The Great Bitch, Irma

We are trying to get ready for this monster hurricane. Irma will find her way to Central Florida on Sunday. We are trying to prepare both physically and mentally. We will likely lose power, for how long is anyone's guess. If you don't hear from me next week I am likely without electricity. Don't worry, I'm almost sure everything will be messy, but fine.

How do you prepare for a hurricane? Well, preparing is endless. Getting enough water stockpiled is hard when stores sold out a week ago. When a delivery arrives, people are waiting in line to get it and they buy it all up without a thought for others. Community spirit seems to kick in after a catastrophe hits. Before, everyone is desperately trying to protect their own.

I think we have enough bottled water to see us through a week without power, but I have taken to freezing tap water in gallon sized freezer bags just in case. If power goes out it should take them a while to melt, keeping the fridge cool a day or two longer. We have plenty of canned foods, cereal, and nuts in the pantry. Our extra batteries should arrive today via amazon.com. We have propane for the gas grill. T will drain the pool to accommodate torrential rain.

Gasoline is another scarce commodity. All gas tankers are going to South Florida so evacuees can have gas to travel north. Tom filled his car before the rush. My car is a little less than half full. We wasted gas driving around yesterday but could not find a gas station with any gasoline left.

The sand bag distribution center has a multiple hour wait, with cars lined up to the moon and back. Wasting precious gasoline to get sand bags! It's a conundrum. Consequently, our sandbox for little N has been raided; the sand turned into sandbags to keep all that water out of the house.

Highways are filled with people from South Florida trying to escape Irma at her worst. I worry they will run out of gas and be forced to endure Irma on the side of the highway in cars with kids, animals, and important papers. It happens. Can you imagine? We have not been told to evacuate, but schools are closed. I imagine if evacuation becomes mandatory, the gas tankers will begin stopping in Central Florida again? However, I hope once she makes landfall that bitch will settle down a little. I would be grateful for a Cat 2 storm. I really don't want to hit the road.

Our important papers and pills are in plastic freezer bags, too. I've moved many things off the ground in case of flooding. We have lots of toilet paper! Wine, too... Any potential outside projectiles (potted plants, deck furniture, pool cleaning implements, toys) will be moved to the shed or the garage. No basements in Florida! I'll move my computer away from my office window. Bathtubs will be filled with tap water for cleaning up and flushing toilets. Unfortunately, we do not have plywood to cover windows. That is also long gone in the stores. We will buy some afterwards for next time. For now, we take our chances. 

There is the added worry that our daughter and her family aren't preparing well enough. They are, they will, but still my mother/grandmother's heart is sore and stretched for miles. If I worry enough, will it ward off water and wind?

Grandma's letter

--This treasure is a letter from my Tennessee grandmother (1905-2000) to my daughter, written in February 1981, for the occasion of my daughter's 9th birthday. My grandmother was a Pentecostal Christian, so there is a good bit of "Jesus" talk in this.  It is simply the way she talked.

Dear (M),

As I never see you to talk to you long enough, I just wanted you to know how we lived when I was a little girl.  I thought it would be nice to send you this for your birthday in February 1981.

I had the sweetest childhood a little girl could have. We were very poor. We didn’t have toys like children have today. We would always get up at 5 o’clock in the morning, because you see, we lived on a farm. I was about five years old when I can really remember. My mother would wake all of us up and we would eat our breakfast. Then there were cows to milk and horses to feed. There were seven of us children. My one little brother (Johnny) died when I was just about three months old or less (note from Colette – he died September 2, 1905, my Grandma was born at the end of May 1905). I can’t remember seeing him, but my mother said he called them to the bed and asked to see me before he died. He was about two years old when he went to be with Jesus. Well now, to get back to our farm and all the work we had to do. I just had the best daddy in the world, I thought, and he was so kind to us.  I never remember him saying an unkind word to us, yet he had a way about him that to look at him you just didn’t want to do anything, only what he told us to do. We would thin the corn out to two stalks in a hill after it was big enough and that I could do.  As I grew older I got a harder job like hoeing corn. In those days we had hand plows and mules or horses to pull the plow. I can remember my grandfather plowing with oxen with a wooden yoke on their necks. Then we had sheep. The little lambs were so sweet. When I think of them now, I think of Jesus with the lambs in his arms and around him. But I think he created all animals and the lamb was a symbol of his love – how he died that we might have eternal life.

