What is there about a fence that makes the grass greener grass on the other side? During my childhood in farming country, I've seen many cows stretching their heads through and over barbed wire fences to reach tender morsels just on the other side of the fence. But, the truth applies to dogs such as the husky, Shyan, and the blue-tick hound, Gus, owned by the News-Times production manager Iva Gail.
As a responsible owner, Iva Gail keeps her dogs penned up in a fence. That satisfied the dogs until their fenced in arena was moved closer to the road where they could see stray dogs roaming the area.
The husky wanted the freedom and fun found on the other side of the fence. While the people went to work and school, Shyan dug a hole and slid under the fence. Glorious freedom!
Gus, the hound would have joined Shyan – but only his head fit through the hole – and Gus is not into a digging dog. He laid with only his head outside of the fence – watching Shyan enjoy her freedom.
She enjoyed freedom so much that she eagerly ran to her owner's car the minute they arrived and hopped in as soon as they opened the door.
The folks did not join her celebration. They escorted that dog back to her pen, fixed the weak spot in the fence and filled in the hole.
The dog found another spot the next day. The people filled it.
The third day the dog greeted them outside the fence, the family simply did not have time to secure the perimeter. They chained Shyan to her dog house inside the fence and went to town.
When they returned, Shyan had managed to wiggle through the hole. But with a chain, she could only go as far as the other side of the fence. Shyan greeted them, howling pathetically.
"I'll have to put a dish outside the pen," the man of the house said.
"No, just let her sit there for a while and be miserable. She needs to learn where to stay," Iva Gail said.
They went inside. The dog howled until her voice sounded dry from the exertion.
Iva Gail went to the window to check on the dog. Shyan looked at the house, saw no people and quietly slid back under the fence where she slurped water – until she heard the door open.
Immediately, Shyan left her water dish, scurried to the fence, slid out and renewed her pitiful howl.
"I want you to watch this," Iva Gail called to the departing person back inside.
Behind the window, they watched the husky look around. Seeing no one, she slid under the face and headed for her pans.
Iva Gail tapped on the window.
Shyan perked up her ears, scrambled out of the pen and began whining miserably, again.
That was the last escape. The dog owners moved the fence inside an old cement block foundation. Shyan can not dig through the foundation.
An electronic fence kept another dog away from greener pastures. We heard its story while visiting with folks at a yard sale. The proprietor-for-a-day told my husband and me that he watched their neighbor's dog as it explored the perimeters of the electronic fence while wearing the receptor collar. Every time the dog neared that invisible fence, it received a mild shock.
It yipped every time – but it continued to investigate the invisible force.
Day after day the dog paced the fence which kept him in the yard.
Bright and early one morning, they heard the dog yipping with even more energy than usual. They went to the window to check on him.
Yipping anxiously, the dog made a running start and headed straight for that invisible barrier – and he never stopped. Yipping loudly from the series of shocks he received, the dog ran straight through the electronic fence, escaping the yard.
He was never, ever seen again – probably because he found a truly green pasture – one without electronic fencing.
Besides a day of fall feasting, followed by an afternoon of satiated numbness watching football, Thursday promotes a day of thanksgiving. That's a good beginning to follow the mandated, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you," First Thess. 5:18
Personally, I think giving thanks in everything is one of the hardest verses in the Bible to live. Evidently, so do many other people.
Being thankful for everything begins with that husband or wife and their annoying habits and ticks and the children we parent. Be thankful – even when reality hits and you realize, "Hey! This isn't at all like the Cosby Show."
One of the reasons so many marriages fall apart – even within the churches – comes when Real Life meets us inside a Real Marriage. Being thankful in a Real Marriage means sitting our pouty selves down and praying, "Thank you, Lord, for that horrible creature who failed once again to remember ... who has once gain come home late ... stayed out too long with friends ... and is so very uninteresting and obnoxious. I'm thanking you, God, for what I have – because you said to be thankful, but I for sure don't know why I should be thankful for that person."
It also helps – if once in a while, you take stock and remember the few crumbs of human kindness you have received. If more people would be thankful – and if it was much more
difficult to get a divorce, I think we might see more people staying married and over the course of time re-discover the reasons, why they chose to be married.
Being thankful for everything includes our physical circumstances. Some parents seek human growth hormone for their perfectly healthy, average height children - because they want their child to have an extra edge on the playing field of life – or just a bit of cosmetic surgery to enhance their chances at the beauty pageant.
These parents have not learned to be thankful for a healthy child, nor are they teaching their child to like, let alone, be thankful for their God-given healthy body.
Being thankful for everything encompasses how we are created physically, as a woman or a man, with all the flaws and foibles that one inherits genetically. Practicing giving thanks in everything goes a long ways towards dealing with the discontent inside for what I do not have outside.
Being thankful for everything extends to that pregnancy which came along when you least expected a child, wanted one or could see how you could afford the time, money, space or energy. Be thankful for the child º this is God's will concerning you – even when they feel like an inconvenience that will ruin everything. Whether they feel like a blessing or not, take each child with both hands and thank God for what he has given you and seek His guidance in being a consistent, loving parent form the moment of conception.
Outside the home, the mandate to be thankful ranges to that less than dream job, the politicians who do not reflect your view point, the waiter who forgot you entered the restaurant, the slowpoke road hog who refuses to get out of the fast lane, the department tore employee who ignores you and many more. Try being thankful instead – it might help lower your blood pressure.
Whatever life's inconveniences this week, no matter how difficult it feels, choose to be thankful – and enjoy a Happy Thanksgiving every day.
Barely do children learn to toddle across the floor when they begin to emulate the actions and words of the adults in their lives.
Last week 2-year-old Eli learned a new word while listening to his folks assess the presidential election.
“You can’t blame people for voting their pocketbook,” my daughter commented. With that, the toddler discovered his first three-syllable word, “poc-ket-book.” He liked it so much he repeated several times that evening. He may not know much about politics, but he knows it has something to do the economy.
Usually Eli repeats much simpler words and ideas. Sunday morning, as they prepared to go to church, he voiced his choice of activities for the day with a little song he made up to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. “No, church, no church, no, no, no. No, church, no, no, no, no, no,” he sang. His mom called to tell me about his first song – and then took him to church.
On the way to church, they pass a hospital near their home. As always, Eli pointed at it, made a crying sound and said, “momma.” Every ambulance that has passed their house in the last six months initiates the same conversation, “Momma!” followed by his interpretation of the wail of a siren. Again and again, she agrees, “Yes, momma had a trip to the emergency room and it made Eli sad.”
The first ambulance to pull up in their drive-way did not make him sad. It made him jealous. It came last year to take his cousin Oaken – whom my daughter babysits – to the hospital after he had a febrile seizure following an illness. One year-old Eli watched the men settle Oaken into the back of the ambulance and started to climb inside, too. When his mother refused to let him go, he protested loudly. He wanted to ride in that ambulance. She held her tearful child back and let the emergency vehicle leave without him.
Since then, if Oaken falls down and hurts himself and a kiss just does not make it all better, my daughter, asks, “Do you need to go to the hospital?”
Oaken sincerely answers, “Yes.” because as he explains, “One time I had to go in the ambulance. I was sick. They made me feel all better and happy again.”
However, while he may need an ambulance when he is hurt, he didn’t suggest calling one last week when my daughter slipped on some wet leaves and fell down hard, bruising her shin.
Rushing to get some wilted flowers outside before the two boys completely woke up from their afternoon nap, she dashed up the stairs, and saw the duo standing there – in their post nap, bathroom time underwear.
