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.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
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. :)
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. :)
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Turkeys, geese, and Thanksgiving fun
Thanksgiving is next week and for many of us the thought of the holiday brings back happy memories. Like the time Uncle Chuck staggered in, grinning, just as the amen’s floated heavenward after grace. Under his arm, scrawny neck thrust forward and beady eyes piercing inhabitants of the dining room, was a 23-pound live turkey named Waldo. True, Chuck had asked if he could bring his friend Waldo to dinner and even admitted “he’s a real turkey.” Still, everyone at the table was shocked that Waldo wasn’t wearing a tie.
Every Thanksgiving comes with its own memories, such as the time my daughter misread the directions and thought she was supposed to cook the turkey in a 160 degree oven until the bird reached a temperature of 350. It was almost Friday by the time we ate.
Many of my favorite memories revolve around Canada Thanksgivings, which are on Oct. 12. For years we have been on our annual waterfowl hunting trip in Nokomis, Saskatchewan, at that time so we join a group of local friends and outside hunters at a farm for a potluck dinner and trap shoot. It’s an experience.
Grungy hunters arrive after the morning’s duck shoot garbed in camo and carrying potholdered pans and pots. Still searching for birds, gundogs nose the ground in front of them. The main culinary contribution is meat garnered from Mother Nature: shish-kabobbed pheasant, venison, souped-up hun, and sharptail and goose fixed in all sorts of ways.
These men, who wouldn’t dream of turning a page in a Betty Crocker cookbook, glean cooking information from hunting buddies who are experienced wild game chefs and have the dirty aprons to prove it. Most recipes start out with the basics: “Pluck the duck. Hunk it up. Get yourself a can of mushroom soup…”
A big crock-pot is essential for most wild game chefs. No fuss. No muss. You just dump in your soup. Dump in your duck. Throw in an onion, some water and turn it on high. Before serving, skim off the feathers floating on top. The real advantage of a crock-pot is that the slow boiling action causes the shot to sink to the bottom, where it can easily be scooped up and dumped in the can on the reloading bench.
My husband’s prize recipe is for gourmet goose. The trick is in the orange pop. The original recipe came from a Tennessee fellow who not only saves feathers to make his own pillows but is a champion award-winning goose caller…one of the reasons, perhaps, why he is divorced.
I don’t really like wild game. Well, except for sheep, buffalo and pheasant. Men like the stuff because they bagged it and dragged it home. Kids like it because Dad shot it. Wives like it because it saves money.
Wild game is like fine French cuisine. I’m not a drinker but I think each category has an alcoholic beverage that compliments its particular flavor. Kind of like the way red wine goes with red meat and white with poultry.
Beer goes best with buffalo or moose burgers, the quantity of cans depending on two things: toughness and the proximity of the animal to the rutting season at the time of its demise. Wine, a nice blush, goes well with pheasant or grain-fed ducks and geese. If the birds are slough- or swamp-dwellers, it is advisable to move up to a more potent beverage such as sake or Jim Beam.
Venison definitely calls for a hearty glass, or perhaps a bottle, of Jack Daniels. Mutton, which isn’t really considered wild game except for its tendency to crawl out of the pan when it’s being cooked, requires liberal doses of Everclear, or, if the person isn’t a drinker, a few Valium tablets an hour before dinner.
Tequila goes well with wild meat that has any of the following flaws: an abundance of feather-wrapped shot; portions that are bloodshot; excessive hair that requires more than a plastic Bic razor for removal; liver flukes; and a roast with a head, foot, or tail still attached.
Actually, much wild game goes well with a bald lie, such as: “Gee, I really like leg of mountain lion but recently I acquired an enzyme/anachtroidal deficiency which makes it impossible for my digestive system to absorb the chromosomal qualities of some wild game. I’d try it but I can’t really afford the corrective surgery it would require right now.”
Every Thanksgiving comes with its own memories, such as the time my daughter misread the directions and thought she was supposed to cook the turkey in a 160 degree oven until the bird reached a temperature of 350. It was almost Friday by the time we ate.
