to both the family room and living room.
This house had a closet in each bedroom, a floor to ceiling linen closet in the hall, and built in drawers beside the sliding doors in the master bedroom closet. The entry hallway closet was large enough to hold all of our winter coats, the kitchen was loaded with cabinets, the range top was set in a tiled counter-top that faced the family room, and the built-in oven was copper. We had an entire acre with a fence around the back portion for horses. There was a three car carport, and two outside rooms under the carport roof.
One outside room was for the washer and dryer, although I did not have a dryer and used the space for the wheelbarrow, spade, and other garden tools. The other small room off the carport held Lanny’s extra tools, saws, and horse equipment until several years later he built a barn.
The floor plan was an open concept for seeing from the kitchen into the family/dining room, and from the kitchen door to the front door. It made the seventeen hundred square foot home seem larger than it was.
There were two things that spoiled the perfection of this spacious new home. The west wall of the family room had a nineteen fifties built in seating done in blond wood and orange vinyl. The entry at the front door had a cinder block half-wall topped with pine boards painted white and another pine board topping it, but did not extend to the ceiling. The boards were set at a slanted angle to allow a view into the living room. On the living room side you could see the unit had been cemented into the floor and had a raised cinder block box to hold real plants.
Like one of humorists of the day put it, I have a fungus thumb, but only for indoor plants. My outside garden, rose bed, and cacti gardens were beautiful. Oh, did I mention, that the pine boards were weeping sap? I have no idea where they procured that lumber in Phoenix that had not dried out, and neither did my carpenter husband. I wanted that monstrosity out of there. Lanny, of course, kept promising, but he always had something else to do when he was home.
We had moved in during the month of November. The activities of starting the children in a new school, PTA, joining a new church and the women’s group there, the onslaught of the holiday season, my parents spending the winter in Phoenix before returning to Iowa, and visits from friends to see our new place seemed to take up most of our time.
By spring, I had decided what carpeting and vinyl flooring I wanted in our “new” home, but our finances weren't quite ready. Lanny did take out the built in seating and we bought a Spanish type sofa (or at least what was called Spanish) to replace it.
As fall neared and carpeting was in the budget, I wanted that entryway horror gone. As usual, Lanny kept promising. We had been there almost two years, when I looked at that wall one morning after the children had gone to school and went out to his tool room. There it was: his sledge hammer. By this time, Lanny was a finish carpenter and the finish foreman for one of the Phoenix companies. A sledge hammer really wasn't a tool he used at work.
It took almost all morning to knock out all the blocks and lumber. Before lunch, I carried out the lumber. I do not remember what I ate for lunch. Afterward, I began carrying out the debris. I hadn't gotten very far when our nine-year-old son returned from school.
I still remember him standing there, wide-eyed and holding the kitchen door open. Finally he said, “You really did it this time, Mom.”
He did help me carry out the rest of the debris.
Our daughter had stopped at a friend’s place, but both she and my husband were home before long.
Lanny just shook his head. “I guess I’d better smooth it all down for when you buy the carpet," was all he said.
Yes, it was smooth the day they brought in the beautiful blue carpet for the living room and hall. The rest of the house was carpeted and new vinyl went down in the family room, kitchen and bathrooms. Oh, yes, it may have been the first time he called me, “Scary Mari,” when he told others about what I did.
We had been married for eleven years when we bought our second house. It had three bedrooms, one-and-a half baths, a huge sandstone fireplace that reached to the top of the vaulted ceiling and opened to both the family room and living room.
This house had a closet in each bedroom, a floor to ceiling linen closet in the hall, and built in drawers beside the sliding doors in the master bedroom closet. The entry hallway closet was large enough to hold all of our winter coats, the kitchen was loaded with cabinets, the range top was set in a tiled counter-top that faced the family room, and the built-in oven was copper. We had an entire acre with a fence around the back portion for horses. There was a three car carport, and two outside rooms under the carport roof.
One outside room was for the washer and dryer, although I did not have a dryer and used the space for the wheelbarrow, spade, and other garden tools. The other small room off the carport held Lanny’s extra tools, saws, and horse equipment until several years later he built a barn.
The floor plan was an open concept for seeing from the kitchen into the family/dining room, and from the kitchen door to the front door. It made the seventeen hundred square foot home seem larger than it was.
There were two things that spoiled the perfection of this spacious new home. The west wall of the family room had a nineteen fifties built in seating done in blond wood and orange vinyl. The entry at the front door had a cinder block half-wall topped with pine boards painted white and another pine board topping it, but did not extend to the ceiling. The boards were set at a slanted angle to allow a view into the living room. On the living room side you could see the unit had been cemented into the floor and had a raised cinder block box to hold real plants.
