Judy Shank Cyg's Blog: Fantasy, Books, and Daily Life, page 18
November 28, 2021
Homesick for the Ridge
I get homesick for the Heights, for my childhood there, my family and friends. I miss the green summer fields around Holly and Ortonville, the oak and maple and birch forests of Michigan, the scent of lilacs and freshly-cut (real) grass.
But there are other homes I miss, and I wanted to share another with you.
The only shade in my yard in the Brooksville Ridge came from the sand live oaks, or the tiny, curled leaves that allowed sword ferns, transplanted from the neighboring Xeric hammock of live oaks, magnolia, palm, and sweet gum, to at least survive in the scrub, if thin and sparse even after several years.
I spent time trying to identify Chapman’s oak, bluejack oak, and various other scrub oaks around my house, but only the turkey oak proudly stood apart with its distinctive leaves that resemble turkey feet. Gopher apple blossomed early spring, pear cactus drew gopher tortoises, saw palmetto cut hands and legs. Wiregrass and vines gave the sandy fields and forests an untidy look, and twisted oak branches were knobby and dry.
Filled a large ceramic basin daily to offer a water hole for local residents—gray foxes, possums, raccoons, stray cats, gray squirrels, ground doves, crows, vultures.
Sediment from Appalachia washed down over Florida limestone two million years ago and left high, dry, sandy island ridges in sharp contrast to moist, tropical cypress swamps and oak hammocks on either side. Yet after the shock of dry spareness, the semi-scrub grew on me so that I saw a strange beauty in it, and miss living there.
Cardinals and mourning doves, ground doves, sparrows, tufted titmouse, crows, barred (hoot) owls, and hawks—red-tailed and golden—were avian neighbors, and twice a year I heard the elusive chuck-will’s-widow in nearby fields. I saw the scrub mouse and marsh rabbit and Sherman’s fox squirrel, but not one scrub jay.
Because the Brooksville Ridge grew no crops, fed no cattle, produced no orange groves, there were no abandoned Cracker houses, only scattered block houses from a hopeful speculator who planned a thriving subdivision, laid out roads, cut the area into one-acre lots, and advertised Florida living.
Growth was slow, thankfully, since there is no water, and some wildlife and plants grow nowhere else, making the terrain rare, with endangered species unique to the planet. Roads are powdery white asphalt, blinding hot-white in the summer sun, and rain of any amount is absorbed into the sand, leaving no sign.
Gopher tortoises dig deep sandy holes with many doors, making welcome homes for rattlers and other creatures, and proving no need for flood insurance, a bane in other Florida areas. Rabbits live near the marsh around the corner, and I saw white-tailed deer, black and pink wild sows and piglets, and wild turkey.
Bobcats moved out a few years after I moved in, and a Florida panther passed through once, leaving enormous pawprints and the memory of a warning growl just past the open garage door in the dark.
When I first moved to the Ridge, I walked the lonely roads to a strip of the Green Swamp, two miles from my house, a thick, wet, dark green mystery of cypress and water and wild orchids and ferns, around twisting roads past sand pine woods and hot, dry fields of wiregrass, Florida rosemary, and cactus. Red bay and juniper and red cedar splashed green in the arid, parched setting.
The landscape had a primitive, prehistoric look.
Golden orb-weaver spider webs, long and wide, with the huge, long-legged lady mid-web discouraged walks through the woods, even if the palmetto had allowed. I savored ponds and cypress at the end of my walk, and sandy scrub at the beginning.
The Milky Way stretched overhead on every clear night, and over my roof was Polaris, not bright, but pointing due north, hiding the Dippers from my sometimes-homesick eyes, although Orion followed me from Michigan to Florida. Robins passed through early each spring, in a hurry to get to their singing and nesting in my former home.
Still, although I miss weeping willow and sugar maple, dandelions, lilacs, real grass, and Queen-Anne’s-lace, I also miss the Ridge where I walked on land two million years old, and was sorry when I had to move.
True, there’s beauty in every setting, and anywhere we live can be home, yet more than one can be yearned for once we leave it behind.
Orange blossoms or lilacs? Queen-Anne’s-lace or Leavenworth’s tickseed? Green forests or semi-scrub?
Don’t rush me, I’m thinking.
But there are other homes I miss, and I wanted to share another with you.
The only shade in my yard in the Brooksville Ridge came from the sand live oaks, or the tiny, curled leaves that allowed sword ferns, transplanted from the neighboring Xeric hammock of live oaks, magnolia, palm, and sweet gum, to at least survive in the scrub, if thin and sparse even after several years.
I spent time trying to identify Chapman’s oak, bluejack oak, and various other scrub oaks around my house, but only the turkey oak proudly stood apart with its distinctive leaves that resemble turkey feet. Gopher apple blossomed early spring, pear cactus drew gopher tortoises, saw palmetto cut hands and legs. Wiregrass and vines gave the sandy fields and forests an untidy look, and twisted oak branches were knobby and dry.
Filled a large ceramic basin daily to offer a water hole for local residents—gray foxes, possums, raccoons, stray cats, gray squirrels, ground doves, crows, vultures.
Sediment from Appalachia washed down over Florida limestone two million years ago and left high, dry, sandy island ridges in sharp contrast to moist, tropical cypress swamps and oak hammocks on either side. Yet after the shock of dry spareness, the semi-scrub grew on me so that I saw a strange beauty in it, and miss living there.
Cardinals and mourning doves, ground doves, sparrows, tufted titmouse, crows, barred (hoot) owls, and hawks—red-tailed and golden—were avian neighbors, and twice a year I heard the elusive chuck-will’s-widow in nearby fields. I saw the scrub mouse and marsh rabbit and Sherman’s fox squirrel, but not one scrub jay.
Because the Brooksville Ridge grew no crops, fed no cattle, produced no orange groves, there were no abandoned Cracker houses, only scattered block houses from a hopeful speculator who planned a thriving subdivision, laid out roads, cut the area into one-acre lots, and advertised Florida living.
Growth was slow, thankfully, since there is no water, and some wildlife and plants grow nowhere else, making the terrain rare, with endangered species unique to the planet. Roads are powdery white asphalt, blinding hot-white in the summer sun, and rain of any amount is absorbed into the sand, leaving no sign.
Gopher tortoises dig deep sandy holes with many doors, making welcome homes for rattlers and other creatures, and proving no need for flood insurance, a bane in other Florida areas. Rabbits live near the marsh around the corner, and I saw white-tailed deer, black and pink wild sows and piglets, and wild turkey.
Bobcats moved out a few years after I moved in, and a Florida panther passed through once, leaving enormous pawprints and the memory of a warning growl just past the open garage door in the dark.
When I first moved to the Ridge, I walked the lonely roads to a strip of the Green Swamp, two miles from my house, a thick, wet, dark green mystery of cypress and water and wild orchids and ferns, around twisting roads past sand pine woods and hot, dry fields of wiregrass, Florida rosemary, and cactus. Red bay and juniper and red cedar splashed green in the arid, parched setting.
The landscape had a primitive, prehistoric look.
Golden orb-weaver spider webs, long and wide, with the huge, long-legged lady mid-web discouraged walks through the woods, even if the palmetto had allowed. I savored ponds and cypress at the end of my walk, and sandy scrub at the beginning.
The Milky Way stretched overhead on every clear night, and over my roof was Polaris, not bright, but pointing due north, hiding the Dippers from my sometimes-homesick eyes, although Orion followed me from Michigan to Florida. Robins passed through early each spring, in a hurry to get to their singing and nesting in my former home.
Still, although I miss weeping willow and sugar maple, dandelions, lilacs, real grass, and Queen-Anne’s-lace, I also miss the Ridge where I walked on land two million years old, and was sorry when I had to move.
True, there’s beauty in every setting, and anywhere we live can be home, yet more than one can be yearned for once we leave it behind.
Orange blossoms or lilacs? Queen-Anne’s-lace or Leavenworth’s tickseed? Green forests or semi-scrub?
Don’t rush me, I’m thinking.
November 21, 2021
Red Rover Red Rover
“Red Rover, Red Rover, let Danny come over!”
Summer vacations lasted forever when I was a kid in the Heights. In the evenings, we chased fireflies, rode our bikes until called in by anxious parents, and occasionally gathered together various ages to play games in the Shank’s front yard.
“Red Light, Green Light” was another favorite, which in my memory I confuse with “Statues.” In both cases, to be caught moving when the leader whirled around was failure. None of us tolerated failure.
“I did not!”
“You did so!”
Too much noise and Mom put a stop to our outdoor play in the dark.
My brothers and their friends played something on their bikes they called “Midnight Marauders,” but I’m not sure if they caused any actual mischief or just planned the impossible.
We were gullible in those days. We knew, for example, if you opened a golf ball, it would explode, and somehow, we could make a homemade bomb by unrolling the insides like a fuse. Right up there with making bread from grass tips. Well, you could smush them and add water, but…yuck. And we won’t even bring up acorn butter.
My favorite pastime, in any season, was to walk back and forth to my current best friend’s house where we spent time in each other’s bedrooms gossiping. Although Jeanette never gossiped. She’d share news, but was never unkind about anyone at any time. A memorable role-model.
