:Family Matters

March 30, 2008

In which Grandpa (that would be MGH) and Grandma (that would be me) bring a door home from Home Depot.

Ah dear reader (that would be you), I must confess, much as it pains me to have to admit this, MGH and I are getting older, though I am still in denial preferring to think that ‘age is only a number’ even if ‘everything hurts and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work’. You perhaps wonder what has caused me to reach this conclusion at this late date in my life and I would have to reply, “It was a door that did it”. Since I see that I have piqued your curiosity I will not leave you wondering at the meaning of those cryptic words any longer than it will take to put fingers to keys and write this down. This, then, is how I reached this life changing paradigm.

I really panicked last May when I left MGH to fend for himself while I went for an extended stay with Joy, who was expecting a baby in August on top of being a single mother as well as working full time all of which were about to overwhelm her. In desperation I sent out a letter to family members asking/pleading for their help in seeing that their father was looked after while I was gone. The response was immediate and quite gratifying as one daughter after another arranged their schedules to come, each during a different month, and clean/cook/buy groceries/listen to stories/sing songs with/put up trim in the downstairs (that involved a son and a son-in-law all of which gave him great comfort and delight while another son flew him out to Michigan for a visit of several weeks duration and yet another delayed seeking a new job in order to keep an eye on to his dad.) This circumstance also entered us into Marie’s radar as her keen eye quickly noted several areas of concern around our home, (sad to say, MGH and I have gotten to the point where it is easier not to see something than it is to do anything about it).

Such was the case with our downstairs which has been in a state of neglect and disarray for years what with heart attacks and other miscellaneous events of a life threatening nature which have diverted my attention from ‘finishing’ the walls and ceiling, for that was to be my contribution, as MGH had long ago wired/plumbed/drywalled his part of the project. I must admit that for me it was beginning to feel like my own version of the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus”. Mr Holland being a musician whose life long quest to compose a musical master piece kept getting put aside as he dealt with the necessity of providing the things that he and his family needed to keep body and soul together. Sigh.

Marie, who doesn’t have the word impossible in her vocabulary and has never seen a task she didn’t think she could handle, decided that we were to be next on her list of ‘things that needed to be set to rights’. This, even though she works part time, cares for her home and family and in her spare time is working toward a B.S. Degree from Brigham Young University which any normal woman would find more than enough to keep her occupied, but not our Marie who rescues others as naturally as fish swim. To this end she managed to free up a weekend and recruited HGH Dan plus daughter Brittany and HGH Jared to come to our aid.

The utility room in our house not only houses our washer and dryer it is also home to the furnace which it seems requires lots of air in order to operate properly which is no problem when there is no door. Having reached the point where all that remained for the room to be completed was a door, we bit the bullet and special ordered one as Home Depot doesn’t have louvered doors in stock, in the hope that it might just possibly arrive in time for Dan to install, which it didn’t. When the call came saying that the door had arrived we were faced with the problem of retrieving it which would be no problem if we had a truck. However, we knew Home Depot would rent us one for nineteen dollars an hour plus proof of insurance, citizenship, valid drivers license, credit card and if the check out clerk liked the way we looked and it wasn’t too late in the day which we were assured it wasn’t if we got to the right place in the store, which is the size of three football fields, in the next ten minutes which was asking a lot of an 80 year old man who requires five minutes just to put his shoes and socks on and as all of this seemed like a lot of hoops to jump through for a trip of six miles we went to plan B.

Plan B was to bring the door home in our Honda Civic, which I thought just might be doable if the measurements I had taken before we left home were correct. The gals who were assisting us were amenable to helping us try and as a result I found myself attempting to get the back seats to drop down which required first unlocking them. Having finally managed to insert the key I turned it one direction and then the other with no result. MGH watching me struggle, opined that I was making it harder than it really was so being rather irritated with myself for not being able to get the job done I decided to turn it over to him. This led to his painfully inserting himself into the car’s interior where he proceeded to show me that all it takes is the touch of the masters hand and the seats were down which allowed our, by now three, ‘helpers’ to get most of the door inside the car. Once accomplished all concerned agreed that the arrangement should work with the addition of some twine to hold the trunk lid down for the trip back home.

The next problem that presented its self was for the driver to get into the car as the seats had been moved forward as far as possible in order to make the door fit. I had voluntarily given up my designated driver position knowing that I tended to be a bit careless when it came to keeping groceries upright while driving home from the grocery store while MGH has often regaled me with his prowess at moving liquids in an open container (I’m talking about milk here) without spilling a drop. That having been settled I had no problem squeezing into the passenger side as I am still thinner than MGH, although not by much, and besides I had the advantage of having no steering wheel on my side. MGH was looking at an impossible task with a space of about eight inches between the back of the seat and the steering wheel and fearing that he might not be able to make it I quickly repented and offered to drive which was just as quickly refused MGH having entered his ‘rather be drownded than done mode. Once in place he gave me a satisfied look, while remarking, quite casually, I thought, considering the position he was in, “I hope I can turn the steering wheel now” as it had disappeared from sight hidden in the belly of the beast, so to speak.

