:Family Matters

All my life I’ve heard people use the expression, “What goes around–comes around” when talking about someone who has gotten, in their opinion, what they deserve as the result of some past action or, turned the other way hope that they will get in the future the same treatment they have just given someone else. Being of a rather agreeable nature it has not been at all hard for me to nod my head with what I hope will be taken as sage acknowledgement of the sentiment when truth to tell I haven’t a clue as to just what exactly it is that this cliche means. Having said this I can now tell you that the next time you see me bob my head in the afore mentioned manner it will because I have had an epiphany concerning this particular cliche and definitely not because I was a bobble head in another life. In other words I have finally, gotten it. It came about this way. . . .

Bertha Sylvira Wright Andrus is MGH’s mother. His father Benjamin Franklin Andrus died in 1963 leaving her a widow for a number of years. Frank Andrus had been provident with his money and was able to see that she had enough at his death to, as he put it, “live as she has been accustomed to”. She chose to spend the time visiting her large family rotating from family to family and generally staying 4 to 6 weeks at a time although she often stayed longer with us. Not because MGH was her favorite child (family lore has it that he was) but MGH strongliy denies this, but rather because we lived so far away and required an expensive plane ticket to reach us and she felt she needed to stay as long as she could in order to justify the cost. She maintained her home on the farm at Draper, Utah where MGH was born and lived all his life until leaving on his mission, until she died so she always had a place to call her own and return to when she was tired of traveling.

I always viewed her visits to us with mixed feelings as I found her a formidable woman who was not at all bashful about speaking her mind, for one thing and for another she had a strong need to be in charge and would quickly take over the management of one’s home. This quite often put her in conflict with the family she had come to visit and more than once resulted in a rather abrupt departure. Please don’t get me wrong–she meant well and, in her way was only trying to help but it took a lot of patience and love to fully enjoy her ’stays’.

She was of the generation that had been accustomed to working hard in order to survive. On the rare moments when she sat during the day she would keep occupied with ‘hand work’ of one kind or another. She was an excellent crocheter and upon seeing my interest took the time to ‘draw’ handkerchief edgings on a piece of gray cardboard of the kind found on the back of a pad of paper. (She also didn’t believe in wasting anything either.) I still have that pattern tucked away in a box. I had admired the bit of lace she was carefully adding to the edge of a handkerchief. She told me that she had seen it on a hankie carried by a sister who was sitting next to her in the temple. Here I must add that if I live to be a hundred I could never do what she did in being able to look at a pattern and then, remember it and then do it myself at a later time, but it seemed quite natural to her and I don’t think she believed me when I told her it was way beyond my ability. “It will come”, she assured me ” but it hasn’t and I really appreciate the talent that allowed her to do this so easily.

She also enjoyed quilting and helped me with several that I had inherited from Grandmother Waddington. One was a large Double Wedding Ring that we sat up on a frame rather precariously balanced on the backs of chairs if we didn’t move carefully when it became necessary to find a new area to work on. (We used chairs because I didn’t have the stands that would have made it more stable. This arrangement worked but had the rather annoying habit of one or more corners sliding off the chair backs with an abrupt thump sending scissors, pins and needles flying to the floor as well and sending the quilters scrambling to get all set to rights again. I still have this quilt which I double treasure because of the work put into it by these two women who had shared such similar experiences, albiet in different locations, and were generous in sharing the knowlege they had acquired with me.

I love to hand quilt and find a deep satisfaction in the rythmic motion of the needle as it pokes up and down through the fabric. The sight of a quilt stretched out on its frame waiting for me to sit down and begin the first of the many thousands of tiny stitches that it will take to complete it is one of the most satisfying things I can think of doing. I mean some people climb mountains because they are there which I find utterly incomprenhisible–me I quilt. Since I enjoy quilting I wanted to put in lots and lots of stitches that would, in their own way add to the overall design of the quilt. Not Mother Andrus. She had worked on quilts all her life. These quilts were meant to be used, not hung on a wall or kept carefully wrapped in tissue paper as we so often do today. Her no nonsense approach was to calculate the minimum number of stitches necessary to keep the batting from shifting and leave it at that. I acquiesced as she was the guest and also because she told me that she had never heard of putting in more stitches than were necessary and without saying so managed to convey that she thought I was a little ’strange’ to even think such a thing. Not being an expert I went along to get along as they say and we did it her way.