“I was shooing the boys back inside when I slipped on the leaves,” she told me. “It hurt so much I wanted to throw-up or cry.” She could do neither; she had to get the children back inside first. Only then could she slump down beside the fireplace and breath deeply to calm herself and fight back the tears.
The pre-schoolers looked at her horrified. Adults do NOT fall down. Adults do NOT get hurt and for sure adults do NOT cry.
She cried anyway.
Oaken came over, bent down and looked in her face, “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“Yes,” she said, wishing he would just go away until the shock wore off.
Seeing her face, he promised, “It will be okay.”
She continued to grimace. “You’re gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay,” he repeated solicitously, but his worried face portrayed, “you are, aren’t you?”
Seeking the perfect solution he asked, “Do you want me to kiss it and make it better?”
Still smarting, she wanted to brusquely say, “No, I just want you to leave me alone for a minute.”
Instead she held her tongue, although, “I was kind of surprised he didn’t ask me if I needed to go to the hospital,” she told me later.
Eli came over to check out the situation. He joined in the toddler, emergency care crew, began kissing her leg and saying, “o-tay, o-tay.”
Neither boy stopped fussing over her until she stood up, proving to them she really was “okay.”
Of course, she hobbled around and felt the bruises for days afterwards, but for the pre-school crowd, if the big person could walk, then everything was okay. They quickly returned to their toys and the world where adults take care of them and never have any problems at all.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter for the El Dorado News-Times. She can be reached at joanh@everybody.org)
My Internet vocabulary and options grew by leaps and bounds last week.
It began when I scanned the contents of a business magazine.
"Look at this story," I held the slick pages out to my daughter showing her a cartoon character seen only on the Internet. "It says that people pay $10 for a designer bag for this character to carry. $10! For an imaginary handbag for an imaginary figure!"
She shook her head knowingly, "It's amazing isn't it."
The designer bag is one of the more expensive of the items sold in an Internet virtual world for the use of an avatar.
An avatar is the little picture a person chooses to represent themselves to others in a digital community such as two I checked out: Second Life and Twinity.
Shades of childhood "let's pretend," we don't have to grow up! Years ago, one of my sons drew up his own make believe world on a poster board. He mapped out everything he wanted in his world and never began to touch the possibilities exploding in cyberspace.
Old fashion chat rooms with lines of dialogue have morphed into idealistic, three dimensional worlds where avatars walk, fly or teleport to visit with each other, go shopping for new clothes and gadgets, watch movies together and pay for it all – in the virtual world of Second Life – with linden dollars. The going exchange rate is 250 Linden Dollars (L$) to one US Dollar.
If it exists in real life, it exists in the virtual world: Conference rooms, newspapers, motels, vacation sites, clothing shops. A journalist in Second Life writes a gossip column about happenings among the avatars. Reuters, Wired and CNET have virtual bureaus to bring outside content in and in-world news out.
Real businesses set up virtual conference rooms which allow employees around the world to join together to discuss developing products.
Starwood Hotels built the first virtual hotel on a virtual island and tracked its progress with an ongoing blog, including soliciting input from visitors – and then closed the hotel from viewers prior to its grand opening.
Scientists use the format to explore new ideas. A YouTube video suggests a number of ways to expand education using the virtual worlds.
Oh, and by the way for those not in the know, YouTube is an Internet site offering thousands of videos lasting anywhere from a few seconds to an hour or more. Everything from the ridiculous to quite thought provoking lectures – and much of it is free for the viewing.
Signing up to enter a digital community begins with choosing a realistic looking cartoon – well, realistic for a few. I am after all a 56 year-old grandmother – and the only avatar options offered looked young, energetic and absolutely fantastic with exotic or extreme hairdos.
I might protest that none of the avatars reflected my true alter ego, but in virtual world I could fix that, too. YouTube offered several short videos explaining how to take the basic avatar and reconfigure it to your satisfaction.
So much to do in the virtual world, so little time to do it. No matter how enticing as it all sounds, I simply don't have time for a second life. Not this week anyway – perhaps when I enter my second childhood and need something to occupy my time.
Eager to show-off her baby to former co-workers, my daughter-in-love left home early enough to eat breakfast, drink coffee and visit with regular customers instead of preparing them double lattes, espresso and black coffee with a shot of flavor. The shop buzzed with gossip surrounding the previous day's bombing a 69-year-old attorney had found a package left near his car's assigned spot in the parking garage. He picked it up and it exploded. The explosion injured him, shook the adjoining 16-story office building and forced hundreds of people to evacuate. Busy with baby duty, our young mother had not heard or read anything about the event that brought agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI to the upscale St. Louis suburb. She enjoyed breakfast and compliments of her blue-eyed girl with red-blonde hair and one-toothed smile. Promising to hang around the area long enough to visit after her friend got off work, she tossed her wallet into the baby's diaper bag, slung it over her shoulder and loaded up with baby, car seat/infant carrier and her purse before heading outside. She walked around until the baby fell asleep then sat down on the bench in front of the library across the street from the coffee shop to make a phone call. As the clock ticked down her time to meet her friend, she realized her parking meter needed cash. To get change for the meter, she went across the street and bought an iced tea. As she crossed the street again, she noted all the police cars outside blocking off the street near the library. "What's happening?" she asked a gawker. "They found a mysterious bag outside the library." "That's weird," she said, hoisting her sleeping child along with the rest of her load and headed into the library for some quiet reading time. Eventually the clock noted the end of her friends' shift. Her friends came out of the coffee shop smiling and shaking their heads at her, "Did you lose your purse?" Looking down, she checked off baby, diaper bag, carrier ? but no purse. "Yeah, I guess so. I don't remember having it in a while. Do you have it?" she asked them. "No, the Clayton police contacted us. They have it. They had to shut down the street because of your purse." "Why?" Because, she had left it on the bench in front of the library after she made the phone call. With the previous day's bombing on everyone's minds, the finder called the police. The police blocked off the street and brought in the bomb squad - who gingerly removed her innocent purse to a safe place. Baby, momma and friends all trooped over to the police station to get her purse. One very unhappy police officer sighed as he pulled out her neglected handbag. "You didn't mean to leave this, did you," he said scowled at her. "No," she quietly answered. "I know," he sighed, "But after yesterday's bombing, we had to call the police bomb squad to check it out." She apologized profusely, took her purse and slunk out, shaking her head at all this trouble over a purse that normally she would not even have gotten back.
This summer, my husband began building his long-dreamed of barn-shaped workshop. From the beginning he ignored everything else: The yard work, his children's housing projects, physical injuries and family crises. Supper table conversations centered on one topic - the barn.
With a detailed, blueprint off e-Bay, he prowled local lumber yards pricing building materials until he filled the back corner of the yard with piles of lumber, shingles, nails and insulation. A friend came over to help – and to repay the work hubby had done for him last year. They started to raise the first wall – and dropped it heavily on my husband's thumb. Nothing broke except the skin – and his building schedule.
He showed up at the family reunion camp-out with a very, swollen left thumb.
Back home again, not even a thumb guard kept him from hitting his sore thumb with the hammer as they built trusses for the steep roof over the second floor storage. His building buddies – men who formerly worked in education, science, engineering and administration – came for days to help raise the barn roof. Combining their mental expertise, they developed a system to lift the heavy trusses using nearby pine trees and a system of ropes and pulleys.
The more time they spent in our back yard, the more each felt involved. A neighbor carried shingles and mowed our overgrown yard, "because you have been working hard on that barn." A couple men brought their wives out to see the two-story barn they had helped raise.
