Diane Stringam Tolley's Blog: On the Border, page 89

Two or Four

He found a bottle in the sand,It wouldn't qualify as grand,He took it home, because he could,And it upon his mantle stood.
It sat there for perhaps an hour,Till his wife noticed, looked quite dour,Said, “Ray, your bottle’s filthy, true,Now clean it up. Or say adieu!”
He grumbled just a little bit,Then shrugged and took a buffing mitt,And polished that old bottle fine,Till it glowed with lustrous shine.
But as he buffed that bottle shook,A genie popped out, turned and looked,Then said, “A wish for you—just one,So choose most carefully, my son.”
Ray said, “Y’know I hate to fly,But I’m a real ‘Hawaiian’ guy,So build a bridge from here to there,I’ll get across ‘thout being scared.”
The genie snorted, “That’s just weird,Impossible I greatly fear,So choose again, my silly man,I’ll tell you if I think I can.”
Ray rubbed his chin both to and fro,Said slowly, “I would like to know,The secrets of a woman’s heart,And understand them…for a start.”
The genie frowned and stared at him,(I think he looked a little grim,)He crossed the room and op’ed the door,Then flexed his hands: “Two lanes or four?”

Cause Mondays do get knocked a lot,With poetry, we all besought,To try to make the week beginWith pleasant thoughts,Perhaps a grin?So all of us, together, weHave crafted poems for you to see.And now you’ve read what we have wrought . . .Did we help?Or did we not?
Jenny Charlotte Mimi

Old

Dedicated to our beloved Shirley. Who gave us ten more years with our dad! Shirley. Gramma and her little beans.Great Gramma and her Little BeanHad the greatest day you’ve ever seen.They’d talked and laughed, played games – all sorts,Built puzzles and a blanket fort.
Played Lego, making things just right,Baked treats and had a pillow fight.Played knights and forts, read stories, too,Dressed up, and sang. (To name a few.)
Then, happily exhausted, theyDecided to slow down the day.Great Gramma’s Little Bean and sheWere nestled down quite snug-i-ly.
Then LB stroked Great Gramma’s hair,And to her own, she did compare,“Yours is white!” said the little girl,Gently touching her own curls.
Then the soft, plump hand the lines did trace,That clearly showed on Gramma’s face.“You’re old,” she said, with honesty.“You’re so much older, Gram, than me!”
Great Gramma smiled, as Grammas do,And touched the lines she too well knew,She said, “The things you say are true,I’ve lived a lot more years than you!”
“I’m four,” said Little Bean with pride.And a grin that went from side to side.“I’m eighty-six,” Great Gramma said.She sighed. “Somewhere ‘tween birth . . . and dead.”
Then LB tipped her head askew,And grappled with this thought so new.And then she said, when she was done,“Great Gramma, did you start at one?”

Five Years

On May 28, 2015, we said good-bye to Daddy.We've told stories and laughed and cried.Now we have the memories . . . Mark Reed StringammHusband, father, rancher, veterinarian, brother, friend, uncle, cousin.Jokester.My Dad is the youngest of eleven children.At 89 years old, he is the last surviving sibling of a great progeny.And he has made his mark in the world. (Oddly enough, his name is Mark. Apropos . . .)He has served in numerous leadership roles in Church and community.Been a voice for change in Provincial/Federal politics.Lovingly supported his wife all her life and through her final illness.Raised six kids, numerous grandkids and even more great-grandkids.
Built heritage clocks and other woodworking marvels from caragana and other exotic woods.Developed and refined his own award-winning genetic line of Hereford cattle.Taught. Led. Supported. Pushed. Pulled. Guided. Built.Worked.But what do his progeny mostly remember this great man for?His pranks.Yep. Pranks.This was the man who shaved his head into a ‘mohawk’ do, long before it was acceptable. And with red, curly hair, such a style was . . . noticeable.
Proof! Daddy's on the right...Painted a large ‘48’ on the water tower at his Alma Mater in Guelph, Ontario.Disassembled and re-assembled the headmaster’s car on the porch of the administration building.Played the ‘wedding waltz’ when his youngest brother-in-law showed up with a girlfriend. And rigged a smoke bomb on the engine of said bother-in-law’s car at the end of that particular visit.Served drinks in ‘dribble’ glasses.Lit the bottom corner of a newspaper on fire when the reader was concentrating on reading the upper corner.Used a syringe to squirt water through a nail hole, thus winning, once-and-for-all, the title of ‘water fighter extraordinaire’.Also used a syringe to squirt skunk ‘essence’ through the keyholes of the 'Ag' students at Guelph Verterinary College. Can anyone say ‘stink’?Floated a plastic ice cube with encased fly in guests’ drinks. Hid an unwrapped prophylactic in the headmaster's handkerchief, tucked into the man's tuxedo, to be revealed with notable results.And other monkeyshines too numerous to mention here. But which will be the subjects of future posts . . .The once-mighty rancher is frail now.Still clear mentally, but moving slowly and with care.And seldom venturing far from his comfortable chair and book shelf.It would be painful to watch, if one were not buoyed by Dad’s own words. “I’ve had fun!”Words followed by the familiar twinkle as he recounts past pranks.And still looks forward to future ones.During my last visit, a dear guest looked at her glass and said, “This isn’t one of those ‘dribble’ ones, is it?”Daddy? Never change! How I'll always remember him. Seated at his desk. Getting things done.
See you soon, Daddy!