Like one of humorists of the day put it, I have a fungus thumb, but only for indoor plants. My outside garden, rose bed, and cacti gardens were beautiful. Oh, did I mention, that the pine boards were weeping sap? I have no idea where they procured that lumber in Phoenix that had not dried out, and neither did my carpenter husband. I wanted that monstrosity out of there. Lanny, of course, kept promising, but he always had something else to do when he was home.
We had moved in during the month of November. The activities of starting the children in a new school, PTA, joining a new church and the women’s group there, the onslaught of the holiday season, my parents spending the winter in Phoenix before returning to Iowa, and visits from friends to see our new place seemed to take up most of our time.
By spring, I had decided what carpeting and vinyl flooring I wanted in our “new” home, but our finances weren't quite ready. Lanny did take out the built in seating and we bought a Spanish type sofa (or at least what was called Spanish) to replace it.
As fall neared and carpeting was in the budget, I wanted that entryway horror gone. As usual, Lanny kept promising. We had been there almost two years, when I looked at that wall one morning after the children had gone to school and went out to his tool room. There it was: his sledge hammer. By this time, Lanny was a finish carpenter and the finish foreman for one of the Phoenix companies. A sledge hammer really wasn't a tool he used at work.
It took almost all morning to knock out all the blocks and lumber. Before lunch, I carried out the lumber. I do not remember what I ate for lunch. Afterward, I began carrying out the debris. I hadn't gotten very far when our nine-year-old son returned from school.
I still remember him standing there, wide-eyed and holding the kitchen door open. Finally he said, “You really did it this time, Mom.”
He did help me carry out the rest of the debris.
Our daughter had stopped at a friend’s place, but both she and my husband were home before long.
Lanny just shook his head. “I guess I’d better smooth it all down for when you buy the carpet," was all he said.
Yes, it was smooth the day they brought in the beautiful blue carpet for the living room and hall. The rest of the house was carpeted and new vinyl went down in the family room, kitchen and bathrooms. Oh, yes, it may have been the first time he called me, “Scary Mari,” when he told others about what I did.
The Day I Took Down The Wall
No, not the Berlin Wall, nor was it some kind of wall in my own mind. It was a wall inside of our house that I wanted down before the carpeting.
We had been married for eleven years when we bought our second house. It had three bedrooms, one-and-a half baths, a huge sandstone fireplace that reached to the top of the vaulted ceiling and opened to both the family room and living room.
This house had a closet in each bedroom, a floor to ceiling linen closet in the hall, and built in drawers beside the sliding doors in the master bedroom closet. The entry hallway closet was large enough to hold all of our winter coats, the kitchen was loaded with cabinets, the range top was set in a tiled counter-top that faced the family room, and the built-in oven was copper. We had an entire acre with a fence around the back portion for horses. There was a three car carport, and two outside rooms under the carport roof.
One outside room was for the washer and dryer, although I did not have a dryer and used the space for the wheelbarrow, spade, and other garden tools. The other small room off the carport held Lanny’s extra tools, saws, and horse equipment until several years later he built a barn.
The floor plan was an open concept for seeing from the kitchen into the family/dining room, and from the kitchen door to the front door. It made the seventeen hundred square foot home seem larger than it was.
There were two things that spoiled the perfection of this spacious new home. The west wall of the family room had a nineteen fifties built in seating done in blond wood and orange vinyl. The entry at the front door had a cinder block half-wall topped with pine boards painted white and another pine board topping it, but did not extend to the ceiling. The boards were set at a slanted angle to allow a view into the living room. On the living room side you could see the unit had been cemented into the floor and had a raised cinder block box to hold real plants.
Like one of humorists of the day put it, I have a fungus thumb, but only for indoor plants. My outside garden, rose bed, and cacti gardens were beautiful. Oh, did I mention, that the pine boards were weeping sap? I have no idea where they procured that lumber in Phoenix that had not dried out, and neither did my carpenter husband. I wanted that monstrosity out of there. Lanny, of course, kept promising, but he always had something else to do when he was home.
We had moved in during the month of November. The activities of starting the children in a new school, PTA, joining a new church and the women’s group there, the onslaught of the holiday season, my parents spending the winter in Phoenix before returning to Iowa, and visits from friends to see our new place seemed to take up most of our time.
