:Family Matters

It is easy to take for granted our allotted span of years on earth which the Bible, at least I think it does, although don’t ask me to tell you scripture and verse as I couldn’t give it to you right off the top of my head but I could refer you to MGH (My Good Husband) and he could tell you as well as many other references you might wish to know. I know this because I have asked him many times where to find something in the scriptures and he always gives me an answer although sometimes he has to do a little research. This arrangement works out quite well for me as it frees up my mind and time to remember/learn really important stuff like how to speak Klingon. At any rate the promised three score years and ten seem like a long time when one is little and not very long at all when one is almost there.

I got to thinking about this yesterday when I was on the way to the evening session of the SUU Third University Stake conference with MGH. While waiting for the light to change so that we could enter Main Street I happened to look into the rear view mirror on the passenger side and was quite taken aback when I saw this old lady returning my gaze. (I knew she was old by the way the skin on her neck hung in folds.) Who on earth is that I thought to myself before realizing that it was ME, for heavens sake. When had that happened? While I realize that other parts of me have been dropping and dangling for several years I didn’t realize things had progressed quite that far. It was then that I knew that nothing modern science had to offer including Botox could help me regain what I have lost. Some where, along the way, I have gotten old. The really strange part to me is that inside me, I don’t feel that way at all.

When I was a young bride and living close to my mother-in-law, Bertha Sylvira Wright Rasmussen Andrus, in Draper, Utah I remember her coming back from an old folk’s picnic. She gave us an account of the food that was served and the entertainment that was provided. She also told us that there was dancing on into the night as well. We asked her if she had danced and she replied, “No, my legs won’t let me anymore but I did inside myself.” I will admit to some surprise at that statement, I who was in the Spring time of my life and could do physical things so easily. I looked at the stout, white haired old woman in front of me with her bowed legs and thought, “She still dances inside herself? How strange.” But that is where I do my dancing now. . . .I no longer think it strange.

I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Many of the children we raised in our home are now grandparents themselves which makes MGH and I, gasp, great-grandparents as well as grand parents which I used to think happened only when you got really old. As evidence of this I have only to point out that on February 13, 2007 about 15-20 minutes before midnight our grand-daughter Tina Andrus Pickett gave birth to Tyler Aaron Pickett. He weighed 8 lbs 6 oz. and was 21 ½ inches long. He was delivered by C-section, because the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times.

As if that wasn’t enough reason for rejoicing grand-daughter Kristi Doman Scoubes gave birth to Dallin Bradley Scoubes by C-section sometime between 5 and 6 PM on February 14th. He was 8 lbs 0 oz and probably 21 inches long. (Sylvia tells us that “The frazzled new Dad was so relieved he was born and Mom was ok he didn’t catch the details.”)

This brings our number of great-grandchildren up to 12! We are so excited and delighted for each of them. I just wish we could be close enough to watch them grow up and for them to get to know us as well but that is hardly possible as they are scattered to the four winds.

We have a bit of medical news of our own. This concerns MGH’s ingrown toenails. One of the indignities of growing old is that it becomes almost impossible to see or reach one’s nether regions, which also happens when one is pregnant but as that condition lasts only nine months it is possible to live with knowing that, hopefully, in the end all things will be restored to their former condition. Not so with old age. I don’t think MGH has been able to clip his toenails for several years now. I usually do this task when they get so long I can hear them clicking on the floor as he walks around the house. Alas, I lacked the knowledge/skill to be able to pry the offending portion of nails on his big toes from the crevasses they dug in his feet with the result that it became ever more difficult for him to walk without pain. He finally reached the point where he decided that he would be better off without them (the toenails) than with them so off to the foot doctor he hied himself.

What happened next was ugly, very ugly. You get somewhat of an idea if you remember that one of the favorite ways to torture prisoners so they will tell all they know and even things they didn’t know they knew was to pull out their nails slowly, ever so slowly which causes them to tell their tormenters whatever it is they want to know just to bring an end to the pain. I must add that I don’t think that it was quite that bad for MGH as Dr. Olsen just did what had to be done in a very efficient manner and yes, he did use an anesthetic so there was no pain, at least at first. That was two weeks ago. MGH can now keep slippers on his feet for 4 hours, well, he did today anyway, without the toes beginning to throb unbearably which allowed him to attend his Sunday meetings this morning.