Requests from our sons for help on their houses received the same answer, "after I get the barn covered and the windows and doors in place."
Installing three windows – no problem. Shingling a steep barn roof – scary, tedious and very hard.
A persistent, concerned friend showed up and moved the shingling timeline ahead at triple speed. I left for work relieved someone would be around to pick him up if he slipped off the steep roof.
With only the doors left, my carpenter told the guys he did not need their help. And he didn't. Not for the double door on the side. Not for the regular door on the front and – I assumed – not for the genuine, drop down barn door into the hay loft.
During my daily inspection, I said, "so, now that the main floor doors are done, I guess you will be putting in the stairs before you do the hayloft door?"
Putting in the stairs would take too much time, he explained. He wanted to get the building in the dry.
I shrugged, "Well, I thin
k you need the stairs, but it's your project."
He built the door and proudly showed me how it would fit. I stepped around the ladder leaning against the bottom of his hayloft door and told him, "Looks good. I'll be late tonight."
The rest of the story I only know because he told me.
Using the ladder he pulled and slid the finished door up to the attic doorway and hooked it to the trolley. Because the door opened down, he really needed another person to attach the hinges, but after much effort, he screwed them in place by himself.
"Finally," he said, "I pulled the door closed and it fit perfectly. I felt pretty proud – until I realized – I couldn't get out of the attic. I had built myself into it. If I opened the door, it went down and covered the ladder. If I pulled the door up, I couldn't reach the ladder. That door was the only exit. I didn't even have a saw with me – just a drill and I did not want to drill a big enough hole to get down to the shop."
And for sure – after all the work it took to put in the hinges, he had no intentions of simply removing them.
He decided to wait until I came home and could move the ladder for him.
After gathering up the clutter from building, he sat down and waited – an hour, two hours, until he remembered I had said I would be late.
Determined to get out, he lowered the door until it was sticking straight out from the building – held in place with only hinges and the anchored, pulley ropes.
"I laid down and eased myself out onto the door until I could reach under it and touch the ladder with the tip of my fingers," he told me.
He inched the aluminum ladder away from under the door, let the door down and finally escaped his self-imprisonment.
When I finally came home, my husband told me about his long wait for me in the dark attic of his workshop barn.
I only had one thing to say, "I told you to put that stairway in first."
Creepy, crawly critters stalked us that night in 1968 when we stayed at the mission church's attached apartment in the southern desert of Arizona.
“To begin with, we had an invasion of flying ants in the church. Nasty things,” my mother wrote in a letter to my grandmother. A whirling, mass of black flies buzzed us until the calvary arrived: Big, fat, gloppy, brown, desert toads flicking their tongues as fast as they could to devour the droning horde.
With toads feasting on the flies, we hauled the mattress out of the bedroom and carried it around the outside of the building to the kitchen the church shared with the apartment. My sister and I planned to sleep in the kitchen that night.
We couldn’t carry the mattress through the door connecting the two rooms – it had been nailed shut long ago to keep out the prying eyes of parishioners.
On their side of the useless door, my parents settled down to sleep on the padded box springs we had left behind.
Parents may sleep in strange surroundings, but teenage daughters, camping out in the kitchen on a mattress, have other plans for their night in the desert – plans like sneaking our first drink of coffee from the church cupboards, writing letters to friends and family back East and reading books until the wee hours of the morning.
Okay, mission churches in the middle of the desert do not afford many opportunities for wild and woolly living. We settled down read and write.
Quiet descended. Absorbed in a lengthy letter, I did not notice the six-inch, demon insect stalking across the floor to us – but my sister did.
She woke my parents with her terrified scream, ‘Ma-ma, Mama!’
Stuffing their feet into their shoes, my parents stumbled out of the bedroom into the desert and around the building to the kitchen door. They found me standing on the mattress, silently watching my screaming sister as she pointed at the menacing, crayfish-looking creature.
My dad threw one of his shoes at the monster – and missed.
He threw his other shoe – and missed, again.
The devil insect ran for cover – under our mattress.
Mom cautiously leaned forward and turned back the edge of our shared sleeping bag – revealing the night stalker with its wickedly pointed tail.
Dad reached down and grabbed one of his shoes. This time he held the shoe and whacked that frightful critter dead.
My sister cried and shook with fear.
To calm her down, my mother found some aspirin for her and gave her a novel to read.
"I am not going to sleep," my sister declared.
My actions declared no ornery looking critter could terrify me, but as the big sister, I dutifully kept alert for more creepy crawlers.
Through the rest of that long night with the kitchen lights burning, we heard critters scurrying loudly in the adjoining store room – probably rats, but we did not leave our mattress's island of safety or our books to verify that assumption.
When a mouse tiptoed into the room, we snapped our fingers loudly at it and sent it back to its hole.
Before dawn came, sleep conquered fear and my sister slept. Not me, I drank coffee, stayed awake and read – two novels. And, not because I was scared or anything – but because someone had to keep watch against creepy crawlers critters and things that go bump in the night.
The next day we returned to our critter free home in the city, pulled out a dictionary and decided we had seen and killed a six-inch scorpion with its poisonous, stinging tail.
"After that," my mom wrote, "everyone figured that they would visit the mission but we would rather sleep in town."
Throughout his life, my father taught me many lessons.
First, I learned good work habits from him. When Dad said, "jump," we asked "how high" on the way up. He did not quibble about details; we worked those out as we got into the job. I benefit regularly from the advantage of quickly completing a task and having guilt free time to chill when I finish.
Some jobs would not include time to chill – if Dad had not taught me the lesson of the goldenrod. The day of the goldenrod lesson, Dad and his twin brother took all the cousins to a huge field infested with goldenrod and told us to pull up the prolific plant – roots and all – but they did not just say, "go pull goldenrod." The youngest children were told to pull 20 or 30 plants. The number increased with the older children until some had hundreds to pull. Once, we reported having pulled the assigned number of weeds, they gave us another goal. Incrementally, we cleared that field.
Besides teaching us to work hard, Dad taught us to play hard. He made spontaneous plans for a picnic lunch in the woods, pulled out the Monopoly board frequently, turned the dining room table into a ping-pong court and took us to the swimming hole with a bridge that served as a diving board.
Another lesson from Dad I call "driving in first gear." After I passed the written test to drive, I confronted clutch, brake, shift gear and the steep hills of New York. Dad recognized my fear of going too fast and let me drive in first gear for miles before I felt safe enough to shift up to second. I did not realize how annoying my safe speed driving felt until I drove my mom and she startled me by urging me shift it up to third and go faster.
I began learning an important lesson the day he picked me up from a teen outing. I came to his car carrying a controversial book with many questions to consider. As we drove home, I talked it over with him and gave him my conclusions. He just listened. Inside our house, I placed the book on the table. My mother saw it and hit the panic button. Dad waved her off, "She's all right, don't worry about it." I'm still working on the lesson to listen completely.
Because I learned to always "obey my parents," it took time to realize that is not the same as "Honor your father and mother." As an adult, I had to learn to respectfully say "No" – as I did at a family reunion after I had married. A couple days after we convened at my sister's house, Dad wanted to go home – and declared we all should leave earlier than planned. I was not ready to leave. I took a deep breath and said, "That's okay, if you want to go, Dad, but the rest of us have plans to be here." I think it startled him, but he thought about it and decided he and mom would stay as well.
Years later, with age, illness and his widowhood, he did not take my lack of cooperation so easily. So, I learned another lesson – that even when faced with his emotional outbursts – it was still okay to voice my opinion. The first time I approached him after a vociferous lecture followed by his retiring to his room to watch TV, I stood outside his door several minutes before I could respectfully let him know there were still two sides to be heard and my side mattered just as much as his.