She offered information once that stunned me.
“You’ve never been spanked? Not even once? NOT EVEN YELLED AT?”
In my family, the last was commonplace. We weren’t the most easy-going or well-behaved half-dozen children in the Heights.
Once dusk settled, I was allowed to walk Jeanette halfway home. Deciding midpoint took experiment and several trials. There were times when we walked each other “halfway home” until the stars came out.
Like so many friends, I lost sight of Jeanette after high school, and learned about her by serendipity, and once, from a connection I now can’t recall.
A home health care nurse. It figured. For someone as kind and patient as Jeanette, the career was perfect.
Occasionally, I’d think about our walks and talks, and wonder about her again. And her amazing family. Her sweet younger sister, her scrumptious and handsome brother who could play guitar and sing like an angel. Her older sisters, one quiet and elegant, the other engaged to a farmer, one of my early dreams. “I’ll marry a farmer and have twelve children,” I’d announce to my friends.
Some dreams are best left in the past.
Jeanette’s brother gave me an update this week that wrenched my heart.
Jeanette lost her gallant fight to a rare cancer.
She’ll be missed by more than her five children, grandchildren, and siblings.
She’s long been missed by me.
Ken said that her daughter sent him a timeline of some of her memories, including a school newspaper that she and Don Roe and I created called the Daily Turtle. Really? I have no memory of this, though it fits.
Thinking about childhood games, there’s another we played called “Telephone,” where we sat in a circle and whispered a statement down the line, until the last person repeated out loud what was heard. It was never the original.
You know, Jeanette would have gotten the message right.
To you, my friend, to all my friends, here or missing or gone ahead, I thank you for the joy you gave me.
To Ken, who kept me informed.
All of you helped make everything that’s good in me.
The Daily Turtle? I’d love to see a copy! Keep writing columns in it, Jeanette. Don and I will join you when it’s our turn.
Summer vacations lasted forever when I was a kid in the Heights. In the evenings, we chased fireflies, rode our bikes until called in by anxious parents, and occasionally gathered together various ages to play games in the Shank’s front yard.
“Red Light, Green Light” was another favorite, which in my memory I confuse with “Statues.” In both cases, to be caught moving when the leader whirled around was failure. None of us tolerated failure.
“I did not!”
“You did so!”
Too much noise and Mom put a stop to our outdoor play in the dark.
My brothers and their friends played something on their bikes they called “Midnight Marauders,” but I’m not sure if they caused any actual mischief or just planned the impossible.
We were gullible in those days. We knew, for example, if you opened a golf ball, it would explode, and somehow, we could make a homemade bomb by unrolling the insides like a fuse. Right up there with making bread from grass tips. Well, you could smush them and add water, but…yuck. And we won’t even bring up acorn butter.
My favorite pastime, in any season, was to walk back and forth to my current best friend’s house where we spent time in each other’s bedrooms gossiping. Although Jeanette never gossiped. She’d share news, but was never unkind about anyone at any time. A memorable role-model.
She offered information once that stunned me.
“You’ve never been spanked? Not even once? NOT EVEN YELLED AT?”
In my family, the last was commonplace. We weren’t the most easy-going or well-behaved half-dozen children in the Heights.
Once dusk settled, I was allowed to walk Jeanette halfway home. Deciding midpoint took experiment and several trials. There were times when we walked each other “halfway home” until the stars came out.
Like so many friends, I lost sight of Jeanette after high school, and learned about her by serendipity, and once, from a connection I now can’t recall.
A home health care nurse. It figured. For someone as kind and patient as Jeanette, the career was perfect.
Occasionally, I’d think about our walks and talks, and wonder about her again. And her amazing family. Her sweet younger sister, her scrumptious and handsome brother who could play guitar and sing like an angel. Her older sisters, one quiet and elegant, the other engaged to a farmer, one of my early dreams. “I’ll marry a farmer and have twelve children,” I’d announce to my friends.
Some dreams are best left in the past.
Jeanette’s brother gave me an update this week that wrenched my heart.
Jeanette lost her gallant fight to a rare cancer.
She’ll be missed by more than her five children, grandchildren, and siblings.
She’s long been missed by me.
Ken said that her daughter sent him a timeline of some of her memories, including a school newspaper that she and Don Roe and I created called the Daily Turtle. Really? I have no memory of this, though it fits.
Thinking about childhood games, there’s another we played called “Telephone,” where we sat in a circle and whispered a statement down the line, until the last person repeated out loud what was heard. It was never the original.
You know, Jeanette would have gotten the message right.
To you, my friend, to all my friends, here or missing or gone ahead, I thank you for the joy you gave me.
To Ken, who kept me informed.
All of you helped make everything that’s good in me.
The Daily Turtle? I’d love to see a copy! Keep writing columns in it, Jeanette. Don and I will join you when it’s our turn.
November 14, 2021
When I Consider Your Heavens
I was going to be an astronaut when I grew up.
I was fascinated with stars, planets, galaxies, quasars, and cosmic travel. Read science fiction (focusing mainly on the fiction), gobbled up Ray Bradbury’s rocket stories, and begged for a telescope.
Winter nights were best to get a crick in your neck peering at stars and planets, and wondering about time and space.
When I was young, the night sky was dark and crisp, as long as you didn’t look southwest toward Pontiac lights, or the dimmer glow of Rochester to the east. Rarely saw the Milky Way unless we were camping at Holly or up north, and that sight literally took away my breath. To think that we whipped around at 515,000 mph was hard to accept (although it would take 230 million years to make one pass around the Milky Way).
All those ponderings fired my imagination.
“In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars,” Walt Whitman wrote. I agreed with him about leaving the lecture to stargaze, although as I got older, I harvested Borders and Barnes & Noble shelves for books (non-math, of course) about space and time and quantum-jumping reality.
But this is a tribute to nights in the backyard on Caroline Street in the Heights, focusing my lens to try and see the rings of Saturn or the moons of Jupiter. Following satellites and passenger jets and admiring the orange-red of Mars.
Once Carl Sagan presented his Cosmos, I fell in love, (with him, too). Every Sunday evening, I made tea and homemade shortbread to travel the cosmos with him, enthralled with the wonder of science and reaching beyond the obvious.
Shall you and I use the power of the mind,
Unbound by laws or speed of light?
We’ll rise above the clustered galaxies
As we explore the depth of night
And we will go together.
Dad warned me that astronauts had to be scientists first. “You can’t waste room in that cramped rocket,” he said. First douse of reality’s cold water.
In my senior year, Physics needed one more body to stay available, and because my brother really wanted the class, I sacrificed College English to fill the quota.
Should have saved us all the agony. I never got past the Force = Mass X Acceleration formula. “Why?” I asked, constantly. “But why?” Mr. Walton would try to clarify his lesson, but that didn’t stop me. I really did want to know why, but we had no frame of reference between his explanations and my total ignorance. Once, he burst out in frustration, “There is no why!”
Well, of course, there was a why, but I was decades away from learning the answer to that question. Sorry, Mr. Walton.
He must have felt pity and compassion since he did pass me…barely…in the class. You think I exaggerate? When we got to the topic of the Doppler effect (and thank you, Mr. Strayer, for demonstrating it so well by running up the hallway in the junior high, through the science room, and down the hall, hollering the entire time so we could hear the change of pitch in his voice), I was certain I understood. Until my brother asked me about the formula. Formula? There was a formula?
So, my fascination with being an astronaut and traveling the stars was as much a fantasy as the stories I read.
Still, I developed a passion for science, for questioning, for praising God’s creation—and no, I see no clash between faith and science—and appreciating nature in all her forms.
From that early telescope to admiration for the world around me, I thank Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury, every author I discovered, Mr. Strayer, and yes, Mr. Walton.
The Heights was the perfect place to savor the cosmos in all its glory, from the stars overhead to scarlet sugar maple leaves to snowy hills for sledding.
And for cherishing every person in my life, then and now, the gift of each unique life. So, shall we catch a ride on the next comet that slingshots its way around our planet?
Shall you and I now travel back in time,
For a quasar is calling my name.
I want to see the beginning of the sky
And I’m hoping you’ll feel the same
So we can go together.
And thank You, God, for your marvelous handiwork. I’ve accepted that I’ll never be an astronaut, but a poet of His glory is enough calling for me.
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place” (Psalm 8:3)
I was fascinated with stars, planets, galaxies, quasars, and cosmic travel. Read science fiction (focusing mainly on the fiction), gobbled up Ray Bradbury’s rocket stories, and begged for a telescope.
Winter nights were best to get a crick in your neck peering at stars and planets, and wondering about time and space.
When I was young, the night sky was dark and crisp, as long as you didn’t look southwest toward Pontiac lights, or the dimmer glow of Rochester to the east. Rarely saw the Milky Way unless we were camping at Holly or up north, and that sight literally took away my breath. To think that we whipped around at 515,000 mph was hard to accept (although it would take 230 million years to make one pass around the Milky Way).
All those ponderings fired my imagination.
“In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars,” Walt Whitman wrote. I agreed with him about leaving the lecture to stargaze, although as I got older, I harvested Borders and Barnes & Noble shelves for books (non-math, of course) about space and time and quantum-jumping reality.