As for me, I became his nurse Ratched (as in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.) This became very plain to me, much to my great dismay; by the way MGH would start to jerk his feet as I approached him.

“I haven’t even touched your toe yet”, I would tell him sternly as he would flinch and let out a moan of pain when I and my cotton swab loaded with pain killer would get down on the floor so I could smear the stuff over the exposed nail bed.

“Sorry, I don’t mean too”, he would grate out, “It’s just that it hurts”.

“Well, if you would just hold still I could do this faster and not hurt you”, I would reply while taking another stab at the area where his foot had been a second before. Needless to say, we will both be pleased when all is well once more and life in our Retirement Home goes back to normal–just don’t expect to see us dancing.

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February 18, 2007

According to the weather forecasters out of Salt Lake City we have now entered ‘sprinter’. This is when Mother Nature can’t make up her mind if she wants to be ‘hot’ or ‘cold’ and so bounces back and forth between the two which means one day is drop dead gorgeous after the cold of the past several months and the next day is grimly determined to repeat frigid temperatures even if the most optimistic of us have already placed our heavy coats far back in our closets. I only mention this because it is the time of the year when I get heartily tired of winter.
There are hopeful signs of Spring’s imminent arrival appearing all around me now that indicate to my keen deductive mind that the end is in sight. For starters, one only needs to check in on Jimmy the ground hog out of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin to know what the future will bring, at least in Sun Prairie. Whoops, not a good choice. I just checked and he saw his shadow which means six more weeks of winter and being Wisconsin one might as well tack on a couple of extra weeks just to be on the safe side. Well that leaves me with his arch rival Punxsutawney Phil and sure enough he didn’t see his shadow which proves once again how in sync I am with nature! Just as I want an early Spring is on the way. (Oh dear, all the rejoicing has temporarily been put on hold as Pennsylvania just got hit with a major storm that left people stranded in all sorts of awkward places like in cars on the interstate with your children or your spouse, who accuse you of having planned this.
Why, I am beginning to lose faith in my most reliable predictors—where can turn to? If I were still in Wisconsin I would have counted the little furry, black and brown caterpillars that begin their annual death trip from one side of the road to the other in the Fall for it is well known that the amount of brown they carry on their backs tells the length of the coming winter. This always worked pretty well for me as long as I could remember which meant what.
As I am not there, I must rely on other sources. Al Gore immediately comes to mind as he has been predicting that global warming would destroy life as we know it on our planet unless we stop doing what we are doing never mind that in the process we have become the richest country in the world where even our poor live better than most of rest of the worlds population or that a volcano eruption can trash the atmosphere faster and worse than all our carbon based technology combined. He is so earnest and sincere and not at all afraid to roar about the doom we are bringing on our heads and further more Barbara Streisand agrees with him and so what he is saying must be true. To be fair to the man he does seem to have acquired a consensus in the scientific community which also agreed at one time that the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was flat so he could be right.
I watch the weather forecast faithfully to make sure that I know what is going to happen. I must admit that I don’t have a lot of faith in their predictive skills. I mean, like, they have to go to college and get a degree don’t they? This means that they can tell us all about Highs and Lows and why the jet stream is keeping us from getting the ideal weather which in Utah is SNOW in the mountains as well as other things. The degree, as near as I can tell means that they are right about what is coming next as often as they are wrong but where I really depend on them is in telling me what is happening right at the moment. We ‘old timers’ like the Farmer’s Almanac having found it as reliable as most meteorologists predictions. In my view it just depends on where you want to place your faith.
No, my real clue to the imminent arrival of Spring comes from my houseplants which are beginning to stir and show this by sending out new growth which always delights me. I also know because the sunlight coming in through the windows is brighter and casts its probing beams on all the places in my house that need scrubbing or dusting or painting which Winter allows me to ignore because I simply don’t see them or more to the truth it is easier to ignore what I don’t see even if I have a strong hunch that there are things I need to be doing if I don’t want what is accumulating in the corners to completely take over.
Of course there is the Magnolia bush outside my front door that completely ignores the weather and keeps on putting out buds all winter long never seeming to realize that Mother Nature is sending out clues all the time that ‘now would be a good time to take a nice long nap’. Therefore, I don’t consider this plant to be very reliable even though it does my soul good to see those brave little green bumps that are, even as I write, swelling in preparation for a few more days of warm temperatures before bursting out.
MGH lets me down in predicting the arrival of Spring as well. In late summer he has been known to sniff the air and when it acquires a certain feel state, “I feel Fall in the air” and do you know what—he is always right!
No, the absolute best thing for knowing that Spring is almost here is to go into a store like I did Ace Hardware yesterday to buy a gallon of paint for the bathroom and see that the garden seeds are on display.