Because his obstreperous moments increased as his abilities faded, I had to continually work on another lesson I thought I had learned many years before: the lesson of the work of forgiving. I had to choose to forgive him, choose to spend time with him when I knew he would be angry at the limitations life had forced on him and choose to act as lovingly as possible.
I did not do it alone. And therein I learned my final lesson from Dad – "it takes a community to care for Grandpa." Over the years, with his far flung family, his tendency to weary of one place and move to another, we all – his children, sister, in-laws, siblings, cousins, grandchildren and my husband – played a role in ministering to him – as did the staffs and volunteers at assisted living centers and nursing homes in three states. During his last three years at Oakridge Nursing home, I observed respectful care, patience and affection for him – even when he was grumpy. As one of his nurses said, "We are all family and we take care of each other." Having experienced that truth first hand, I thank each of you for what you did for my father. It blessed us all immensely.
Pictures dominated my spare time last week. It began with a deadline to take advantage of free prints of digital pictures - still in my camera. All I had to do was upload the pictures and sort out the really bad from the mediocre and sort of good shots. Few qualify as fantastic photos, but I always figure better some kind of picture than none at all.
The camera carried nearly half a year of family and personal events captured in color:
- Graduations: cheerful John Deere green and yellow caps and gowns at the granddaughter's high school graduation, black gowns with colorful hoods for the master's degree and doctorate in pharmacy.
- The cutest little face of our newest granddaughter all dressed up in pink beneath her shock of hair that refused to lay down.
- Visiting granddaughters in tropical colored shirts sing their Daily Vacation Bible School songs to my father in the nursing home. He watches them - a bit puzzled at their youthful antics and Hawaiian song.
- A summer picnic beside the pond in Michigan where our daughter-in-love carefully grilled the marinated chicken she had prepared.
- My son feeding his baby daughter in her infant seat doing his best to keep her from grabbing and smearing food all over her body. Forget bibs. They strip her down to her diaper and plan a good wash-up after every meal.
- The summer family reunion in the Smokey Mountains captures children doing crafts, playing with the campfire and exploring the shallow creek bed.
And there in the Smokey, time and again I caught one father after another just standing and watching his child - guarding the toddler splashing in the water, helping the crawling baby stand in the shallowest of creek water or tracking the antics of the older ones floating downstream, ready to jump in and rescue them, if necessary.
All the watchful, fathers caught my eye. I had never realized just how often my sons and son-in-love pull guard duty. Perhaps I noticed last week because the roles reversed for my father and I. An ambulance carried him to the hospital. In the confusion of his illness, he needed constant warnings about the dangers of climbing out of the hospital bed and to not pull on his IV or heart monitor.
Using e-mail and phone calls, I tracked his medical progress for my extended family.
He used to hold me, my sisters and brothers back from danger. But, I could not hold him back from the effects of age and a transient ischemic attack (TIA) which left him drained of his usual booming voice -and weakened his body a bit more. He did not need hospital care as much as he needed time to heal.
He went back to his nursing home. At supper time, his left hand shakily, awkwardly, carried food to his mouth, I reached for his fork and knife to help. He always brushed aside the tidiness of the big towels provided as bibs for meals. Last week, I aimed to keep the food off his hospital gown and in his mouth.
In the hospital, his insistent "I can do it myself" grab for his cup doused him with ice water. I made sure to guide subsequent trips of the cup to his mouth. None of it is captured in the year's digital photo diary, but its fixed forever in my mind as my last memories of him because Wednesday, the once strong guardian of the family, with all his quirks, faded and then quietly passed over to the other side when we weren't looking.
I went home and pulled out photo albums with pictures of him in better,
healthier days - years before a stroke and other TIAs robbed him of his strength and enthusiasm for life. I studied snapshots of him holding newborn grandchildren, reading to toddlers, rough housing with grade school children, looking over line-ups of his brood and, last year, a rare happy smile as his granddaughter gives him a birthday hug and a grin at our Thanksgiving gathering.
Few of the pictures qualify as fantastic, most are mediocre, but for sure, today I know, it is better to have some kind of picture than none at all.
The rain from tropical storm Ike left two feet of backed-up sewer water in my son's basement. His black Sunday e-mail read, “Our basement flooded yesterday. Since our insurance excluded flood/sewer backup in the coverage, we will be on our own for the cleanup and replacement of anything that was damaged (washer, dryer, furnace, hot water heater and treadmill). Also the ‘91 Honda Accord died yesterday.”
Helpless, I considered my family in the midst of a mess as I watched my husband in the midst of building his long, dreamed of workshop, trying to get it in the dry before the winter rains drenched building materials stacked in our backyard. He could not see his way to go to St. Louis to help.
In the middle of the night, I frantically I dictated to God a pile of solutions I had figured out and determined to go up over the weekend by myself. I kept telling God a lot of ways He could work out everything.
None of it seemed right.
As my emotions whirled, I stopped praying and waited to discern God's message through all this turmoil.
The only message I got was the lesson I taught that week to the children at church, "Don't be like Saul who could not wait on God." Samuel told Saul he would come in seven days to offer the sacrifice and offer a prayer before they went into battle. While Saul waited to confront an enemy with thousands of well equipped men, he watched his own army slip away into hiding. By the morning of the seventh day, Saul had 600 men left and Samuel still had not come, Saul took matters into his own hand. He prepared and offered the sacrifice himself. His army needed the ceremony as encouragement in the face of such an enemy.
As he finished the sacrifice, Samuel walked in and rebuked Saul's lack of faith. "You have acted foolishly," Samuel said. I Samuel 13:13 NIV.
I knew Saul's feeling. I did not want to act foolishly, but ... still ...
While I waited for dawn, my meditations focused on "Wait, I say on the Lord." Finally, I relaxed, yawned and headed back to bed. I was tired of trying to tell God how to work out everything. I would wait.
Nothing happened the next day, or the next.
The work did not go any faster for us. It did not go any smoother for my son who had to work four 12 hours days right after the sewer lines flooded his basement. The tow company hauled their car to the repair man they had used the last time it acted up.
They asked nearby friends and family for help – and they waited.
At our house, over the next two weeks, building buddies came and helped my husband hoist trusses into place, cover them with plywood and tar paper.
In St. Louis, the mechanic said the problem related to work they had done previously. They fixed it at no cost.
The sewer company accepted responsibility for water backing-up into basements. In recent months, the community had voted to deal with the inadequate lines, but the storm hit before the work could be done.
A neighbor told them to take plenty of pictures documenting the extent of the damage before they began emptying out and power washing their basement.
They weighed the price of renting a power washer versus purchasing a machine. The sale on power washers at the Big Box Store for a few dollars above the price of one day of renting finalized that decision.
Saturday, friends helped drag their soggy possessions out of the basement and watched their baby while his wife enjoyed kicking out a water logged wall. The town established near-by collection sites for the trash. Three other days, by themselves and with other friends, the finished the hauling, power washing, bleaching and rinsing.
Now comes the process of sorting out expenses incurred with purchasing and installing a new hot water heater and furnace and the various irreplaceable losses and recognition that now matter what plans I develop, God has a better solution waiting for them – if I will just trust Him and wait.
At 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I hunched up in front of the big screen television in the hotel lobby watching the projected trail of Hurricane Ike. Good ole’ Ike, it promised to drench nearly every member of our family.