A steady series of thumps bombarded our ears as we slowly left the parking lot caused by the twine not having been pulled tight enough which allowed room for the trunk lid to beat a steady rhythm against the wooden door frame as we made our way down the back roads, (my suggestion as I thought there would be less traffic going that way but boy was I wrong as we easily collected a stream of impatient drivers behind us—oh well. . .) Clunk, bonk, bonk, clunk went the trunk lid which had the same effect on my nerves as chalk screeching on a blackboard but MGH never hesitated having once set his hand to the wheel as he skillfully dodged bumps and indentations of various shapes and sizes thereby sparing us even worse jouncing. Nerves of steel has MGH, who upon reaching Main Street turned on the emergency flashers to indicate a slow moving vehicle, as he coolly inched his way homeward while continuing to dodge the worst of the impediments. By this time the door had slipped far enough back that it prevented the trunk lid from moving as freely which was a relief but required a lot of faith in a thin piece of twine.

Home at last, MGH managed to extricate himself from behind the steering wheel, with a sigh of relief, where working as the efficient team we have become after forty-six years together we wiggled the door out and over to a resting place beside the lawn mower and between the odd bits of furniture gathering dust in the garage. We celebrated our success by giving each other a big hug with MGH wryly remarking to me, “ I want you to know there’s still some life left in the old dog”!

My thought, though unspoken was, “I’m getting to old for this kind of thing even if age is only a number.

said areas having been swept under the rug by her parents much like dirt was said to have been placed under coverings when someone didn’t want to take the time to sweep the dirt up in the days before wall to wall carpeting made that impossible, in the hope that no one would notice their attempt to pull a fast one, which I have always found quite interesting as no rug in its right mind would lay smooth/flat under such abuse, or else my floor sweepings are lumpier than everyone else’s, not that I ever did so, mind you

I must admit that for me it was beginning to feel like my own version of the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus”. Mr Holland being a musician whose life long quest to compose a musical master piece kept getting put aside as he dealt with the necessity of providing the things that he and his family needed to keep body and soul together. Sigh.

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March 23, 2008

Ford’s birthday is the 26th of March which I have always found a little unusual as he went three weeks past his due date before deciding to make his appearance, thereby managing to arrive on the day MGH’s first wife died in 1960. Not that anyone in the family has ever made a fuss about this coincidence but it is quite poignant that Mary’s death opened the way for five other children to be born with MGH as their father. I don’t know about you but I have always considered my birthday to be ’special’. It’s mine and I am always somewhat surprised when I find that others share it with me (Nathan Scott, my grandson immediately comes to mind). While I realize intellectually that with only 365 days in a year and with billions of people on the planet there are going to be uncounted numbers of us sharing a common birthday I still like to think of June 4th as ‘my day’ so to have one enter and one leave on the same day in March, even if it was not in the same year, makes me wonder just who it is that has a hand in deciding these things.

At the time of Ford’s birth we were living in an old farm house three miles from Onawa, Iowa a small farming town located in the rich bottom land along the Missouri River which separates Iowa from Nebraska. MGH had accepted a job with the Iowa State Extension Service to work as the Youth Specialist which meant that he was in charge of the 4-H program for Monona County as well as having the unofficial responsibility for the county fair as well. After nine years teaching in the public school system he found himself enjoying his work so much that his theme song became “I’m Home, I’m Home From a Day of Play” which he often found himself humming as he arrived home. As for me I managed to find myself pregnant in time for a move and so had that fact to contend with as we adjusted to life in a new community. The children were troopers having moved so much that one more time was hardly anything to get their shirts in a twist about, they simply moved on and made new friends like always with little murmuring, just matter of fact acceptance of the way things were.

Iowa winters can be long and harsh and our first winter in Onawa was no exception. On the day Ford arrived the temperature registered 2 below zero which was just a tad warmer than it had been which gave us hope that Spring might come after all. Because it was so cold MGH parked the red Ford pickup up on the edge of the road located about 50 or so feet from the house. He did this because he wanted to make sure he could get out of the farm yard which sat several feet lower than the county road which made it difficult to get up and out of when there was snow and ice which was the usual condition. His careful planning paid off as I found myself ensconced in the cab praying that the heat would kick in before we reached the hospital, which was about four miles from us, it was so bitterly cold I was afraid I would freeze solid before we reached our destination—the cold did serve as a good distraction as I was shaking so hard trying to stay warm I didn’t have time to worry about anything else.