Accidentally Awesome

For once, he’d listened to his wife,How to ameliorate her life,And he went without delay,To take her on a holiday.
But as he hastened to comply,In proving he was one sweet guy,He left his glistening lab in lessThan pristine order, I confess.
While those two hurried who knows where,One petri dish abandoned there,A part of his criteria,Was moistened with bacteria.
When they returned, that fateful dish,Was not as clean as they could wish.Bacteria, possession had,And things were looking rather bad.
Except one place had not been ‘got’,No icky growth upon that spot.Instead, a little bit of moldHad landed there and taken hold.
Beating off the icky stuff,And proving it had strength enough,Its presence brought discovery,And new ways for recovery.
I guess you’ve guessed by now that guyWas christened Fleming from on high.And penicillin, started smallS’the best discovery of all!
After that, we note that heMade no startling discoveries.His wife, by his chaos dismayed,Decided she would hire a maid.

Haven

Supplier of kindliness. And food.The Stringam ranch was a large spread situated some twenty miles from the town of Milk River, Alberta.The land stretched for miles along the Alberta-Montana border.The buildings were nestled in a picturesque prairie valley somewhere in the middle, surrounded by tall cliffs and the lazy sweep of the south fork of the Milk River itself.It was nine miles to the nearest neighbour.But we got there as often as we could.Or, at least we kids did.Maybe I should explain . . .In my day, the school bus service ended at Nine-Mile corner, a triangle of crossroads exactly – you guessed it - nine miles from the ranch.This necessitated the driving, twice a day, of a vehicle to intercept said bus.Okay, it was something unheard-of in this day of school bus service to your door, but it was a fact in the sixties.Mom was the driver of choice, with occasional relief work by Dad.But that’s only a peripheral to my story . . .Less than a mile from that corner, at the end of a long driveway, was the Sproad farm. Our nearest neighbours.Ben and Clestia Sproad were an elderly couple who raised sheep and milk cows. Their daughter had married and moved away and they had settled into a routine of farm work, household duties, grandparenting and kindliness.Their home was a haven of peace, cleanliness, love and fabulous German baking.Every day, after the bus had deposited our little group beside the road, and if our intercept vehicle was not in sight, we would excitedly begin the long trek toward the promise of smiling faces and wonderful food.We didn’t make it often.Usually, the ranch station wagon would come skidding around the corner in a cloud of dust and slide to a halt beside us, before we had taken much more than a few steps.But occasionally, if Mom had been delayed, we managed the ten-minute walk and actually grabbed the brass ring.Or, in this case, the freshly-baked reward for our efforts.Served happily by Mrs. Sproad, and accompanied by her soft, cheerful chatter.“Oh, Di-ane! You are getting zo big. Zoon you’ll be taller than me! Here. Have another.” And she was right. By the time I was in sixth grade, I had passed her by.On these special days, Mom would appear, rather red-faced and spilling apologies. “Oh, Clesti! I’m so sorry! I got tied up . . .”It didn’t matter. Mrs. Sproad would laugh and offer something to Mom as well.Soon we would be on the road back to the ranch.Still tired from the day.But with bellies filled with yumminess and hearts filled with cheer.Nine-Mile corner no longer exists.And the Sproads have long been gone.But I can still taste that baking.And feel the love.