I enjoyed the quiet of the hotel lobby in Longview, Texas where we had held a flashlight celebration of a granddaughter’s birthday the previous evening.
If the conditions did not register as ideal, they would be memorable. Due to scheduling conflicts we celebrated her birthday at the hotel instead of in our home. I whipped up and decorated a birthday cake, wrapped up a few presents, pulled out food for a picnic of sandwiches for Sunday lunch and tucked in odds and ends of things for entertainment.
As we expected, we encountered tropical storm Ike along Interstate 20. My husband turned the wipers on fast, pointed out the trees bending under the wind and continued to drive.
The storm had turned off the electricity out at the birthday girl’s house, but who would have thought it would have darkened the city’s fast food joints, restaurants, department stores and traffic lights along on the five lane highway? A 90 percent loss of electricity has that effect on a city.
Camp lanterns lit the huddles of hotel guests in the darkened lobby. The staff prepared a light supper of sandwiches and fruit and arranged it on the breakfast bar. Later I heard a guest say they had waited 48 minutes in the drive-through line to get sandwiches at the only open fast food place.
With electronic doors and card keys, we could not lock the door behind us when we left the room, but we do not travel with valuables. Grandpa and grandchildren quickly changed clothes to go enjoy the inside pool. While they splashed around, I took a two-minute walk over to the big box lumber yard – the only open business – and bought glow sticks and flashlights. Back in the room, I hid presents around the room, pinned up the happy birthday banner and set out the birthday food.
We had no television to watch after sunset, but the grandkids enjoy when I tell entertaining Bible story.
After everyone settled into a good night’s rest, the electricity returned, triggered the air conditioner and chilled the room.
Unable to sleep, I tip-toed out to the lobby and watched the weather channel project the storm passing over my daughter in the Little Rock area, my son in St. Louis and our sons in northern Indiana and near Detroit – even my sister in Rochester, N.Y.
By the time the remnants of Ike reached those places, it had calmed down considerably, but the downpour in St. Louis wrecked havoc at my son’s house.
He e-mailed a description of his worst Sunday ever: “Our basement flooded yesterday. Since our insurance excluded flood/sewer backup in the coverage, we will be on our own for the cleanup and replacement of anything that was damaged (washer, dryer, furnace and hot water heater). Also the ‘91 Honda Accord died yesterday.”
I asked if his neighbors had been flooded. He said that the ones up the street and hill from him had a few inches less, the ones down the hill had a bit more. The grocery store down in the valley had to close from the flooding.
A couple feet of water in their basement cleared out the stuff they might have eventually winnowed out – including their old hot water heater – but, it also saturated many more items they really needed to stay dry, including their new furnace.
A storm with its wind, rain and inconvenience, left our family with enough stories and damage to last a lifetime. It's okay, if we miss the next one.
Aunt Marion Springer's interest in genealogical research extended far beyond her personal family history. As a senior clerk for Steuben County in Bath, N.Y. and member of the County Historical Society, her reputation spread across state lines. At her 78, she retired one day and returned the next day to the same office to volunteer full-time in the department she helped establish – the Genealogy Research Department in the Steuben County historian's office.
Although she died in 2006, the county did not forget her. This past April they inducted her into the Steuben County Hall of Fame and hung her picture in the county's
legislative building. The county's website (www.steubencony.org/hallfame/springer.h
According to a memorial by Bill Treichler on the Crooked Lake Review website, "Springer was a Steuben County pioneer in recording family history at the government level. Her efforts to help families with their genealogy, brought people here from all over the United States and Canada to learn the history of Steuben County. She was always happy to share her wealth of knowledge about Steuben County and the families that have lived here."
Googling her name connected me with a genealogy chat line conversation in the 1990s where one person after another referenced Marion Springer as “The Person” to ask for information when the trail led to Steuben County, N.Y.
One family's experience captures the import of her work. An adopted man came into my aunt's office because the county was listed on his birth certificate. My aunt directed him to Elaine Osmin Allen, saying, "If anyone knows who you belong to, Elaine would."
Allen knew. The family expressed their deep appreciation for "helping us to find our missing orphan train rider Bert Allen Samuelson from Oregon – after more than 50 years."
Others reported asking for help with one specific name and wishfully mentioning others. They received information on everyone – information which put them 10 years ahead in their research.
Aunt Marion began working as the Fremont town clerk, from 1952 until 1964. "During that time she began keeping a card file of all names that had been sought in the town files. She took those files with her when the county took over from the towns in 1964, and she became senior clerk in the county clerk’s office responsible for the records of personal property liens."
"Besides her official duties, she worked with county historians Charles Oliver and James Hope to cross-reference the 1790 through 1925 census records for Steuben County with the wills and land deeds files, and with the marriage and birth certificates for all the towns in the county, as well as with gravestone readings for all Steuben County cemeteries."
"She also worked to index and enter into computer files probate records up to 1900. Marion indexed and made computer available newspaper announcements of genealogical importance taken from two Steuben County newspapers. She had some assistance, but she personally read most of the newspapers," Treichler wrote.
"The card file she kept has over 13,600 cards, each with names and addresses of searchers who have requested information about the person listed on the front of the card. The file has become a valuable cross-referencing system. There are 160,000 names on the computer she used."
"She created an index of obituary notices published in two local papers from 1967 to present. Besides all the cross-referencing, she also proof-read records several times which were entered into the computer. She wanted as much accuracy as possible," he observed.
Her days of sorting through the records did not satisfy her. I remember visiting in her home several years ago and walking past an ancient, bound file of newspapers, carefully placed on a stand with a marker noting where she had stopped reading.
Although I knew she loved her work, it was only after reading the accolades heaped at her induction into the County Hall of Fame that I realized the extent of her service to the community which also included the 19 foster children she mothered along with her own four children.
At 83, in 2006, she succumbed to pneumonia leaving behind her surviving children: three daughters, and a proud legacy. I lost an aunt, but the country lost a valuable researcher and historian – one who knew her corner of New York State thoroughly and loved to share that information with anyone who asked.
(Niece of the genealogist and historian of Steuben County, N.Y., Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)
Although some would say, “a just turned 14-year-old is an obvious candidate for an abortion,” the teenager wanted a baby. She did everything she could to stay pregnant – including following doctor's orders to lie flat on her back in bed the last four months before the infant's birth.
But once she had a squalling infant in her arms, reality hit and the still 14-year-old handed the baby's care over to an older woman who had helped raise her. The young mother quickly scurried back into the life of an American teenager and – except for the times she was paid to babysit her own child – kept track of her child only from a distance. When drugs entered the home of the acting mother, she took the now pre-school aged child away and accepted another relative's offer to care for the bright-eyed, little brunette.
That was when this engaging child entered my life. I loved her and would have taken her home with me in a heart beat. But our oldest son and his wife had dibs, so we settled for counting her as one of our grandchildren – as did her grandmother Oma from Holland – and grandfather Opa, a World War II decorated POW survivor. They lived close enough to invite her over every couple weeks to spend the night.
As grandparents, we loved the child and watched with amusement as her great-aunt and uncle carried her around long after most children ran ahead of the adults. We listened to their fears that the maturing birth mother would want her daughter to return and live with her permanently – especially after she married and had more children. If nothing else, the mother could have used her daughter's extra pair of hands.
At times my son and daughter-in-love anxiously held their breath, fearful that this child they called their third daughter would not be able to continue to live with them. But even when she left for a while, always, for one reason or another, she returned to their home and care.
As she reached an age when family courts recognize a child's expressed preference in living arrangements, son and daughter-in-love began talking about finalizing the decisions mother, child and unofficial guardians had made time and again over the years. They began talking about adoption.