By spring, I had decided what carpeting and vinyl flooring I wanted in our “new” home, but our finances weren't quite ready. Lanny did take out the built in seating and we bought a Spanish type sofa (or at least what was called Spanish) to replace it.
As fall neared and carpeting was in the budget, I wanted that entryway horror gone. As usual, Lanny kept promising. We had been there almost two years, when I looked at that wall one morning after the children had gone to school and went out to his tool room. There it was: his sledge hammer. By this time, Lanny was a finish carpenter and the finish foreman for one of the Phoenix companies. A sledge hammer really wasn't a tool he used at work.
It took almost all morning to knock out all the blocks and lumber. Before lunch, I carried out the lumber. I do not remember what I ate for lunch. Afterward, I began carrying out the debris. I hadn't gotten very far when our nine-year-old son returned from school.
I still remember him standing there, wide-eyed and holding the kitchen door open. Finally he said, “You really did it this time, Mom.”
He did help me carry out the rest of the debris.
Our daughter had stopped at a friend’s place, but both she and my husband were home before long.
Lanny just shook his head. “I guess I’d better smooth it all down for when you buy the carpet," was all he said.
Yes, it was smooth the day they brought in the beautiful blue carpet for the living room and hall. The rest of the house was carpeted and new vinyl went down in the family room, kitchen and bathrooms. Oh, yes, it may have been the first time he called me, “Scary Mari,” when he told others about what I did.
We had been married for eleven years when we bought our second house. It had three bedrooms, one-and-a half baths, a huge sandstone fireplace that reached to the top of the vaulted ceiling and opened to both the family room and living room.
This house had a closet in each bedroom, a floor to ceiling linen closet in the hall, and built in drawers beside the sliding doors in the master bedroom closet. The entry hallway closet was large enough to hold all of our winter coats, the kitchen was loaded with cabinets, the range top was set in a tiled counter-top that faced the family room, and the built-in oven was copper. We had an entire acre with a fence around the back portion for horses. There was a three car carport, and two outside rooms under the carport roof.
One outside room was for the washer and dryer, although I did not have a dryer and used the space for the wheelbarrow, spade, and other garden tools. The other small room off the carport held Lanny’s extra tools, saws, and horse equipment until several years later he built a barn.
The floor plan was an open concept for seeing from the kitchen into the family/dining room, and from the kitchen door to the front door. It made the seventeen hundred square foot home seem larger than it was.
There were two things that spoiled the perfection of this spacious new home. The west wall of the family room had a nineteen fifties built in seating done in blond wood and orange vinyl. The entry at the front door had a cinder block half-wall topped with pine boards painted white and another pine board topping it, but did not extend to the ceiling. The boards were set at a slanted angle to allow a view into the living room. On the living room side you could see the unit had been cemented into the floor and had a raised cinder block box to hold real plants.
Like one of humorists of the day put it, I have a fungus thumb, but only for indoor plants. My outside garden, rose bed, and cacti gardens were beautiful. Oh, did I mention, that the pine boards were weeping sap? I have no idea where they procured that lumber in Phoenix that had not dried out, and neither did my carpenter husband. I wanted that monstrosity out of there. Lanny, of course, kept promising, but he always had something else to do when he was home.
We had moved in during the month of November. The activities of starting the children in a new school, PTA, joining a new church and the women’s group there, the onslaught of the holiday season, my parents spending the winter in Phoenix before returning to Iowa, and visits from friends to see our new place seemed to take up most of our time.
By spring, I had decided what carpeting and vinyl flooring I wanted in our “new” home, but our finances weren't quite ready. Lanny did take out the built in seating and we bought a Spanish type sofa (or at least what was called Spanish) to replace it.
As fall neared and carpeting was in the budget, I wanted that entryway horror gone. As usual, Lanny kept promising. We had been there almost two years, when I looked at that wall one morning after the children had gone to school and went out to his tool room. There it was: his sledge hammer. By this time, Lanny was a finish carpenter and the finish foreman for one of the Phoenix companies. A sledge hammer really wasn't a tool he used at work.
It took almost all morning to knock out all the blocks and lumber. Before lunch, I carried out the lumber. I do not remember what I ate for lunch. Afterward, I began carrying out the debris. I hadn't gotten very far when our nine-year-old son returned from school.
I still remember him standing there, wide-eyed and holding the kitchen door open. Finally he said, “You really did it this time, Mom.”
He did help me carry out the rest of the debris.
Our daughter had stopped at a friend’s place, but both she and my husband were home before long.
Lanny just shook his head. “I guess I’d better smooth it all down for when you buy the carpet," was all he said.