I can remember setting the quilt up in the back room of the farmhouse we were living in just outside of Ames, Iowa where MGH was attending Iowa State University, which as he puts it is “one of the great land grant colleges in the nation”. It was sunny and quiet out there and we spent many hours together putting in our stitches. I worried about her doing so much quilting as she had confided that her doctor had told her she was to give up quilting as it was hard on her heart. Quilting requires having one’s arms raised and if done too long can result in problems much as dentists and barbers experience. But like the old war horse that she was she couldn’t resist the opportunity to enter the fray one more time.

She only wanted to help us but it became quite a chore in its self to find things for her to do that didn’t completely upset our routine or turn the control of our household into her more than willing hands. After a few false starts she discovered ‘the sock basket’ which held all the socks that had holes and with a family of eight this resulted in quite a collection over time. Now mind you–I knew how to darn holes in socks–I had learned from Miss Grace Randell my home economics teacher while in high school. It was a tedious procedure but if carefully done allowed a sock to have a few more wearings without too many blisters resulting from the rubbing caused by the ‘mend’. This, of course, was why there was always such a collection as I knew what needed to be done but didn’t want to do it but couldn’t bear the thought of sending all those socks to their maker. Grandma Andrus had all the time in the world and a life time of mending under her belt which meant that this became her task whenever she visited us. After getting the socks under control she would then have us take her to the store where she would purchase six new pair of socks for everyone. I was always somewhat uneasy with this arrangement as I knew that it reflected poorly upon my homemaking ability but the tradeoff of having her content while she was with us made it worth the malaise I felt even though I knew that a full report of the condition of my home with its undarned socks would go out to all the rest of the family to whom she wrote regularly.

I found myself thinking about the first Grandma Andrus who used to come visit us so many years ago as I am making an extended visit her with our daughter Joy and her two children. I find myself doing/saying the same things that used to irritate me so long ago and I now know what it means when someone says, “What goes around comes around”.

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The double bed I have been sleeping on, which was the one that Jordan has used for the past year, has gone over to ‘he who shall not be named’.

When Jordan saw his bed being dismantled he was alarmed and asked, “Why are you taking my bed?” He was told, rather curtly, “It is not your bed it is mine–you were just keeping it warm for me.”

The futon also disappeared from his room as well, not that I think Jordan regretted seeing it go as futon’s have a well earned reputation for being difficult to sit on and as for what happens when one tries to sleep on one–that is best left unsaid as profanity is never appropriate. This left both of us without beds. The ever resourceful Joy told me not to worry as she had a ‘blow-up’ company mattress just waiting for the right time to make an appearance.

June 15 was the date this happened. She had just returned from an exhausting 8 day tour up the north-east coast with the Marine Reserve Band (New Orleans) and seen her children off on their first five day stay with their dad. This was extremely difficult for her and I knew that she needed some time to herself in which to grieve–but first she took the time to set up my bed.

Swiftly and efficiently, she is a Marine after all and knows how to do these kinds of things as a member of ‘the few, the brave and the proud’ who soldier on no matter how challenging the situation they find themselves in. Little did she know when she began, but she was about to do battle with an air mattress. Not that she meant to but life’s road often leads one in unexpected directions not readily discernable when one steps out because, believe me, if one knew where one was going to end up, one would never begin–if you know what I mean.

She began by spreading the mattress neatly on the floor of the room. With no wasted movements she attatched the little gizmo that inflates the mattress. “This won’t take long”, she assured me. I was relieved to hear this bit of comforting information as I knew she was exhausted and I was tired too, for that matter having had Jordan and Kendra in my care as their father had been gone to the rifle range for a week, and I needed to get to bed as well. (Get this it was decided at the divorce hearing that they would be in the custody of the maternal grandmother while both parents were ‘deployed’ so I was a legally arranged for guardian for those seven days. I found this amusing and scary at the same time as at 67 I am doing good to get myself up and going let alone being responsible for young children.) Fourty-five minutes later we were still waiting for the mattress to inflate. The little gizmo was puttering along, bravely issuing anemic sounds but very little air. At first Joy asked me, (check out the Marine handbook section on how to seek aid from civilians– if needed), to push to see if I thought the mattress was getting firmer. That is until she realized that everytime I ‘pushed’ we lost five minutes worth of pumping– which ended my ‘help’ as it is never wise to lose air when the pump is failing. Joy diagnosed the problem as run down batteries which could not be corrected until the next day. At this point it began to look like a very long night for me but I cheerfully assured her that I could manage on what we had collected thus far that is supposing that she could get the gizmo unattached efficiently which is only a problem when one is trying to close the hole leaving most of the air in. It has been my experience that when one is trying to get the mattress flattened it immediately sends word out to its innermost part, “hold on, hold on”. This means that attempts to pack up and move on out are delayed until the mattress relaxes its hold and ‘gives up the ghost’ which can sometimes take hours.