Summer . . . Smells

I wait for summer all year long,The sun, the green, the birdies' song,The kids out playing. Hills and dells,But most of all, I love the smellsWhere I live, the clear, pure air,Wafts fragrances from everywhere,And one can just stand there and sniff,In all directions, catch a whiff.In South Alberta, where we were,With constant wind (the saboteur),It blew the summer smells awayLike flowers, trees and new-mown hay,But twice a year, the wind would stop,We’d poke our nose out of the shop,Delighted with the still air, WHEW!‘Twas time to have a barbeque!And so we’d get our tools out,Invite the family, thaw the trout,And just when we’d sit down to eat,The table laden, air so sweet,Another smell would cause alarmThe neighbour’d cleaned his piggies' barn.

Cause Mondays do get knocked a lot,
With poetry, we all besought
To try to make the week begin
With pleasant thoughts,
Perhaps a grin?
So all of us, together, we
Have crafted poems for you to see.
And now you've read what we have wrought,
Did we help?
Or did we not?
Jenny
Charlotte Mimi
Next week, because I call the shots,
We'll all talk 'Bridges'. Love them lots!

A Grampa Memory

My Grandpa as I remember him.
With my older siblings, Chris and Jerry. My Grandpa, George Lewis Stringam, was born in 1876, in Holden Utah.He ranched there with his dad. Married. Prepared to welcome children.And then tragedy struck.His first wife, Mary Ann (May) Snow, passed away, together with her twin unborn sons, following an accident involving a carriage and runaway horses.Broken hearted, Grampa continued to ranch. Then accepted a call to serve a mission for his church to Australia.After his return home, he married longtime friend, Sarah Lovina Williams and they set up housekeeping, first on his father’s farm, then on their own place in Teasdale, Utah.A few years later, they had settled in Glenwood, Alberta, ranching there and in the Milk River area, and raising nine of eleven children.My dad was the baby.Grampa was a rancher, husband, father, grandfather, MLA for Cardston for three terms, faithful church attender and leader, neighbour and friend.He was faithful, honest, hardworking, kind, and thorough, with a terrific sense of humour and a firm belief that actions should always speak louder than words.My Dad loved him and tried to emulate him throughout his life.Grandpa Stringam passed away just before I turned four.I have only one memory of him . . .My grandparents, in their later years, moved to the city of Lethbridge, in Southern Alberta. The main entry of their home opened onto a hallway that bisected the house, front to back, with French doors to the right, leading into the living room.Behind those doors was my grandfather’s recliner.At this point in time, he must have been quite ill with the cancer that finally took his life.All I know is that’s where I found him.Reclined in his chair, feet up and newspaper spread out in front of him.“Grampa!” I said.The newspaper dropped. “There’s our little Diane girl!”That was all the invitation I needed.There was Grandpa. There was Grandpa’s lap. Just waiting for a little girl to snuggle.And that’s what I did.For several minutes, I cuddled there, listening to his heart beating and the sound of his voice coming through his chest as he talked to my parents.I didn’t follow the conversation, which was probably quite serious.All I knew was that I felt safe. And cared for.Breathing in, for what turned out to be the last time, the scent that was Grandpa.
As a young man
During his mission to Australia
Grampa in the apron. Oh, the missionary life!
May 4, 1903
At my parents' wedding Gramma and Grampa Stringam on their Golden Anniversary

Nine

I’m not tech savvy. My students would shudder when I picked up a TV remote—an action inevitably followed by the frenzied pressing of buttons and a few muttered church-friendly expletives.

When churches and schools closed, I was sad about being barred from my beloved students, but what could I do? The only senior citizen in the class, I was most at risk.

When I groused to my uber-helpful and very tech astute elder sister about missing my students, she suggested I download a program called Zoom, gather up my kids and teach online.

I laughed and laughed. Because . . . see above. No way I was going to ‘gather my students’ and learn something new. Especially something that could possibly require online computing.

When the ‘powers that be’ announced I would teach every day on a newly-discovered program called ‘Zoom’, I laughed again. Then cried a little. Surely they knew me better than that?

Nope. They promised to help me learn. Promised I would enjoy it. Promised I would be a tech amazing whiz-senior before the week was out. But firmly told me to ‘do it’.

Now every morning, I am seated at my desk in front of 23 teenagers, teaching. Watching videos. Following Power Point presentations. Even separating into ‘rooms’ to work as individuals or groups.

