I just finished reading Alice Sebold’s book, Lucky.  It made me want to read more, so I also read “Lovely Bones”.  These books jogged my memory of an “incident” when I was in high school.  

  The sister of one of my friends brought rape charges against one of the popular jocks in the senior class.  He came from money and she did not.  He was popular and she was average.  He was good-looking and she was, too.  He was a star football player who had his own car…something a little bit unusual at that time. 

  I don’t remember all the particulars of the when and where although I think it had something to do with a dark make-out area in Riverside Park.  My imagination put the rape at the Lone Chief Cabin, an area far from the more public area of the park.  

  The main thing I remember of the story is that my friend was ostracized because of his sister’s supposed guilt of lying about Mr. Popular Jock.  Of course, the strategy at the time was to shred the reputation of the so-called victim.  The gossip mills soon made the jock the victim.  He got his friends to testify for him at the trial.  They testified that she was an easy mark and undoubtedly asked for it.  I know now that even if it were true that she was easy and even if she had had sexual intercourse with the whole football team, she was allowed to say “No” to Mr. Jock.  I don’t believe she was “easy”.  I believe the cards were stacked against her.  

  Probably you have already guessed that he was found not guilty.  He continued going to school at the Community College and his distinctive car was in evidence around town.  He later went to a prestigious college.  She and her family moved away.  

I have no idea what happened to either of them as I also moved away from my home town after graduation.  I have often wondered what happened to both of them and having read Mrs. Sebold’s book, Lucky.  I wonder if the girl had any after effects of the incident.

  In Mrs. Sebold’s book, the rapist is finally brought to justice, but only after a very traumatic trial and an almost total destruction of the victim.  The mention of PTSD in the book reminds the reader that combat is not the only traumatic event. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have always loved to read!  I read all the books in our school library which isn’t saying much.  I still love to read, although I am a little more selective than I was then.  I like non-fiction history, but don’t care for historical novels, you know, the bodice-tearing, big hunk hero kind.  This was not always the case.  I loved Gone with the Wind!

We had a big over-stuffed chair in the living room and I liked to read by leaning back on one arm and putting my legs over the other.  I was often told to sit in the chair right, but it wasn’t as comfortable that way.  To me, I was sitting in the chair right.  I think my Mom and Dad finally got tired of telling me and gave up.

When I was elven or twelve years old, Gone With the Wind came into my life.  I think Aunt Anna may have included it in one of the boxes of stuff she sent from New York City.  I know she sent books at times.  In fact, one of the series she sent me was the complete Frank Daum series of The Wizard of Oz.  I don’t know what happened to those books, but I do know what happened to Gone With the Wind.  My daughter Kathy has it, having bought it on E-Bay when I sold it.  That’s another story.

Anyway, one Saturday morning I picked up Gone With the Wind and started reading.  I got comfy in my reading chair and was immediately entranced.  I did have chores I was supposed to do on Saturday, and Dad was home.  His job was to remind me of my chores when I forgot.  This day I didn’t forget, I just couldn’t tear myself away from that awesome book to do them.  I read and he reminded.  When I absolutely HAD to, I got up from my comfy chair and did a chore or two….not well, but I did do them.  Then it was back to the chair and the book until he forcefully reminded me again.

Anyone who has read Gone With the Wind knows that it is a long, although easy to read, book.  I would rank it as one of the best books ever written.  I can’t give it the absolutely best, but at the time, it was the best book I had ever read.

Keep in mind at the time I was reading everything by Horatio Alger…Phil, the Fiddler, etc. a series of books that followed the same plot.  A young boy, always a boy, never a girl, as the hero.  He was alway a poor boy from a bad background who by virtue of hard work became a wealthy man.  Now there was only one kicker to the plot.  The hero always came to the attention of a wealthy philanthropic  man who helped him up the ladder of financial success.  ( As I think about it now, I wonder what the man got out of the relationship….in today’s world, it would have been looked upon with suspicion.)