But this is a tribute to nights in the backyard on Caroline Street in the Heights, focusing my lens to try and see the rings of Saturn or the moons of Jupiter. Following satellites and passenger jets and admiring the orange-red of Mars.
Once Carl Sagan presented his Cosmos, I fell in love, (with him, too). Every Sunday evening, I made tea and homemade shortbread to travel the cosmos with him, enthralled with the wonder of science and reaching beyond the obvious.
Shall you and I use the power of the mind,
Unbound by laws or speed of light?
We’ll rise above the clustered galaxies
As we explore the depth of night
And we will go together.
Dad warned me that astronauts had to be scientists first. “You can’t waste room in that cramped rocket,” he said. First douse of reality’s cold water.
In my senior year, Physics needed one more body to stay available, and because my brother really wanted the class, I sacrificed College English to fill the quota.
Should have saved us all the agony. I never got past the Force = Mass X Acceleration formula. “Why?” I asked, constantly. “But why?” Mr. Walton would try to clarify his lesson, but that didn’t stop me. I really did want to know why, but we had no frame of reference between his explanations and my total ignorance. Once, he burst out in frustration, “There is no why!”
Well, of course, there was a why, but I was decades away from learning the answer to that question. Sorry, Mr. Walton.
He must have felt pity and compassion since he did pass me…barely…in the class. You think I exaggerate? When we got to the topic of the Doppler effect (and thank you, Mr. Strayer, for demonstrating it so well by running up the hallway in the junior high, through the science room, and down the hall, hollering the entire time so we could hear the change of pitch in his voice), I was certain I understood. Until my brother asked me about the formula. Formula? There was a formula?
So, my fascination with being an astronaut and traveling the stars was as much a fantasy as the stories I read.
Still, I developed a passion for science, for questioning, for praising God’s creation—and no, I see no clash between faith and science—and appreciating nature in all her forms.
From that early telescope to admiration for the world around me, I thank Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury, every author I discovered, Mr. Strayer, and yes, Mr. Walton.
The Heights was the perfect place to savor the cosmos in all its glory, from the stars overhead to scarlet sugar maple leaves to snowy hills for sledding.
And for cherishing every person in my life, then and now, the gift of each unique life. So, shall we catch a ride on the next comet that slingshots its way around our planet?
Shall you and I now travel back in time,
For a quasar is calling my name.
I want to see the beginning of the sky
And I’m hoping you’ll feel the same
So we can go together.
And thank You, God, for your marvelous handiwork. I’ve accepted that I’ll never be an astronaut, but a poet of His glory is enough calling for me.
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place” (Psalm 8:3)
November 7, 2021
Quick, Act Natural
Dad said that the six of us together were no church picnic. Competition couldn’t be fiercer in the Olympics.
“She’s looking out my window!” from the back seat of the car.
“He stole my seat,” from the living room.
The only way to keep your favorite TV-watching chair in the evenings was to “claim” it if you got up for a few minutes. Even then, there was an expected volley of “I did, too” and “No, you didn’t” before Mom or Dad intervened.
I knew that all families weren’t as argumentative. My friend Mary Anne’s family had a zillion kids and a method that gave each older child a younger sibling to look after—hand-washing before meals, baths and pajamas, bandages on cuts—that worked smoothly.
“You’re the oldest,” I heard, “you should have…known better…stopped it…” Really, Mom? Yes, I was the oldest, but no match for my brother.
Any relative or neighbor watching us would have guessed we’d grow up distant and uncaring, but the opposite happened. At least, for me.
I couldn’t ask for better friends.
My brother and I shared the same world—TV shows, holiday customs, aunt and uncle and grandparent visits, school fairs, School Hills sledding. On my last visit home, he drove me everywhere I wanted to go, made certain I saw and experienced everything on my homesick list. We share Christmas dinners and memories every possible year, laugh at the same jokes, can sing the same jingles. “Co-co Wheats, Co-co Wheats, can’t be beat…” “Up, up, up for Uptown…” “Which way did he go? Which way did he go? He went for Faygo!”
My sisters, nine years younger than me, became my best girlfriends once grown. One a music partner and my children’s favorite person, the other my best story fan and closest confidant. We miss the first, a victim of multiple sclerosis, a tragic loss. I admire the second more than I can say. Clever, smart, efficient, musical, artistic. There’s nothing she couldn’t do.
Another brother, poet and artist, struggled with bipolar illness all his life, and his death left a hole and three grieving daughters, but I can still hear his laugh, his imitations, “The Martian Delegation vetoes the bill…”
The youngest was born an electrical, mechanical genius, the finest troubleshooter I’ve ever known, as every company he worked for discovered. There’s not a circuit he can’t analyze, not a computer he can’t fix, has a dry sense of humor that breaks me up anytime, and is a Doctor Who fan.
Who’d have guessed in those long-ago days, when we had our own friends, our own activities and goals and strong personalities, that we’d share admiration. “Ju-dy’s face…ummm…Chinese torture!” across the dinner table with matching actions. “Awww, I’m tellin’!” a dozen times a day.
Occasionally, we worked together against the stronger parental force. Like the time Mom and Dad replaced the living room carpet after Dad knocked out the front porch walls for a room large enough for grand piano, furniture, and six children. Walls were newly painted and we were all proud of the result.
Grocery shopping meant that I was left in charge—a dubious honor—because anything was possible, even horseplay that led to a large scratch down one new wall. Gasp! Silence.! As usual, in an emergency, I froze. My brother was tougher and cleverer. “Quick,” he said, “get your hair dryer. Get newspaper. I’ll get paint and a brush.” Three of us hurried to repair the gouge. Slap, slap, new paint. I was still drying the spot with my hairdryer hose when Mom and Dad’s car turned into the driveway. “Put everything away,” he ordered. “Hurry!” We raced to obey, ran back to the living room, and threw ourselves at chairs while he switched on the TV. “Quick, act natural!” was his last command.
Quick, act natural. A family byword.
Looking back, there were many occasions for laughter, for tears, for sharing hardship. Nothing forges relationships better than shared disasters.
Turns out, as Mom and Dad taught us, the world’s a big place, and nothing matches the bond of family. For those lucky enough to enjoy ours, it’s a blessing.
My brother became a successful manager. My clever sister could run an elementary school nearly one-handed, and was the best quiltmaker, singer, and musician I knew. I learned to harness daydreaming into story writing. The youngest developed skills to troubleshoot anything.
The other two? I’m certain they’re sharing our current humorous adventures and misfortunes from their Heavenly Realm, with both parents and every grandparent.
I believe Mom and Dad are proud of us, and for times when we don’t live up to their careful teaching…well…
“Quick, act natural!”
“She’s looking out my window!” from the back seat of the car.
“He stole my seat,” from the living room.
The only way to keep your favorite TV-watching chair in the evenings was to “claim” it if you got up for a few minutes. Even then, there was an expected volley of “I did, too” and “No, you didn’t” before Mom or Dad intervened.
I knew that all families weren’t as argumentative. My friend Mary Anne’s family had a zillion kids and a method that gave each older child a younger sibling to look after—hand-washing before meals, baths and pajamas, bandages on cuts—that worked smoothly.
“You’re the oldest,” I heard, “you should have…known better…stopped it…” Really, Mom? Yes, I was the oldest, but no match for my brother.
Any relative or neighbor watching us would have guessed we’d grow up distant and uncaring, but the opposite happened. At least, for me.
I couldn’t ask for better friends.
My brother and I shared the same world—TV shows, holiday customs, aunt and uncle and grandparent visits, school fairs, School Hills sledding. On my last visit home, he drove me everywhere I wanted to go, made certain I saw and experienced everything on my homesick list. We share Christmas dinners and memories every possible year, laugh at the same jokes, can sing the same jingles. “Co-co Wheats, Co-co Wheats, can’t be beat…” “Up, up, up for Uptown…” “Which way did he go? Which way did he go? He went for Faygo!”
My sisters, nine years younger than me, became my best girlfriends once grown. One a music partner and my children’s favorite person, the other my best story fan and closest confidant. We miss the first, a victim of multiple sclerosis, a tragic loss. I admire the second more than I can say. Clever, smart, efficient, musical, artistic. There’s nothing she couldn’t do.
Another brother, poet and artist, struggled with bipolar illness all his life, and his death left a hole and three grieving daughters, but I can still hear his laugh, his imitations, “The Martian Delegation vetoes the bill…”
The youngest was born an electrical, mechanical genius, the finest troubleshooter I’ve ever known, as every company he worked for discovered. There’s not a circuit he can’t analyze, not a computer he can’t fix, has a dry sense of humor that breaks me up anytime, and is a Doctor Who fan.
Who’d have guessed in those long-ago days, when we had our own friends, our own activities and goals and strong personalities, that we’d share admiration. “Ju-dy’s face…ummm…Chinese torture!” across the dinner table with matching actions. “Awww, I’m tellin’!” a dozen times a day.
Occasionally, we worked together against the stronger parental force. Like the time Mom and Dad replaced the living room carpet after Dad knocked out the front porch walls for a room large enough for grand piano, furniture, and six children. Walls were newly painted and we were all proud of the result.
