Category: Comfort

I used to Wash My Grandma’s back

Family Beach Trip: From left, back row: Dad, Mom (Kristi in Mom’s arms) Grandma, Grandpa; Front row: Steve, Me

When I was a young girl, my grandma was everything to me. She was Dad’s mom.  I never knew Mom’s mother because she passed away before Mom even had a chance to grow up.

Even though she lived just around the block, I had to go and stay with her as often as I was allowed, and I was always allowed because my parents knew the special things that Grandma and I had together.

I think Kristi and Steve were too busy to spend much time at Grandma’s house unless it was a family affair. Grandma used to say that Kristi wanted to spend the night but once it started to get dark, she wanted to go home.

Sometimes we just sat on the front porch steps and watched the world go by or at night we looked up at the stars until I was too tired to stay awake any longer. On either side of the porch were large Mollis Azaleas, one a dusky yellow and the other a coral orange. The sloped grassy yard was green and weedless, because Grandma pulled up dandelions on her hands and knees, never having to use weed killers. Grandma never asked me to pull weeds with her, but I wanted to because I wanted to be near her and I wanted to do everything that she did.

When I was old enough, I could count on getting to go to Ralph’s grocery store by myself. It was just about a block and a half away but it always felt like an adventure. The store was small but held everything a person could want. Ralph was the owner but also a butcher. I remember well the glass-fronted coolers filled with fresh and luscious-looking meats and the smell of house cleaning products on the other side of the store. One could buy laundry detergent and that night’s dinner at Ralph’s.

Ralph knew all of the neighborhood families. As children, we could always ask for beer or cigarettes to take home. Those were the days when kids, I think, were more trustworthy. Grandma occasionally smoked a cigarette. Nobody wanted her to smoke and she never smoked in front of anyone, but she would ask me to bring a certain brand of cigarette to her sometimes. I don’t think I cared. I think I was fascinated by this sweet gentle white-haired woman in a dress or housecoat, smoking a cigarette.

Grandma didn’t can or make fresh cookies but she always had canned applesauce and pork and beans in the metal. cupboard by the sink. In the top drawer of that cupboard, she had store-bought waffle cookies or oatmeal cookies. Grandma was a really good cook as Thanksgiving dinner attested, but dinner at Grandma’s regularly for me was hot dogs and pork and beans and applesauce.

Company dinners might include potato salad, crab or shrimp louis’, fried chicken, and fresh baked dinner rolls. Sometimes chili, navy beans and hamhocks, meatloaf and mashed potatoes and gravy. and the like.

Grandma made a special dessert that, as far as I was concerned, she didn’t bake often enough. She made a cinnamon roll dough, rolled up apples and sugar and cinnamon on the inside. Then she made a sweet syrup that she poured over the top and put it in the oven to bake until it was sticky and delectable. She served it in shallow bowls and poured sweet cream on top.

Summertime meant watermelon. And I mean watermelon. Not those weak, sickly small watermelons that you find outside of the supermarkets in bins touting proudly, “seedless”. They actually should always write on the sign, “seedless and tasteless”. No, these were watermelon, the size of a small child full of plump black seeds. These were so sweet and full of water that on the hottest days they would quench your thirst. Grandma and I could almost eat a whole one of an afternoon, spitting the seeds into the freshly turned dirt in hopes of growing a watermelon.

Grandma grew up in Kentucky on a plantation. Ohh, the stories that she would tell. She said that in the summertime they’d carry a knife and any watermelon growing out from underneath a fence on the side of the road was fair game. So she knew how to pick a watermelon. I don’t remember her ever saying, “oh, this one is mealie, or this one is dry or this one is tasteless.” Every watermelon that she picked was perfect.

In the late afternoon or in the evening, Grandma would sit on one end of the couch, and I would lie on the other with my feet in her lap. Lying there on the couch, Grandma would peel oranges… as many as I wanted, even five in a row. We’d watch TV, especially the Lawrence Welk show every Saturday, or was it every Sunday?  I don’t remember but we never missed it. Grandma would always say, about every man on television that he was a good Christian.

