But, in this house, I was loved. We took care of a young man in a vegetative state. There were nurses. The house owner, my friend, had stage 4 cancer and she was gone within a couple of years. But, living with her at the end of her life was a gift. She was such a happy, hopeful person.
I moved on to a rental house and then this house I bought after I lived there at that house with the crazy walls. But, living there in that house was among the happiest 6 months of my life.
I have the sofa that my parents had built before I was born. It is hard rock maple which is no longer available as far as I know. Since I will soon be 68, this heavy old sofa is an antique. It was in style in the 1950s. I don't dislike it. It fact I like it. I have a picture of me dressed as Annie Oakley jumping on this sofa. I sort of remember it. This sofa has seen my whole life. After my mom moved out of her house, my son took it for a while. He likes the wood.
The sofa has a matching chair. My son gave me back the sofa last year, but he kept the chair. The cushions have been recovered once. They need recovering again and plumping up. They maybe need replacing. I looked around for upholsterers and cushion replacers. I haven't really found anyone that gives me confidence. It will be very expensive to do this. Is it worth it?
I am leaning toward putting this sofa in my unfinished basement and getting something nice for my living room. I would like something dark brown, like leather or maybe leather. I would like not to be second hand rose. I like preserving and reusing and saving the earth. But, I like not living in a rag pile of old things, especially old things that need fixing or replacing.
So, I am deciding to perhaps throw in the towel and get a new sofa. It would save the earth if we would all save the old stuff and quit throwing away so much. But, maybe I am not the crazy old lady who can swim against the tide.
Eight, why is this the eighth month? It is the tenth month. I know that it has something to do with the Romans or somebody way back then. In my mind, I always associated October with octopus. I like to give an octopus as a baby gift. I think it is made by Lamaze. You squeeze the legs and it makes noise. It was the first toy that my grandson liked when we used to go to story/ playtime at the library. I miss those days.
I have a lot planned in October. It will be a busy month. Go!
I remember one afternoon when I was in high school commenting that I saw in the newspaper that it was Sophia Loren's birthday. I don't remember which ne it was. But, the reason I remember that particular afternoon is that my mom asked, "Who is that?" I repeated the name and my mom drew a blank. She didn't know who Sophia Loren was. Since Sophia Loren was a lot older than I was, I presumed that my mom should know someone I viewed as her generation. I asked Mom about several actresses and she knew none of them. She had no idea who the current celebrities were.
I always thought, "I will never be that way. I will always know who the current celebrities are." Well, I don't. I was watching the Emmies last night and I knew very few of those people. All the young women looked the same. All the young men looked the same. I have to say I was pleased to see so many men step up and dress in outlandish costumes. It always seemed so boring to see men in black tuxedos and women showing as much skin as they possibly could or dressing like dead birds.
I don't know the young actresses and actors of today. I don't know many of them. I have become my mother. (Well, my mother is still living, but at 100 she knows none of them.) The worm has turned.
I love it when a plan comes together. I love the odd coincidence of someone I meet knowing someone else I know. I love it when things turn out just right. I love happy endings and blue skies. I always ponder what God is telling me when I experience one of those situations.
At my uncle's funeral last week I had occasion to talk to one of my cousins. She works in an industry related to or adjacent to farming. She lives in Chicago. She was flying home from the funeral to get in her car and drive to Decatur, Illinois the next day. This isn't surprising. Decatur is good farm country. I know, I used to live there. My son was born there. I taught in Decatur schools for a while. Decatur was my town for a while.
And perhaps the only thing about this that was surprising was for me the thoughts and memories that thinking about Decatur brought. Decatur was a part of my life that I left behind. I was a young woman there with hopes and dreams and plans. Now I am old and some of those plans have come to fruition, and some were left behind. But, I was glad that my cousin told me that she was going to Decatur. It brought back so many memories.
My dad's mother didn't have much in the way of material possessions in my memory. My grandpa had Parkinson's disease from his 50s and couldn't work. This was back before there was any kind of safety net. They had a house, a very narrow house on a very narrow lot in Quincy, IL. The house was shotgun style, four rooms, no hallways. There was no hot water heater. There was a small toilet room without a sink. Grandma heated hot water on the stove (apartment sized) for washing. She had a ringer washer. The doors had transoms. There was n furnace, just a gas stove in the main room that heated the whole house. Grandpa died when I was in kindergarten so my memories of him are pretty sketchy.