Grocery shopping meant that I was left in charge—a dubious honor—because anything was possible, even horseplay that led to a large scratch down one new wall. Gasp! Silence.! As usual, in an emergency, I froze. My brother was tougher and cleverer. “Quick,” he said, “get your hair dryer. Get newspaper. I’ll get paint and a brush.” Three of us hurried to repair the gouge. Slap, slap, new paint. I was still drying the spot with my hairdryer hose when Mom and Dad’s car turned into the driveway. “Put everything away,” he ordered. “Hurry!” We raced to obey, ran back to the living room, and threw ourselves at chairs while he switched on the TV. “Quick, act natural!” was his last command.
Quick, act natural. A family byword.
Looking back, there were many occasions for laughter, for tears, for sharing hardship. Nothing forges relationships better than shared disasters.
Turns out, as Mom and Dad taught us, the world’s a big place, and nothing matches the bond of family. For those lucky enough to enjoy ours, it’s a blessing.
My brother became a successful manager. My clever sister could run an elementary school nearly one-handed, and was the best quiltmaker, singer, and musician I knew. I learned to harness daydreaming into story writing. The youngest developed skills to troubleshoot anything.
The other two? I’m certain they’re sharing our current humorous adventures and misfortunes from their Heavenly Realm, with both parents and every grandparent.
I believe Mom and Dad are proud of us, and for times when we don’t live up to their careful teaching…well…
“Quick, act natural!”
October 31, 2021
The Last Summer Morning
Michigan has four official seasons, but many more recognized by every Michigander.
Spring can be dropping icicles from the roofs, the first trilliums in the woods, fruit trees in blossom, return of the robins, the flush of weeping willow buds as fine as a Monet painting.
Summer begins with dandelions and lilacs, includes lawn mowing and baseball and afternoon thunderstorms, and ends with the first hint of golden leaves in the woods.
Autumn includes the first frost, scarlet red sugar maple leaves and raking yards to create leaf piles (for jumping into), apple cider and wine-scented forest paths, a full moon through bare branches for Halloween.
And winter. In my childhood, I remember snow and sledding down the School Hills, blowing on mittens to warm my face. As an adult, scraping car windows, driving through slush, ice, snow, with cloudy, gray days and no spring in sight.
I cherished every nuance of every season at my favorite Michigan haven, Troy’s nature center, Stage Nature Center. Was delighted, last week, to hear from Richard, who grew up on the property before the family donated their farm and property to the city for a nature preserve.
Can’t recall my first visit. Probably went with my son on a school field trip, but once I discovered the condensed State of Michigan, I went often. Very often. And in every season.
Early spring was cold and slushy, but I could avoid the mosquito clouds near the young saplings and marsh. A wooden walkway led across the marsh and pond with a bridge over the stream in one direction. Later, a lookout deck was built to enjoy the view.
In the other direction, I followed the stream as it burbled its way past the sugar maple shed through the woods and uphill to a meadow. Once, I saw a mink, verified by the staff in the Education Center. “A once a lifetime experience,” I gushed. And it was, since I never saw it again.
On many weekend summer days, I parked and chose a direction to amble, inhale, and savor the quiet. This miniature heaven offered a stream, marshy area and pond, hills and valleys, woods, and a lookout tower that eventually added fabulous houses in the neighboring area, as well as woods and deer, in the view.
I raved about it so often, I took my brother Steve on a winter afternoon when he visited from Chicago. Since he was accustomed to colder, windier days than me, he had gloves and coat, but his shoes were the polished leather “priest shoes,” as I named them. Still, he was game, so we walked the paths, the walkways, and climbed the lookout. His visits were few and spent with his daughters, so a brief time for the two of us was a precious event…and memory, since he’s gone now. Or, at least, to an even greater Preserve and Haven.
Richard’s family donated the 100 acres in the 1970’s, with the city’s promise of a public nature preserve, and the City of Troy obeyed. For years, I was curious about the frame farmhouse I passed to the entrance. Would have loved to see the interior.
The current education center was built in 2002 with a government grant, but I remember the original. Although I spent my time outside on my visits, I did make a pass through the center to admire the observable beehive.
Facts I didn’t know at the time—the headwaters of the Rouge River flow through the preserve. More than 145 plant and animals live there, and the trails run 1.5 miles for the full experience. (https://troynaturesociety.org/snc-his...)
In 2010, the preserve was in danger of closing, so a loyal group of citizens created the Troy Nature Society, a non-profit organization to keep it available.
Thank you to every single one of you. I cannot thank you enough for my hours there. I wrote story scenes using the view from a wooden bench looking over slopes and field and tree lines.
And as I mentioned last week, our OCC music professor once assigned a meditation in a quiet setting to hear nature perform “the last summer morning,” and share the experience with the class. Naturally, I went to the Troy nature center and sat near the stream until I could absorb the details. That night, a sudden frost changed the season from summer to autumn, and the leaves started their color change. Since we were studying the seven modes in music, I used my guitar to write a Mixolydian song called “The Last Summer Morning.”
I’d love to wander those paths again, find my favorite bench, listen to the stream sing its way through the woods, stand on the deck, and overlook and inhale Michigan.
Richard, this post is for you, and in gratitude to your family for their amazing foresight.
I highly recommend this magical getaway, and just outside the Heights, by the way!
And Steve, I'll meet you there when I join you.
Spring can be dropping icicles from the roofs, the first trilliums in the woods, fruit trees in blossom, return of the robins, the flush of weeping willow buds as fine as a Monet painting.
Summer begins with dandelions and lilacs, includes lawn mowing and baseball and afternoon thunderstorms, and ends with the first hint of golden leaves in the woods.
Autumn includes the first frost, scarlet red sugar maple leaves and raking yards to create leaf piles (for jumping into), apple cider and wine-scented forest paths, a full moon through bare branches for Halloween.
And winter. In my childhood, I remember snow and sledding down the School Hills, blowing on mittens to warm my face. As an adult, scraping car windows, driving through slush, ice, snow, with cloudy, gray days and no spring in sight.
I cherished every nuance of every season at my favorite Michigan haven, Troy’s nature center, Stage Nature Center. Was delighted, last week, to hear from Richard, who grew up on the property before the family donated their farm and property to the city for a nature preserve.
Can’t recall my first visit. Probably went with my son on a school field trip, but once I discovered the condensed State of Michigan, I went often. Very often. And in every season.
Early spring was cold and slushy, but I could avoid the mosquito clouds near the young saplings and marsh. A wooden walkway led across the marsh and pond with a bridge over the stream in one direction. Later, a lookout deck was built to enjoy the view.
In the other direction, I followed the stream as it burbled its way past the sugar maple shed through the woods and uphill to a meadow. Once, I saw a mink, verified by the staff in the Education Center. “A once a lifetime experience,” I gushed. And it was, since I never saw it again.
On many weekend summer days, I parked and chose a direction to amble, inhale, and savor the quiet. This miniature heaven offered a stream, marshy area and pond, hills and valleys, woods, and a lookout tower that eventually added fabulous houses in the neighboring area, as well as woods and deer, in the view.
I raved about it so often, I took my brother Steve on a winter afternoon when he visited from Chicago. Since he was accustomed to colder, windier days than me, he had gloves and coat, but his shoes were the polished leather “priest shoes,” as I named them. Still, he was game, so we walked the paths, the walkways, and climbed the lookout. His visits were few and spent with his daughters, so a brief time for the two of us was a precious event…and memory, since he’s gone now. Or, at least, to an even greater Preserve and Haven.
Richard’s family donated the 100 acres in the 1970’s, with the city’s promise of a public nature preserve, and the City of Troy obeyed. For years, I was curious about the frame farmhouse I passed to the entrance. Would have loved to see the interior.
The current education center was built in 2002 with a government grant, but I remember the original. Although I spent my time outside on my visits, I did make a pass through the center to admire the observable beehive.
Facts I didn’t know at the time—the headwaters of the Rouge River flow through the preserve. More than 145 plant and animals live there, and the trails run 1.5 miles for the full experience. (https://troynaturesociety.org/snc-his...)
In 2010, the preserve was in danger of closing, so a loyal group of citizens created the Troy Nature Society, a non-profit organization to keep it available.
Thank you to every single one of you. I cannot thank you enough for my hours there. I wrote story scenes using the view from a wooden bench looking over slopes and field and tree lines.
And as I mentioned last week, our OCC music professor once assigned a meditation in a quiet setting to hear nature perform “the last summer morning,” and share the experience with the class. Naturally, I went to the Troy nature center and sat near the stream until I could absorb the details. That night, a sudden frost changed the season from summer to autumn, and the leaves started their color change. Since we were studying the seven modes in music, I used my guitar to write a Mixolydian song called “The Last Summer Morning.”
I’d love to wander those paths again, find my favorite bench, listen to the stream sing its way through the woods, stand on the deck, and overlook and inhale Michigan.
Richard, this post is for you, and in gratitude to your family for their amazing foresight.
I highly recommend this magical getaway, and just outside the Heights, by the way!
And Steve, I'll meet you there when I join you.