Hmm, I see that I have gotten ahead of myself in this narrative as the part I really wanted to tell you about occurred earlier, when I woke MGH around five o’clock in the morning and told him that I thought the baby was on its way. He told me to get dressed and be ready to go while he got what he needed together. The getting ready part did not take me long, believe me. When I didn’t find him waiting for me by the door with my coat in hand, as I had supposed would be the logical place when one’s wife was in labor, I shoved down my panic and went searching for him. I found him in the bathroom where he was calmly shaving. I must have looked a little dismayed at this development but he reassured me that he would quickly have his morning grooming over with and we would then be on our way. Poor man. The flaw in his thinking was based on his experience with his first wife, Mary and her five labor/delivery experiences which involved long hours of work for her and much pacing for him in the waiting room as those were the days when husbands were kept away from the ‘action’ until someone came to tell him that he was now the proud father of a boy or girl and he was then allowed to see his wife for a few minutes before once again being shooed out lest he interrupt the recovery process. So it must have seemed quite logical to go ahead and get ready for work which would allow him to go straight to his office after getting me checked into the hospital without the necessity of returning home to change his clothes later on. Unfortunately, we did not yet understand the full ramifications of the the Gano glitch. Barbara told me years later that after her first pregnancy had almost precipitated a melt down in the maternity ward, where she barely made it in time, her doctor told her that the minute she thought she might be in labor she was to immediately drop whatever she was doing and run as fast as she could for the hospital even if it meant exiting from the shower and heading for the hospital with nothing more than a towel for cover.

The Gano glitch means that all bets are off as far as a normal delivery is concerned. Forget all that stuff about waiting until labor pains are five minutes apart before calling the doctor because with us the first hard contraction could very well be the announcement that the baby was about to arrive immediately. So there I was feeling the labor pains increase in sharpness, gripping the back of a chair for dear life as I waited for them to pass, and MGH to finish getting ready for work, trying my best not to waken the children who were still sleeping upstairs. I must not have been too successful in this regard as I can remember Marie, who was 14, peeking her head out from the stairwell and asking, “Mom, are you okay?” To which I replied, in typical Gano fashion, “Yes, yes, I’m fine, just go on back up to bed”. (We Gano girls had been taught never to admit to feeling pain which we learned at our father’s knee and I, being the oldest, probably got the biggest dose of this teaching which I believe must have been a holdover from his days growing up in a home where his mother was a practicing Christian Scientist.)

We eventually made it to the hospital where Ford was born fifteen minutes after we arrived which was the cause of a great deal of consternation on the part of the hospital staff. A strong healthy baby who measured in at 21 inches which explained to me why I had so much trouble sitting or bending over during the last stages of my pregnancy as the fact that I was vertically challenged didn’t make it easy for a long baby to find the space he needed to fit in.

I can remember going down to the nursery to admire him later on in the day where I found him lying on his tummy, holding his head up, scoping out what was going on around him. I didn’t know it then but that would be a characteristic he has to this day—he doesn’t miss much and if he does it probably wasn’t worth seeing anyway. He has grown into a man who is the kind you want to watch your back if you are in trouble—strong/intelligent/capable/caring, a credit to his family.

Oh, and by the way, MGH wasn’t even late for work.

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The following is excerpted from a letter I wrote Dad and Lucille January 11, 1998

I recently read Barbara’s account of the infamous bang cutting caper that occurred when we were living in the old house located at 610 East 4th Avenue in Mesa, Arizona. Grandmother Waddington’s home would later be built just around the corner from us at 350 South Hobson, but at that time it was just an empty lot. To be honest I can’t remember how old either of us was but I believe I was around five or six. Barbara, of course reported it from her point of view. I shall now relate what really happened, as it is one of the few events from my early days that I still recall with great clarity. Why, should this be the case when so many other events of greater import have faded away into the mists of time? I suppose that the answer lies in the fact that the events following that fateful morning convinced my young soul that my actions were being noted by a higher power which had a profound influence in keeping me from a life of crime.

Mother was always fussing with our hair. If there was one thing that must have disappointed her about her first two offspring it was their complete and total lack of ability to grow a bounteous head of hair. I remember hers as dark and glossy which she kept beautifully styled in the fashion of the day. But, alas, there isn’t much you can do if the stuff isn’t there to begin with which was the case with my best friend and partner in crime, Barbara. For her first year or two Barbara was bald as a billiard ball. Mother was often asked if we were twins as our size and coloring were quite similar. Well, all right, I was small for my age which meant that Barbara, who wasn’t, equaled me in height in those early years. ‘Nuff said on that subject. (This mistaking us for twins always caused mother a bit of embarrassment as there was only fourteen months between us and her brother, Willy, used to think it quite hilarious to accuse her of taking only 9 months and 15 minutes to get pregnant, a comment that absolutely incensed her.) As my other two siblings arrived at respectable intervals there would have been absolutely no grounds for more teasing from Uncle Willy had he remained alive to do so. Unfortunately, he died of a brain tumor while still in his 20’s which deprived her of a dearly loved brother and us of a doting Uncle.