We would cut the wool off of the sheep (I helped do that).  One day I was, as we called it, shearing them. I cut his hide till it bled. It went “ba,ba”. I felt so bad about that. Then my mother would send the wool away and get our blankets for the bed that way. Oh yes, she would keep some and she had an old spinning wheel. She’d make the thread to knit our stockings for winter. They were real warm. She taught me to knit. I was making a pair and I told her this was like going around the world and to the North Pole. Ha!

Now I’ll tell you how we played.  We had rocks that green pretty moss grew on and we would play like we were making beds.  And we did, too –real pretty.  We never worked on Sunday and we had friends come to visit us.  I think back about it now, it was really fun.  We had one little china doll – about 5 inches long.  It was handed down from the oldest to the youngest. We never broke it. I wish I had it now to show it to you. We would play ball and sit around a fireplace in the wintertime popping popcorn.  I remember one time my brother Wint and I got to go to town with my father and we got to go to a movie. We didn’t have radios or TV’s then, but my childhood is all sweet memories.  We were just one big happy family. We had a cave close to our house and at the entrance there were shelves my Dad made.  We would keep our milk and butter there –so cold.  We had one cave us kids used to have to crawl in. After we got in it was the most beautiful place, but scary.  We could see skeletons, maybe of animals, I don’t know.  It was so dangerous as I think of it now. Then we had a place we called the “rolly hole.”  You could throw a rock and you could hear it roll down, down, down.  Somehow the rocks would come to top rolled so smooth. It isn’t there anymore, they tell me.  

We walked 2 miles to go to school. There were no sidewalks, and there were rocks, etc.  We walked barefoot in the summer and when fall came we got new shoes. Like boys wear. We were so proud of them. I’ll tell you about our chickens later.

One day my mother and two oldest sisters went to pick blackberries and blueberries.   They would take a couple of big pails and go up into the mountains and would be gone all day sometimes, as they grew wild in the mountains.  They were delicious, better than what we get now from the grocery store.

Once, I asked my mom what we would eat for dinner. I was only about eleven years old and my brother and two little sisters were there for me to feed. There was no lunch meat like we have now. She said, “Well, you can have chicken if you will kill one and dress it.”  Well, that sounded so good to me.  I told my little brother if he would hold its head and my sister (then about seven) would hold its feet, I’d chop its head off.  We laid it on a block of wood and that poor chicken, I thought, I just can’t do this. But then I thought about dinner so I took an ax and cut its head off. Then we built a fire out of wood and heated a big kettle of water and dipped it in hot water, took all the feathers off, cut it up and washed it good. We fried it on an old-fashioned wood-burning kitchen stove. We did have a good dinner!

We used to have a ball to play with that mother made us out of rags; she rolled over the rags many times with heavy thread. We would play throwing it over the house to each other. We also used to tell riddles we would hear. Maybe your mom can explain that to you. My sister Bertha and I used to saw big trees down. I helped cut corn when in the fall the corn was ready to shuck. We’d cut it and put it in bunches and tie the top. Big bunches of the stalks it grew on and corn, too. Then we’d feed the horses and cows in wintertime. One day my father came to the field where we were working and said, “Ma is sick, you will have to go to Grandma’s house.” So we all went to Grandma Sharp’s house and in the middle of the afternoon Grandma came home. She said, “You have a little baby sister.” Grandma Sharp was the midwife who delivered the baby. You should have seen us run for home! The baby’s name was Neva, my baby sister. She will be 65 years old the 23^rd of May. So you see that has been many years ago.

We had a spring near our house and carried our water by pails full to drink and to wash clothes. It was fun. The water was as clear as crystals. It was pure water that God made; no chemicals of any kind were in it. I went to a little one-room schoolhouse. My Dad took me the 1^st day and I cried to go home with him. I was six years old. The teacher had a watch on a chain around her neck and she took me to one side and showed me the birds on the watch to get me to stop crying.