Then the emotional reality of her situation slammed down hard on the child. In middle school, her aunt and uncle struggled to keep her focused on her studies and to keep her grades above C-level. Grappling to understand everything that had happened to her in 11 years, the pre-teen slid further behind. Her unofficial, but permanent guardians, insisted – over the teacher's objections – that she repeat sixth grade. They thought she needed it, if for no other reason than to give her time to catch up with herself.
The teachers did not agree, the school did not agree, but looking at her grades and the confusion of that last year in middle school and looking ahead to the demands of junior high, her for-all-practical purposes parents decided that this bright, gifted child just needed a break.
They made her repeat the grade. She began resolving the conflicting issues of her personal history. Her grades improved as she assumed responsibility for her studies.
The next year, she entered seventh grade and came into her own. She again made grades reflective of her ability. She found extra-curricular activities and loved the challenge of the new school environment.
At the close of school this year, a lot of details came together to begin the process of making her a permanent member of the Hershberger family. Hearing it would be an uncontested adoption, the lawyer assured them the paperwork would be no problem – the legal rituals would be minimal.
We called them a lot, mostly just to ask “How's the adoption coming along?”
It took two months. It seemed like forever.
Labor Day weekend, during a family reunion camp-out in the Smoky Mountains, we held a welcoming ceremony to officially accept the newest Hershberger into the family. Her adoptive mother says she acts a bit like me at times. Which I take to mean she fits right into the family – but then, we all always knew that this child belonged with us – we were just waiting to have that truth legally recognized.
(Grandmother of 13, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)
Dad loved taking a Sunday afternoon drive to see the country. In the 1980's, after his last child had graduated, he lived in the New Mexico side of the four-corners where he found his perfect job – delivering fuel to gas stations across the western landscape. On Mom's days off, she frequently accompanied him on a run. Below is in an edited excerpt she wrote of an early Sunday delivery to a gas station on the Navajo Indian reservation. She refers to my dad as The Trucker.
At 6 a.m., while The Trucker gets the truck loaded and paper work completed at the Plateau Rifinery, I walk up the road, enjoy the birds singing, watch the sunrise and view the mountains. Truck loaded, we go a short ways down the road and stop at the weigh station and then hit the road.
We haven't had our morning cup of coffee so we pull into the first open place. It tastes like cowboy coffee to me – I can't handle it without something to go with it. The Trucker decides he needs a sweet roll, too, and has me go back to the counter to get him one. As he says, "Get loaded. Get past the weigh station and settle down to do your own thing. Have a cup of coffee and hit the road."
Another stop at the Arizona border check, then we head for the Indian reservation community of Many Farms, Ariz. – until we have to stop for cattle on the road.
One cow ignores every message we give it to get off the road. We blow the air horn and she still looks straight ahead and walks very slowly in front of our big truck which is nearly at a standstill in the middle of the reservation. That cow knows no one dares to hit her. She moseys over and checks out a spear of grass on the other side of the road.
Afterwards, we keep a wary eye out for flocks of sheep tended by dogs and the occasional shepherd on a horse. In the morning, the sheep graze along the highway. In-between watching for cattle, sheep and horses, The Trucker must also watch-out for the pick-up trucks coming across the reservation which pull right out in front of us.
In spite of all that, nothing spoils this early morning run for The Trucker who bursts into song and then comments on the buttes and a flat mesa in the Four-Corners Area. He points out the Colorado and Utah skylines and adds, "back there is New Mexico and here we are in Arizona."
Because it is Sunday, traffic across the reservation is light. By 10 a.m. we are in Many Farms where gas is $l.459 for no-lead and $1.389 for regular. In Bloomfield, N.M., where we live, it has dropped to $1.029 and $.979.
At the gas station and convenience store, we see several older Indians dressed in native and modern clothing. Some stand around talking. Others wander in and out of the store. A couple of men sit on the sidewalk with their backs to the building, enjoying the sun, sipping soda, eating packaged cookies and greeting friends coming for groceries or gasoline.
In a half hour, the tanker is empty and so are we but, restaurants are few and far between out in the desert. The Trucker points out a sign for a new restaurant that is open on Sundays.
The place overflows with motorcycles and riders – most carry two riders. Several of the bikes pull trailers as if they just had an overnight camp-out. Their jackets proclaim they are from Farmington, N.M., a community near where we live.
The rest of the crowd came in identical cars – all with Michigan plates. We've never seen cars like them before. Their drivers and riders fill the restaurant and the parking lot where they walk around taking pictures.
We order coffee. It's not cowboy coffee. This time it's too weak – for even me.
Suddenly, the crowd is gone and we are alone in the restaurant – except for one Indian couple. Skipping over the breakfast options on the limited menu, we choose a couple of hamburgers. We will eat more when we get home.
We make one more stop in Shiprock, N.M. to complete the run and by 2 p.m. we park outside our trailer park.
It is much warmer than when we left before dawn, so draping our coats over our arms we walk back to the trailer to read and rest until evening. We won't be going for a Sunday afternoon drive to see the country this week. We were out early – compliments of a gas station that needed their fuel tank filled.
(The Trucker's daughter Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)
The downpour of rain Tuesday pounded our roof as I packed food for work and fielded my husband's comments about the unusually poor drainage in our backyard.
Hydroplaning my way to the north end of town to shop before I clocked-in, I observed with astonishment the deep, swirling water filling ditches and overflowing sometimes onto the road.
Following another car, I headed down the hill to the mall. The other car splashed straight into a wide pool of water formed by the backed-up, overflowing storm drain. I assumed that if they could make it, I could. I followed them into the water.
The other car cut a spray of water and drove off. My car stalled in the middle of the wave-rocked pool of brown water. I turned off the radio to verify that my engine had stalled.
Listening to the rain drumming on the roof of my car, I considered my situation. I really did not want to get out in that rain and water. I pushed the electronic button to lower my window and waved my arm at passing vehicles.
An SUV pulled-up beside me. The driver said he would call the police – they would know what to do.
I knew what needed to be done – tow my sloppy, wet car to dry land.
I waited .... and waited. I wondered if the water would rise high enough to cut off the battery so I could not lower the window. I looked around to appraise my situation and noticed an inch of water covering the carpet behind me. Only the vinyl of the heavy plastic floor mat floating over the pool of brackish water kept my feet dry.
A high riding vehicle zoomed past me, rocking my car gently backwards in its wake. My car floated into even deeper water.
I pressed the button to lower the window and looked at the still rising water. I could not believe it would get worse. The water had to go down as soon as it stopped raining. We don't get flooding this far from the river.
We did Tuesday.
Someone called from the edge of the water that I should get out. With the heavens still dumping rain, I agreed. I tossed a few items I did not need into the back window – hoping it would be high enough to keep them dry. I grabbed the stuff I wanted with me and eased the door open. Brown water flowed into the car.
"It's going to be a pain getting this car dried out and cleaned," I thought as I stepped into the cool, dirty water and became one more flood victim forced to wade through mucky water to higher ground and a dry welcome.
Inside the department store, no one manned the cash registers. No customers strolled the aisles. Both customers and employees stood at the door watching the rain – and the spreading flood in the parking lot. An employee congratulated herself on having moved her car away before the flood waters gathered.
We stared at the last hold-out in the parking lot – a man sitting in his mini-van by the drainage pipe, waiting for the water to crest and drain. Fifteen more minutes, a couple more calls to come ashore and he too, abandoned his vehicle and headed inland from the parking lot flood.