Many of my favorite memories revolve around Canada Thanksgivings, which are on Oct. 12. For years we have been on our annual waterfowl hunting trip in Nokomis, Saskatchewan, at that time so we join a group of local friends and outside hunters at a farm for a potluck dinner and trap shoot. It’s an experience.
Grungy hunters arrive after the morning’s duck shoot garbed in camo and carrying potholdered pans and pots. Still searching for birds, gundogs nose the ground in front of them. The main culinary contribution is meat garnered from Mother Nature: shish-kabobbed pheasant, venison, souped-up hun, and sharptail and goose fixed in all sorts of ways.
These men, who wouldn’t dream of turning a page in a Betty Crocker cookbook, glean cooking information from hunting buddies who are experienced wild game chefs and have the dirty aprons to prove it. Most recipes start out with the basics: “Pluck the duck. Hunk it up. Get yourself a can of mushroom soup…”
A big crock-pot is essential for most wild game chefs. No fuss. No muss. You just dump in your soup. Dump in your duck. Throw in an onion, some water and turn it on high. Before serving, skim off the feathers floating on top. The real advantage of a crock-pot is that the slow boiling action causes the shot to sink to the bottom, where it can easily be scooped up and dumped in the can on the reloading bench.
My husband’s prize recipe is for gourmet goose. The trick is in the orange pop. The original recipe came from a Tennessee fellow who not only saves feathers to make his own pillows but is a champion award-winning goose caller…one of the reasons, perhaps, why he is divorced.
I don’t really like wild game. Well, except for sheep, buffalo and pheasant. Men like the stuff because they bagged it and dragged it home. Kids like it because Dad shot it. Wives like it because it saves money.
Wild game is like fine French cuisine. I’m not a drinker but I think each category has an alcoholic beverage that compliments its particular flavor. Kind of like the way red wine goes with red meat and white with poultry.
Beer goes best with buffalo or moose burgers, the quantity of cans depending on two things: toughness and the proximity of the animal to the rutting season at the time of its demise. Wine, a nice blush, goes well with pheasant or grain-fed ducks and geese. If the birds are slough- or swamp-dwellers, it is advisable to move up to a more potent beverage such as sake or Jim Beam.
Venison definitely calls for a hearty glass, or perhaps a bottle, of Jack Daniels. Mutton, which isn’t really considered wild game except for its tendency to crawl out of the pan when it’s being cooked, requires liberal doses of Everclear, or, if the person isn’t a drinker, a few Valium tablets an hour before dinner.
Tequila goes well with wild meat that has any of the following flaws: an abundance of feather-wrapped shot; portions that are bloodshot; excessive hair that requires more than a plastic Bic razor for removal; liver flukes; and a roast with a head, foot, or tail still attached.
Actually, much wild game goes well with a bald lie, such as: “Gee, I really like leg of mountain lion but recently I acquired an enzyme/anachtroidal deficiency which makes it impossible for my digestive system to absorb the chromosomal qualities of some wild game. I’d try it but I can’t really afford the corrective surgery it would require right now.”
Monday, November 2, 2009
Up or down: the never-ending saga of the toilet seat
Troy and I recently spent time on a goose/duck hunting trip at our place in Saskatchewan. Troy’s friend, John, was with us. I was outnumbered two to one. Since they were the hunters and I was the tag-along who had to do some badly-needed household chores after being away from the place for six years, I didn’t gripe about the toilet seat.
The Canada house only has one bathroom. In our normal lives we have two bathrooms that are basically his and hers. He always keeps the toilet seat down in mine but I rarely use his so I really don’t care if it is up or down or sideways. He can keep it up and use that toilet for a wading pool for all I care.
The toilet seat in the Canada house – which I fondly call House of the Whispering Floors because of the creaky old wood floors – seemed to always be up. My husband wasn’t being his normal chivalrous self. Maybe it was the hunting testosterone kicking in.
In the middle of one night, feeling the need to visit the john, I padded through the living room and made my way to the bathroom and sat down. Every woman who has done this knows the exquisite feel of a bed-warmed derriere plunged into a pool of ice water. First of all, the bowl is much larger than the seat so you are at least six inches deep in frigid water. Secondly, the bowl is quite a bit closer to the floor than the seat, which causes wrenching pain to the back and hip area.
