A 1950s Christmas Memory

Dear precious grandkids, you're always asking, "Grandma, tell us what it was like in the old days." Well, this is what it was like! I'll share it with you and any readers.

The size of the family on my mother’s side doubled whenever Harry and Ethel Smith and their brood showed up. Harry was Mom’s baby brother, tall and fit and rakishly handsome with black hair and a grin that revealed strong white teeth. Ethel was short, always happy with smiles and ready laughter. She seemed sort of boneless, like one of those round pork roasts in grocery stores that are held together with white string. As a child, I always thought of her as fat. Later I came to realize she was just always pregnant.


Harry and Ethel had 10 kids, the oldest eight one right after another. There was a lapse of a few years before they started up again and they probably would have had a few more but Harry died of a heart attack one sweltering summer day while working in the woods of northwest Montana. To have the fire of such a vibrant, life-loving man extinguished was a deep blow to the family.

Harry and Ethel lived in an old paint-flaked farmhouse with a front lawn that was kept bare by horses, chickens, goats, and barefooted runny-nosed kids. It wasn’t until the older kids were in high school that the outhouse gave way to a flush toilet in a tiny bathroom Harry squeezed in between the kitchen and back porch. The house was wall-to-wall kids, commotion, laughter, and chaos. It smelled of wet diapers, laundry soap (since doing laundry was a never-ending chore), and good food (since something was always bubbling on the stove).

I loved going there. It was like attending summer camp. Everyone always had a project or something going on. In the summer we rode horses in the river and milked cows and chased down errant calves. In the winter we played cards and jacks, did puzzles and romped in the snow. And we ate. Ethel made the best rolls this side of Heaven, kneading the dough, like she did everything else—with a baby jiggling on her hip.

The year I was eight or nine we had Christmas at Grammy and Granddad's. It was a cold but beautiful sunny day and the snow glinted with diamonds. My other cousins and I had already made a dozen runs with our sleds down the big hill and had been called in to get ready for dinner. Auntie Jane and Mom were fluttering around wondering what to do with all the food since Harry and Ethel were late. All of a sudden, there they all were. Bleeding and bruised and agitated and every single one of them talking a mile a minute. It seemed that Harry had driven the back roads and had missed the corner at the end of a long steep hill a mile away. The car slid through a fence, bounced through the ditch and ended up in a cattail-studded swamp. Miraculously, no one was really hurt.

They had walked the rest of the way, Ethel in high heels and tearfully carrying in front of her a small gaily-wrapped package containing the remains of a teacup she’d intended to give Grammy, and Harry lugging the newest baby.

While the women tended to the cuts and tears, the men took a pickup and a logging chain and went about the business of retrieving the injured car. Personally, I was very interested in the success of getting the car since the trunk was piled deep with presents. Including mine.

We had so much to be thankful for that Christmas day. We were all safe. We were whole. We had each other. That wonderful feeling took over that day, dwarfing everything else. As the subject of the car crash was brought up again and again, the tree didn’t seem as important, nor were the gifts. We were important. Each and every one of us.

This Christmas there are a lot of people who are battered and bruised and bloodied by life. There will be empty places at the Christmas table. In countless homes plates will be salted with tears as heads are bowed to ask God’s blessing.

Life is hard. Life is tragic. Many people won’t even receive the gift of a shattered teacup this year. Others don’t know how they will provide food for their children, let alone presents. Devastated finances, burned-out homes, divorce, illness, death….the list of what can go wrong in a life is endless.

This is a frantic time of year. A time when we strive to be perfect, to give the perfect gifts and to have the perfect Christmas. We spend too much and eat too much and lose track of what’s important. And on December 26 we wallow in guilt and vow that next year it will be different. After two months of glitter and glitz the world suddenly seems ugly and cold and hopeless.

But we are never without hope. And we are never without love. We are surrounded by God’s love and just need to reach out and grab it. He is our hope.

As you come together to celebrate Christmas, please take a few minutes to remember that we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. And in him there is hope, peace, love, comfort, joy, and eternal life. There may not have been room at the inn, but there is room in your heart and that’s all he wants—a place in your heart. What a wonderful gift to give our Lord. And what a change it will bring to your life.

I pray that all of you have a very merry, blessed, Christmas.

The Perfect Business

Dear Janelle,

I was thinking about you the other day, dear daughter, as you are launching your second "Once Upon a Time" toy store in Seattle's Bellevue Square. I just thought you should know that Lisa and I have discovered the perfect business. Even better than the guy who supposedly set up in a parking lot on city land in London and collected parking money for 25 years.

It's called the Bark Off. As advertised on TV. You have probably seen it. It is, "safe and humane" and stops annoying barking. (Sorry, husbands, not for your wives - it's for the dog.)