October 24, 2021
Thanks for the Memories
One of my favorite books, Out of Africa, was written by Karen Blixen, owner of a coffee plantation in Kenya. When I read it I can smell the sharp dust and morning air, hear the bird songs and savor views from her porch. She cherished her 17 years on her farm in the Ngong hills.
She wrote her masterpiece in Denmark, after her farm failed and she had to return home to snowy, icy winters.
In the warm evenings of the Tampa Bay area, I relive my happy childhood in the Heights and share what I recall. I, too, cherish my…well, we won’t count them…years in the Heights, as a child and later, wife and mother.
Today, I want to thank all of you for offering your own memories in response to whatever topic pops up as I think back with pleasure.
The Fall Festival at Auburn Heights Elementary. I can see that I’m not the only one excited by the white elephant room, duck pond, treats and games in our classrooms.
Holiday parades and Fourth of July fireworks at the School Hills, managed by our volunteer Fire Department, where Dad was one of the running heads after fuses were lit.
Sledding the School Hills and dragging home for Ovaltine or hot cocoa, cold and wet and happy.
Halloween with flares, cider and doughnuts at the school, and streets with glowing front porch lights to offer a variety of candy I’ll never see again.
We’ve looked at our history—the Clinton River, Native American trails turned to roads, mills, farms, the first houses. All of which was enhanced by the kindness of Tyson Brown’s willingness to send me pictures and facts from his treasure trove at the Auburn Hills Historical Society. Thank you, Tyson!
You’ve shared family backgrounds, Native American ancestors, farm families, living on the river, visiting mills, Petoskey stones in your yards, and filled in details of the houses and families I saw every day walking to school, riding my bike, driving to work.
For years, I wrote songs for my guitar, so decided to learn how to capture them with notes and keys and time signatures. I signed up for two music theory courses at Oakland Community College. Doc was a phenomenal teacher. Not only did I learn how to write notation and recreate timing on paper, but we were offered an appreciation for music in every style. Once he gave us an assignment to pick a natural setting, sit quietly, and savor the “last summer morning.”
I chose the Troy Nature Center, a favorite getaway, sat on the wooden bench overlooking the view of fields and woods, while I absorbed the warm breeze and birdsongs.
That night, frost hit, temperatures dropped, and leaves started to change. It really was the last summer morning.
That’s how I feel looking back at my life in the Heights. I didn’t realize it then, but that was a magical time.
Each one of you, sharing your memories, recreate the magic.
Thank you. Thank you very much. You keep my memories fresh.
She wrote her masterpiece in Denmark, after her farm failed and she had to return home to snowy, icy winters.
In the warm evenings of the Tampa Bay area, I relive my happy childhood in the Heights and share what I recall. I, too, cherish my…well, we won’t count them…years in the Heights, as a child and later, wife and mother.
Today, I want to thank all of you for offering your own memories in response to whatever topic pops up as I think back with pleasure.
The Fall Festival at Auburn Heights Elementary. I can see that I’m not the only one excited by the white elephant room, duck pond, treats and games in our classrooms.
Holiday parades and Fourth of July fireworks at the School Hills, managed by our volunteer Fire Department, where Dad was one of the running heads after fuses were lit.
Sledding the School Hills and dragging home for Ovaltine or hot cocoa, cold and wet and happy.
Halloween with flares, cider and doughnuts at the school, and streets with glowing front porch lights to offer a variety of candy I’ll never see again.
We’ve looked at our history—the Clinton River, Native American trails turned to roads, mills, farms, the first houses. All of which was enhanced by the kindness of Tyson Brown’s willingness to send me pictures and facts from his treasure trove at the Auburn Hills Historical Society. Thank you, Tyson!
You’ve shared family backgrounds, Native American ancestors, farm families, living on the river, visiting mills, Petoskey stones in your yards, and filled in details of the houses and families I saw every day walking to school, riding my bike, driving to work.
For years, I wrote songs for my guitar, so decided to learn how to capture them with notes and keys and time signatures. I signed up for two music theory courses at Oakland Community College. Doc was a phenomenal teacher. Not only did I learn how to write notation and recreate timing on paper, but we were offered an appreciation for music in every style. Once he gave us an assignment to pick a natural setting, sit quietly, and savor the “last summer morning.”
I chose the Troy Nature Center, a favorite getaway, sat on the wooden bench overlooking the view of fields and woods, while I absorbed the warm breeze and birdsongs.
That night, frost hit, temperatures dropped, and leaves started to change. It really was the last summer morning.
That’s how I feel looking back at my life in the Heights. I didn’t realize it then, but that was a magical time.
Each one of you, sharing your memories, recreate the magic.
Thank you. Thank you very much. You keep my memories fresh.
October 17, 2021
Bugs and Creepy Crawlies and Aliens
Over a thousand bugs in Michigan, and most of them blew through the Heights at one time or another, stopping on Caroline Street, hoping for a handout or residence.
Not all were unwelcome.
“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home…” We’d let those climb across the back of our hands, not alarmed by a six-legged creature.
And fireflies in July on dark nights decorated our lawns, and edges of ponds and marshes. It was easy to imagine fairy lights if you didn’t look too closely at the insect body trapped in fingers and let loose.
Most of the insect visitors and residents were not welcome or wanted.
Every one of us who grew up in the area were familiar with boxelder bugs, their black and red bodies, and the horrendous crunch they made when you stepped on one.
I was on the phone one afternoon, in the days when phones were on the wall, and portable meant as long a cord as you could buy. I wandered into the dining room talking when I noticed one wall twinkling. Tiny silverish wings. I squealed. Termites! How they got in and why they congregated on one wall was not of interest to me at the time, only how to remove them immediately.
Carpenter ants were infrequent and unwelcome guests, big and black and swarming around anything wood they could chew and rework for colonies. In my Florida home, they prefer live oaks, but will crawl inside at night through door frames and cling to the ceiling. Again, I invited my pest control company to offer irresistible hospitality.
Florida boasts the palmetto bug (American cockroach), black and huge, from a half-inch to two inches long, but Michigan has June bugs, which I think are creepier. They’d fly around lights at night with their horrible legs dangling, and didn’t care if they got caught in hair.
One night when I was young, I saw a Luna moth from inside my window, clinging to the screen. Almost four inches long, the luminous, pale green body was gorgeous and unexpected. Never saw another.
Crickets chirped, snuck inside, and ate woolen sweaters, if not stopped, the same as moths. Believing the Japanese legend about crickets being good luck, I bought a wooden cricket cage and tried to keep one of our local crickets indoors. It had no trouble squeezing out sideways and into my bedroom. I was sadly mistaken about the container and gave up the idea.
Cicadas, which stretch from mid-Michigan to the bottom of Florida, in one breed or another, trill throughout the summer, as well as grasshoppers, which have always reminded me of hot Augusts up north at our trailer in Kalkaska.
Honey bees were admired and left alone, but I was afraid of bumblebees.
One summer afternoon, while mowing the lawn, I felt something buzz against my thigh underneath my jeans. After a moment, the buzzing and movement increased. Yikers! I let go of the mower handle and started slapping at my leg, hoping to knock free whatever had attacked me. My daughter walked into the backyard to ask me something, and stood, puzzled, at my awkward jig. A moment later, a stunned yellowjacket landed on the ground, shook itself, and flew away.
“I wondered what you were doing,” Anne said, neither alarmed at the enormous bee nor surprised at my impromptu dance.
At a house in Roseville, again preparing to mow the lawn, I started to slide open the shed door when I realized that the shed vibrated and hummed. The interior was filled with bumblebees. I slammed closed the door and called a pest control company. The rep came out with a smoker.
"They're protected by law," he said. "I'll smoke them, find the queen, and remove her. We'll make sure she can begin another hive, and when these bees wake up, they'll leave to find her or another queen."
I regret to this day I didn't see the stream of bumblebees depart, and when I looked later, every bee was gone.
Yellow jackets, ground-nesting wasps, were never welcome, although they joined every backyard picnic drawn by grilled meat and sweets, and love cider mills. I ran over the opening of a nest once mowing the lawn. As I made a second pass around the area, I noticed a line of bee-like insects. Seconds later, I recognized the sound and attack, and took off, leaving the lawn for later. If annoyed too much, they’d chase with a determination to sting repeatedly. Nasty little buggers, pun intended.
And yes, where I live in Florida, they’re plentiful and have claimed areas of the yard until deterred by poisonous means.
Florida claims about twenty kinds of ants, while Michigan has at least 113, but I’ll trade the fire ants down here any time. As aggressive as yellow jackets, they swarm and sting at one time when disturbed as if they can communicate. Nasty bites, too, that swell and itch unbearably.
Sub-tropical or semi-scrub Florida offers more than 12,500 bugs, but one species had to arrive from another planet.
I was returning to the elementary school from a walk during my lunch break when I looked down at my feet. Ambling beside me was a tiny brown alien creature. Yes, it had six legs and antennae, but it also beady eyes and claws and an armored head. I hurried inside to inform my sister that I’d seen a small brown alien with six legs.
“Mole cricket,” Janet said, calmly.
“What? I know what a cricket looks like. I tell you, this was an alien.”