When Grandpa was still alive, they used to watch Billy Graham and Oral Roberts and pray for my arm to get better. Since I had polio, when I was only five years old, the deltoid in my right arm never recovered. When one of the two of those preachers came on the TV, Grandpa would have me sit on the floor between his feet and he would lay hands on my shoulder and pray with the preachers for me to be healed. It didn’t work, but they never gave up, always true believers.

Before Grandpa died, he was a cooper. Like a lot of men who worked with wood and saws that had no safety features, he was missing most or part of every finger. Grandma packed him a lunch every day. I don’t know how he knew that us kids would be at his house when he got home from work, but it never failed that he left us something in that metal lunch box every time. He was a loving family man, a hunter and a fisherman who had black labs. But that’s a different story.

Grandma had a high four poster bed in her small bedroom. Her sheets and pillowcases were always crisp from hanging on the line outside in the summer or on the line strung up in the basement with the large oil furnace for heat. We’d talk until I fell asleep. I never kept a secret from Grandma and as I began to drift off if I heard a siren, my first thought was that my Mom and Dad and Kristi and Steve and Gypsy were safe at home. That was ever my only worry because I felt safe with Grandma.

On top of the high boy dresser was a photograph of Dad in his army uniform when he was only 18, drafted into the army to fight in World War II. I can only imagine Grandma praying and crying while Dad was overseas in the Philippines.

On another dresser was a brush and a handheld mirror and Grandma’s favorite creme perfume, Avon’s Roses Roses. Inside the top drawer was the forbidden Pond’s Cold Cream. When I was young, I had very sensitive skin and if the cold cream even came near me, I would break out in a rash. But after a bath in the big claw foot bathtub, I would go into the bedroom and slather on Pond’s Cold Cream all over my face. I wanted to look and smell just like Grandma. When I went home or if Mom came  to pick me up, and my face was red and swollen, she would scold Grandma for letting me use her lotions. But Grandma was innocent, she could deny me nothing.

As I grew up, when Grandma took a bath, I’d wash her soft white back that bent to help any person in need. She worked as a nurse’s aid in the nursery at St. Vincent’s Hospital, taking care of the little newborn babies. She loved and cared for the family. She cared for her neighbors. When Grandpa had a stroke, she took care of him. Though, I always thought of Grandma as strong yet tender, I mostly thought of her as an angel.

One of my favorite times at grandma’s houses, was when her sisters came over for coffee. They sat in the kitchen nook around the formica table, chatting, eating cookies and drinking coffee from Grandma’s special cups. She had Fiesta Ware and some other set that had a plaid motif. My favorite color in the Fiesta Ware, was indigo blue. But my coffee was more milk and sugar than coffee. As I sat and listened to them talk, i understood nothing but I felt like I was one of the grown-ups. Eventually, I’d lose interest or run out of coffee and go outside to play in the summer or onto the couch to read in the winter.

I loved sitting in the nook. Above the windows over the built in bench, hung the crab shaped plates that Grandma took down when she made her crab and shrimp louis’. And in Grandpa’s sweet and thoughtful ways, he built a long, narrow window with glass shelves, along side the back door where grandma kept knick knacks that shone in the sun.

Grandpa had transformed the back porch into that kitchen nook, and created a bedroom in the back of the house. As I grew older and bigger, I sometimes slept in the back room. Grandpa had built a niche in the wall and it was filled with paperback books, written by authors like Zane Gray, and other Western authors, there were also, National Geographics, and condensed versions of the Reader’s Digest.

In that long “Back Bedroom”, as we called it, was where Dad and Auntie Wilma had their bedrooms. At either end were matching single beds with a lamp over the head of the bed for reading. I remember only one dresser, but there must have been two and there was not a closet. This is where they grew up in this small but loving house.

Growing up, Thanksgivings were always at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. There was no dining room as such, but the large dining table was open to its full length at the end of the living room to accommodate us all. The front door had Grandpa’s unique signature. He had inserted a ship’s porthole in the heavy wooden door in contrast to the beautiful leaded windows in the rest of the room.

One accessed the basement from outside the house and down narrow cement stairs that led down to the dark unfinished basement that held the enormous oil furnace with octopus-type arms rising to meet the vents in the floor above it. When the furnace fired up, you could hear it ignite and the large fan blowing hot air up into the house. It was a comforting sound. Grandma’s favorite setting on the thermostat was 80°. That was just perfect for the two of us. I still like to have a very warm house in the winter.