While we are on the subject of names, which we actually aren’t but this seems like as good a place as any to insert the following fact, I can remember asking dad what the name of my fourth sibling would be. He always replied with a straight face, “Spud” if it was a boy and “Spudina” if it was a girl. I actually believed him but mother had more say in this matter than I realized and so my little sister, when she arrived on the scene, was named appropriately. Having said that Dad did have the last word where Barbara’s name was concerned as she went by “Bobbie” until she was enrolled in kindergarten at which time she became known as Barbara, I know the Bard said “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” but for Bobby to become Barbara? I mean, is nothing sacred?

But back to my story–You can understand then, the horror that was aroused when mother came upon the two of us sitting on the steps in the screened back porch, Barbara, whose fine/thin hair, had at last grown enough to curl, her bangs cut raggedly to her scalp. I hadn’t really had enough time to complete my styling as we were discovered much too soon for my liking and not soon enough for mother’s. Needless to say, she was furious and I was in total and complete disgrace, banished to a corner to think upon the error of my ways where I shed a copious amount of tears over the unfairness of life in general. Mother, shed her own tears but they had to wait while she did her best to repair the damage. This was to prove futile and so her only recourse was to even things up a bit and then give me full credit by pointing the finger of blame whenever anyone inquired “Whatever happened to your little girls hair? Needless to say, as it took a long time for Barbara’s hair to grow back, I carried the burden of her loss on my shoulders for a long time afterward.

Barbara, who was the victim, received a scolding as well for allowing herself to become one. Looking back I suppose the question mother asked of the Powers That Be was why couldn’t it have been my hair that was cut first? Why didn’t Barbara give me the scalping as I had had my hair longer and could more easily afford a period of regrowth with less damage to my ego? This is where I reveal to you what no one else knows. I had a pretty good idea that this was an activity not on the approved list for little Gano girls to do and so I figured that since we stood a very good chance of being found out I wanted to have first dibs with the scissors. Barbara was not a willing partner. I remember having to talk like crazy to convince her that this was something she wanted to do. The only way I succeeded was to promise her that after I finished her hair she could do mine. So somewhat appeased she allowed me to begin.

That afternoon was Primary which we attended regularly once a week walking the short distance from our house to the church. I didn’t want to go as my eyes were still red and swollen from crying but I was told in no uncertain terms that if Barbara could go, displaying the result of my naughtiness, I could certainly attend as well. I can remember sitting on the little chair feeling very humble and chastened after my earlier experience. I do not know if mother made a phone call with a special request to the chorister or if there was indeed some inspiration at play when the music was selected. To my great dismay one of the songs chosen by the chorister was, I Have Two Little Hands, the words of which are as follows:

I have two little hands folded snugly and tight.
They are tiny and weak but they know what is right.
During all the long hours ’till daylight is through,
There are plenty of things for my two hands to do.

Kind Father I thank thee for two little hands
and ask thee to bless them ’till each understands
that children can only be happy each day
when two little hands have learned how to obey.

To this day I have not been able to sing that song without remembering how my two little hands caused such devastation to my sister’s hair although I must add that I have never been truly sorry even if it did save me from a life of crime. . . .

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NOVEMBER 21, 1997

My name is Joanne, I am a counted cross-stitch addict. I have spent the last three months of my life working on a ten by twelve piece of linen.

Often at night I awake to find my fingers twitching with desire and longing. I can’t sleep. I stagger into my lair where red eyed I sit surrounded by zip lock bags of thread, 51 to be exact, and there I huddle in the wee small hours, with three lights aimed at my work and a magnifying glass hanging around my neck so I can see the object of my passion in the most intimate and personal way. Because of my obsession I have earned the right to bumper stickers that say things like “a clean house is sign of a misspent life”, and “furniture looks better under dust”.

My family has almost forgotten what a good meal tastes like and subsists on frozen pizza which they have learned to heat themselves. Dishes pile up in the sink whilst weeds grow in the garden. MGH now makes the bed having learned from sad experience that it may be days before I emerge into the real world to tackle anything so mundane as pulling up sheets and coverlet into some semblance of order, while I am consumed by the urge to add more stitches to my creation—which actually is quite a bit like painting by numbers only it takes longer and the results are better but then I am probably biased as the only picture I ever painted by that most eminent of methods occurred when I was fourteen and was in the hospital being absolutely bored to tears because I had fallen off my horse and broken my upper arm so badly that it required surgery to put it back together again. Those being the days when a hospital stay was indeed a stay and not just a quick in and out after they remove some portion of your anatomy and then send you home to live life to its fullest, this occurring after/if you have recovered from your illness and the care imparted by your family—amateurs that they are, and who, while well meaning can inflict untold additional pain to your recovery but then life is rarely fair and while vengeance belongs to the Lord he often uses other hands to exact it, and there is bound to be someone who still holds a grudge for some piddling little thing you did in the dark recesses of the past and that you have completely forgotten about but as their memory spans eternity, they haven’t involved in your care.