But I digress….back to Gone With the Wind.  I read and read all that week-end, with minimal time outs to do chores.  Dad kept saying, “Get your nose out of that book and get your chores done.”  He may have finally given up.  I don’t know, but I do know I read the entire book in one week-end.  I loved Rhett Butler and didn’t think Scarlett was good enough for him.  She, with her big attraction to Ashley Wilkes, definitely did not deserve Rhett’s undying love.  Melanie was the perfect foil for Scarlett as she was so good and pure hearted.  I don’t know which of these many characters I related to, but they have all stayed in my memory for all these years.   I lived this book for that week-end, seeing in my mind’s eye the scenes described.

Years later, Doris (my best friend) and I went to the movie at the Booth Theater in Independence.  We took snacks and candy…yes you could take candy into the theater then…as the movie was very long.  It had an intermission in the middle.  Anyway, Clark Gable played Rhett Butler.  I should say, he WAS Rhett Butler.  He was my favorite movie star and his portrayal of Rhett Butler, my fictional Prince Charming, was spot on.  My , how I loved Rhett Butler.  There was nothing that he couldn’t do.  Scarlett was still as stupid as ever for not appreciating what she had!

Just as the book had been my favorite, so the movie was also my favorite.  I have watched it several times since then, and still enjoy it.

(Aside:  We went to the movie when Kristen was very small.  Afterwards, often when there was a lull in the conversation, Kristen would say, “Scarlett fell down the stairs.”  It didn’t fit into the conversation, but I guess Scarlett falling down the stairs made a big impression on her and she wanted to share .)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hated live chickens!  I loved fried chicken, baked chicken, chicken salad sandwiches, and chicken and noodles!

I hated gathering eggs!  It was a job that a young child could do, and so it was one of my chores.  In the springtime, hens want to hatch eggs.  After all, that is basically why they lay eggs.  When they have decided to hatch the eggs, they are called setting hens.  A setting hen becomes very possessive of the eggs she is trying to hatch.  Grandma had a different theory about the eggs.  She thought they should be gathered twice a day and brought into the house.  Some of the eggs were sold to the hatchery and some were eaten by our families.  

The person responsible for gathering the eggs had to reach under the “setting hen” and remove the eggs.  Now the hen did not think this was fair and tried by the only means she had to keep from having her eggs stolen.  She pecked the gatherer….me.  Chickens peck hard and often.  I hated being pecked, and consequently I hated chickens.

Another hazard of gathering eggs was snakes.  Black snakes like eggs.  I guess all snakes like eggs, but the main offender at Grandma’s was the black snake.  Now farmer’s like black snakes.  Egg gatherers hate them.  You never really knew when you reached into a nest whether you might encounter a snake.  Grandma did not like snakes getting her eggs, so she had a “darning” egg that she used to put in the nest when the snakes were especially active.  A darning egg is used to put in the toe or heel of a sock when you darn (mend) it.  Often they were onyx and egg shaped.  Grandma’s trick was to put the darning egg in the nest in the hope that the snake would think it was an egg and try to eat it.  Naturally, it wouldn’t digest and the snake would be killed.  I think Grandma thought an egg eating black snake should be eating mice or rats and not her eggs!  

I hate snakes!  I hate encountering them when I don’t expect to.  I hate being pecked by chickens.  No wonder I didn’t like the chore of gathering eggs.  

One of the things I remember about Grandma’s chickens was a time when I was very little.  My cousin, Charles, who is three years older than I, but was still a little boy, was in the chicken yard when he did something to “offend” Grandma’s big Buff Orfington rooster.  The rooster jumped on Charles’s back, began pecking him on the head, and also flogging him with its wings.  I can still see (in my mind’s eye) Grandma coming to his rescue.  She grabbed that rooster, and in one fell swoop, she wrung its neck.  We had chicken and noodles the next day!