I just wanted to tell you how different it was when I was a girl your age. Of course that has been over 70 years since I was 5 years old. I wish I could take you and your Mom and Dad to where we used to live. Our house is torn down now, they tell me.

The saddest part I left till last. My father died when he was only 39 years old. He was sick quite a few years and it left my mother with 5 of us to raise. But that didn’t help her as far as missing him. We all worked together and we never went hungry. But that didn’t ease the aches in our hearts for a father. He died in Louisville, Kentucky in hospital in 1919. He never got to see his 1^st grandchild. She was born May 18, 1919.   He died June 1^st, 1919. But you know, someday we will all be together. Jesus went away to prepare a home for us. And then if we live a good life he will see that we all be together someday. I know you are a good girl. You have a good mother, so always listen to what she tells you to do. You also have a good father. I wanted a little girl so much, but God gave me two sons instead. Now I have two daughters (in-law) and oodles of grand daughters and a great grand daughter to love. And I love each of you. And my great grandsons, too. I hope you enjoy just a part of this letter – how we used to live.

Love you,

Great Grandma

Here are some early photos of my grandmother and some of her siblings:

Grandma and her brother, about 1914?

My grandmother is the one in back with the big bow in her hair. Taken about 1918?

 

In My Mother's Day

This is my second Mother’s Day without my Mom.  She had her weaknesses, as we all do; but now I only remember her strength. She was often resourceful and independent.

In March 1964, when I was 12, we moved back to Northern Indiana after a 3-year interlude in the Pacific Northwest. My Mom wanted to go "home" where she had family. There were 6 kids in 1964, and none of us wanted to leave. However, we had to go. My Dad flew back ahead of us to begin work at his new job and get things settled for our arrival. Mom single-handedly packed and shipped our belongings, and we set out in an old 1958 Ford station wagon for the Promised Land.  My oldest sister was a senior in high school with only 3 more months to finish. She stayed with a friend’s family until after graduation.

My Mom drove 2,225 miles from Seattle, Washington to Northern Indiana with 5 kids between the ages of 2 and 14, and a cat, in that car. The two youngest were still in diapers. We drove down Washington State to Oregon, eastward to Idaho and Wyoming, through the Rocky Mountains. After that we traveled through the flatlands of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. Northern Indiana was home. My mother had always been fearless, but never more than on that epic journey when she took us home.

We didn’t stop at restaurants - too expensive. Back then, people didn't really eat at restaurants as casually as we do now. We stopped at small groceries and ate sandwiches at rest stops. Once, when we stopped to eat, the cat got out of the car and ran away into the farmer’s fields that were ubiquitous along the highway. We loved that cat, and looked long and hard. Eventually, Mom said we had to go. We were shattered as we silently drove away. However, a couple miles down the road Mom inexplicably turned the car around and went back for the cat. It was a heroic decision, and this time the darn cat had the good sense to come when called. We were more careful about keeping her safe after that.

Large chain motels didn't exist in the early 60’s to my recollection. Instead, motels were small and unique, “Mom and Pop” businesses. I remember staying overnight at one motel with a series of small, one-room cabins lined up next to each other. We all stayed in that one room. It took us 7 days to get to Indiana. The car broke down in Plainview, Nebraska. We stayed at a motel for two days while it got fixed. It was fun. We were not in school and it was mid-March. That felt strange in the middle of the semester, knowing that kids all over the country were in school leading normal lives. I felt like an outlaw on the run. It was a bit disconcerting, but exciting.

Towards the end of the trip, we started running out of money. There were no ATM’s or credit cards. Mom had a certain amount of cash, and that’s all we had to get where we were going. One night she decided to save money by not renting a motel room. Instead we all slept in the car: toddlers, tween, teenagers, mother, and cat. She parked late at night in a gas station parking lot, intending on gassing up the car when we woke the next morning. It was a cold night and, dontcha know, the car engine froze up. Early the next morning the car would not start. The owner lived above the gas station’s garage. We banged hard and long on his door to wake him up so he could come out and help us, which he did. At first he was angry, but when he saw the sorry lot who woke him up he softened. He helped us, and he didn’t charge a dime. People can be so kind. It is important to remember that.