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February 15, 2007

Sorry about last weeks letter. I got so worked up about teaching a lesson in Relief Society that I put all my efforts into studying and preparing for that assignment and therefore didn’t get my letter written. Ah, but such is life where one must place value on actions thereby elevating one activity above another. The upside is that this allowed me to feel virtuous at the same time I was feeling guilty for not writing and as virtue always trumps guilt I was able to assuage my conscience to a small background murmur instead of its usual roar. (I have such a strong conscience that when I see a penny on the ground I pick it up and then look around to see if I can find the owner. That’s probably because of my Gano upbringing where we were constantly taught to ‘do the right thing’.)

As a girl growing up in a home where my parents were quite strait-laced in their notions of right and wrong and what was appropriate behavior, and who were not at all shy about correcting the character flaws of their daughters I shouldn’t be at all surprised that my conscience is so sensitive (I can’t help wishing that I could get beyond the guilt and translate my knowing that I am doing something ‘wrong’ into more positive actions but alas the ‘law of inertia’ manages to hold me in place). Ah well, they did their best. . . .

I got to thinking about ‘comfort’ foods the other day. A comfort food is, in case you are wondering: (this is copied from Wickpedia,
The term comfort food refers to any food or drink to which one habitually turns for temporary respite, security, or special reward. The reasons that something becomes a comfort food are diverse but include the food’s familiarity, simplicity, and/or pleasant associations. Small children often seem to latch on to a specific food or drink (in a way similar to a security blanket) and will repeatedly request it in high stress situations. Adults, however, are certainly not exempt.)

If you know anything at all about we Gano’s you won’t have any trouble guessing what it was and no Barbara it wasn’t pancakes smothered in gravy and syrup! I had forgotten why we got into that peculiar combination until Barbara reminded me the other day. She said that we weren’t allowed to have syrup on our pancakes until we had eaten something healthy first which is where the gravy came in as it was considered healthy. (Remember this was before the ‘powers that be’ decided that certain animal fats should never cross one’s lips for fear of clogging arteries and by certain fats I mean bacon drippings as well as butter and cream. Mother always had a metal can sitting on the stove. This can was equipped with a lid with a hinge which had a strainer that she would pour the grease through (the strainer kept large chunks of whatever from dropping into the grease) this is what mother used as the basis of her gravy which she made by stirring flour and a little salt into the melted fat until it was smooth and then adding the milk and cooking it gently with much stirring until it thickened. She made gravy so often that she never had to measure any of the ingredients.) I don’t ever remember her making lumpy gravy but I certainly have. Whenever I do, MGH tells me that one of his great grandmothers, Lois Judd Mitchell who was called to be the 4th wife of Benjamin T. Mitchell during a general conference held at Council Bluffs, Iowa much to their mutual surprise. She lived in Kamas, Utah on fresh air and mountain sunshine as near as I can tell. Okay, I am exaggerating here but times were difficult and there was not any great abundance of food which led to some interesting improvisations one of which was ‘lumpy dick’. This was gravy made with no attempt to make it smooth as the thick lumps gave texture to the gravy and thus the illusion that there was more being eaten than plain gravy. Dad had his own humorous way of telling us how hard it had been for his family during the Great Depression. When we would complain about what we had to eat he would tell us that when he was growing up they had bread and milk for breakfast and milk and bread for supper. If this didn’t do the trick he would simply say, “If you don’t like the food then you can do the cooking.” This worked as we did know that there was a lot of hard work that went into preparing meals while we didn’t have a clue about being hungry.)