“Look it up,” she said.
I dare you. Look it up and see if I wasn’t right.
Not too long afterward, I had dinner in a Brooksville diner when I looked down at the wooden floor.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” the waitress said. She grabbed a broom and swept the mole cricket out the door. “It keeps coming back in. We see it all the time.
I’m not sorry to miss seeing those.
I don’t miss boxelder bugs or June bugs or mayflies, which I innocently thought were the gnats that swarmed around lakes…until I lived, for a time, on the East side when all outside lights were turned off, even on grocery stores, people hosed down their houses if they lived near Lake Erie, drivers slid on their bodies like an icy road, and they clung to anything that stopped their flight. If you squished one, you’d also smell like dead fish, and they were the size of dragonflies, soft, soggy, yellowish dragonflies.
Maybe mole crickets aren’t so bad.
Which bug is the bane of your life?
Not all were unwelcome.
“Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home…” We’d let those climb across the back of our hands, not alarmed by a six-legged creature.
And fireflies in July on dark nights decorated our lawns, and edges of ponds and marshes. It was easy to imagine fairy lights if you didn’t look too closely at the insect body trapped in fingers and let loose.
Most of the insect visitors and residents were not welcome or wanted.
Every one of us who grew up in the area were familiar with boxelder bugs, their black and red bodies, and the horrendous crunch they made when you stepped on one.
I was on the phone one afternoon, in the days when phones were on the wall, and portable meant as long a cord as you could buy. I wandered into the dining room talking when I noticed one wall twinkling. Tiny silverish wings. I squealed. Termites! How they got in and why they congregated on one wall was not of interest to me at the time, only how to remove them immediately.
Carpenter ants were infrequent and unwelcome guests, big and black and swarming around anything wood they could chew and rework for colonies. In my Florida home, they prefer live oaks, but will crawl inside at night through door frames and cling to the ceiling. Again, I invited my pest control company to offer irresistible hospitality.
Florida boasts the palmetto bug (American cockroach), black and huge, from a half-inch to two inches long, but Michigan has June bugs, which I think are creepier. They’d fly around lights at night with their horrible legs dangling, and didn’t care if they got caught in hair.
One night when I was young, I saw a Luna moth from inside my window, clinging to the screen. Almost four inches long, the luminous, pale green body was gorgeous and unexpected. Never saw another.
Crickets chirped, snuck inside, and ate woolen sweaters, if not stopped, the same as moths. Believing the Japanese legend about crickets being good luck, I bought a wooden cricket cage and tried to keep one of our local crickets indoors. It had no trouble squeezing out sideways and into my bedroom. I was sadly mistaken about the container and gave up the idea.
Cicadas, which stretch from mid-Michigan to the bottom of Florida, in one breed or another, trill throughout the summer, as well as grasshoppers, which have always reminded me of hot Augusts up north at our trailer in Kalkaska.
Honey bees were admired and left alone, but I was afraid of bumblebees.
One summer afternoon, while mowing the lawn, I felt something buzz against my thigh underneath my jeans. After a moment, the buzzing and movement increased. Yikers! I let go of the mower handle and started slapping at my leg, hoping to knock free whatever had attacked me. My daughter walked into the backyard to ask me something, and stood, puzzled, at my awkward jig. A moment later, a stunned yellowjacket landed on the ground, shook itself, and flew away.
“I wondered what you were doing,” Anne said, neither alarmed at the enormous bee nor surprised at my impromptu dance.
At a house in Roseville, again preparing to mow the lawn, I started to slide open the shed door when I realized that the shed vibrated and hummed. The interior was filled with bumblebees. I slammed closed the door and called a pest control company. The rep came out with a smoker.
"They're protected by law," he said. "I'll smoke them, find the queen, and remove her. We'll make sure she can begin another hive, and when these bees wake up, they'll leave to find her or another queen."
I regret to this day I didn't see the stream of bumblebees depart, and when I looked later, every bee was gone.
Yellow jackets, ground-nesting wasps, were never welcome, although they joined every backyard picnic drawn by grilled meat and sweets, and love cider mills. I ran over the opening of a nest once mowing the lawn. As I made a second pass around the area, I noticed a line of bee-like insects. Seconds later, I recognized the sound and attack, and took off, leaving the lawn for later. If annoyed too much, they’d chase with a determination to sting repeatedly. Nasty little buggers, pun intended.
And yes, where I live in Florida, they’re plentiful and have claimed areas of the yard until deterred by poisonous means.
Florida claims about twenty kinds of ants, while Michigan has at least 113, but I’ll trade the fire ants down here any time. As aggressive as yellow jackets, they swarm and sting at one time when disturbed as if they can communicate. Nasty bites, too, that swell and itch unbearably.
Sub-tropical or semi-scrub Florida offers more than 12,500 bugs, but one species had to arrive from another planet.
I was returning to the elementary school from a walk during my lunch break when I looked down at my feet. Ambling beside me was a tiny brown alien creature. Yes, it had six legs and antennae, but it also beady eyes and claws and an armored head. I hurried inside to inform my sister that I’d seen a small brown alien with six legs.
“Mole cricket,” Janet said, calmly.
“What? I know what a cricket looks like. I tell you, this was an alien.”
“Look it up,” she said.
I dare you. Look it up and see if I wasn’t right.
Not too long afterward, I had dinner in a Brooksville diner when I looked down at the wooden floor.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” the waitress said. She grabbed a broom and swept the mole cricket out the door. “It keeps coming back in. We see it all the time.
I’m not sorry to miss seeing those.
I don’t miss boxelder bugs or June bugs or mayflies, which I innocently thought were the gnats that swarmed around lakes…until I lived, for a time, on the East side when all outside lights were turned off, even on grocery stores, people hosed down their houses if they lived near Lake Erie, drivers slid on their bodies like an icy road, and they clung to anything that stopped their flight. If you squished one, you’d also smell like dead fish, and they were the size of dragonflies, soft, soggy, yellowish dragonflies.
Maybe mole crickets aren’t so bad.
Which bug is the bane of your life?
October 10, 2021
Grape Arbors and Zucchini
I’m ashamed to admit that I stole green peppers from a neighbor’s garden as a kid. I was goaded into it, but had no trouble biting into the delicious and juicy vegetable.
I would never steal from a garden today since I appreciate the work and worry that backyard gardens require.
Growing up on Caroline Street, we didn’t have vegetable gardens, but flowers and fruit trees and berry patches. Plucked the first rhubarb of the season from along basement walls. Watched neighborhood cats roll in the wild catnip behind the garage. Neighbors had gardens, though, and were proud of them.
Across the street was an arbor of Concord grapes—round, purple-blue, juicy, and tasting like the tiny bottles of Welsh’s grape juice we got as kids from Great-Uncle Harold. Birdshot discouraged illegal grape-pickers, though not entirely.
Married and raising children in my childhood home on Caroline Street, we had various vegetable gardens, some ambitious, with salad vegetables, winter squash, beefsteak tomatoes, corn, and summer squash. Not zucchini, not after the first year.
It was a bumper crop year for zucchini. Everybody filled bushel baskets with them. We fried them with tomatoes, peppers, and onions. We dipped them in egg and bread crumbs and made parmigiana (not as good as eggplant, by the way). And we made loaf after loaf of zucchini bread, good, but enough was enough. After I filled our freezer with loaves, my father-in-law came over proudly with his basket of freshly-picked zucchini, and it was difficult to show enthusiasm and gratitude.
Winter squash, on the other hand, was never wasted and always welcome. Acorn squash, cut and cleaned and filled with honey, brown sugar, and butter was backed with thick pork chops and wrapped in foil to bake for a dinner to remember.
And tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes picked and eaten from the vine. Meaty beefsteaks to make corn, grilled chicken, and potato salad a dinner from Divine Realms.
Any garden wife was familiar with canning and freezing and baking. Won’t even go into detail about that, although there’s great satisfaction in admiring jars of pickles, jams and jellies, tomatoes lined on the countertop after hours of labor.
One summer, Mary, down the street, sent up a box of tomatoes for me when she learned that I canned fresh tomatoes. I was grateful and started in on my usual process of cooking, sterilizing jars, making sure I had lids and seals. What she forgot to tell me was that she’d tried a no-acid tomato. I blissfully poured the cooked tomatoes into waiting jars, sealed, and labeled. Since we’d planned a party that night, I decided to hide the still-warm jars in the overhead cabinets.
A few hours before our guests were expected, after food and drink had been prepared, there was a series of pops and explosions from the kitchen. I ran in to see what happened when the odor of something dead a decade slapped me. From the cupboards, a white ooze dripped on countertops.
The tomatoes had worked and popped their seals, escaping into kitchen freedom. We opened windows, sprayed, ran fans, and tried to remove all evidence of my ignorance, but there was a leftover waft of skunk scent. Never tried those again.
Made delicious tomato jam, though. Had a tart flavor similar to apple butter, and I added some to a Christmas gift of homemade jams and jellies for every man in our families one year. (The grape jelly I made using an old, clean pillow case since I didn’t have cheesecloth.)