After a bit of creative cursing and wiping myself dry with a towel, I grumbled back to bed. My first instinct was to shake him awake and ask if HE was the one who left the seat up. But I knew it wouldn’t be a meaningful conversation, just a series of huh? huhs? as he tried to come up from sleep fog to figure out what I was talking about.
Have you ever had fleeting fantasies that just send you into gales of laughter? I do that quite often, frequently in the middle of the night. In this case I was silently laughing so hard I was shaking the bed.
The fantasy was to just simply remove the toilet seat. Just unscrew the plastic bolts and retire it to the shed or the dump. And the next time he wanted to do the toilet ritual that involved sitting down he’d holler, “Where the heck’s the toilet seat?”
“Oh that?,” I’d yell back, “Since it’s always up and not used I figured it wasn’t needed so I hauled it away to the nuisance grounds (At our little town of Nokomis the dump is called the “nuisance grounds.”)
“What?!”
“I’ll tell you what,” I’d holler with great pleasure. “why don’t you just sit down there and do your business underwater, like you expect me to do.”
Until the end of time there will probably always be a war on whether the toilet seat should be up or down. Maybe we females should be like a woman I know who has her male-dominated family trained. Her guys all sit on the toilet instead of anointing it from a standing position.
It should, of course, be put down, and I’m not saying this from simply a female perspective. Men are taught to treat women with respect and courtesy and the toilet seat thing goes along with opening doors and being polite and chivalrous. It is simple good manners.
And if they can’t do that? Put a lock on the bathroom door and hide the key. There are a lot of trees out there.
The Canada house only has one bathroom. In our normal lives we have two bathrooms that are basically his and hers. He always keeps the toilet seat down in mine but I rarely use his so I really don’t care if it is up or down or sideways. He can keep it up and use that toilet for a wading pool for all I care.
The toilet seat in the Canada house – which I fondly call House of the Whispering Floors because of the creaky old wood floors – seemed to always be up. My husband wasn’t being his normal chivalrous self. Maybe it was the hunting testosterone kicking in.
In the middle of one night, feeling the need to visit the john, I padded through the living room and made my way to the bathroom and sat down. Every woman who has done this knows the exquisite feel of a bed-warmed derriere plunged into a pool of ice water. First of all, the bowl is much larger than the seat so you are at least six inches deep in frigid water. Secondly, the bowl is quite a bit closer to the floor than the seat, which causes wrenching pain to the back and hip area.
After a bit of creative cursing and wiping myself dry with a towel, I grumbled back to bed. My first instinct was to shake him awake and ask if HE was the one who left the seat up. But I knew it wouldn’t be a meaningful conversation, just a series of huh? huhs? as he tried to come up from sleep fog to figure out what I was talking about.
Have you ever had fleeting fantasies that just send you into gales of laughter? I do that quite often, frequently in the middle of the night. In this case I was silently laughing so hard I was shaking the bed.
The fantasy was to just simply remove the toilet seat. Just unscrew the plastic bolts and retire it to the shed or the dump. And the next time he wanted to do the toilet ritual that involved sitting down he’d holler, “Where the heck’s the toilet seat?”
“Oh that?,” I’d yell back, “Since it’s always up and not used I figured it wasn’t needed so I hauled it away to the nuisance grounds (At our little town of Nokomis the dump is called the “nuisance grounds.”)
“What?!”
“I’ll tell you what,” I’d holler with great pleasure. “why don’t you just sit down there and do your business underwater, like you expect me to do.”
Until the end of time there will probably always be a war on whether the toilet seat should be up or down. Maybe we females should be like a woman I know who has her male-dominated family trained. Her guys all sit on the toilet instead of anointing it from a standing position.
It should, of course, be put down, and I’m not saying this from simply a female perspective. Men are taught to treat women with respect and courtesy and the toilet seat thing goes along with opening doors and being polite and chivalrous. It is simple good manners.
And if they can’t do that? Put a lock on the bathroom door and hide the key. There are a lot of trees out there.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW
We met several times and did a sort of pseudo-practice on each other, crawling around on the floor and finding the push-spot on strange chests and pretending to blow air in strange mouths.