Yes, it was smooth the day they brought in the beautiful blue carpet for the living room and hall. The rest of the house was carpeted and new vinyl went down in the family room, kitchen and bathrooms. Oh, yes, it may have been the first time he called me, “Scary Mari,” when he told others about what I did.
May 25, 2014
A Rant
I usually do not rant and run on about the events of life, but shopping for clothes and shoes has become a frustrating experience. Perhaps it is because I can remember when clothes and shoes were made here in the United States and everything fit.
One could enter a store and a certain size in dresses, slacks, blouses, and shoes would be the size that was on the label or box. I did have to try on several pairs of shoes to make sure they would fit a narrow heel and still not hit my ankles, but the length of the shoe was exactly what was stated.
Now most shoes are made in other countries. Forget size. I can state my size, but it doesn't matter. Some are too small and some are too large: same size on box, not in shoe length. Trying to find leather shoes in this community is another challenge. Fortunately, the local J. C. Penney’s now carries some leather shoes, but once again the size on the box means absolutely nothing.
Finding clothes to fit can be another problem. I just have to remember what brand and what size of theirs fits. Too be safe, I usually try the nicer clothes on as I do not trust their markings. The change in size markings is also difficult to believe. I know what size I wore when I was younger and weighed what I now weigh. I would have needed a size nine or ten. Now the sizes that fit are size six and eight. It hilarious. I still have a cocktail dress, size nine that I cannot fit into and yet my latest purchase was a (good brand name) pair of jeans size six. Ladies, they are not being exactly truthful.
Affording really “good” clothes was never in my budget, but I learned to shop carefully and purchase the best I could as the styles of classic clothes last longer or come back into style. That means I have clothes from other eras that vary widely in size.
I have a pair of shorts that I purchased (oh, decades ago). They were made in this country and they are a size twelve and fits perfectly. I can wash this pair of shorts and it still doesn't need ironing. No, it is not polyester. The last pair of shorts that I bought (two summers ago) is in good shape, but it needs to be ironed, and is a size six. Folks, I weigh the same.
The only items I can grab and be assured they will fit are the, ahem, underwear items, socks, and tee-shirt or tank tops that say “small.” Any item that is more costly, I try on as I don’t want to be bothered taking things back to the store.
As for buying out of a catalog, forget it. People say, “Oh, you can send it back.” Well, yes I could, but why go through that hassle when you've purchased something to wear at a special time or place?
Thanks for listening. Let me know if you have run into the same problems when shopping.
One could enter a store and a certain size in dresses, slacks, blouses, and shoes would be the size that was on the label or box. I did have to try on several pairs of shoes to make sure they would fit a narrow heel and still not hit my ankles, but the length of the shoe was exactly what was stated.
Now most shoes are made in other countries. Forget size. I can state my size, but it doesn't matter. Some are too small and some are too large: same size on box, not in shoe length. Trying to find leather shoes in this community is another challenge. Fortunately, the local J. C. Penney’s now carries some leather shoes, but once again the size on the box means absolutely nothing.
Finding clothes to fit can be another problem. I just have to remember what brand and what size of theirs fits. Too be safe, I usually try the nicer clothes on as I do not trust their markings. The change in size markings is also difficult to believe. I know what size I wore when I was younger and weighed what I now weigh. I would have needed a size nine or ten. Now the sizes that fit are size six and eight. It hilarious. I still have a cocktail dress, size nine that I cannot fit into and yet my latest purchase was a (good brand name) pair of jeans size six. Ladies, they are not being exactly truthful.
Affording really “good” clothes was never in my budget, but I learned to shop carefully and purchase the best I could as the styles of classic clothes last longer or come back into style. That means I have clothes from other eras that vary widely in size.
I have a pair of shorts that I purchased (oh, decades ago). They were made in this country and they are a size twelve and fits perfectly. I can wash this pair of shorts and it still doesn't need ironing. No, it is not polyester. The last pair of shorts that I bought (two summers ago) is in good shape, but it needs to be ironed, and is a size six. Folks, I weigh the same.
The only items I can grab and be assured they will fit are the, ahem, underwear items, socks, and tee-shirt or tank tops that say “small.” Any item that is more costly, I try on as I don’t want to be bothered taking things back to the store.
As for buying out of a catalog, forget it. People say, “Oh, you can send it back.” Well, yes I could, but why go through that hassle when you've purchased something to wear at a special time or place?
Thanks for listening. Let me know if you have run into the same problems when shopping.