The Bark Off is an "ultrasonic training aid" that is portable, has a nifty little wall-mount and uses a nine volt battery (not included). It has two sensitivity levels, high and low, and promises to enable you to "start living a more peaceful life," and who wouldn't like that. The manufacturer declares that it works from 20 feet away and is automatically activated when your dog barks. The dog barks, the doohickey emits a high-pitched screech and, voila!, the dog hears this horrendous noise and thinks, "hey, this barking really must annoy the neighbors. I simply must stop doing it."

I bought one of these in a drugstore, bypassing the television hawkers. I spent $9.99 for it. It isn't a whopping amount of money, just enough that people don't really hesitate. Now, if it was $29.99 I would have balked and decided, nah, I don't need one of those things. Even $15.99 would have made me think twice. But less than $10 - hey, I'll take the gamble.

After I took it out of the package I learned that the Bark Off, sadly, does not work on deaf or hearing impaired-dogs. I said, THE BARK OFF, SADLY,..." Oh, you did hear that.

Well, anyway,... It also doesn't work outside in adverse weather conditions. I live in Alaska. We invented adverse weather conditions. We send them south every chance we get.

So, hmmm, according to everything I've read, the Bark Off doesn't immediately work (give it two or three weeks), doesn't have a little light to show the thing is even working, and, anyway, humans can't hear the high pitched noise. So, for all I know it's just a $10 plastic box that simply ... does nothing.

I like that idea. Invent something that you can't test, can't really tell is functioning, and sell it cheap. Like, maybe, pills you can take to make you a better cook. Like those copper bracelets that were all the rage a few years ago or the magnets you put in your shoes. Do your aches and pains go away because of the magnets and copper, or because you think them away? Viagra -- does it really work or is it the idea and faith that makes it work? That's what Lisa and I want to invent - a placebo with promise that sweeps the country. We'll sell it for $9.99.

In the meantime, I have high hopes for this Bark Off thing.

Cones, cones, everywhere!





Dear taxpayers,

I think I've figured out where a lot of Obama's "jobs" money is going. After spending time driving in Washington, Montana and around Alaska this summer I figured it out in one of those light bulb moments that temporarily blinds you into reality.

By my calculations, based upon the number of orange traffic cones I've spotted in my travels, somewhere between 22 and half a million jobs were created in the transportation industry. The jobs entail moving cones. This is probably done at night, when no one will be harmed from the sudden traffic pattern changes, and there are no workers around to ask just what the hay is going on.

My sister Judy and I drove from Spokane to our hometown of Whitefish, which is near Kalispell and Glacier Park. We were headed there to visit relatives and to do a lot of "remembering when." Along the way we picked up our little sister, Becky, who lives in Missoula, hoping -- since she's the youngest -- that she could help us out with the memories.

Judy: "Didn't there used to be a bar over there where that fancy new bank is now?"
Me: "I remember that bar. It had old-time saloon doors. You could hear the jukebox two blocks away. One night when I was driving by there was a brawl out on the sidewalk."
Judy: "You ever go in there?"
Me: "Heck no."
Becky: "What bank?"

So much for helping with the memories. Anyway, I digress. And isn't that an odd word...digress. Why not just admit I'm off on a tangent?

Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. Back to the cones. For miles and miles in Montana -- and we're talking double digits here -- there were cones. The cones would close off the right lane for a bit and then, as if they couldn't make up their minds, would close off the left lane. Then they'd take a break and wouldn't bother to line up at all before starting in again.

There was no work going on within these cones. No trucks, no flaggers, no men in hard hats standing around scratching their behinds and pretending to be bosses. There wasn't even evidence that any work had ever taken place. The road was clear and smooth, except for the occasional lump of furry road kill.

Since then I've been keeping track and have discovered unattended cones all over the place. Thousands of them. Just lined up and waiting for another crew, evidently, to come move them to another site or maybe just walk them to a new spot across the road.

At first I thought maybe it was my friend Nardo doing this. I will not divulge Nardo's last name and I made up his first name. Nardo, who lives Outside, likes to collect things and not long ago he accumulated a small grouping of traffic cones. After careful study, he selected a quiet residential street and one night carefully set up his cones, effectively notifying drivers that the street was blocked. He kept track and weeks later the road was still unusable. For all I know, it still is. I think there is a big message in Nardo's experiment. What it is, I don't know, but surely it speaks of a flaw in our societal fabric. The word stupid comes to mind.

Well, I'm not stupid and I'm saying that there are a few million cones out there that are being shuffled and moved, loaded and unloaded, stacked and unstacked, and there is no work going on. Just cone-moving.

Pay attention, people, and you'll see for yourself. And next time you hear BO bragging about the jobs he's creating you'll know the inside scoop. I think the only thing he has created is a whole army of cone people.