Now hold onto your hats for this next one.  We lived about a quarter of a mile from a butcher.  Mr. Bullock was a farmer who also butchered his own cattle and also did custom butchering.  This meant that the carcasses needed to be hauled off.  So every day the Coursey Rendering Service trucks would go by Grandma’s house on their way to Mr. Bullock’s.  They drove very fast and Grandma did not like that, but there was nothing she could do about it.  Anyway, once in a while one of Grandma’s chickens would get run over by the truck.  She would hear the commotion and go out and retrieve the chicken, dress it, and cut off the bruised parts.  This was freshly killed chicken.  We ate road-kill.  Like her peers, Grandma did not like waste.

My Mom and Grandma killed and dressed chickens and sold them in town to the local grocery store and sometimes to people who wanted farm raised chickens.  Grandma also sold eggs to the local hatchery and sometimes to the same grocery store.   I remember one time when Mom was offended because a Jewish friend asked her if the chickens were kosher.  Mom asked her what constituted kosher and the friend in telling her mentioned that they had to be cleaned in s particular way.  Mom was offended thinking the lady had said her chickens weren’t cleaned properly. 

 

 

 

Kathy asked me to write about the guineas.  Grandma had them and they served well as “watch dogs”. Whenever a car turned into the fairly long driveway leading up to Grandma’s house, they began making whatever the noise is called that they make.  It sounded like a bunch of old ladies ( I can now use that phrase without sounding like a hypocrite since I am now one) gossiping.  Each one speaking louder than the next in order to make sure their news or opinion was heard.  They were pretty birds, rather weirdly  built, but black and white striped.  Their feathers were very soft, not stiff like chicken feathers.  I don’t really remember whether or not they could fly, but they probably could.  I will have to look them up in Wikipedia and find out.  I really don’t know what purpose they served on the farm as I know we did not eat them.  Maybe their only purpose was to warn us of the approach of strangers.

Chickens were the main stay of the farm and Grandma tended her chickens faithfully.  This past Fourth of July brought to mind the fact that it was that holiday that signaled the beginning of the fried chicken season.  The baby chickens that were either hatched or purchased from the hatchery in the spring had now become big enough to be eaten.  Granted, the first ones were rather small, probably about the size we now get at KFC, but very tender and delicious.  Somehow, even as little children, we did not become attached to chickens.  They were to eat and the hens were to provide us with eggs.  

I have written previously that the whole family gathered at Grandma’s for dinner after church on Sunday. The summer Sunday’s dinner menu was always fried chicken.  We never seemed to tire of it.  There was quite a process to go through before the scrumptious chicken arrived on the platter on the table.  As I remember it, Grandma had a piece of clothesline wire about four feet long.  It had a U-shaped hook on one end and the other end was fashioned into a loop.  In the early evening on Saturday after the chickens had gone to roost, Grandma would go into the chicken house and visually select a young rooster who would become Sunday’s main dish.  I really am not sure how she decided which was the rooster, although I know their comb was larger than the pullets.  This was something Grandma’s knew, I guess.  Anyway, she would take this hook and reach out a put it around the selected chicken’s leg and quickly pull him from the roost.  She would then grab him by both legs and carry him out of the chicken house.  Of course, he would be squawking and waving his wings wildly.  Since one chicken would not feed all of us on Sunday, she repeated this process two or three times until she had the desired number of chickens to make a meal.  Sometimes I was “chosen” to hold the chickens after she had caught them while she got the next one.  I did not like live chickens!  Their wings were hard and hurt when they hit me.  My arms were not long enough to hold them far enough away to keep them from hitting me.  It  was especially bad when I had to hold two of them at a time.  This is probably why I didn’t mind the next part of the process, which was killing the chickens.  

There was a big stump by the cellar door in Grandma and Grandpa’s backyard.  It had a large machete stuck in it.  It also had two large…I imagine 16 penny nails..nailed about two inches apart.  Grandpa now took over the killing part….although Grandma did it after Grandpa died.  Grandpa took the chicken by  the feet and placed the chicken head between the two nails.  He then with one whack of the machete chopped off the head.  Then came the fun part. ( I say this even though it makes me sound terrible.