I remember feeling like a vagabond. At that moment, we did not belong anywhere except in that old station wagon, traveling with our brave mother. She was our home. Eventually, we arrived at our destination and went directly to my paternal grandparent’s house where we were loved and celebrated.

My Mom was amazingly strong during that trip. She was confident, determined and never complained despite the many hardships. I guess one might say she persisted. I believed she could solve any problem that came our way, because she did. I trusted her in a way I have never trusted another human being since. It was a grand adventure that provided experiences and memories I would not trade for love or money. For many years, she was everything to me. I hope I told her that. 

Down the Chute

In 1949, my parents moved into a house in Northern Indiana with my two older sisters. Mom and Dad were raised during the Great Depression, but reached adulthood during World War II. They grew up hard and they grew up fast. That pretty much explains THEIR generation!

Our house was a teeny, one story, two bedroom, house. A breezeway connected the house to a one car garage. I was born in 1951. When my brother Freddy came along in 1955 the breezeway was converted to a third bedroom for the three girls. There was no dining room, all action took place in the kitchen. The living room was not sacrosanct, the house being too small for a show room. Showy front rooms were for rich people who somehow managed to produce well-mannered children! How did they do that, by the way? We lived loud and large in our living room, with the large wooden TV cabinet serving as focal point. 

Our street was located in a newly constructed housing development filled with identical “starter” homes. Scads of similar neighborhoods were quickly built after WWII to accommodate returning veterans and their families. Everyone on the block was like us; traditional families headed by hard drinking, blue-collar workingmen with religious homemaker wives and lots of sugar charged children, all approximately the same ages. 

The 1950's were a great time to be a child. Since houses were too small for adventure, our mothers made us play outside. A lot. We ran hog wild when we were home from school. No one worried about pedophiles or creepy predators. Our mothers did not shuttle us to extracurricular activities, our "schedules" were wide open. We came and went as we pleased, and the world was our playground.

I am not one of those people who thinks "the old ways" are a superior child raising strategy to today's helicopter parenting, it was just historically different. Benign neglect in our formative years may explain my generation's subsequent hijinks. Our war traumatized parents were so busy drinking, smoking, and trying to approximate normal that they hardly noticed us baby boomers were sentient beings. Little did they know we were plotting to take over the world.

I cannot remember any of the families on the block having more than one car. If the mother needed the car she drove the father back and forth to work, otherwise she stayed home. Protestant kids walked to the nearest school. The Catholic kids took a city bus back and forth en masse. I remember it cost a dime each way.

Our house was heated by a large coal burning furnace located in the basement. It was a big, potbellied, fire-breathing monstrosity. I was convinced it was the Devil. Once a year the coal man would come to the house and drop enough coal down the “chute” into the basement coal bin to get us through the winter. Now THAT was a lively racket! It was exciting for us children when the coal man came. The whole process was loud, dirty, and disruptive of normal routine - all excellent things to a child.

Families did not need a second car because industry came to us. We had an egg man who brought us eggs, a milk man who left dairy products outside the front door, and a bread delivery man. The Fuller Brush man supplied us with interesting things like carbolic salve, my mother’s go-to healing potion. The insurance man came to the house to update policies, and the Avon Lady was often calling with her cute little lipstick samples. I REALLY wanted those but Mom wouldn't share. Once a year a traveling photographer arrived to take family photos in our house. 

We had a mailman and a paperboy. Except for the Avon Lady, all these salespeople were men. The mailman walked from porch to porch carrying a big brown satchel filled with mail. He usually had the same route for years, so families knew their mailman by name. In those days before credit cards, the paperboy stopped by his customer's houses weekly to collect cash payments. It always embarrassed me to answer the knock and find the paper boy staring at me from the other side of the door. Aack, a young boy at the door wanting money! I wouldn’t speak to him and he certainly didn't speak to me. I would yell “Ma, the paper boy is here!” and then leave him standing outside while I made a quick getaway. 

Kid World was a separate society. Adults were weird, except for grandparents who took us to the Dairy Queen for a phosphate or a Dilly Bar. Grandparents were okay. They knew we were sentient and they thought we were cute. 

This house still exists, though quite a bit worse for wear. I often wonder if there is any trace to be found of the original occupants?

What was the first house you can remember living in?

My first home, circa 1958