FREE WHEEFEES!

Dear Chris and Kyleigh,

So, there we were at McDonalds and I saw this sign for something free and told your mom to get two. Your assignment, if you accept it, is to go around and capture responses and post them to Utube. It could be really fun. Here's my imaginary scenario:


FREE WHEEFEES!

SPEAKER: Welcome to McDonalds. Ready to order?

HUSBAND: Yeah, we, uh, we’d like two Big Mac meals. Diet Cokes.

WIFE IN BACKGROUND: Tell them we want two of those free WheeFees.

HUSBAND: Can we have two of your free WheeFees, too?

SPEAKER: I have two Big Mac meals with diet Cokes. I don’t understand about the …uh… what are those?

HUSBAND: Out here on a sign it says you have free WheeFees.

WIFE (in background): See if they have one in yellow.

SPEAKER: Free what?

HUSBAND: WheeFees. There’s a sign here that says they’re free. I think they’re from that new Shrek movie.

SPEAKER: I’m new here. Let me get the manager.

HUSBAND TO WIFE: Let’s just forget it.

WIFE: Let’s not. I really want one. They sound cute. The baby could play with them. If not yellow, blue.

MANAGER (on speaker): Can I help you?

HUSBAND: Yeah, we’ve ordered but we also want two of your free WheeFees.

MANAGER: Uh…huh?

HUSBAND: It says here you’re giving them away. We’d like two.

WIFE: Tell him we want three. One for the baby.

HUSBAND: Charlene, shush. ..I can’t hear!

MANAGER: I’m sorry, sir, I can’t understand you. You want what?

HUSBAND: WHEEFEES! It says right here on your sign. They’re free. Free WheeFees.

MANAGER: We don’t have anything like that. What exactly does the sign say?

HUSBAND: Free WheeFees.

MANAGER: How do they spell that?

HUSBAND: W.I.F.I.

MANAGER: It’s WiFi. We have free WiFi.

HUSBAND to WIFE: Oh, it’s pronounced WhyFie. Charlene, it’s pronounced WhyFie.

HUSBAND to MANAGER: That’s what I said. We want two.

MANAGER: We don’t give them away. They aren’t things. They’re for computers.

HUSBAND: Oh. Well, we have a computer and it says here you give them away and we’d like two of them.

MANAGER: It’s for laptops.

HUSBAND: We don’t have a laptop, just a regular computer.

MANAGER: You have to have a laptop.

HUSBAND: So, if we have a regular computer we don’t get free WheeFees…WhyFies… but if we have a laptop, we do? Is that what you’re telling me?

WIFE FROM BACKGROUND: Tell him that’s discrimination.

HUSBAND: That’s discrimination. We might get a laptop sometime so we’d like the free dohickies anyway. Is it some sort of a game thing?

MANAGER: Oh good grief. No, it’s not a game thing. WiFis aren’t things. It’s like… like air…like things floating through the air. Signal things.

HUSBAND (LAUGHING): You’re giving away free air? That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. Air is free anyway. (In a lowered voice:) Does Ronald know about this?

MANAGER: It’s not really air. It’s a service thing for laptops. Signals through the air.

HUSBAND: Does this mean we’re not getting the free WheeFees…WhyFies?

MANAGER: Uh huh.

WIFE FROM BACKGROUND: This is wrong, really wrong. It says right on the sign, FREE.

MANAGER: I tell you what, how about I just give you two McFlurries and a Shrek mug. On the house.

WIFE: It’s not right.

HUSBAND: We’ll take it but I think you need to fix your sign. Admit it, you really don’t have free WheeFees at all, do you?

MANAGER: I guess not.

HUSBAND: That’s false advertising.

MANAGER: You’re right. I’m going to come out right now and take down that sign. I’d hate for anyone else to get confused.

HUSBAND: Good idea. I’m glad I could point this out to you. There are a lot of people out here who aren’t as smart as me and could cause a lot of trouble.

-30-

Dogs with fleas, cats with hairballs

Dear Scooter,

When you came down from Fairbanks to visit Grandma and Grandpa you didn't know you'd spend time fussing over a sick dog and spending time at the vet clinic. But the surgery went well and we're still laughing at the reaction of the other dogs when Maggie showed up sporting her new cone. I know Gunner and Ember were snickering along with us. 
  
Anyway, the whole ordeal reminded me that I once wrote a column about taking dogs to the vet. I thought you'd like it so here it is:  

When the last fledgling left the nest my husband Troy and I stupidly thought we were done with doctor visits. Ha!

As long as there are any dependents breathing in your house you’re doomed to trips to the clinic. Whether you have a dog, cat, bird, snake, hamster, panther or elephant, someday this creature is going to need professional medical advice. And you’re going to have to get it for them.