I remember mother checking with Dixie Flake who was a member of the Keosauqua Branch, a registered nurse and at that time still married to Vernon who was a big favorite of our family with his hearty laugh and western style of living and the reason we were in Iowa. Dixie worked at the hospital in Keosauqua and told mother that it would be alright if I tackled my project as it was something that I could do hoping, perhaps, that it would keep me occupied and happy for a little while thereby reducing my need to call a nurse to my side with less frequency. So the paints were to be mine and I jumped into my task like Hercules cleaning stables—with all the enthusiasm I could muster considering I only had one arm and hand to work with and so after Dixie removed all the little plastic tabs off the paint containers and the cap from the bottle of mineral spirits so I could keep my brushes clean, she left me to happily set about my work. I spent an entire afternoon content to fill in the numbered areas with the corresponding numbered paint.

Alas, I was not to see my work completed before I returned home as the smell of the turpentine drifted throughout the hospital and caused many quite violent complaints from patients who found the smell most nauseous. I guess Dixie really heard about it from every one but, kind soul that she was, she never said anything to me just came into my room and suggested that the windows be flung wide open and the door kept shut. Mother, when apprised of the situation, told me in no uncertain term that my days as a budding artist were over for the time being and that my time would be better spent in some other pursuit. While protesting her decision as a matter of principle I was secretly pleased as the smell had gotten to me as well. The picture was quickly bundled away to be finished another day which I did eventually accomplish. I don’t recall what became of the finished product which says something about its quality although I read the other day that these ‘pictures’ have become collectibles and are being snapped up by eager buyers desiring memories of yesteryear. Guess I should have kept it after all. Who knows it might be worth something now!

As I was saying, this current project is going to be much prettier, and if taken care of could last much longer than me. I learned this fact from my friend Jo Lynn who is also my visiting teacher and knows what she is talking about as she has a little shop where she sells all the necessaries for this pursuit which she freely admits allows her to have her cake and eat it too as she can work on her cross stitching in between customers so for her it is not an addiction but a profession. As the location of her shop is known to only a few other women of similar persuasion she is not kept very busy with customers but it does get her out of the house and as her husband made it big in the oil industry in Texas he doesn’t need her help paying the bills and delights that she has found something that keeps her happy, because as everyone knows, ‘if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy’.

I am still trying to decide which of my children is going to be the fortunate recipient of my labor as this needs to be done before I leave this veil of tears so as not to provoke a fight. I am hoping that lucky offspring will cherish it because anything made by hand is ‘priceless’ even though they will sell you the same item made in China for next to nothing. Of course this is supposing that I finish the piece.

I woke up this morning and for the first time in months I felt absolutely no desire to work on my ‘love’ even though I only have the words to stitch in dark blue and I could probably have them in place by the end of a day and then the only thing left to do would be to fill in the spaces around the face with the dark outline thread and I haven’t done any of it, choosing instead to clean the the downstairs bathroom which was a rather odd choice for a recovering addict, but it was a dirty job and someone had to do it and as I wanted a simple challenge for a change it seemed to ‘feel’ right.

I’ve also been to the library and checked out some books and read one already, not that that was too good a choice as I am also a recovering bookaholoic. . . .

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Dear Dad,

It was good to hear your voice yesterday on the phone. You sounded good to me and I think, Dad, that amplifier is really going to help you hear what your caller is actually saying. Most of us nearly deaf people guess a lot from the word or two we pick up here and there and as a result give back some really strange answers. For example I might say, “We have a new lawn mower”, and get back a reply of “You say your barn blew over?”

Of course over the phone you can’t see the look of dismay as I try to figure out how to extricate myself from a conversation that is rapidly heading into uncharted waters, to wit, “Hope you have good insurance it can really help when there is a big expense—what kind of a deductible did you have to pay?”

“No, no”, I shout back, you heard me wrong, “We can mow our grass now” and hear, “You ran out of gas? Did you have to walk far?” I try for more volume and now have everyone in the house hanging onto my every word as I again try to explain myself more clearly for the third or fourth time. The dogs get into the act mistaking my raised voice for trouble and ever anxious to be of help in protecting the manor grand they add their bass woof, woof and soprano yip, yip to the confusion. The basement dwellers in self defense turn up the volume on their stereos to truly mind numbing proportions and I quickly find myself needing to say goodbye before we said hello.