I called home. Of course, in the short time it took for my husband to bring me dry clothes and a high riding vehicle, the rain dwindled to a drizzle and the water had drained below the bottom of the car.
My hair wet and frizzy, I arrived at work in drenched slacks and a sopping wet coat – very ready to clean up and put on dry clothes.
A call to a towing service and a nearby garage put my car under cover to dry out and assess the damage.
Once the rain quit pouring, the parking lot drained away all evidence of my emergency – except the bill for towing my car and replacing its starter.
An expensive lesson learned – take the long way around deep looking puddles – even if that other car does soar safely through to the other side.
(The now dry Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)
I really didn't intend to cut off anyone's fingers last weekend – I just wanted to play home-ec teacher when I invited the granddaughters to learn how to use one or another of my three sewing machines.
They looked at me in total astonishment.
"I'm afraid I will cut off my finger," one explained.
"That's impossible!" I scoffed.
I coaxed and cajoled them and began setting up sewing machines, promising them that the needle would not, could not reach their fingers.
I don't really NEED three sewing machines, but having an extra one comes in handy when one breaks down and needs to go to the repair shop – or when I have company in the sewing room.
Using my garage sale machines and stash of fabric from the recently opened Fabrics & More on Main Street, MNM Creations & Quilt Shop south of Parkers Chapel, the closing of the fabric store and fabric department at the big box store ... and of course garage sales, I knew I had lots of options to offering them in sewing. I set up the spare machines and handed each a sheet of lined paper, took the thread out of the machines and told them to try to make the needle stay on the line.
Thrills of excitement followed as they experienced the power of the machine and the concentration needed.
"Oh, I'm so scared."
"Push the pedal, it won't hurt you. It's fun."
She did and then stopped every three inches to study her accomplishment with pride and ask, "Didn't I do good!?"
"That's wonderful. Keep on sewing."
The youngest, not quite 10, loved it. She wanted to sew everything in sight.
I suggested they begin by hemming a couple of tablecloths. I had fabric for a Christmas tablecloth and a brilliantly colored party tablecloth with balloons, confetti and horns in six different colors – with enough left over for party napkins.
I showed them how to iron a temporary hem to sew in place. They took turns sewing the permanent hems.
I cut eight matching party napkins. The youngest did a Suzy Homemaker routine and sewed all the napkins' hems while her older sisters wandered off to do something else.
The next day, they wanted to sew something else. I pulled out a pre-printed set of Christmas stockings. Four stockings, enough for one each and one for me to demonstrate the techniques needed. When we began cutting out their stockings, linings and stocking hangars, I discovered I need to buy left-hand shears – or one child will never be able to cut her own material.
Initial fears and hesitations gone, they raced to the sewing machines and fought over who got which one. Ten minutes later, I could not figure out why they could not stay on the half inch seam line – until I remembered when I began sewing as a child, I had pre-printed projects with the sewing lines stamped out for me to follow, as well as the trim and snip lines. We began marking sewing lines.
After one sewed the whole stocking together with the material offset a couple inches, I realized she had not pinned the fabric – she was afraid of being pricked. She took out all the stitching and began again – with the pieces pinned together.
Although I had lots of white fabric for lining the red Santa Claus stockings, one chose a polished pink cotton, another chose a violet print with cats and the third selected a bright red fabric to line her stocking.
They made a lot of mistakes in cutting and sewing – the worst we fixed. The rest I let ride – I wanted them to have fun sewing. We'll refine the skills later.
Sewing the hangars for the stockings meant teaching them how to turn a tube of fabric inside out. I had forgotten the frustration of working material over a safety pin or around a pencil. But they each did what had to be done and we slid the liner inside the stocking, pinned all along the top edge, secured the hangar with a pin and then I hovered over each as they top-stitched everything securely in place.
We won't need the Christmas stockings and tablecloths for a while, but we had a lot of fun and they had finished products to take home to show-off ... and for once I needed all three of my machines at the same time.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)
Knowledge of my life-long affinity for homemade macaroni and cheese has spread across the Internet to the rural community of 500 in Goessel, Kansas where Terah Yoder Goerzen lives. In April, she wrote, “I came to read your blog through an odd open-source software and Mennonite connection that could only happen online.” It makes sense to me – Hershberger is, after all, a very popular Amish/Mennonite last name.
She identified with my early training in the kitchen. “I was in fourth-grade when my mom went to work full time, leaving me with daily instructions for how to get supper going. That really is a great way to learn your way around a kitchen!” she wrote.
It was my favorite dish which caught Goerzen’s eye.
“Just yesterday I was searching through recipe books for a good baked macaroni and cheese recipe. The ones I found basically said to make a white sauce, add some cheese and bake. I want something with more pizzaz (aka fattening flavor) – like a great-aunt would bring to a potluck. Your story made me wonder if you might have such a recipe. If you do, would you mind sharing?” she wrote.
Her letter stumped me. One of my sons loves macaroni and cheese. His wife has asked me to give her the recipe. Since I don’t have one, I've tried to tell her. I just sort of know how to make it. That evening, I made the dish and tried to capture the recipe on paper and e-mailed Goerzen as follows.
I am really going to have to get my recipe figured out more precisely. Basically, it is about a pound of elbow macaroni – if you want, add a bit of onion for extra flavor – to the boiling water. While it boils, I grate a block of sharp cheese – one to two pounds – this really depends on how much I am making. I like LOTS of cheese. I put it in a greased bowl with a couple eggs, salt, pepper and maybe a squeeze or two of mustard.
Stir all the macaroni up with the cheese, eggs and seasonings and add enough milk to fill up the dish and bake at 375 degrees.
Of late, I have hurried things along by using the microwave, but then I stir it every 5-10 minutes to heat it through. This makes a very creamy textured dish. I like it baked in the oven because then it becomes a molded half-sphere with a browned edge.
I have varied it by adding broccoli bits, hot dogs or bits of ham. I tried peas – I didn’t like it.
The type of cheese makes a difference. My mother made it when my sister’s family visited. Her husband raved about my mother’s mac and cheese – which miffed my sister because she always followed Mom’s recipe. But, that time Mom had used a milder cheese. I’ve used odds and ends all sorts of flavors of block cheese, including jalepeno cheese (nice and spicy!)
Once, I went to a fancy restaurant with my sister. We ordered a tantalizing sounding entree using an exotic white cheese. We took a bite and laughed – it was mom’s macaroni and cheese – using spaghetti.
As children, we took left-over macaroni and cheese, sliced and fried it in lots of butter for breakfast. Okay, it exceeded the fat calorie limits – but it was crunchy delicious.
In Kansas, Terah received my e-mail and tried her hand at using my loose guidelines for macaroni and cheese – including recognizing the flexibility of the dish.
“Your recipe was even a hit with my husband who claims that he doesn’t like macaroni and cheese,” she wrote, “I told him it was a ‘cheese casserole.’ I had a half cup of cottage cheese waiting to expire in the fridge, so I added that too.”
“I love the thought of fried macaroni for breakfast! Definitely something from the days when fat, calories, and cholesterol didn’t matter at all! Thanks, again!”
No problem, Terah. I aim to please – and good food is the shortest route to anyone's heart.
joanh@everybody.org
Long before it was fashionable to Think Green, my husband's mother Lived Green.
She didn't just think about modern ways to "reduce, reuse, recycle and recover," Mrs. Hershberger lived an even older adage: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." Mrs. Hershberger became a family legend for her frugalities that would please today's Green Thinkers.