It is good, before you head to the vet’s office, to figure out what’s wrong with your droopy pet. But trying to get a cat to tell you where it hurts with words won’t work. You can’t say, “Princess, do you have a sore throat?” Instead you have to push and probe and search. You’ll know when you hit the sore spot. MREAU FSST! Get out the Band-Aids.

Have you ever taken a dog’s temperature? Now that’s fun. When you get the thermometer out they think, oh boy!, a new toy! They go around and around, trying to see just what you’re doing back there with the new toy. Wielding the thermometer, you chase them. You can’t tell them to sit, because that would take away the very area you need access to. And most dogs don’t know the command “Stand!” Really, it’s easier to just feel their nose. If it’s hot and dry they have a temperature.

I hate it when I hear our vet say, “We’ll have to get him to open wide.” Oh sure, let me put my hands in his slimy mouth. You do it. You’re getting paid the big bucks.

When you take a kid to the doctor you make sure they’re wearing clean underwear. With a dog you sometimes have to have a plastic baggie with a stool sample. But first you have to get it, which means traipsing around the back yard or climbing into a kennel. Since frozen samples are a no-no, in the winter when it’s 50 below this means almost having to stay with your dog until it does its business.

Now what do you think your dog thinks when you hunker over the steaming pile and use a stick to scrape some doodoo into a bag? Up ‘til then he thought you were a pretty cool dude or dudette but now, gross and yuk. And you yell at him for licking his private parts in front of company.

For a good time, there’s nothing like a vet clinic’s waiting room. That’s where all the strange beasts gather. Usually they have with them their pet bird, snake, dog, cat, hamster, rabbit or pig.

Personally, I think a perfect reality show would feature one of these waiting rooms. The dog wants to chase the cat who wants to eat either the bird of the hamster. The pig squats and leaves a wheelbarrow full of manure at your feet. And the poor snake is no one’s friend. He and his owner are abandoned on one side of the room while everyone else huddles on the other, keeping one eye on this slithering interloper.

Unlike people waiting rooms—well, except for pediatrician offices—there is a lot of yelling going on in an animal waiting room. SIT! I SAID SIT! NOW STAY. I SAID STAY! GET OVER HERE AND SIT! DAMMIT.... (a lot of pets are named Dammit).,

Of course they aren’t going to sit and stay. Except for on TV your 150-pound Newfoundland has never seen a real live guinea pig, let alone smelled one. He might not ever get this chance again.

Of course there’s always some smarty-pants with a dog that does sit and stay. The owner quietly reads a book while the dignified pedigreed dog lays there quietly observing the fracas. This dog doesn’t need a leash. He makes the other pets look like untamed beasts from Wild Kingdom. They’re all a bunch of goofballs straining their leashes trying to smell the next fellow’s rear end.

Let’s say you’re in the waiting room with Bonzo, your macho 2-year-old Great Dane. In comes some woman with an ugly poodle with an overbite and a tacky pink ribbon dangling from one ear. The poodle’s in heat.

Male dogs aren’t subtle. They don’t say, “Hey there, haven’t we met before?” They can leap over buildings with a single bound. They have one thing on their mind. For Bonzo it’s the ugly poodle. Even without any beer, he thinks she is the most gorgeous female he has ever seen. He’s in love.

You might not think pets give much thought to other pets in the room, other than wanting to eat or play with them. But they do. If you bring in your dog and he has a bunch of porcupine quills stuck in his snout I guarantee most of the older dogs there are snorting and thinking, “Man, are you stupid.”

On the other hand, when Roxanne comes in with a broken leg from chasing the moose out of the yard they are all thinking, “Right on Roxanne! You go Girl!”

All the other pets will know if a dog comes in with worms because he’s embarrassed and looks at the floor. And fleas? You can’t hear them, but every beast in the waiting room is chanting, “Riley’s got fleas, Riley’s got fleas!”

Let’s say Sarah the cat has a hairball. A really big hairball. Her owner carries her in and Sarah hacks a few times. Instantly everyone knows what she’s there for and they snicker. Sarah’s a fur-eater. Gross. She tries to convince them she’s got sinus problems.

The parrot, at least, is honest. He bobs up and down in his cage yelling, “Beak rot! I’ve got beak rot! I’ve got beak rot!” To which everyone thinks, “Ah shut up, you stupid bird.”

And the snake with the Band-aid around his belly? Except for a couple of wide-eyed women who are ready to bolt, no one else is paying any attention to the snake.

Searching for fire

Dear Judy and Becky,

Remember the time Dad had trouble starting the barbecue grill? I thought about that last night.

I decided we would have barbecued hamburgers for dinner, the first of the season. Since we're down to the just to two of us we have a little round table-top grill. I found it by the garage door and carried it to the patio table where I blew off the dust, swiped off the cobwebs, removed the lid and piled in some briquettes.