I don’t have a garden anymore, and don’t can or freeze. I admire those who do (Erma) and love homemade preserves, bread-and-butter pickles, fresh garden vegetables. I still remember Laurel’s leaf lettuce, planted outside her back porch step, so that every day she stepped out her back door to pluck enough for dinner salad. I was so impressed by that, I used the idea in a story, inspired by her salad garden.
Oh, for a plate of that leaf lettuce now, or tomatoes and corn on the cob, or baked acorn squash.
Even a slice of zucchini bread with freshly-brewed coffee would be welcome.
Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
I would never steal from a garden today since I appreciate the work and worry that backyard gardens require.
Growing up on Caroline Street, we didn’t have vegetable gardens, but flowers and fruit trees and berry patches. Plucked the first rhubarb of the season from along basement walls. Watched neighborhood cats roll in the wild catnip behind the garage. Neighbors had gardens, though, and were proud of them.
Across the street was an arbor of Concord grapes—round, purple-blue, juicy, and tasting like the tiny bottles of Welsh’s grape juice we got as kids from Great-Uncle Harold. Birdshot discouraged illegal grape-pickers, though not entirely.
Married and raising children in my childhood home on Caroline Street, we had various vegetable gardens, some ambitious, with salad vegetables, winter squash, beefsteak tomatoes, corn, and summer squash. Not zucchini, not after the first year.
It was a bumper crop year for zucchini. Everybody filled bushel baskets with them. We fried them with tomatoes, peppers, and onions. We dipped them in egg and bread crumbs and made parmigiana (not as good as eggplant, by the way). And we made loaf after loaf of zucchini bread, good, but enough was enough. After I filled our freezer with loaves, my father-in-law came over proudly with his basket of freshly-picked zucchini, and it was difficult to show enthusiasm and gratitude.
Winter squash, on the other hand, was never wasted and always welcome. Acorn squash, cut and cleaned and filled with honey, brown sugar, and butter was backed with thick pork chops and wrapped in foil to bake for a dinner to remember.
And tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes picked and eaten from the vine. Meaty beefsteaks to make corn, grilled chicken, and potato salad a dinner from Divine Realms.
Any garden wife was familiar with canning and freezing and baking. Won’t even go into detail about that, although there’s great satisfaction in admiring jars of pickles, jams and jellies, tomatoes lined on the countertop after hours of labor.
One summer, Mary, down the street, sent up a box of tomatoes for me when she learned that I canned fresh tomatoes. I was grateful and started in on my usual process of cooking, sterilizing jars, making sure I had lids and seals. What she forgot to tell me was that she’d tried a no-acid tomato. I blissfully poured the cooked tomatoes into waiting jars, sealed, and labeled. Since we’d planned a party that night, I decided to hide the still-warm jars in the overhead cabinets.
A few hours before our guests were expected, after food and drink had been prepared, there was a series of pops and explosions from the kitchen. I ran in to see what happened when the odor of something dead a decade slapped me. From the cupboards, a white ooze dripped on countertops.
The tomatoes had worked and popped their seals, escaping into kitchen freedom. We opened windows, sprayed, ran fans, and tried to remove all evidence of my ignorance, but there was a leftover waft of skunk scent. Never tried those again.
Made delicious tomato jam, though. Had a tart flavor similar to apple butter, and I added some to a Christmas gift of homemade jams and jellies for every man in our families one year. (The grape jelly I made using an old, clean pillow case since I didn’t have cheesecloth.)
I don’t have a garden anymore, and don’t can or freeze. I admire those who do (Erma) and love homemade preserves, bread-and-butter pickles, fresh garden vegetables. I still remember Laurel’s leaf lettuce, planted outside her back porch step, so that every day she stepped out her back door to pluck enough for dinner salad. I was so impressed by that, I used the idea in a story, inspired by her salad garden.
Oh, for a plate of that leaf lettuce now, or tomatoes and corn on the cob, or baked acorn squash.
Even a slice of zucchini bread with freshly-brewed coffee would be welcome.
Just thinking about it makes me hungry.
October 3, 2021
Sheets Blowing on the Line
I do laundry with a push of a button, washer and dryer, after checking settings. Naturally, that doesn’t include pulling items out of the dryer, one at a time, and folding, but I’m not talking about folding clothes here. My mother was the only person I ever knew who not only didn’t mind laundry, but enjoyed it, including folding the finished product, and tucking into drawers and shelves.
So, why am I telling you about laundry? Well, for a start, our more than 20-year-old Whirlpool finally stopped spinning water out of clothes, so we ordered another low-end Whirlpool and had it delivered.
A wonder machine. Even the water levels are automatically sensed, a terrific idea with teens in the house who think that another armful can still be shoved in to make one load instead of admitting to Procrastination Mountain.
It wasn’t always this easy.
Mom taught me how to do laundry, years ago when we lived in the Heights. She explained about separating whites from colors from darks, how to fold fitted sheets (and yes, she could do it beautifully), and how to hang clothes on the line with the minimum of space and clothespins.
She even taught me to use a wringer washer.
I’m not sure if our wringer was a Speed Queen or a Maytag, but huge piles of laundry could be washed in less time than one complete cycle of washer to dryer to dresser takes now. She made it look easy, but I was less confident.
The wringer was a beast waiting to smash fingers and snap buttons. It was obvious the occasions I did laundry, because at the last seconds, buttons stood to face their doom and snapped in half as they ran through the wringer. (It never occurred to me to wash shirts inside out and prevent that, probably because Mom didn’t need to resort to tricks.)
Clothes hung on the line in the Michigan wind, and were gathered into clothes baskets, fresh and fragrant.
Except for wintertime when you pulled them down and cracked them in an effort to fold.
When our daughter was in diapers, we bought a house on Henrydale Street, and needed a washer and dryer. “We can only afford one,” Dave said. “Which?” I thought about hanging clothes in the wintertime and chose the dryer, which meant that we inherited Mom’s wringer washer.
Fun at first. I sang the praises of wringer washers as I sorted clothes on the concrete basement floor, and put Anne in a walker to scoot around the floor while I swished, wrung, rinsed, and gave the final wring to the loads. We had clotheslines across the basement as well as in the backyard, in case of rain, and all went well.
Until the arm of the wringer wouldn’t stay tight no matter how many adjustments were made.
One night, the arm swung wildly, round and round, and the washer started its angry invasion of the basement, held back only by the electrical cord. Little Anne froze in her walker, out of reach, mouth and eyes wide, while I darted around the blasted thing trying to reach the plug.
We bought a regular washer after that.
Still, there’s a happy memory of clothes hanging in the backyard, flapping in the breeze, blue jeans dancing in place, (and all underwear in plain view of inquisitive neighbors. Didn’t occur to me at the time that they had laundry days, too). I can still see my youngest brother standing with his favorite blanket on the line, thumb in mouth, waiting for it to dry.
And Mom filling the wringer tub with hot water for whites, cold water to rinse, and baskets ready to catch the final loads.
No, it didn’t always run smoothly. The first year of the earwig invasion, I reached into the clothespin bag and moving legs swirled around my hands. The buggers had set up quick housekeeping in the bag. Dave set it on fire.
Wooden clothespins were best, since the plastic ones tended to snap in half or break off. Most cotton clothes needed to be ironed, another task that Mom enjoyed, though I didn’t share her enthusiasm.
So many items are colorfast now that I’m not always careful separating whites and lights from colors. I miss my clothesline for jeans and 100% cotton tops, but don’t know where my ironing board is.
The whole magic of easy laundering struck me on our tour with Tyson Brown to see files and pictures and items owned by the Auburn Heights Historical Society from early farms and settlers. I was fascinated with a manual Horton Globe wooden washer where a handle was turned to swish the clothes, and with a separate wringer. Laundry could not have been a pleasant or easy task with those. Yes, they were an improvement over scrubbing clothes against a washboard, but filling and emptying the tub, hauling out heavy wet laundry to feed into the wringer? Those housewives would have thought Mom’s wringer a gift from the angels.
A reminder that the good-old-days in the 1800’s and early 1900’s required much more labor than I appreciate for routine chores. Wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, mend on Wednesday, churn on Thursday, clean on Friday, bake on Saturday?
I doubt even Mom would have enjoyed laundry then.
So, why am I telling you about laundry? Well, for a start, our more than 20-year-old Whirlpool finally stopped spinning water out of clothes, so we ordered another low-end Whirlpool and had it delivered.
A wonder machine. Even the water levels are automatically sensed, a terrific idea with teens in the house who think that another armful can still be shoved in to make one load instead of admitting to Procrastination Mountain.
It wasn’t always this easy.
Mom taught me how to do laundry, years ago when we lived in the Heights. She explained about separating whites from colors from darks, how to fold fitted sheets (and yes, she could do it beautifully), and how to hang clothes on the line with the minimum of space and clothespins.
She even taught me to use a wringer washer.
I’m not sure if our wringer was a Speed Queen or a Maytag, but huge piles of laundry could be washed in less time than one complete cycle of washer to dryer to dresser takes now. She made it look easy, but I was less confident.
The wringer was a beast waiting to smash fingers and snap buttons. It was obvious the occasions I did laundry, because at the last seconds, buttons stood to face their doom and snapped in half as they ran through the wringer. (It never occurred to me to wash shirts inside out and prevent that, probably because Mom didn’t need to resort to tricks.)