I have written about my cousin George as he is very special to me, but I had other cousins, too.  One of the big events in our family was Sunday dinner at Grandma’s house.  Now I said Grandma’s house, but Grandpa was there, also.  He was a very important person in my life and I loved him dearly, however, it was Grandma’s house we went to every Sunday after church.  

Grandma and Grandpa didn’t go to church, but they were both believers in God and Bible readers.  Grandpa, in times of crisis, would open the Bible to a random page and look for the phrase, “it came to pass”.  If he found this phrase (which occurs often in the Bible) he would take it as a sign from God that whatever was happening in our lives would pass.  

While we were at church and Sunday school, Grandma would be preparing the Sunday dinner.  After church, my family and Aunt Bess and Uncle Dayton and their children came to Grandma’s house for dinner and after dinner activities.  As we got older Uncle Dayton, who loved softball, would organize ball games in the field south of the house.  Sometimes in the evenings, the older cousins and the aunts and uncles would play cards.  They especially loved to play pinochle.

Aunt Bess and Uncle Dayton had four children.  Their youngest, Elizabeth, was sixteen months older than I.  Charles was three years older than I and Margaret was two or three years older than Charles.  Naomi was the same age as George, ten years older than I.  As I have told earlier, George lived with Grandma and Grandpa.  

In the summertime, we always had homemade ice cream.  I remember sitting on the freezer on a gunny sack to keep it from moving when it got hard to turn.  There was such a great camaraderie among all of these relatives.  We were all very close.  

We caught lightning bugs in the summer and put them in jars.  We sat on the corn planter under the mulberry trees and ate mulberries (no, we didn’t wash them first).  

We played hide and seek and other games.  In fact, we were even allowed to play pinochle with the adults.   It was a carefree time for all of us cousins.  

I have often wondered if Grandma really wanted us all to come over every Sunday, but I think it might have been the highlight of the week for her.  

This post brought back such great memories that I think I will stop and have a dish of homemade ice cream! 

The title “More Recent Times” may be a little misleading, but here goes.  I was married in June after graduating high school in May.  This was the norm for my times as only rich kids were able to go to college.  I always wanted more education than I had, and decided I would try to go to the Community College for a few credits at a time after Mike started to Kindergarten.  I went to the school to register and paid my tuition which wasn’t very much, but was enough.  I took an English class which was two hours credit.  Since it was one of the few two credit hour courses, and the time of it was early afternoon, it was extremely popular with the scholarship football players.  Now, they didn’t care diddly-squat about English poetry which was the first semester emphasis, they just wanted an afternoon class for two hours credit and the ethics class-another two hour class- was full.  The attendance the first day of class was forty-two students.

The teacher of this class was Myles Pember.  He had worked in Chicago for a large advertising agency.  He was a very intelligent man.  He had come to Parsons because he wanted to escape the rat race he was in and the cold weather in Chicago.  Our first class met on Tuesday.  Our assignment for Thursday was to memorize and be able to write a long Old English poem.  I think the name of it was Twa Corbies.  I worked very hard to memorize this poetry.  On Thursday, with sweaty palms, I came to class prepared to write.  Surprisingly, the number of people in the class had dwindled to about twelve.  I successfully wrote the poem and was ready for the next assignment which I expected would be equally as hard.

Mr. Pember announced that for some reason, there had been a large number of “drops” in this class.  From then on the class was very enjoyable and even though the work was difficult, it wasn’t nearly as hard as the first assignment.

I was impressed and made up my mind to take all the courses he taught at Labette.  I subsequently took Creative Writing from him and learned a lot.