There is something about cooking over a fire that warms my innards and brings out the Pioneer Woman in me. I can understand why the cavemen were so thrilled when they discovered fire and learned that haunch of dinosaur tastes much better cooked than eaten blood-raw.

The grill was ready and just needed fire. So easy a caveman can do it. Ha! The next hour was spent trying to make fire. There are no matches in my house. I looked in every drawer, cupboard, room, and closet. There are also no matches in the garage.

Undaunted, I decided to use my old spaghetti trick. Long, thin spaghetti noodles work great to light those hard-to-reach places like water heater pilot lights and candles hunkered down deep in containers.

It was easy lighting the noodles on the gas stove but ferrying the flame to the grill on the patio was another story. Flutter, fizzle, out. Over and over again, the flame died before I got to the door. I tried walking slowly, carefully. Didn't work. I put the lighted end into a mug and that worked well, until I moved it from the mug toward the briquettes and Mister Wind swooped down to see what was happening.

Noodles were out so I wadded up a hunk of newspaper and rashly put it into the gas flame. Whoosh! Baby, we had fire! I raced to the patio door, dripping ash, only to have it flutter to an end before I got to the grill.

By now I had made at least 15 trips from the kitchen to the patio and nary a wisp of smoke was coming from the stupid grill. And that reminded me of Dad and the time he went through such turmoil starting the barbecue so we could feast for mom's 60th birthday. (If you'll remember that was the year we gave her the milk goat -- what a present!)

Dad finally marched to the shop and came out a few minutes later wearing a welder's helmet and dragging his acetylene welder. He fired that thing up and, by Jove, he got those briquettes lit. Of course he also burned out the bottom of the barbecue, which fell in a smoldering mess onto the lawn.

Unfortunately, I didn't have a welder. But about the time I was ready to call it quits my knight in shining armor drove up from a wearying day at the office. After listening to my tale of woe he only had one comment: "Why didn't you just use the little portable gas grill?"

What? What gas grill?

How could I forget the little grill we bought last summer? Maybe because my brain cells are over 60? Maybe because we only used it once so it wasn't yet a part of the family?

Troy had the burgers sizzling in less than five minutes while I wrote MATCHES on the grocery list. And I have to tell you, my heart was as warm as those burgers, as I remembered Dad's antics that day.

My dearest Scooter,

I was thinking this morning that I need to write down my memories of your dad and his pickup while they’re still roiling around in my brain.

Oh, how he loved his truck! He first saw it in 1995 when our friend Steve Angel at Seekins Ford was driving it as a demonstrator. It was a gorgeous new, F-150 red and white club cab. When it came up for sale, Scott bought it.

We were all living in Coldfoot at the time and I remember the day he showed it off. I was sitting in the restaurant and he paraded slowly up and down the length of the parking lot, smiling from ear to ear and waving each time he passed. When he pulled up to a parking space, Grampa went out and circled it and made all the appropriate manly comments. I jumped in for a ride. We headed up the Haul Road for a ways and Scott grinned the entire time.

For the most part Remington, the gigantic Chesapeake he’d had since he was a kid, rode shotgun, sitting in the passenger seat with dignified authority as he gazed out the window. He and your dad liked riding with the windows down so they could better savor the smells, sounds, and feel of God’s great outdoors.

Your dad, Remington, and a red and white truck….they were quite the threesome. They explored every side road off the Dalton Highway, went as far as they could up the Slate Creek Trail, and traveled every highway and dirt road in the state. Over time the pickup became scraped from trips through the brush and dinged from driving up mountains. Countless times he got it stuck at Bonanza Creek and would have to hike out to get help.

The back was always filled with gear: fishing gear, hunting gear and always a portable barbecue. Sometimes your dad would leave to go hunting and return home with the back end filled with moose, or sheep, or bear, or caribou. Lord knows how many fish made the trip from water to freezer or frying pan in the back of that pickup.

You and Amanda were his prized passengers and you probably had your first ride in it when you came home from the hospital. All the backseat gear was shoved aside for an infant car seat and a diaper bag. Oh, how he loved taking you two off on an adventure!

Your dad was a remarkable man. Over the years he had learned almost everything there was to learn about Alaska mammals, geography, habitat and weather. He had a treasure trove of information stored in his handsome head and I was always amazed at how learned he was. I loved traveling with him and listening to him. I am sad now I didn’t take the time to do more of it. One more time….what I wouldn’t give for one more time.

Anyway, maybe it was this love of outdoors that made him such a slow driver. He was the kind of guy you detest getting behind because he poked along like a 90-year-old nun who’d just gotten a license.