She didn’t ask and I didn’t tell–but I have had considerable experience with air mattresses. This occurred when I was young and we used to go as a family on camping trips. Both mother and dad enjoyed the great outdoors and took great pleasure in helping my sisters and I to learn to love it as well. I can still remember the trips we used to take into the mountains of Arizona where Dad would show us the places he had grown to love while growing up. A particular favorite was Oak Creek Canyon where he had worked with the Pendley Family on their farm during his college years. I can remember how he would stop at a place where there was a spring coming out of the side of the mountain–well hidden from the casual passer by–and get a drink of the pure, sweet, icy cold water which he drank by cupping his hand to catch the water. We of course had to try it as well but I know it never meant as much to me as it did to him. I think I was a little leery of the whole process preferring to get my water from a faucet.

Over the years, as they were able, my parents acquired camping equipment that made the whole experience easier for us all. One of the things that we all enjoyed were our air mattresses although, truth to tell, it was more a love/hate relationship. These were the kind that were made from rubber with a canvas like coating usually a rather grim green or khaki color. They were inflated by the person who wished to use them by quite literally blowing into them like you would go about blowing up a balloon. Since an air mattress is considerably larger than a balloon it begins to be quite a project to get one inflated. (I don’t remember ever passing out but the opportunity was certainly there and when things around me started to spin and go black I knew it was time to pause for awhile from all the huffing and puffing.) This was something we were willing to do as we had slept on the ground often enough to know how hard it can be not to mention that there will always be a rock/s where it shouldn’t be no matter how carefully one has selected their spot. It seems like by the time we got the air mattresses I was considered big enough to blow up my own with only a little help from dad and that was mainly when it came to getting the cap screwed onto the metal piece (I can still taste the metal and feel the ridges all these years later) that we blew the air through. It took a little bit of skill to get the cap on before all the air escaped which is why he would often help us. One of the things we were encouraged to do was help our younger siblings blow up theirs as well and it was a proud moment in my life when I could do this.

Well, now for the rest of the story. After all Joy’s hard work she retired to her bed and I to mine. I awoke several hours later when I realized I was no longer above the floor but rather on it. After squirming for awhile trying to find a comfortable position I realized that there was an unused bed–Kendra’s. So I got myself up and retired there for the next five nights. I might be slow but I do eventually get things figured out!

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So there I was standing inside Wal-Mart (you’ve seen one–you’ve seen them all so you know the drill and the layout) waiting for the gray-haired lady wearing the blue vest to come over and check out what I was bringing into the store. My guess is that she had never seen what I was carrying, well of course she’d seen caterpillars but I bet no one had ever tried to bring any into the store before and now that I think of it I am surprised I was allowed as they have a policy of no animals allowed unless you are blind and then your dog can come in with you. But then caterpillars are not dogs and that can make all the difference in the world–at least it does sometimes.

How you might ask did I come to be standing there with a container of catapilliars. It is really quite simple as the catapillars belong to my grandson Jordan who has decided to raise them. He is so excited about his ‘collection’ that he wants to take them where ever he goes to show them off. (I might mention that at nine years old Jordan is into collecting many things but only a few get past his mother and the catapillars might not have made it either except that they were fait accompli by the time she got back after being gone for a week.) That morning he had announced his intention to take them with him to the Youth Center where he was signed up for their summer program (Kendra goes to Sara’s house for her day care). I told him that I didn’t think that it was a good idea but he could certainly take them and see what happened. So, ‘that having been decided upon’ we were off and away.

When Jordan asked if he could keep his ‘pets’ with him the lady at the desk took one look at them and immediately said “NO”. So that was that. The catatpillars where entrusted to my care for the day.