He apparently was either impressed with me or realized I needed financial help….which was true.  He offered me a job which would pay half my tuition.  I accepted gratefully.  My job was to write press releases to send to the home town newspapers of the scholarship athletes.  Every time they did anything positive either athletically of scholastically, I wrote to their hometown newspapers.  I composed the press releases and after they were approved, or edited by Mr. Pember, I mailed them to the person in charge of sports.  Many of the athletes on basketball and football scholarships were from the Chicago area.  Their hometown newspaper wouldn’t be the big Chicago paper like the Tribune, but a smaller neighborhood paper.  There were also athletes from Pennsylvania.  They were from the Johnstown area.

It’s been a long time ago, but I remember typing hours and hours to do this job.  They really got their money’s worth, but I got a wealth of experience, and a special type of education from a man who was an expert in the newspaper field.  Although he didn’t say keep it simple, he did say be concise when you write.  Get the information out there in the least amounts of words.

He was probably one of  t he most influential teachers I had.  My Senior English teacher had stressed meter and rhythm in poetry.  Mr. Pember stressed content and voice.  I came to love poetry.  I still disagree when someone tells me what a poet meant when he made some obscure reference.  If we weren’t there and he didn’t tell us, I don’t think we should speculate.

 

When I speak of grandma’s backyard, I am speaking of Grandma and Grandpa Hudiburg’s backyard.  I am surprised at the completeness of my visual memory of it.  So I will describe it for you.  Grandma’s house sat at the north side of their property.  Their farm was a triangular shaped twenty-seven acres with one corner cut off by the railroad.  I think it was the Missouri Pacific Railroad, although I am not really sure.  At the time they lived on the farm, steam locomotives were still running and  the black smoke they emitted was used by Grandpa to forecast the weather.  I don’t know exactly how he did it, but it had something to do with whether the smoke hung low to the ground or rose into the sky.  As an old farmer, Grandpa depended on observation of nature to predict what the coming weather would be.  He was usually right.

The back door of the house led to steps down to a brick courtyard.  I don’t know how wide it was, but it led to the wash house.  The wash house sat on top of the storm cellar, considered a necessity in Kansas, especially in the days before radar, etc.  There were two hinged doors to the cellar covering steps leading down to the dark damp interior which was lined with shelves, usually weighted down with jars of canned goods which Grandma and Mom had preserved during the growing season.  These jars were a point of pride among the ladies at the sewing circle, with the recitation of how many quarts, pints, etc. had been canned.  I must admit, we were never hungry!  The wash house itself had a gas hot plate for heating the water used for washing.  It also contained a wringer washer and three tubs on stands.  The wash board for removing stains and ground in dirt hung on one wall.  I will in a future blog tell what I remember about wash day….including the pot of ham and beans that was always the noon meal on wash day.

There was a large stump by the cellar door.  It was probably twenty inches in diameter and was used as a chopping block for killing chickens.  I guess I will tell about that memory in the future, too.

But today, we are on a visual tour.  The outhouse (yes, it was a real outhouse) was on the east side of the yard .  I assume the location was guided by the prevailing winds which in Kansas in the summertime are from the south and west.  I, of course, had no idea about that as a kid.  There was a tool “shed” quite a way south of the outhouse.  It was fairly large, probably fifteen by twenty feet.  There was lots of “stuff” in it.  I imagine most of it was very important “stuff”, but I didn’t know or care about that.  To the west (across a brick walk which led from the house to the back fence and gate) was a teeter-totter which had been fashioned from sections of telephone poles.  There were three of them.  Two tall ones and one shorter one.  The two tall ones had a pipe between them which served as an exercise bar.  The teeter totter was a two x twelve mounted by U-Bolts to the pipe.  There was a big tree in the  back yard and a tire swing was hung from one limb.  There was also a “sack” swing hung from another limb.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with sack swings, they are straw filled gunny sacks tied to the end of a rope.  The yard was fenced with 4×4 woven wire and there was a gate in the back and on the side yard.  The gate in the back led to the barnyard.  The main thing I remember about the back gate, which was fixed with a weighted system so it would close on its own, was that Grandpa would yell at you if you swung on the gate.  And when I say yell, I mean YELL!  Somehow the side gate wasn’t as attractive to swing on and it led to the driveway on the west side of the house.  The driveway was lined with large elm trees.