I can recall the smell of the dirt floors in the basement and the oil tank and the dampness. I remember the cobwebs with spiders and the yellow boxes of “Slug Be Gone” with pictures of slugs on the front and warnings on the back. And the long tubular boxes of rose fertilizer. To Grandma, her flowers were precious, as was the large Dutch Elm tree that shadowed one side of her yard.

Years after I was grown, the tree got the dreaded Dutch Elm disease and it failed and had to be removed. To me Grandma’s backyard was never the same. The yard’s salvation was the large Mountain Ash, which fed the birds it’s brilliant red berries. When Grandpa built the bedroom and the nook on the back of the house, he and Grandma planted beautiful hydrangea bushes that grew to almost the roof line. There in the north facing shade of the house, the hydrangeas thrived in wet dirt that always had a bit of green moss growing. When those were removed to accommodate a cement, patio, it broke Grandma’s heart.

When Grandma and I would wake in the morning, we would sit at the table in the nook and watch the birds in the bird bath. I think this was Grandma’s favorite activity. And because Grandma loved it so, it became my favorite activity, as well. It still is. When we were at grandma’s house, her backyard. was our playground.

All summer long, we played in the sprinkler, running in the soft thick green grass. There were bouncy metal chairs and a wooden lounge with a thick heavy rust colored cushion and a large wooden picnic table.

There was always in abundance, applesauce and hot dogs that we could eat anytime we wanted, and cans of Pork and Beans and packaged oatmeal cookies, or the kind that were like rectangular crunchy waffles and cream frosting layered in between. If any of the family stopped by for just a minute or two, she insisted on one taking a paper bag with a package of hot dogs and cans of pork and beans and applesauce. She couldn’t stand the thought of any of us being hungry.

In my heart and mind there was never anyone better than Grandma.

I was going to save this for a different blog post, but I’ll just mention it here. Grandma and I mourned the tragic death of my dad, her son together. Dad died in a car accident at the young age of 51. For the rest of her life, grandma never quit saying that children should never die before their parents. For months I never stopped chanting “no”.  I was 9 months pregnant. Our entire family was devastated. We were profoundly changed by this event. Perhaps Grandma more than anyone. But in many ways she was my solace.

One day Grandma died. Some boys accosted her, knocking her down on the street as she walked to the store. They stole her purse. She was never the same after this. It wasn’t the fall. It wasn’t about the money. But paranoia set in. It was her identification. They knew where she lived. Now, most often her blinds were closed. Her doors that were always open were locked. She stopped walking to the store alone. Eventually dementia set in.

Auntie Wilma and mom alternated staying with her, so she was able to stay in her home until she passed away. Eventually, she thought she was being kept against her will at the neighbor’s house. She worried constantly that she needed to be home to fix meals for her family.

I won’t say that this was easy for me. The last time I saw her alive, she was sitting in her chair in the living room. She wanted some assistance to get up. I walked over to her, reached out taking her arm and her hand and gently tried to help. Suddenly, she yelped like an injured animal and cried out, “I never thought you would hurt me and now you’ve broken my arm”. Of course, she was not injured in any way, but this hurt more then I could ever have imagined. To this day, I feel those words as though it happened yesterday. Of course, I know that this was the dementia talking, but between grandma and I, there had never been a crossword spoken between us.

I never saw her again after that day. I couldn’t bear to see my dear grandma crying. I have the memories. I think sometimes I can smell her Avon Roses, Roses, cream perfume and Ponds cold cream. I sometimes think I can feel her soft hands and hear her gentle voice. I wish I could sit in her garden again. I wish I could feel her strong arms around me once again. And I wish I could wash her back once more.

Hope blooms eternal in the hearts of the young…

Bleeding hearts

And my heart breaks that they, the young, will have to have their hearts smashed and crushed. And because of hope, they will go down there again and again.

Learn not to hope, learn not to believe. Turn down the flickering, weak lights of love.  Turn them down. Love has no strength. Like a flower that opens in the Sun, it turns to dust in the cold, cruel darkness of night.

Reality then comes in like harsh light. Too strong for love. Love runs. It disappears, it seems, as soon as it appears and then vanishes.