For all of us, this new CPR thing was remarkable and it was a heady thing, knowing we could save lives. After the training I kept my eyes open for any poor soul who dropped to the floor from a heart attack. If anyone in a store looked a little suspicious I would follow closely. It didn’t occur to me that before the training I never encountered a single person having a heart attack.
Then one day it happened. I was driving to Kalispell and pulled off to the side of the road was a battered old clunker with a man slumped over the wheel. I screeched to a halt and raced to the car door and pounded the window. He didn’t respond. I jerked it open, the whole time going over the routine in my head.
The stench reached me in seconds, before the guy lifted his head and looked at me through bleary eyes. He was drunker than seven skunks and had puked all over himself. His clothes were filthy, the car was trashed, and he obviously hadn’t visited a shower or bathtub in a long time. Booze and cigarettes and vomit notwithstanding, the guy stunk.
I wandered back to my car, chagrined at the knowledge that even if he had been in a medical crisis there was no way I was going to slap my lips over his.
In case you missed it, a recent Parade Magazine had a marvelous article about the new CPR where you don’t have to do the lip-to-lip thing. Like me, most people were reluctant to do mouth-to-mouth on a collapsed stranger. In an effort to determine if there was a way to encourage CPR, studies were done which proved that chest compressions were enough. There is enough oxygen in the blood that as long as it is kept circulating there’s no need for doing more than compressions. In fact, the studies showed that chances of survival were greater if you didn’t take the time for the breaths.
The key to saving a life is to call 911 and then performing 100 chest compressions a minute and not stopping until help arrives.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Great ideas warm hearts
Sometimes it seems like I’m surrounded by good ideas. They’re swirling and dancing around me like enigmatic sylphic nymphs, their gossamer wings too feathery and swift to fully grasp and study them.
The home and garden channel is like that to me… one good idea after another after another. I mentally get out the paint brushes and fuchsia and orange paint and plot a project when it’s overtaken by the idea of putting random pieces of wallpaper on a floor and preserving them forevermore with varathane. Gorgeous! But wait – here’s a better idea….get yourself some old toilet paper tubes and then you…
You get the gist.
Recently, the best idea in a sea of great ideas was handed to me by my daughter, Lisa.
Her husband, Rick’s birthday was last week. Besides a gift she gave him a Thanksgiving dinner. A Thanksgiving dinner! Now isn’t that just a fabulous idea?!
Lisa’s life has been so blessed by this man and she wanted to thank him for being a wonderful caring husband and an awesome father. So she and the kids bought a whopping big turkey and when he came home from work last Wednesday he encountered a Thanksgiving feast all the trimmings, right down to the green bean casserole.
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest, and the ones that come from the heart. Maybe your husband or wife or your entire family needs the loving surprise of a Thanksgiving dinner. If my husband didn’t know about Lisa’s idea I’d be planning such a dinner myself. So what if he doesn’t like turkey. He’d love the pumpkin pie.
The home and garden channel is like that to me… one good idea after another after another. I mentally get out the paint brushes and fuchsia and orange paint and plot a project when it’s overtaken by the idea of putting random pieces of wallpaper on a floor and preserving them forevermore with varathane. Gorgeous! But wait – here’s a better idea….get yourself some old toilet paper tubes and then you…
You get the gist.
Recently, the best idea in a sea of great ideas was handed to me by my daughter, Lisa.
Her husband, Rick’s birthday was last week. Besides a gift she gave him a Thanksgiving dinner. A Thanksgiving dinner! Now isn’t that just a fabulous idea?!
Lisa’s life has been so blessed by this man and she wanted to thank him for being a wonderful caring husband and an awesome father. So she and the kids bought a whopping big turkey and when he came home from work last Wednesday he encountered a Thanksgiving feast all the trimmings, right down to the green bean casserole.
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest, and the ones that come from the heart. Maybe your husband or wife or your entire family needs the loving surprise of a Thanksgiving dinner. If my husband didn’t know about Lisa’s idea I’d be planning such a dinner myself. So what if he doesn’t like turkey. He’d love the pumpkin pie.
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