Which brings us to Wal-Mart where I had stopped to get a few groceries on the way home. It was blistering hot outside with a misery index of 110 degrees F. I knew that if I left my charges in the car they would be toast, literally, by the time I was finished–so what was a grandmother to do? The answer was obvious–she would march into the store with them clutched protectively in her hand, safe in their little container which she had purchased at that very same Wal-Mart only a few days before. Well, it was that or have every empty container in the house full of leaves and sticks and bugs oops ‘pets’. We had already emptied the cardboard containers that held his Oscar Myer lunchable lunches for the coming week which meant we had to find something else to put the lunches in or eat them which then left us with no more lunches which is one of the reasons I was at Wal-Mart. The boxes then were taped together in a rather ingenious manner to provide a ‘home’ with many rooms. This worked until they were discovered to have escaped and were found crawling over the furniture in the front room which let us know that we needed to make other arrangments for their housing. Sigh, life is never easy is it.

Oh how I longed for some canning jars with their metal lids which could be punched full of holes to provide air for the inhabitants contained therein. At least that is what my sisters and I used to do when we collected our own furry friends. Well take that back, maybe Barbara never did much in that department as she was not big on bugs or worms for that matter. I knew they terrified her and so I used to delight in hearing her scream when I would pick up an earth worm and try to get her to hold on to it which of course she wouldn’t do and so we were off and running until she would collapse wheezing in the grass from an asthma attack and I knew better than to push her any further or I would be in big trouble. The worm would disappear and the responsible/caring big sister would come out solicitously inquiring if she were okay and could I get her a drink of water or whatever I thought would get me off the hook if I were to be questioned about, “just what was going on”.

It rather scares me now that the gray haired elderly people hired by Sam Walton as ‘greeters’ no longer look as old as they once did–could it be because I could now apply for a similar position and meet the requirements–yikes. At any rate when the little old lady had a lull in her real reason for being guardian of the gate, which is to make sure that no one leaves the store with merchandise they haven’t paid for and not the pretend reason of making us feel good about shopping there when we come in, came over to me she listened patiently to my story with just the hint of a smile playing about her lips and then she removed a purple circle and placed it on the cage and told me cheerily that no one would give me any grief.

This then is the story of ‘Why’ I stood there in the entrance to Wal-Mart with a container of catapillars. Love is shown in many ways, isn’t it.

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Joy was divorced from Justin on May 30, 2007. He came to court with a record he had his lawyer supoena from Joy’s military folder that are supposed to be off limits. He was able to do this because he works in legal administration and knew where to look and how to sneak things past the safe guards. At the pre-trial hearing when the Judge saw the material from her file his comment to her lawyer was, “He has her back to the wall doesn’t he.” The final result was that Justin and Joy have joint domicillary custody of the children. This will not be good for them in my opinion as I question Justin’s ability to give the nurturing that they will require. I base this on observing him when he and the children stayed with us while Joy was in boot camp two years ago. I fear that his next goal will be to get full domicillary custody of the children. Sigh. So this is not over yet by a long way.

Joy didn’t realize that the custody and divorce hearing were going to be combined and so neglected to bring up the financial division which in Lousiana is supposed to be assumed fifty-fifty. However, they put most of the credit card debt in Joy’s name as her credit was better than his and they could get a better rate that way. By the way this is debt that he ran up with his attempt to find someway to get rich quick. It is sad and scary for her but at least the divorce is final and that is a vital first step for her. Keep her in your prayers.

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Wendell Joe and his wife Jenyne will be going to a two-year Peace Corps assignment in El Salvador in September.

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David will be going to the California Anaheim mission, Spanish speaking. He enters the MTC on August 22nd. Feel free to join us at the Mesa Temple in Arizona on June 15th.

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Have you ever noticed how little children like to show off their scrapes/cuts/bruises/bites. How they enjoy your sympathy and exclamations of dismay at the condition of their little arms and legs as they proudly show off their hard won scars garnered on life’s playground. Kendra and Jordan are no exception to this. The other night after giving her a bath and dressing her in her ‘jammies she insisted that she couldn’t possibly get into bed until she had a band aid on her finger. She then proceeded to show me the first aid box on top of the dresser in the hall upstairs and insisted that I find one to place on her ‘owie. By putting my nose right down to the level of her little finger I was finally able to spot the very tiny scratch that was giving her such grief.