You’ll find that I’m right. I will be there to take you in my arms while you cry bitter tears. But only time will teach you what I already know.

So I cry for you, as you hope for what can never be.

To Remember

Many, many years ago

I talked to Jack for a long time today. What I love about still being able to be close to him is that our memories are the same and that we share those memories.

My dad, in jest, used to call himself “dirty dog Anderson,” and my brother Steve, when he was in high school, called himself, “Beatleman”. If you saw how he dressed, you would know why.

There’s no one else on earth that would know those things. We have laughed about them now for 60 years. I don’t know if you can possibly know how precious this is to me. If Jack and I were completely estranged, which for a while, I thought we would always be, we wouldn’t be able to share these memories.

My family loved our dog Gypsy so much that when we would see home movies of her, the entire family would be in tears. I found Gypsy, a small, tan, beagle type dog lost in front of our house. Jack and I share this memory. His memory is so sharp that he remembers things in such clear detail that he can fill in areas that I no longer can remember.

He remembered today, exactly the little secondhand shop where he bought me an authentic Navajo ring of carved silver set with a deeply orange/red carnelian stone. I’ve been remembering how much of myself was formed as a young girl from 16 through our entire relationship because of things that Jack said and did. I remember the things that he bought me. He encouraged me to learn and to stay curious.

He bought me art supplies and paid for art classes. He introduced me to music and artists, and literature that I may not have run into on my own so early in life.

He bought me clothes and artwork of all kinds and taught me the value of handmade everything. We shared foreign films on days when we didn’t feel like going to school. Instead, we would spend time in the art museum, in galleries, in cinema houses and the library. We lived in houses with character and historical value. I could go on and on, but I don’t know where we went off the rails.

But off the rails, we did go… some 30 years after we started. We used terrible words with each other, though we knew so many beautiful words. We hurt one another, and yet we held it together for so many years. I’m not sure that we could have salvaged our relationship. I don’t think I could stand it if I thought we could have saved it. It’s easier and less painful for me to think that our parting was necessary for our growth. Just as a plant needs pruning to continue to grow and produce flowers and fruits and vegetables. Sometimes, those plants need to move away from one another and give each more room to grow.

Regardless, I treasure the times now when we do talk, and when we remember. It’s good to know people who have known you through the journey.

And now, as far as my immediate family, there’s just Steve who knew me back when. Maybe it’s our ages, but with these two, Jack and Steve, my life has contiguous meaning.

What Knitting Can Do When the World is Dark.

I’m knitting a super lovely “Sheperdess Sock” designed by one half of the Grocery Girls, Tracie Millar.

I’m knitting them in Schachenmayer, merino yak, 4 ply, in colorway: 07516.

This is an easy and well written pattern. I’m loving the yarn and the color. It’s so perfect for dark November days and nights.

In the photo is a yule card by a Swedish artist, who’s name escapes me, old photos of my grandma and grandpa, Eduardo Galeano’s book, “Memory of Fire”, Alice Staremore’s book, “Glamourie” and a notebook of my writings. I love an assemblage photograph.

Mom’s Bandage Scissors

Today I had an injury that required bandaging. I went to get Mom’s first aid kit, even though all that’s left are various bandages and tape, but…

The most treasured of all is her bandage scissors. These date back to her nursing days, perhaps sometime in the 1940s. They were used all through her nursing career and our childhood and now, up to today.

When she passed in 2010, the first aid kit became mine. These scissors are nearly 80 years old and they are as sharp and useful as they ever were.

They remind me of my mom’s hands. They were always ultra clean and soft as a baby’s bottom. With those hands she scrubbed our scrapes and cuts without mercy. Then she would bandage us up with such love that we soon quit our crying.

Always present were Mom’s bandage scissors whenever needed. Today I was thankful for them once again. I’m sure they’ll endure another 100 years.

A Cat to Accompany Death

Mom and I had moved 3 times between the years 2002 and 2010.

Our first move was moving her out of senior housing into a house with me. She was 81 and in good health but not eating as well as she should (too many Hungryman dinners) and it was getting harder for her to clean the floors.

I had just returned from Santa Monica, California to take up a permanent position. It was perfect timing for Mom to live with me. However, this wasn’t the first time, as she had lived with me, my husband and children for a decade already.