* * * * * *

Robyn went fishing the other day with a group from Oasis House. She was absolutely delighted with the 14 inch rainbow trout she caught. I couldn’t help but remember the fishing we used to do in the Des Moines River at Ely’s Ford with Grandmother Waddington who loved to fish but now in her 70’s could no longer navigate easily. We always took her stool, which at one time had been a good sized wooden kitchen chair that had had the back sawed off even with the seat and provided her with solid support without being too hard to drag around. She used to sit on it when she gardened leaning over her knees to reach the weeds with her short handled hoe. I can’t help but think that it must have been a bit awkward for her but her garden was always weed free and it was a large one complete with a strawberry patch, but I digress. We girls would lug the poles and stool and other fishing paraphernalia down to the water while Mother would help balance Grandmother as she worked her way slowly and carefully to where we had placed her stool in the shade of a tree. When she was outside she always wore a wide brimmed straw hat to keep the sun from burning her fair skin as she grew up in a time that did not worship tanned skin. Grandmother always had a cane to help her walk as she was a heavy woman crippled by arthritis. It seemed to me that she always sat down with a plop. Sometimes when there was a slope to climb a couple of us would have to get behind her and push to help her get to the top. I never heard her complain. Not even when she was in her bedroom in the farmhouse and the plaster ceiling gave way with a horrible sound and came crashing around her head. We all came running from our beds to see what had happened and there she sat in her flannel nightgown calmly combing flakes of plaster from her white hair. Fortunately, the really big pieces had landed someplace else.

She would get her line ready and place a wiggling worm on the hook before casting it into the green-brown water of the river. Before we ever left home we always had to find the worm bucket and go dig up some worms as part of the ritual—I remember them as being all different sizes and that they usually did the job of enticing some poor unwary fish to take a bite. At that time many kids earned extra spending money collecting the giant night crawlers that came up out of the ground at night. While I never minded handling worms, in fact I had at a very early age discovered that my sister Barbara gave a most satisfying scream at the the sight of some poor worm dangling from my fingers and would run howling for Mother with me in close pursuit promising I would put it down her neck if she told on me. Of course the worm was long gone by the time help arrived and I don’t think mother ever thought I would really stoop so low as to do the things I always promised Barbara I would do if I ever caught up with her which is why I usually managed to get away with my teasing. To be honest, the night crawlers were too big for my liking and I was always a little frightened of them, but the fact that they fought back and resisted being pulled out of the ground, breaking in half if I pulled too hard didn’t help either.

We were taught, that ‘real fishermen’ put their own worms on their hooks and so I, having fallen for that old line learned how to pierce a worm as humanely as possible, if there is such a thing, baited my hook as well as Barbara’s, who was old enough to do this task but absolutely refused to touch a worm, and Kathy’s who was still quite young and therefore not expected to handle the grosser points of fishing. Seems like Darlene took care of her own hook much to my relief. I don’t remember that we caught too many fish although I know the river was full of huge carp which Dad always considered junk fish and told us that the ideal way to fix them was to put them on a board and cook until done and then throw the fish away and eat the board which when I was younger I thought sounded like a dumb thing to do but then one day it dawned on me what he was really saying and then I had two good laughs, one at the humor and the other at my believing him.

I remember we would spend the long summer afternoons staring intently at our line as we watched for our red and white bobbers to give the tell tale sign that there was a fish nibbling and if we could give a jerk on the line at just the right time we might get lucky and actually catch something which was always brought up the next problem and that was getting the hook out of the fish. Fortunately, Grandmother was prepared for this possibility and kept a pair of pliers in her tackle box for just that purpose. She also brought along a tin bucket that we filled with water for putting our catch in and keeping it from spoiling before we could get it home.

I can remember fish being caught but because most of them were small Sunfish or Bluegills and full of bones that made them a real challenge to eat they most often ended up in the catch basin down the lane from the barn. We put fish in there often enough that a few managed to survive and multiplied. One of the things that Robyn used to enjoy doing when she was younger was to take a fishing pole with a safety pin for a hook and going down there with her brothers and catching a fish which she bring back to the house where mother would dip it in flour and fry in bacon grease which Robyn would than have for her supper.

If we got bored with the waiting, which we often did because it takes patience to catch fish and as that is a quality most often found in the old, we would prop our poles and pick flowers or play in the water of go off and read a book. I remember Darlene doing this one day and to the absolute horror of us all had her pole carried off by by the current or a large fish—we were never quite sure which, and while that was a a real tragedy all by its self it was further compounded because it was one of Dad’s good fly fishing poles which we weren’t supposed to use but that got pressed into service so that every one could have their own pole. We were terrified at the prospect of going home and having to report the loss but from this distance in time I can’t even remember that it roused much comment from him. To be honest, I don’t ever remember him fishing after we moved to the farm. It isn’t because he wouldn’t have enjoyed it but he simply was to busy with the farm work. Besides river fishing did not offer the same challenge as fly fishing in clear cold mountain streams.

I can remember spending a month during the summer in Snowflake, Arizona in the early 50’s where Dad spent a lot of time tramping the mountain streams in the White Mountains fly fishing, which he greatly enjoyed, often bringing in enough trout for us to have for supper that evening. He needed this time by himself as it allowed him to sort out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Years later he told me that he had gotten off track and found that the world of business wasn’t really for him even though he had done very well.