When he drove he was always scanning, searching, seeking. He delighted in the most trivial of wildlife appearances and could be as excited watching a family of voles scamper through the woods as spending time glassing a den of fox kits. The red pickup allowed him to travel into the nether regions of Alaska and observe first-hand the blessings of the Creator.

It was in this pickup that your dad carried Remington for the last time. Wonderful, loyal, gentle Remington died at age 17 and your dad carefully wrapped him in an old quilt and, with tears running down his cheeks, tenderly placed him on the front seat – right where he always rode. Scott took Rem to be cremated so he could spread his ashes at the place they both loved: Bonanza Creek.

As old vehicles and people are wont to do, Scott’s red and white pickup began to take on the pitfalls of old age and, admittedly, abuse. He started having to spend more and more time tinkering with it – spending long hours on his back underneath and replacing this or that. All the oil stains in front of our old house were from that pickup.

At the end he still loved his truck, though the seat was sprung and the ignition was falling out and the passenger door wouldn’t open from the outside.

When he piled in it to go somewhere he’d tense up for a few seconds while he waited for it to start. When the engine finally fired he’d breathe a sigh of relief, grin, declare “hey HEY, that’s my baby!” bounce up and down a few times, and pat it on the dash. Then he’d be off.

After 14 years together, last winter Scott and the red and white pickup parted ways. He was out of work and so was Anna and the pickup was given to landlord and friend, Nick LaJiness, to pay for rent. Scott was devastated. He talked about it a lot and never quite got over missing his truck. Someday, maybe someday, he declared to me just two weeks before his death, he’d get it back.

January 20, 2010, was the sad day that your dad died unexpectedly. We worried about you and your sister Amanda. She is 20 and married and has a toddler and will be OK, but you – Scooter, you are only nine years old. Too young to have lost your father – too young to not have in your life this man you so adored and loved.

We all wanted to do something for you, give you something that would always remind you of your dad. Your mom and Grampa came up with the same idea: find the pickup! I thought it would be a difficult task but it took less than 15 minutes. I called Nick and found out who he had sold it to. I called that fellow and explained why we so desperately wanted to get the pickup back. He agreed to sell it and your mom and your step-dad, Jim, bought it.

I wish I had been there two weeks ago when your mom led you outside and you saw that familiar red and white Ford in your driveway. Your mom told me you were overwhelmed and you spent a long time just sitting in the cab. Later you gently washed the windows. You told me it still smells like your dad and there was a picture of a young Amanda in the glove box. There were also still bottles of ketchup and mustard in the side pocket. Your dad was always prepared to build a quick campfire and roast a hotdog, wasn’t he?

You are nine years old and what a gift you have been blessed with. Your dad would be so delighted to know that the pickup is back in the family and that it belongs to you. The plan is for you and Jim to fix it up – to restore it to what it was.

Someday you will use it to climb your own mountains and ford your own streams. Maybe you, too, will have a big old brown dog in the front seat and you will ride with the windows down – savoring the smells and sounds and feel of God’s great outdoors.

And you know what, Scooter? I think your dad will be right beside you.

Love,
Grandma

Dear Olympic athletes, committee, others:

Well, what a ride this has been! I wonder why the Kleenex people don’t advertise during these events since most of us use a lot of them as we watch the games.

I realized something of interest during the past two weeks. You know how most women grow older and turn into their mothers? Well, I’m turning into my granddad Smith. Granddad loved television wrestling shows. He’d watch wrestling and we’d watch him. He’d sit on the edge of his chair and hoot and cheer but, strangely, he’d also mimic most of the moves. He’d twist and turn, duck and swing, bump and grind. I was horrified to realize I was doing the same thing during the Olympics. I’d feel myself turning with the skiers and bobbing with the bobsledders. About the only thing I didn’t want to imitate were the sports having to do with extreme height. Here are just a few of my comments:

To the city of Vancouver: What delightful hosts you appeared to be. You put on marvelous opening and closing shows and made us love your country even more than we already did.

To our awesome USA Hockey Team: Wow!!! What a show! I am so proud of our team.

I’ve always been a hockey fan but this display of talent was the epitome of fine hockey. The repercussions of this game should resound across the land as people come to recognize the joy of watching hockey. You brought the sport to a new level.

To Apolo Ohno: Of all the people competing, you were the one I most loved watching. You displayed the ideal of good sportsmanship and your joy in simply being there was refreshing. What a representative of our country you are. Politicians could take notes.

To Joannie Rochette of Canada: What an inspiration you were. Your display of strength and courage after your young mother died on the first day of the Olympics was amazing. You won our hearts. We watched with wonder as you performed with grace and beauty and dedicated your skating to her. She would be so proud that you won your medal.

To Lindsey Vonn, Shani Davis, Apolo Ohno and Bode Miller, just to name a few: I expect to see you in the movies someday. What beautiful people you are!