But changes in our lives had necessitated Mom moving into senior housing for a time. Jack and I moved into a tiny duplex on our own while our children transitioned out of the house.

As soon as I moved from California back to Oregon, I moved Mom in with me. In the first house that we moved into, we had abundant gardens, which we took full advantage of. We spent every day that wasn’t stormy or too cold, out in the yard. Mom had been skillfully using a walker for a few years at this point, and managed quite easily.

However, there were steps going up to the path to the front steps of the porch. There were steps going down from the back door into the back garden. There were steps going down into the basement. Mom loved to do the laundry and so it was necessary for her to descend those dark stairs. I soon decided that I would take over the laundry chores. I couldn’t though deny Mom the privilege of going in and out of the house at will, though it was a constant worry.

It was in this house that Mom saw me through surgery and eight months of chemotherapy. She took over all of the household chores and my care. I was supposed to die but I didn’t. We lived on together.

Five years later we moved into a beautiful little 3 bedroom ranch and again, with large gardens and beautiful plantings front and back. Thankfully, this had absolutely no stairs for her to climb or descend. But, in two years it was necessary for us to move once again.

Fortunately, I found a house with an identical lay out without stairs so that Mom could spend her time out in the yard tending to the plants and just enjoying the outdoors. We had a large outdoor patio where I hung fushias and begonias from the rafters and filled the space with hostas and ferns. I bought a large Asian pot and filled it with water and goldfish and lotus.

We were happy in this house and I hoped we wouldn’t have to move again. Mom was quite near her church and the bus came directly to our door to pick her up to take her anywhere she wanted to go. We lived in the neighborhood where she had raised us. We were home.

One day, shortly after we moved in, a beautiful and talkative mixed breed cat that looked much like a siamese, came strolling up the street and walked straight into the house, just as though she’d been there before. I think she had found home.

She found it comfortable, sleeping on the corner of Mom’s bed in Mom’s bedroom or sitting at her feet or walking back and forth so that Mom could pet her and gently pull her tail. Mom would give her food and water and they would spend the day together as I worked. I knew they were close but at that time I didn’t realize just how close they had become.

The cat we called Mama, as I did for many of the cats that I had in my life. If Mom were gone and it was just me at home, Mama didn’t pay much attention to me except to lay close if I were sitting on the couch or in a chair. She might follow me outside to sit on the patio furniture if I happened to sit for a while.

I could tell that the cat was only trying to figure out where Mom had gone. One day, Mom went to the hospital where she stayed for two weeks. When she came home, it was to wait for the inevitable.

We situated the hospital bed in front of the large window where Mom could see the goings on in the neighborhood. She, and her constant companion, watched for the mailman, the newspaper delivery, and the many visitors who came with cookies, cakes and kisses.

Mama sat with Mom day in and day out and reluctantly jumped off the bed only when we changed the bedding. Then came the day when Mom cut the cord that tied her to this world. Family and friends came to say their last goodbyes. I didn’t notice if Mama was around or hiding safely but out of sight.

When everyone was gone, my sister, my daughter and I (and Mama) were the only ones in the house with Mom as she took her last breath. Mama sat quietly on the hospital bed, against the window beside the front door, as Mom’s body was carried out into the wee hours of the night.

Just two days after Mom’s passing, the hospital bed had been removed by the hospice folks. Later in the day, I saw Mama in Mom’s bedroom, laying on the end of her bed. I hadn’t been paying much attention to her as I had much to attend to. I laid my hand on her soft body expecting a reaction but she was cold and stiff. Mama had died.

I think Mama had come to accompany Mom on her journey out of this world. Now her work was over and it was time for her to rest, as well. You were never my cat, Mama, but I loved you, too. Thank you for walking with Mom as she passed on. We won’t ever forget you for accompaning life and then death.

A Dog’s Reverie

Just one paw… can you see it?

Yum Yum doesn”t like to be cold but prefers the luxuriant scarves that cover and offer the warmth needed on a pre-autumnal day of grey clouds and damp streets.

She might stay here all day in her reverie of summer days… who’s extreme heat also is not to her liking.

She longs for spring days that neither intensely burn nor send chills through her sensitive constitution.

I will provide the lush environment that pleases her.