I am sure the idea must have originated with Barb because she was never afraid to push the envelope of our family do’s and don’ts. Barbara, being Barbara, simply cut to the chase and started having both together. This created such a stir among her siblings due to her oft repeated comments and encouragements to “try it, you’ll like it”, that we soon found ourselves joining her in enjoying this unique culinary repast. Truth to tell though, I don’t think I have ever had this combination after I married and left home which says something—I’m just not sure what.

Bet you thought I’d forgotten what I started out to tell you, didn’t you. Well, I haven’t—I just lost my focus which is the current ‘in’ word that teachers use when someone isn’t getting their work done. I know this because when I was visiting Jordan couple of years ago and he shared his room with Grandpa (MGH) and me his mother asked if I would help him get his toys picked up. Thinking that I had heard her say “help” I was observing his progress rather than actually doing the ‘picking-up’. He looked at me and said with great seriousness, “Grandma, you need to stay focused or you will never get done.”

My comfort food is biscuits and gravy. I suppose I acquired this love because dad didn’t think breakfast was complete without this being served. We always had large breakfasts on the farm when I was growing up. We never really thought anything of it as it was just the way that things were done. Dad needed the calories for the hard physical work that he did. We had all the milk, (this was un pasteurized and the flavor was subject to what the cows found to eat that day in the pasture), we wanted to drink and that often was three or four glasses at a sitting. Grandmother Waddington would watch us and comment that we must have hollow legs because there had to be someplace for all that milk to go. From looking at us now as ‘plump’ little old ladies you would never recognize the slender girls we once were and you would be amazed at all the food we could consume.

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For those who might be interested, Brett has received a mission call to the Singapore Mission, English speaking. He will enter the MTC on May 30th.

The Singapore Mission includes the country of Singapore (which consists entirely of the city of Singapore), plus the countries of Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. We are told that Singapore itself is a very modern, well-to-do, clean, and safe place. However, the rest of the mission has mostly third-world conditions — in some places, this means grass huts and shrunken heads. Should be interesting.

Brett is attending BYU at the moment, and I believe the semester ends towards the last part of April. He will get about a month or so at home before departing.

We are also still expecting our first grandchild. Tina was due Feb. 11th, but the little guy has obviously gotten a pre-view of the conditions of today’s world and decided to delay his debut as long as possible. We’ll let you know if and when anything happens.

Mark

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February 4, 2007

Yes! Yes! We’ve done it! MGH now has a fully operational office upstairs complete with the monster chair that Sir Brooks of the Data Stream sent our way several years ago when his Dad’s back was hurting him so much that he didn’t know if he hurt more standing up or lying down. Brooks had this chair, which was probably the first really nice piece of furniture that he purchased after he graduated from college and was earning honest money as opposed to the kind that comes as a loan from Uncle Sam and which he makes you pay back for almost the rest of your life, as near as I can tell. (I know this because I am a mother which means I have eyes in the back of my head which will soon be exposed for the whole world to see if my hair continues to thin at its present rate and once that happens I fear I will be relegated ordinary human status which will mean that I will have to find out what my children are ‘up to’ in a more ordinary manner.) This chair was heated and could give a soothing massage while whistling Dixie, and as if all these features didn’t make it the best thing in the world since indoor plumbing, it also allowed his leg with the artificial knee to rest comfortably when fully extended. (This is the knee that sets off all the alarms every time MGH flies because it is made out of titanium which means he gets to be patted down and scanned because the metal might be a bomb and it might explode on the plane which the rest of the passengers might be a wee bit distressed over and which might cause them to sue the airline, if they survived, so the airline can’t afford to take chances where the health and safety of their passengers is concerned.)