To Steve Holcomb’s team and their bobsled “Night Train:” The last time this was done was in 1948. What fun to watch you travel 150-plus mph to a golden victory.

To the NBC news team, headed by Bob Costas: You provided 835 hours of great coverage. The segment you did on the city of Gander, Newfoundland, was an emotionally-charged gem. For nearly a week this small town cared for over 7,000 airline passengers who were displaced by the 9-11 tragedy. What these townspeople did for these visitors was nothing short of amazing.

To the Team USA: You did it! You made us proud. Some of you won and some of you lost in those few minutes on the world stage. But when it came to representing our country, in showing the world who and what we are, you were all gold medal champions. I am so proud to be an American.

Finally, to Proctor and Gambell: Your ads focusing on the moms of the athletes were heartwarming and made my heart, as a mother, swell. We mothers do love our children and our pride in their accomplishments is overwhelming and wonderful. Watching the footage showing one mother in the stands mouth, “that’s my baby,” brought tears every time I saw it.

Dear …. all my friends:

I recently spent most of the afternoon plowing through old columns and found this one I wrote a decade ago about my grandmother. I thought you’d like it since it is about the wonder of friendship.

Friendship is something that can bridge the barriers of time and leap over the bonds of distance. True friendship is enduring, forgiving, endless, and wonderful.

Almost 15 years ago I spent two months back home in Montana. Much of that time was spent interviewing my 87-year-old grandmother, Pearl Geeslin Smith.

One bright, sunny afternoon we were talking about friends and she told me an interesting story about her childhood. I want to share it with you.

Just as Tom Sawyer had Huckleberry Finn, six-year-old Pearl Geeslin had Margaret “Muggy” Knowles. They were best friends.

Muggy and Pearl were the same age, born in 1898, and they were too filled with the enchantment of childhood to realize the hardships of growing up in rough, raw, Whitefish, Montana. Their fathers worked together in a sawmill and both families lived in rugged, slab-sided cabins provided by mill owners. Muggy had an older brother and Pearl was the youngest of a brood of seven.

Both girls lived carefree lives and spent hours playing with dolls or walking along Whitefish Lake picking up beads and arrowheads left by the Indians who spent summers camped in teepees along the lake. The girls had been taught by their mothers to sew and spent rainy days turning scraps of cloth and snippets of ribbon into dresses and bonnets for their dolls. The two were always glad to be together, to laugh and share. For Pearl those were happy golden years, the years she and Muggy were friends. But Pearl’s happiness ended abruptly when she was only six. At age 42, her father died of a heart attack.

Faced with seven children, no income and no future, Pearl’s mother had no choice but to send Pearl and her brothers Tom and Harry to the state orphanage in Twin Bridges. They traveled by train, accompanied by a matron. Harry was taken in by a farm family who needed a hand.

The carefree days of childhood changed to a time of agonizing homesickness. Orphanage rules didn’t allow Pearl to talk to her brother except for an hour on Sundays. She remembered standing by a picket fence—watching him as he walked in lines to and from school, the tears running down her cheeks.

Mary Geeslin took in washing and eventually married a notoriously cranky old man. After a year, the children were brought home and Pearl had further heartbreak when she learned Muggy had moved. Then, that loss was shoved to the side when her two older boxcar-riding brothers were killed in a train derailment.

The years rolled on and when she was 17, Pearl met Roger Smith, a tall, handsome young man with a quick and charming smile. They were married and had five children.

Throughout those years Pearl still thought about her friend Muggy and wondered what had happened to her. She was such a bright spot in Pearl’s bleak childhood memories. Decades piled up, but those memories were still vivid.

One evening, when she was 86, Pearl happened across an announcement of a golden wedding anniversary to be celebrated by Margaret Knowles Isaacs and her husband in a town 15 miles away. The years of wondering were finally over. After 80 years, the two were reunited and rekindled the friendship. Until death parted them again, they spent many happy hours remembering back to when they were Muggy and Pearl and Whitefish was young and as rough and as unfinished as an uncut diamond.

Friends are blessings from God. Treasure them as such and take time to tell yours how much they mean to you.

Dear …. all my friends:

I recently spent most of the afternoon plowing through old columns and found this one I wrote a decade ago about my grandmother. I thought you’d like it since it is about the wonder of friendship.


Friendship is something that can bridge the barriers of time and leap over the bonds of distance. True friendship is enduring, forgiving, endless, and wonderful.

Almost 15 years ago I spent two months back home in Montana. Much of that time was spent interviewing my 87-year-old grandmother, Pearl Geeslin Smith. One bright, sunny afternoon we were talking about friends and she told me an interesting story about her childhood. I want to share it with you.