Folded Origami Dog

Dogs can fold

To wish I could fold like this as autumn approaches.

We will find piles of blankets and quilts.

Soft, wool socks and hand made sweaters.

Roaring fires in stoves and fireplaces.

The joys and comfort of summer’s labors.

The Bad Sheep Wild Blueberry Socks

Winter’s Wooliness

The Wild Blueberry, Bad Sheep socks are done. I only wish this photo did the color of the deep blue justice. It doesn’t begin to capture the color.

Even though we are a full month away from autumn, I’m anxious to put these babies on. They will look amazing with my Birkenstocks.

Now, I’ll go back to working on my Magnolia sweater. It’s been sitting all summer while I waited for more yarn to arrive. The kid silk came from Latvia. After months, it finally got here. Now to try to figure out where I left off.

I’m glad I had these beautiful socks to work on, as well as some other projects, like another pair of socks for Hannah and Nori and a hat for Jesse.

Now I want to find some woolly DK self striping sock yarn in autumn and winter colorways to make some more socks. A girls gotta have a simple project on the needles too for when one needs a break from knitting a lace pattern.

The late summer weather is beautiful and pleasant, though we’re looking at some heat coming our way for next week. I’m loathe to let summer go as I wait patiently for cooler weather and fall color.

Swallowing My Tooth, Go Carts and BB Guns

When I was a kid, we were living in Eugene in Fox Hollow on Spencer’s Butte. We lived nextdoor to the Rice family. Dad and Mom became friends with Ray and Myrna Rice and we kids got close to Cathy, Charlie, Cheryl, Janet and I don’t remember the names of the other kids, but I think there were about 4 or 5 of them.

The oldest kid was a boy and he didn’t care much for us. I remember that I had a great straw hat that I treasured and a solid crush on the boy. One time he put that straw hat over a pile of dog poop and stepped on it. That was the end of my straw hat, though I tried to clean it with a strong stream of water from the hose. Mom made me throw it away. And that was the end of the crush I had on him.

Even though we were only going to be in Eugene for a couple of years while my dad tried to find job satisfaction at Acme Fast Freight, he never got happy and so I remember tensions were high. But we were tight and held together.

Mom went straight to work at Sacred Heart Hospital. Being a nurse who trained at the University of Minnesota, she could get a job in a minute and deep at heart she was a nurse. She loved her job no matter where she lived.

We only stayed in Fox Hollow for the 1st part of those 2 years but boy they were fun times. For one, it was rural and we had moved from St. Johns, which was a small community in the larger city of Portland. We had the run of the place. Just up the road was a roller rink where we went as often as was allowed.

Steve often would put Kristi on his handlebars and they would go up to the road above our house and ride down the mountain as fast as he could peddle. As far as I was concerned they were dare devils and I dare not attempt a ride down the mountain… especially not with Steve. He was ridiculously fearless.

He was in high school, maybe freshman and sophomore years and Kristi was probably in 5th or 6th grade… eleven years old maybe. She was nothing but fun and carelessness. Her hair would fly and her big blue eyes looked wild. She was as fearless as Steven.

Steve was ingenious and loved to invent something out of nothing. He built a “go cart” out of scrap wood and some wagon tires. We didn’t need a motor since the house was at the bottom of a steep descent down from the road. That was our raceway.

We’d push the heavy cart up the driveway, turn it around, hop on and go. I don’t remember much of a steering mechanism. I remember ropes or something attached to what you might call something to steer with, it was more like, lean to the left, lean to the right and hope that once you zoomed through the carport, you wouldn’t crash into the roof supports and you’d try to miss the clothes line pole centered between the support beams. Most of the time we made it.

The house was a long way from the road, so we picked up alot of speed. And brakes? There were none. By the time we came by the house, barely passing through the carport safely, we’d be sailing at top speed. We’d, pass the house, continuing on across the property until we crossed a dirt road and smashed and crashed into a fence on the other side. The fence stopped the go cart so suddenly, your whole body jerked and shuddered to a halt nearly giving us whiplash.

A huge oak tree, perfect for climbing, awaited certain unlucky kids who were not as adept as we were at missing it. But there was something more sinister than the oak tree standing there. The fence was covered in poison ivy.