It wasn’t long after that that we moved to Iowa where he took up farming and in returning to the land regained his health.

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AUGUST 4, 1997

Sunday was cloudy with just an idle sprinkle or two to keep our hopes up that just maybe there might be enough more come to settle the dust and relieve the heat that has been pressing in on us this last week. MGH laughs at me and my moaning about the temperature and tells me I wouldn’t have lasted very long in the beet fields of his youth where manhood was proved in the painstaking work of thinning and weeding the sugar beets that were a major cash crop for so many of the farmers in those post depression years of his youth. He is right of course as I have never been very comfortable when the temperature rises.

Here there isn’t the humidity of the middle west that weighs one down into puddles of misery. At least that’s how I used to feel when we first moved to Iowa. I’ll never forget Barbara with her damp washrag across her forehead trying to find some relief as she tossed and turned in her bed during those long sultry summer nights in the old farm house. In those days there was still quite a bit of traffic on Highway 2 and so there wasn’t even the solace of quiet to help us in our misery. Speaking of those old roads do you think that anyone who has ever driven them will forget how narrow they were and the curbs that threatened sudden extinction to any poor soul unfortunate enough to veer into them and then over correct straight toward oncoming traffic? Didn’t need amusement parks with their artificial heart-stopping thrills in those days. Had about all we could handle on the highways.

Speaking of Barbara and Iowa I don’t think I will ever forget one summer afternoon when a thunderstorm blew up. I know I was upstairs involved in one of our endless games of monopoly where we went so long we ended up having to make more money in order to keep playing. Anyway, I don’t believe we were too concerned about the weather when all of a sudden there was this tremendous burst of light that filled the room and a tremendous explosion that shook the house. I must have jumped a foot off the bed in terror. When I stopped shaking enough to start looking around I saw that Mother was there and seeing that I was all right asked me if I had seen Barbara. I looked at her like she was crazy because the last time I had seen Barbara she was sitting across the Monopoly board from me. I looked again and sure enough no sibling in sight. About that time there came some noise from under the bed. We rushed over and looked and sure enough there she was scrunched as far into the corner as she could get. She wasn’t about to come out either. How she got there so quickly will remain one of the unsolved mysteries of the ages. Guess it just shows to go you that she could move faster than anyone realized—it just took the right trigger to bring it out!

That’s the storm that took out the TV set. As near as any one could figure out the lightening had hit the tall tree out in the front yard and since one of the guide wires that kept the antenna on top of the roof was attached to the tree the lightening followed the wire right into the house and blew out the TV which never worked in Iowa again but I think it did work again back in Arizona—and they say televisions are inanimate objects!

But back to the present and our rainstorm, one of MGH’s bits of wisdom comes from his father B.F. Andrus who said, “never turn down a rainstorm or a heifer calf”, so I was pleased to fall asleep to the gentle sound of rain falling our our roof. This morning first thing I hopped out of bed and hurried to the window to see just how much fell. I must admit my method lacks somewhat in scientific accuracy but if there are puddles still standing I consider a significant amount has fallen (in southern Utah that starts at ‘a trace of precipitation”. There were puddles in all the usual places and gray clouds lingering in the mountain peaks behind our house. It was so pleasant that I slept in until 8 o’clock—Joy was awake before me which doesn’t happen too often. I debated about taking Jackson for his walk but did manage to sneak in a half hour with him turning back as it began to sprinkle and arriving home just as the clouds cut loose with what passes for a downpour here. I couldn’t help but wonder why the thought of getting wet bothered me when I soak myself every morning in the shower and thoroughly enjoy the feeling. My conclusion– Like a lot of things in life, timing is everything. . . .

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March 2, 2008

We are definitely going through a very mixed up time as far as the weather is concerned here in southern Utah. Saturday the temperature was in the high 50’s with everyone running around wearing shorts and no jackets and then today there is a bitter wind out of the north that made me wish I knew where my mittens were and that I had taken time to button my coat before I began my walk over to the church to attend Sunday meetings this morning. It’s almost as if the proponents of global warming were duking it out with those that believe we are headed toward an ice age for control of the climate switch with first one than the other grabbing the thermostat. This whole thing about man changing the climate makes me shake my head in disbelief. Too many in the scientific field have begun believing their own assumptions and as a result have acquired what my parents would have called a ‘big head’– they think because they have learned a little they know more than they actually do. What utter conceit to blame modern day technology as the cause of global warming when a volcano can belch and emit more pollutants into the air in few days than all of humanity has in its entire existence.