“Yes, yes, of course”, I agreed with her. “That does indeed need a Band-Aid to make if feel better. Hmmm, let me see what I
can find here”, for Joy had not just one but two boxes of varying sizes in her collection. Bedtime was rapidly heading south and promised to extend even later if a decision wasn’t quickly reached. This being so I grabbed the closest box and opened it up only to discover that it was not your ordinary run of the mill strip but a butterfly shaped one designed to hold the edges of a ‘real’ cut together so that, hopefully, stitches could be prevented. Oh well, what can I say except the light was rather dim. Kendra didn’t seem to notice the odd shape so I slapped it on anyway for just like an egg once out of its shell there is no putting a Band-Aid back in its wrapper. I then sent a prayer heaven ward that, He who watches over all would grant that I hadn’t tightened it too much causing her to lose her finger as a result, called it good enough and turned her over to her mother to be tucked into bed.

For awhile this promised to be part of her nightly bedtime ritual but we seem to have gotten past that now. Jordan, of course, had to get a piece of the action so he was soon adorned with Band-Aids as well, most of which seem to fall off in the bathroom after he took his shower. (With these two it is pretty much, ‘monkey see, monkey do” never mind that Kendra is six years younger than Jordan—it manages to keep things pretty interesting around here.)

By far and away the ‘owie that causes the greatest pain and suffering are the bug bites everyone manages to collect. Joy was showing me a series that she had picked up and complaining about how much they were itching her. “When and where did you manage to collect all those”, I asked her.

She said she thought they must have come from mosquitoes getting into the house because the kids tend to leave the door open when they go in or out. Hadn’t I seen the one flying around in the kitchen the other night she asked me? Well, actually, I hadn’t so I gave a grunt that could be taken for yes I have or no I haven’t depending on what the other person wanted to hear and left it at that because I really haven’t seen a lot of bugs flying loose in the house. My personal theory is that the mosquitoes here are of the ‘stealth’ variety in that they do not make any kind of a warning sound that alerts you to their presence. They just zoom in and attack leaving their prey to start slapping because they have begun to itch and as everyone knows ‘where there’s an itch there’s gotta’ be a happy mosquito nearby.

Jordan has decided that all animal and insect life is to be respected and so he won’t kill bugs anymore preferring instead to catch and release. My theory on the subject is, ‘the only good bug is a dead bug’. I learned this from my father who hated flies anywhere he found them but particularly in the house and could often be seen napping with a fly swatter in his hand. He did this so he could ‘nail’ any fly that was foolish enough to think he was actually sleeping and decided to take a chance and land on some exposed portion of dad’s anatomy in order to help himself to a tasty snack. Foolish fly.

When a fly swatter wasn’t available dad would use a folded newspaper and given an absence of those two lethal weapons he would use his hand. Lest you should want to try this I must warn that the last mentioned method is not for the weak of stomach and requires nerves of steel as well as an abundance of patience. It can prove quite effective however if you are not squeamish which my sister Barbara is which left the destruction of these pests to we who were made of sterner stuff. I have used this method and have found it to be quite effective for getting rid of that one fly that has a death wish and shows it by overstaying his welcome just a nano-second too long.

Dad had fly spray that he would use in the milk barn to try and keep the cows comfortable while they were being milked. This was a good and noble reason in and of its self but there was also a measure of self preservation involved as well. Cows that are being bitten swish their tails more often in an attempt to brush off their tormentors and if you happen to get in the way of the tail, which is quite likely considering where you have to be in order to milk one, you end up getting the full force of this bovine weapon. A fully loaded tail contains an arsenal of mud, briars and other ‘stuff’ best left unmentioned (here gentle reader we best not go as life in today’s genteel world has not prepared most of you for life in the real world.

Sylvia reminds me that a bit of motherly wisdom passed on to her when she was growing up was, “it will wash”. Which is the conclusion we all come to sooner or later if we get involved with ‘real’ work. Like a lot of things, some are better at washing up/off than others. MGH husband always kept his hands immaculate and never smelled of “barn” when he wasn’t doing chores. But other farm families seemed to carry that aroma with them wherever they went. I’m sure it has to do with personal hygiene to some extent but also it involves keeping chore clothes separate from other apparel as well.

It could just be that after awhile your olfactory senses fail to pick up on certain smells anymore. I’ve always gotten a chuckle from “When I Marry Mr. Snow” which is one of the songs in the Broadway musical Carousel. Carrie is telling about her beau and one of the verses goes like this. “The fust time he kissed me, the whiff from his clo’es Knocked me flat on the floor of the room But now that I love him, my heart’s in my nose And fish is my fav’rite perfume.”

The same can be said for falling in love with a dairyman, now cows are my fav’rite perfume. Life happens. Most owie’s get better and as his mother used to tell him and now he tells me when I complain that life is getting a little messy, “It will all come out in the wash.”

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