Clothes hung on the line in the Michigan wind, and were gathered into clothes baskets, fresh and fragrant.
Except for wintertime when you pulled them down and cracked them in an effort to fold.
When our daughter was in diapers, we bought a house on Henrydale Street, and needed a washer and dryer. “We can only afford one,” Dave said. “Which?” I thought about hanging clothes in the wintertime and chose the dryer, which meant that we inherited Mom’s wringer washer.
Fun at first. I sang the praises of wringer washers as I sorted clothes on the concrete basement floor, and put Anne in a walker to scoot around the floor while I swished, wrung, rinsed, and gave the final wring to the loads. We had clotheslines across the basement as well as in the backyard, in case of rain, and all went well.
Until the arm of the wringer wouldn’t stay tight no matter how many adjustments were made.
One night, the arm swung wildly, round and round, and the washer started its angry invasion of the basement, held back only by the electrical cord. Little Anne froze in her walker, out of reach, mouth and eyes wide, while I darted around the blasted thing trying to reach the plug.
We bought a regular washer after that.
Still, there’s a happy memory of clothes hanging in the backyard, flapping in the breeze, blue jeans dancing in place, (and all underwear in plain view of inquisitive neighbors. Didn’t occur to me at the time that they had laundry days, too). I can still see my youngest brother standing with his favorite blanket on the line, thumb in mouth, waiting for it to dry.
And Mom filling the wringer tub with hot water for whites, cold water to rinse, and baskets ready to catch the final loads.
No, it didn’t always run smoothly. The first year of the earwig invasion, I reached into the clothespin bag and moving legs swirled around my hands. The buggers had set up quick housekeeping in the bag. Dave set it on fire.
Wooden clothespins were best, since the plastic ones tended to snap in half or break off. Most cotton clothes needed to be ironed, another task that Mom enjoyed, though I didn’t share her enthusiasm.
So many items are colorfast now that I’m not always careful separating whites and lights from colors. I miss my clothesline for jeans and 100% cotton tops, but don’t know where my ironing board is.
The whole magic of easy laundering struck me on our tour with Tyson Brown to see files and pictures and items owned by the Auburn Heights Historical Society from early farms and settlers. I was fascinated with a manual Horton Globe wooden washer where a handle was turned to swish the clothes, and with a separate wringer. Laundry could not have been a pleasant or easy task with those. Yes, they were an improvement over scrubbing clothes against a washboard, but filling and emptying the tub, hauling out heavy wet laundry to feed into the wringer? Those housewives would have thought Mom’s wringer a gift from the angels.
A reminder that the good-old-days in the 1800’s and early 1900’s required much more labor than I appreciate for routine chores. Wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, mend on Wednesday, churn on Thursday, clean on Friday, bake on Saturday?
I doubt even Mom would have enjoyed laundry then.
September 26, 2021
The Heights, a Wedding, and Unfolding Memories
“The Heights is magic,” my sister-in-law said, as we shared tea at her kitchen table.
I agree. My week visit was an enchantment of memories come alive, family, and perfect last of summer weather.
My brother picked me up at the airport and we managed every outing I’d hoped for during the week, including our visit to the archives of the Auburn Hills Historical Society, courtesy of Tyson Brown. We saw photographs, files, yearbooks, and farm household equipment. Tyson had a notebook made for a video presentation with pictures showing “then” and “now.” Naturally, years long before I was born or moved to the Heights were sometimes unfamiliar, but so many places were part of our childhood.
My brother’s memory is better than mine, and I suspect we entertained Tyson (at least, I hope so) by reliving stores and corners and houses along my brother’s paper route, on our streets, where we ran up for bread, milk, and penny candy.
I stayed with my sister-in-law two streets from where I grew up, and was delighted to see that the neighborhood had not changed. A few landmarks were missing, but the houses and trees and yards were familiar.
Yes, it was difficult to place my image of the Heights over certain areas, around Oakland University, for example, with high-rise businesses, but I could see my town around and between.
Sat on the back porch one morning inhaling fresh cool air that reminded me of so many years in that neighborhood. The inquisitive fox squirrels reminded me that the little gray squirrels in Florida look like babies.
Once, with Tyson, I mentioned that my mother-in-law’s graduating class picture had once hung in the now-gone Auburn Heights Elementary school, as I reached into a box of framed pictures. There she was, Evelyn Ward, class of 1946.
Admired a decorative stone salvaged from the demolition of my elementary school, and a wooden washing machine with a handle for manual turning, an enormous wagon wheel from an early farm, a light-gauge railroad track from the gravel pit on Churchill. Each photo or artifact stirred a story from one of us as the history of the Heights came alive.
My niece’s wedding at the Holly Hotel was a fairytale event with a jubilant Queen and King. It was a family reunion for me. The bride’s sister, my brother, and I laughed and relived and celebrated. We were invited to dinner at each niece’s house for more laughter and family stories around their kitchen tables with fabulous meals and long-missed company. I felt as though I hadn’t been away.
On the drive back from Holly, my brother and I took a route through the countryside of fields and woods and farmhouses. In that moment, I was filled with a burning homesickness for Michigan.
Michigan in the summer is magical.
We visited two cider mills, the Rochester Cider Mill for unpasteurized cider and a cherry pie, and Yates for more cider, cinnamon doughnuts, and yellow jackets eager to share. Ate enormous cheeseburgers at Red Knapp’s, a diner that my father went to as a boy at an earlier location. Savored downtown Rochester, downtown Pontiac, Pontiac Trail, Orchard Lake Road, and every corner of the Heights that we could squeeze in. Visited my aunt who I haven’t seen in over 30 years, although we’ve sent each other real letters through the mail during that time.
My visit incorporated the past, celebrations and family and reunions in the here-and-now, and wishes for happy futures.
I even got my Big Boy and fries platter!
Thank you to Jenny for the airfare and visit.
Thank you to my brother Dave for the tour and company.
Thank you to Christin for a phenomenal meal and much laughter.
Thank you to Phyllis who made me feel at home.
I was home.
I agree. My week visit was an enchantment of memories come alive, family, and perfect last of summer weather.
My brother picked me up at the airport and we managed every outing I’d hoped for during the week, including our visit to the archives of the Auburn Hills Historical Society, courtesy of Tyson Brown. We saw photographs, files, yearbooks, and farm household equipment. Tyson had a notebook made for a video presentation with pictures showing “then” and “now.” Naturally, years long before I was born or moved to the Heights were sometimes unfamiliar, but so many places were part of our childhood.
My brother’s memory is better than mine, and I suspect we entertained Tyson (at least, I hope so) by reliving stores and corners and houses along my brother’s paper route, on our streets, where we ran up for bread, milk, and penny candy.
I stayed with my sister-in-law two streets from where I grew up, and was delighted to see that the neighborhood had not changed. A few landmarks were missing, but the houses and trees and yards were familiar.
Yes, it was difficult to place my image of the Heights over certain areas, around Oakland University, for example, with high-rise businesses, but I could see my town around and between.
Sat on the back porch one morning inhaling fresh cool air that reminded me of so many years in that neighborhood. The inquisitive fox squirrels reminded me that the little gray squirrels in Florida look like babies.
Once, with Tyson, I mentioned that my mother-in-law’s graduating class picture had once hung in the now-gone Auburn Heights Elementary school, as I reached into a box of framed pictures. There she was, Evelyn Ward, class of 1946.
Admired a decorative stone salvaged from the demolition of my elementary school, and a wooden washing machine with a handle for manual turning, an enormous wagon wheel from an early farm, a light-gauge railroad track from the gravel pit on Churchill. Each photo or artifact stirred a story from one of us as the history of the Heights came alive.
My niece’s wedding at the Holly Hotel was a fairytale event with a jubilant Queen and King. It was a family reunion for me. The bride’s sister, my brother, and I laughed and relived and celebrated. We were invited to dinner at each niece’s house for more laughter and family stories around their kitchen tables with fabulous meals and long-missed company. I felt as though I hadn’t been away.
On the drive back from Holly, my brother and I took a route through the countryside of fields and woods and farmhouses. In that moment, I was filled with a burning homesickness for Michigan.
Michigan in the summer is magical.
We visited two cider mills, the Rochester Cider Mill for unpasteurized cider and a cherry pie, and Yates for more cider, cinnamon doughnuts, and yellow jackets eager to share. Ate enormous cheeseburgers at Red Knapp’s, a diner that my father went to as a boy at an earlier location. Savored downtown Rochester, downtown Pontiac, Pontiac Trail, Orchard Lake Road, and every corner of the Heights that we could squeeze in. Visited my aunt who I haven’t seen in over 30 years, although we’ve sent each other real letters through the mail during that time.
My visit incorporated the past, celebrations and family and reunions in the here-and-now, and wishes for happy futures.
I even got my Big Boy and fries platter!
Thank you to Jenny for the airfare and visit.
Thank you to my brother Dave for the tour and company.
Thank you to Christin for a phenomenal meal and much laughter.
Thank you to Phyllis who made me feel at home.
I was home.
Fantasy, Books, and Daily Life
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