But, one thing Grandma always had was good food. She made good plain food. She could make roast beef or fried chicken that any chef would envy. She grew tomatoes in summer and bought fresh produce as often as possible. She could make homemade noodles and homemade pies. Eating at Grandma's was always delicious.
I remember that Grandma had two trees in her backyard. One was a peach and one was an apricot. I never remember getting too many peaches, but every other year or so the apricot tree would make a bumper crop. Delicious. I remember those apricots were delicious. I have never purchased apricots since that were anywhere near as delicious as Grandma's apricots.
Apricots are not a popular fruit these days. Dried apricots seems to be the most popular way to eat them. Grandma and her trees are long since gone, but the house is still there and the last time I drove by, the roof had not been replaced since Grandma lived there last in the late 1960s. And I ramble, but I wonder if I could find an apricot tree for my backyard?
When I was growing up in Rockford, Illinois in the early 1960s there were tons of baby boom kids in the neighborhood and houses were springing up in the cornfields as far as the eye could see. One thing I was reminded of by a cousin at my mother's 100th birthday was the ice cream man.
The ice cream man back in the day did not drive a truck. He pedaled a three wheeled bike around the neighborhood. It had a little bell that jangled as he pedaled. I am not sure whether he had dry ice or just regular ice in his ice cream chest on the front of the bike.
I do remember that popsicles were a dime. There were some other treats, dreamsicles and "bombs" and probably some more things. But they cost more. Mom gave us each a dime and we got popsicles. They tasted like heaven on a hot summer day. The colored melt would run down my arm and legs. It would stain my clothing. But, it was a taste of delicious.
The ice cream trucks I see today offer many better treats than I had way back when. They are certainly more expensive than one thin dime. But, nothing tasted better than the popsicles of my memory.
The first time that I was aware that Memorial Day was a thing and not just a long weekend with family get togethers and sporting events was when I was about 9. My family was visiting my Grandma S in Quincy, Illinois. We lived in Rockford, Illinois at the time. Grandma picked peonies from her yard which were the blooming flowers in that season. She wrapped a small glass jar in foil. I can only suppose that was to decorate it. Then we took her to the cemetery where Grandpa was buried. She carefully placed the peony jar on his grave. She also visited the nearby graves of her parents. That is why I can always find the graves in that cemetery. It is muscle memory. I have been called by people visiting that cemetery while I was hundreds of miles away to give directions to the graves.
Now my grandpa and my great grandparents were not veterans. The military significance of the holiday was something that I came to understand later. I lived on military bases for part of my life. I have been to Punchbowl in Hawaii and Arlington in Virginia and Jefferson Barracks here in Missouri. The significance of serving one's country means something to me.
But, the people who came before me, the people who I loved, or who I only heard about, but whose lives made me exist, have meaning to me. I think once a year to visit graves and decorate them is a noble enterprise. I have a fondness for cemeteries. I like the quiet. I like the many remembrances on the many graves. I like the idea of remembering the dead. I like the idea of being remembered. Once a year, to honor our dead is not too much. And to me it is not any sadder than so many things in life.
I haven't been able to get up to Quincy to decorate the graves in several years. Since my mom moved away from Quincy, there hasn't been reason to go there. But, sometime soon, I hope, I intend to go up and visit my people. I don't have any peonies, but I think they won't care.
I have recently done some painting with my grandson. He is two and a half. It is very modern arty. He likes to paint so much, I have considered getting an easel. I wonder if he would like that more than painting at the table.
In thinking of an easel, I recalled that I didn't paint at the easel when I was in kindergarten. The easel painting station was one of the most popular. There were only two places for painters. I am not sure if I ever got a turn. I wasn't bothered by it. I think I remember it because my teacher encouraged me to easel paint. She probably thought poor little Mary needed encouragement to take a turn at this popular activity.
What I remember thinking about easel painting was--What do they expect me to do? I don't think I can paint real art like paintings on the wall. The colors were garish primary colors and I didn't really like the pictures made by my classmates. I remember that the teacher hung them up to dry and made a big deal about how they were packed up to go home without being ruined. I thought it was a big deal about nothing.
I didn't like to paint, never took my turn when it was offered. As I sit here, I wonder what that says about me. Maybe I was more mature than my classmates. Maybe as the five year old who went home to a house with 3 younger siblings I knew that nobody would be making a big deal of my paintings. Maybe it just wasn't my thing.
But, my grandson loves to paint. He seems to love the primary colors. He carefully spreads the paint around and studies how the water looks when he dips the brushes in to clean them. I may have to get an easel. Maybe I will take a turn and see what all the fuss is about.