Married in the Depression to her exact opposite – the Conspicuous Consumer – they started out as dirt poor farmers. She went to auctions and bought old worn-out dressers, tables, beds and cabinets which she refinished into family heirlooms.
In the 50's Mr. Hershberger bought one of the first television sets. In the 60's, he bought a blonde oak stereo console, a matching television set in a wood cabinet and a Naugahyde lounge chair.
Mrs. Hershberger avidly read and followed every idea she found about natural and organic foods. She sought out the shops, the co-ops and farms where she could buy produce, milk, eggs and wheat to grind to make bread. Instead of paper towels, she kept a collection of old towels and rags handy to wipe-up messes – and washed them out afterwards.
After their children went off on their own, Mr. Hershberger annoyed her no-end, buying rich, calorie laden foods at the local eateries while she prepared big pots of vegetable soups using produce grown in her garden with soil enhanced with egg shells, vegetable peelings and chicken bones cooked until they yielded every bit of nourishment – including the marrow.
While she lovingly packaged up Christmas sacks of dried fruit and nuts for her children and grandchildren, her husband bought and proudly set-up an aluminum Christmas treed with the color wheel to light it.
As one of the original Green Thinkers, she realized that if something cost a lot of money, she could probably make it or grow it for less. So after her husband used his tiller to prepare the rich, black Indiana soil in their back yard, she planted it closely, weeded it on her knees and carried baskets overflowing with green beans, strawberries and corn to freeze for the winter.
In the 70's he sported a fine leisure suit while she still made her own clothes – from her stash of fabric and old clothes. That stash, some of which dated back to the 30's, filled a walk-in closet on the second floor of their house. My daughter had a delightful time in the early 90's rummaging through grandma's boxes of old clothes and finding cool outfits from the 60's.
Over the years, the stash dwindled and disappeared as she made quilts and hooked rugs using her own designs on burlap bags. She backed the rugs using worn-out, faded blue jeans.
She never learned to drive, so Mr. Hershberger drove her to the grocery store in his gas guzzler. After his death, she pedaled her adult-sized tricycle to the neighborhood grocery store and carried her purchases home in the basket on the back.
He contributed to the rise of the American economy; she worked to save the country from burying itself in unnecessary waste.
When we visited, we ate her homemade vegetable soups and he brought us dessert – dipped ice cream cones from Dairy Queen.
Despite their differences, they both welcomed us warmly whenever we could come and visit with them – our loved ones – the Green Consumers.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)
My son took his third-grade teacher literally. She set-up a self-paced program of packets of lessons for reading and arithmetic and told the students they had to complete at least one page in math every day.
My son did just that – and spent the rest of his time reading books and magazine several grades above him. By March, he had fallen way behind his capability and his grade level in both subjects – but boy! he had read some good books.
I was not too worried about his reading. From conversations about magazine articles he had read I knew his comprehension level, but mathematics – that was a different story.
Math builds one skill on another and competency increases with daily practices.
When my husband and I realized how little he had done with the self-paced program, we decided we needed to supervise a bit more.
We sat done with our nine-year-old and told him he was to bring his arithmetic book home every night to work on until he caught up. We challenged him to do more than necessary and aim to complete the book. Looking over the book, we figured he would need to do at least six units every day. We promised him a big prize if he completed the book before the end of the school year. And then we stepped back.
In April and March, he tore into math with a vengeance. With very little other input he handed the teacher bundles of completed chapters in March and April.
She changed the rules and told him, "You have to do the work at school."
We cheered him on to keep up the good work in class.
Near the end of the school year, I wrote about his learning adventures to my grandmother – a former teacher, "He did four pages at school on Monday, seven the next day and nine yesterday and was disappointed that he wasn't allowed to skip recess in order to finish up the last five in the chapter."
Ahead of our suggested goal for the week, he whizzed through the lessons and absorbed the math skills like a sponge.
About that time he attended a Father and Son Banquet with his dad and brothers. The speaker that evening evidently emphasized James 4:17 (NIV): "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."
As my son reported his math progress the next day, he added, "I've been sinning. In James it says 'if you can do something and know how, but don't, that's sinning."
"I was impressed that he took that principle for himself," I added in my letter to my grandmother,
He kept on applying the principle. By the end of the school year, he had completed the entire book and earned the big prize – a balloon bouquet with enough balloons to share one with each member of his class.
He continued to excel in mathematics through school, breezing through some complicated mathematics courses in college.
These days, as a home-based computer contractor he paces himself every day – with a much bigger incentive than a balloon bouquet to share – he supports his family – keeping them fed, clothed and housed very adequately.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)
None of my grandparents spent their last days in a nursing home. None of their children have either – with the exception of my father. My mother died at home, my dad's twin brother lived beyond his life expectancy with Parkinson's – thanks to my aunt’s ministrations in their home. Other aunts and uncles suffered short, final illnesses.
My father's situation condition mandated the services of a nursing home. Months after my mother's passing, while still in his early 60s, Dad suffered a couple of strokes that initiated subtle changes in him. He continued to be approved for driving even after a broken hip lead to a hip replacement with a walker for stability.
These days, he uses a wheelchair and is in danger of a falling if he tries to get into bed by himself – which he has done several times before and after moving into the nursing home.
The combination of his strokes, diabetes, increased weight and a slowing of his mental faculties – along with his refusal to cooperate with those who would help him, all came together the day after he fell in the shower in our home. By the end of the day, he physically needed a wheelchair. A visit to the doctor, a hospital stay and his transfer to a local nursing home for physical therapy lead to his stay there with his greatly increased dependency on a wheelchair.
He actions and words summarized his situation the day my husband came to take him for a drive.
Dad, as always, insisted, “I can do anything. I can live by myself.” My husband was pushing Dad's wheelchair out to the van. He stopped by the van door, allowing Dad time to show him that he could “do anything” including getting into the van by himself. Dad turned to him, “Well, are you going to help me or not?”
As always, my husband helped him. And as he would have done at home, if home care had been deemed do-able. But my husband is several inches shorter and many pounds lighter than my father – and we tend to be on the road frequently visiting our children and grandchildren, which involves days of travel to other states. In spite of his many protestations otherwise, my dad can not live by himself.
The day of the Teris explosion and fire underscored our decision. During the forced evacuation of the nursing home, family members could take patients home until the all clear sounded. Those who stayed were evacuated to a local church. When we arrived, my father's room was empty. We followed the corridor to the large room where the staff and doctors worked on carrying out their emergency evacuation plan.
My father, confused at the disruptions and commotion, looked terrified. We agreed to take him home.
It only took about 30 hours of having him at home to show us the value of having a three shifts of staff to care for him. We could not persuade him that he needed any cleaning up. He grumbled that he was all right and refused any suggestion otherwise. We asked. We urged. He desisted. He sat in the lounge chair where he watched television and slept.
At the nursing home if he refuses one aide, another aide or nurse comes to his room later with the same suggestion or an offer of assistance and he usually accepts it. The multitude of helpers spreads out the difficulties of working with him to stay clean and healthy rather than it all falling on one or two persons' shoulders.
He went to the nursing home at about the right time. Each month, each year his flexibility of body and mind have decreased and his fragility has increased. Months ago, the staff asked to address his compulsion to leave the facility by putting an electronic device on him which locks any door he approaches.
It is not the ideal situation, but in a world with far flung family members, the nursing home staff provides the secondary family, the helping hand in the midst of a difficult situation.
Placing a family member in the nursing home is not the choice for every aging relative. It is not the choice made for our grandparents, or my aunts and uncles, but it was, and still is, the best choice for my dad.
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