I am the king of the world! Yes, it’s a small world, peopled with teenagers 14 to 18, too polite to laugh out loud when I screw up. (Which I do.)

But I’ve done it. Learned a new program. Implemented it without too many disasters. And best of all, I get to ‘see’ my teenagers nearly every day! It’s a beautiful world.


Today’s post is a writing challenge. We contributing bloggers each picked a number between 12 and 74. The submitted numbers were then assigned to other bloggers challenged with writing at least one piece using that exact number of words.
I was assigned the word count number: 31
It was submitted by my best blogging friend, Karen of Baking in a Tornado.
Thanks so much, Karen! You are awesome!

Here are the links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what numbers they got and how they used them. 

Links to the other Word Counters posts:
Baking In A Tornado
Spatulas on Parade 
Messymimi’s Meanderings    

Homes

I admit it, I'm a homebody.
This pandemic hasn't changed my lifestyle much at all. I hated to go out before.
I hate to go out now.
I wrote this song for the play: The Three (Plus a Few) Little Pigs a year ago.
It tugs at my heart today.
I offer it today for Poetry Monday: Home.
Picture the little piggies and wolves singing it!


Here in this world are many different houses you can see,There are houses on the ground and there are houses in the trees,And some float on the water and some others are of stone.One thing they have in common is that each is someone’s home.
Cause in this world, there’s nothing like your home,It welcomes every day, be it on land or sea or foam.Like a hug, it wraps around you as you step inside the door,Yes, there’s nothing like a place to call your own.


Cause Mondays do get knocked a lot,
With poetry, we all besought
To try to make the week begin
With pleasant thoughts...
Perhaps a grin?
So all of us, together, we
Have crafted poems for you to see.
And now you've read what we have wrought...
Did we help?
Or did we not?

Jenny, Charlotte and Mimi are also participating.
Take a little jaunt over and see what they've done with the topic!

Next week, it's time for shows and tells,
Cause we'll all be discussing 'Smells'!

Allergic Aversions

You want me to eat what . . .?My Dad always claimed to be allergic to onions.
Whenever he ordered any burger, he always asked them to 'hold the onions'.
We just assumed that he really was allergic to onions.
Later in life, we discovered that his reticence was due, not to allergies, but to aversions.
There's a difference.
But what a scheme!
My kids tried to use it, too.
Our eldest, Mark, became quite expert.
His particular nemesis?
Beans.
Harmless, deep-browned, baked beans.
My personal favourite.
And one of the major ingredients in my award-winning chili.
Something that appeared with amazing regularity on the family dinner table.
Mmmmm.
From his very earliest years, Mark exhibited an unparallelled reluctance to put those nasty, evil beans anywhere near his mouth.
Regardless of how many times they might appear on his table.
Once, when he was just learning to say the blessing on the food, his father tried to trick him into 'bean acceptance'.
Grant: “Father in Heaven.”
Mark: “Father in Heaven.” (But imagine it in a little 20 month-old voice.)
Grant: “We thank thee for this food.”
Mark: “We thank thee for this food.”
Grant: “Because it's so yum.”
Mark: “Because it's so not yum.”
Laughter (Grant).
More laughter (Mom).
Grin (Mark).
And so it went.
For 19 years.
At the age of 19, Mark received a mission call for our church to Boston, Massachusetts.
He excitedly prepared to go.
I took him aside. “Mark, you know what they call Boston, don't you?”
“What?”
“Bean Town.”
His face whitened a little. “Bean Town?”
“Yep. Where do you think the term 'Boston Baked Beans' comes from?”
He had to sit down for that one. “Boston Baked Beans,” he said, faintly.
“Yep. So you'd better get used to eating them, because you will probably be getting them morning, noon and night.”
“Oh.”
He went anyways, brave boy that he was.
And returned two years later.
We met him at the airport.
We had sent our little boy.
We brought back an adult.
The first thing I asked him was how he felt about beans now that he had spent two years in the midst of the world's best bean eaters.
His response?
“I just got served beans for the first time yesterday.”
Even the 'Bean Towners' catered to my son . . .
Mark eats beans today.
Mostly to show his children it can be done.
But he doesn't wage much of a battle.
His oldest daughter Megan's favourite food is Grandma's chili.
Okay, maybe the acorn skipped a generation, but it still landed near the tree.