I remember Steve covered in the poison ivy rash, all red and scabby, with an uncontrollable itch and whitish pink from calamine lotion. Out of us three kids, Steve was the only one who got the dreaded infection. But that vine covered fence didn’t stop us from continuing to ride our go cart down the hill and into the fence.

The old oak tree was my safe haven. I called it the girl’s tree and boys were not allowed to climb it. If they tried to I’d scream at the top of my lungs and kick at them until they left me alone.

During this time, Steve had a beloved bb gun. One afternoon, he reluctantly acquiesced to teach me to shoot it. He held it up, barrel pointing to the sky. He growled at me to not pull the trigger until he said to, threatening me with sudden death if I made a wrong move. I promised I wouldn’t. He dropped some bbs down the barrel and lowered it horizontally with his thumb over the end so they wouldn’t roll out.

For some reason at that moment, without warning, I pulled the trigger embedding the first bb into his thumb. He pulled the gun out of my hand and started yelling and pushed me. I started yelling too, screaming, “Please don’t tell Mom. Please don’t tell Dad.” He never did because they probably would have taken the gun away from him if they knew he was letting me shoot it. That was not the first or the last time that we kept secrets from Mom and Dad.

Well, back to the Rice family. They liked to go camping and fishing as much as we did. What I remember most is that Myrna would make these big fat melt-in -your-mouth cinnamon rolls to take along. Though I loved the swimming and the fishing, the campfires and roasting marshmallows and sleeping in a canvas tent, in canvas and flannel sleeping bags, the cinnamon rolls are what I remember most about camping with the Rice’s.

One summer evening I was over at the Rice’s house. To get there, there was a path between our houses. We went back-and-forth enough that we could walk that path or run that path or cartwheel on that path blindfolded. It was about the distance of two city blocks. It was partially dirt and grass. When it rained the dirt parts had big puddles and mud but in the summer there were just dips and high spots making it all the more fun to ride our bicycles over. There was a boulder near the end closest to our house. The large stone was the size of a hassock for a comfy living room armchair.

When I got to their house, it was almost sunset. They were making homemade taffy. Myrna cooked the taffy and when it was cool enough, the kids pulled and pulled it until it was shiny and smooth. We couldn’t resist eating it at the same time. Once Myrna said we had pulled enough, we cut it with scissors into bite size pieces and wrapped it in wax paper squares and twisted the ends to keep it from sticking together and to keep it fresh.

I was having a wonderful time laughing and talking and getting all sticky. I was popping bits of taffy into my mouth, the candy sticking to my teeth. Suddenly, I realized that a tooth, one of my molars, got stuck in taffy and pulled it right out of my gums and I had swallowed it. Immediately, I began to cry.

I ran from the house into the darkened yard. I should have been able to transverse that path with ease, but no. As I ran my eyes were filled with tears and I was afraid something terrible would happen to me since I had swallowed my tooth.

I was running wildly and at top speed. On any other night, I would have reached home in a minute or two. But when I got to the boulder, my toe hit it and my momentum launched my body over the boulder and into the grass headlong, adding insult to injury.

I was dazed. I was worried. Mom was still too far away. Eventually, I was able to get up and make my way to the house with bloodied knees and bloodied hands. And on top of that I had swallowed a tooth. I couldn’t imagine what would happen now. Would I die?

My mom, who first of all is a nurse and second of all is a stoic and third of all is a loving and caring mother, took me to the bathroom where the cleansing and disinfecting took place. No tiny stone or bits of sand or mud was left in my poor knees and hands and they were soon disinfected with mecurichrome and bandaged. No tears or crying for mercy stopped her from making sure that these injuries would heal properly.

It took a bit for her to understand that I was trying to say that not only did I have bodily injuries but I had swallowed my tooth along with a piece of taffy. I’m sure now that mom hid her smile at how distraught I was. She knew that that tooth would be quickly excreted along with everything else I had eaten.

But Mom being Mom, she held me tightly in her arms and comforted me and explained that I had nothing to worry about. I knew that the best place for me to be was in my mother’s arms. Once she assured me that this was not a life-or-death situation, I calmed quickly. This was just one of the many times that my mom picked me up, cleaned me up and took care of whatever injuries I suffered be they injuries to the heart or injuries to the body. She knew just what to say and just what to do.