Now it is time for the rest of the story. This is where I get to tell you about what it took to get the chair up the stairs. I, of course, can barely move the wretched thing the few inches needed to vacuum under it, so, from this I deduced that I would need help. Fortunately for me, number six son, Sherman who is named for his great-grandfather William Sherman Waddington and who shares the same birth day, August 20th and would have shared the whole name except for the fact that MGH didn’t care for William, is often within easy reach these days and has aided and abetted me with many of my projects during the last few months of our reclamation project. This being the case, I cautiously approached him with the idea of helping me knowing full well that he knows, anytime I open my mouth these days it usually involves heavy lifting and he is getting a little skittish of my ‘projects’. So much like I used to hide the bridle behind my back when I went out in the pasture to catch my horse so he wouldn’t run when he saw me coming, I gave Sherman my best smile and assurance that it wouldn’t be as bad this time as the last! So, anyway, Sherman told me we might as well get it over with which was my cue to get moving because when Sherman starts a project he doesn’t waste time and often has the task finished before I can get my self organized to tell him how to do what needs to be done.

When I got downstairs I found that he had already emptied the chair of all the books and bedding it had been holding for the last three months and positioned it just before the stairs.

“Grab hold of the back”, he told me, “you can go up first because the bottom is the heaviest part”.

With a silent gulp/prayer I approached my nemesis and grabbed hold with the result that the chair immediately fell to the floor nearly trapping Sherman under it except he moved faster than it did. He gave me a considering look and spoke quite gently to me about where it might be easiest for me to attach myself in order to accomplish ‘our’ goal which, at that point, was beginning to look like it was quickly receding into ‘a task that will need to wait for a later date’. Once more I took a deep breath and extending my arm as far as it would go managed to grab a small piece of chair approximately in the area I needed. Sherman then gave a nod of encouragement and lifted his end whereupon I staggered a few steps backward this time before once again dropping my corner the several inches it took to reach the floor. I was saved literally by the bell when the timer upstairs went off indicating that my attention was needed elsewhere. Sherman gave me a considering look and said, “Better go take care of your meal.”

“No, no, I protested. You need my help”, for I, being a Gano by birth and training, could not think of abandoning a project just because I couldn’t do it. Oh, no, I would stay until the bitter end even if it were to kill both of us in the process.

Once again Sherman kindly told me that I was needed upstairs speaking in the tone a parent uses when a child is getting in the way of a project that only an adult can handle but not wanting to hurt the child’s feelings. Reluctantly, I left making sure he understood that I would return and help. To which he nodded his head and waved me and my assurances on.

You, clever reader that you are, have guessed what happened next. Sherman ignoring my offer to return heaved the chair up the stairs by himself where he maneuvered it down the hall and into MGH’s office much quicker than he would have with my ‘help’. I think there is a moral to my story, but I don’t believe that I want to go there.

MGH wasted no time in putting the chair to good use when he retired to its welcoming arms the next morning with his crossword puzzle and promptly took a three hour nap he was so comfortable.

When my sister Barbara and I were involved in milking the cows, this was before the stainless steel milk tank went into the milk house and the milk was piped directly from the cow to the tank, we kept the milk chilled by placing it in 10 gallon milk cans. When full these cans weigh almost 100 pounds making them much too heavy for us to lift alone. The challenge, then, was to lift those cans into the cooling tank which was filled with icy water which cooled the milk to the proper temperature to keep it from spoiling until we could get it delivered to the local creamery in Keosauqua. If Dad was around he would lift the cans for us but as he was often involved with the field work the task was left up to us which made it necessary for us to work together in order to lift the cans into the tank. This meant that we filled the cans, to begin with, outside the cooling tank, to what we thought we could heft and still keep the can from tipping over because of the natural buoyancy of the water. If we misjudged the weight needed to keep the can stable it would quickly lay on its side which would ‘spill the milk’ which was an absolute no, no for many reasons.

If we misjudged the weight needed to keep the can from tipping Barbara would have to stand there and hold the can in place while I went and milked another cow. When I returned she would hold the can steady while I lifted the heavy Surge milk bucket and carefully poured its contents into the milk strainer sitting atop the can, which was needed because with even the best cleaning of a cow’s udder strange objects could sometimes be found floating in the milk. The rule of the day for us, of course, had to be ‘divide and conquer’ which I still find useful when needing to move heavy objects. As I grow older I find that it takes me twice as many trips up and down the stairs as it used to but I console myself with the knowledge that I do finally get moved what needs to be moved and when I can’t, I just call for Sherman! Wait a minute—is that Sherman I see headed for the hills as fast as he can run? “Whoa, come back here. I have another project I need help with. This won’t take long, you have my word. . . .”

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