Just as Tom Sawyer had Huckleberry Finn, six-year-old Pearl Geeslin had Margaret “Muggy” Knowles. They were best friends.

Muggy and Pearl were the same age, born in 1898, and they were too filled with the enchantment of childhood to realize the hardships of growing up in rough, raw, Whitefish, Montana. Their fathers worked together in a sawmill and both families lived in rugged, slab-sided cabins provided by mill owners. Muggy had an older brother and Pearl was the youngest of a brood of seven.

Both girls lived carefree lives and spent hours playing with dolls or walking along Whitefish Lake picking up beads and arrowheads left by the Indians who spent summers camped in teepees along the lake. The girls had been taught by their mothers to sew and spent rainy days turning scraps of cloth and snippets of ribbon into dresses and bonnets for their dolls. The two were always glad to be together, to laugh and share. For Pearl those were happy golden years, the years she and Muggy were friends. But Pearl’s happiness ended abruptly when she was only six. At age 42, her father died of a heart attack.

Faced with seven children, no income and no future, Pearl’s mother had no choice but to send Pearl and her brothers Tom and Harry to the state orphanage in Twin Bridges. They traveled by train, accompanied by a matron. Harry was taken in by a farm family who needed a hand.

The carefree days of childhood changed to a time of agonizing homesickness. Orphanage rules didn’t allow Pearl to talk to her brother except for an hour on Sundays. She remembered standing by a picket fence—watching him as he walked in lines to and from school, the tears running down her cheeks.

Mary Geeslin took in washing and eventually married a notoriously cranky old man. After a year, the children were brought home and Pearl had further heartbreak when she learned Muggy had moved. Then, that loss was shoved to the side when her two older boxcar-riding brothers were killed in a train derailment.

The years rolled on and when she was 17, Pearl met Roger Smith, a tall, handsome young man with a quick and charming smile. They were married and had five children.

Throughout those years Pearl still thought about her friend Muggy and wondered what had happened to her. She was such a bright spot in Pearl’s bleak childhood memories. Decades piled up, but those memories were still vivid.

One evening, when she was 86, Pearl happened across an announcement of a golden wedding anniversary to be celebrated by Margaret Knowles Isaacs and her husband in a town 15 miles away. The years of wondering were finally over. After 80 years, the two were reunited and rekindled the friendship. Until death parted them again, they spent many happy hours remembering back to when they were Muggy and Pearl and Whitefish was young and as rough and as unfinished as an uncut diamond.

Friends are blessings from God. Treasure them as such and take time to tell yours how much they mean to you.

A new year, a new idea

Oh, this poor neglected blog. I feel SOOO guilty! It’s even more neglected than my Facebook site and that, right now, is covered with the fine dust of abandonment. But wait! – this is a new year, the time when all the rotten undone things of the past can be swept under the nearest carpet and life can be renewed and redone. Forgiven? Forgiven!


I’ve been pondering this blog for quite some time and it just didn’t seem to feel right. It needed something special, something unique, something more than just a bit of prose or a vagarious vignette. Maybe I could be like Julie of Julie/Julia fame and do something like get the “Delicious Death by Chocolate” cookbook and work my way through it. People could watch vicariously as I gained pound by pound by pound.

Maybe it could focus on one of my hobbies: painting and creating memory boxes and other things out of vintage fluffery.

Maybe it could be devoted to writing: how to get published, how to edit, how to correctly string words together so they make sense…

The solution to coming up with a bloggy catch came to me in a very strange place, as sometimes ideas are wont to do. I was driving to the store when an idiot in a black truck leaped out in front of me like a prodded cow. Not only that, but he glared and gave me an unfriendly salute. Hey, buddy, you’re the idiot, I thought, driving like a maniac on steroids.

A bit later, in the post office line with about a dozen other government patrons, my still-ruffled feathers were smoothed by listening to the banter of the nicest bunch of postal workers you’d ever want to meet. None of them carried a machine gun – their weapons were good cheer and humor.

Being the writer that I am, in both cases my first impulse was to dash off a few words addressing these situations – dark black words to the jerk in the truck and fluffy pastel words to the post office crew. And that’s when it hit me. I would write a “Dear…” blog.

Dear Judy, I was thinking the other day about the time we were skinny dipping and…
Dear Obama, Here’s what I think of your stupid health care…
Dear family dogs, I know you mean well but passing gas when we have company…
Dear Electric Company, I was in the bathtub the other night when the lights went off and it reminded me of…
Dear Store Keeper, I was standing in line the other day and suddenly I realized there were no Lifesavers on the…

Anyway, you get the gist. For lack of a better title I think I’ll call this blog “Oh Dear.” And if, after a few months of trying to make it work and discovering it just doesn’t, I can always go back to the chocolate eating idea. :)