I can’t help but wonder if the root of the problem isn’t that we have too few people on farms anymore which by default means that most of us now live, at least in the good old US of A, in a world completely devoid from reality where food miraculously appears in the grocery store often in forms far removed from its original state. Because of this we fail to appreciate a natural world that is mostly benign where we petty humans are concerned. Nature is a marvelous awe inspiring force that mostly operates in our favor but when it doesn’t we quickly realize how little influence we have over it. I can’t help remembering one of the winter’s we spent in Northwestern Iowa where the blizzards kept sweeping down across the land leaving a totally altered landscape as one landmark after another was buried by the snow which the wind would then sculpt into fantastic, surrealistic forms. After one of them which left the road to our house and the yard filled to the point that it was impossible to even think about driving our car until there was some serious snow removal MGH bundled himself up and telling the boys to do likewise went outside to begin tackling the driveway. They worked hard for several hours managing to make a small dent in the chest high snow while getting thoroughly dismayed at the magnitude of the task confronting them which if they kept at it night and day might let them reach the main road by the time Spring arrived.

Imagine their delight then, when a huge yellow caterpillar complete with plow arrived and managed to clear what we called our driveway (which turned out, unbeknowst to us, to be part of the county road system and therefore entitled us to this service) in a matter of minutes before rumbling off to further wage war against the generosity deposited by Mother Nature even though it mightily inconvenienced the residents of Clay County, Iowa. Not too long after that our neighbor Everett Amis a farmer living near by came over with his tractor and cleared out our yard so that we could get our car out of the shed which served as a garage. This also allowed us to more easily reach the animals we had surrounded ourselves with which consisted of a small herd of Holsteins as well as a couple of horses. Everett did this because he knew we didn’t have any big equipment which would allow us to do it ourselves but also just because it was part of the farm culture to reach out and help one’s neighbors when there was a need.

In Proverbs 29:18 we are told “that where there is no vision the people perish”. Sadly, I am coming to the conclusion that there are very few men of vision amongst us. This was not the case with my dad who saw quite clearly what needed to be done to improve his family, church and community and became actively involved in the organizations that allowed him to exert his influence. One example of this resulted in our being changed from the school in Cantril, Iowa which was very small to the larger school located in Keosauqua. This meant changing the school boundaries and removing revenue producing land to another school and there were those in Cantril who fought this tooth and nail but Dad persevered and prevailed.

I think that one of the things that concerned my parents and the reason why Dad was so adamant about the whole thing was the lack of trained teachers at Cantril. Here is where my poor memory fails me as I no longer remember the names of the teachers there. I know that the History teacher was an old man in his last year of teaching with fluffy white hair who still remembered World War I and could tell us personal experiences from that time. The principle taught the Algebra class I was enrolled in as a freshman even though he didn’t have a clue as to how to solve the problems finding it necessary to ask the senior boys who were good in that subject to diagram them out for him so he could put them on the board if needed. It was no use to ask him any questions as he had no answers. All he did was give us our assignments. As math terrified me after I reached the 4th grade his style of teaching did me absolutely no good at all. I am not saying that the teachers were bad people, for they weren’t. They were just trying to do the best they could in a very small rural school which called on them to teach subjects that they weren’t prepared to teach.

When Darlene and I arrived with Dad and a truckload of belongings in Keosauqua we stayed at the Manning Hotel which was built in 1899 and still remained virtually unchanged from its glory days. I remember thinking it quite strange that guests shared bathroom facilities which made it really embarrassing for a gently raised Gano girl to find herself being seen as she made the trip down the hall. Fortunately, there were no other guests at that time so other than having to travel ‘a fair spell’ it just made the experience an interesting one instead of mortifying. I can remember eating at the “Goodie Garden” and being startled when we were charged for a glass of water as something was wrong with the town water system which made water in short supply. When the water was brought to us in clear glasses as this was long before water was sold in bottles, as is the case today, I eagerly took a big gulp only to regret my haste when the aftertaste hit my taste buds. It was absolutely the worst tasting water imaginable. I mention this because Dad later became instrumental in seeing that Keosauqua was hooked up with the Rathbun Water System which was a multi-county cooperative effort to bring clean water to the people of southern Iowa.

He served for four years as Mayor of Keosauqua an experience which he once wryly described as being on call 24/7 to settle disputes between neighbors usually over barking dogs. He was a member of the Farm Bureau, Lions Club, DHIA as well as serving several turns on the local school board. (This proved quite embarrassing to Barbara and me when he served as a panalist at an assembly where the topic under disscussion was aimed at preventing teenage pregnancies. To say that he was blunt is putting it mildly.) He served in many capacities at church among them Branch President several times as well as being a counselor to Vernon Flake in the District Presidency. Where ever he served his clear eyed vision saw courses of action set in motion that benefitted others. He coupled his vision with hard work not leaving it to others to accomplish. He was quite a man. I just wish that there were more men like him today in our communities who can see and expose the sophistry of the day for what it is and unselfishly work to bring about needed ‘change’ .

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