The front yard, also fenced was like a formal living room.  The front porch was used for visiting,  and the front yard was used for Easter egg hunts, but the playing was done in the back yard.  There were two rows of large cedar trees in the front which led from the front door /porch to the fence at the road.  Star of Bethlehem plants defined the grass walkway between the trees.

The odd thing about these memories is that yesterday I had trouble remembering what order to put the ingredients in my bread machine, yet these childhood memories are so vivid…Go figure!

I haven’t blogged for so long that I think I may have been forgotten, but my son reminded me that I started blogging to leave a record for my family.  Every day  something comes up in the present that triggers a memory of the past.  I think this is even more true this past year as I had a challenging year of loss and poor health.  I am now on the mend, but the loss of my son to cancer will be forever on my mind and in my heart.  It is his death that calls forward so many memories.  I remember special days, but I also remember everyday things that didn’t seem important at the time.  

But this blog isn’t going to be about Larry.  It is going to be about my memories of past events.  

I made an angelfood cake this week…in fact I made two of them…because of a fund raiser we were having in our community.  As I used my electric mixer to beat the egg whites, I could almost picture my Mom sitting in the kitchen, a bowl of egg whites in her lap as she used a wire whisk to beat them to the proper consistency.  My Mom had very strong wrists which were made even stronger by milking cows by hand.  She used to arm-wrestle with my uncle Dayton and she often won.  Anyway, angelfood was my favorite cake (I also liked chocolate) and every year for my birthday, I requested it for my birthday cake.  We had chickens and always had a lot of eggs, so that was no problem.  During the war, the lack of sugar was a problem, but the coupons were saved for special occasions like birthdays.  

One year Mom made me what she called a Sunshine Angelfood Cake.  I don’t know exactly where she got the recipe for it, and I think she made it up, but it was filled with a delicious cream filling that if I am correct had a vanilla pudding base with whipped cream folded into it.  It was absolutely scrumptious.

The family thinks of Grandma Sumner as being an excellent pie maker, and that she was, using that same whisk to whip up the meringue for the cream pies.  But she was an excellent cake baker, too, and baked cakes for all the nieces and nephews on their birthdays.  She made a banana=-nut cake to die for.  It was a white cake frosted with a cooked fluffy brown sugar frosting…like a seven-minute frosting only using brown sugar.  I have tried to duplicate it, but couldn’t as this was another thing she made up without a recipe.  I remember it was a three layer cake with sliced bananas and pecans   on each layer of the cake before it was frosted, and then pecans on the top in a decorative placement.  

It sounds from this blog post that I am hungry.  That is not the case, but I wouldn’t mind having a slice of that banana nut cake again.  

 

When I was going to high school in Independence, I met a girl who became my best friend.  I think she started attending the same church I attended.  I don’t remember whether she came with me, or whether someone else in the church brought her the first time.  I just know that the friendship that began at that time lasted a lifetime for her.  And it lasted for me until her death.

She was two years older than I and had a childhood much unlike mine.  Her father was an alcoholic and her mother was in a mental hospital.  She had just moved to Independence from a small town about forty miles north.  I know very little about her before I met her, but she was a special person who had had a hard life.  I now think that she had possibly been abused by her father, although she never said anything about that.

Her father worked in a beer joint in Independence he and she lived in a small apartment above the tavern.  She was a senior in high school when we became acquainted.  The apartment she lived in was about four blocks from the high school and we started going there for lunch daily.  I remember that we always had canned Campbell soup for lunch.  Our favorite was vegetable, but sometimes we had chicken noodle or tomato . We often had Twinkies for dessert.   Funny how those lunches tasted so great, but it was probably the companionship that made it so.

I remember also the smell of that apartment.  It smelled of stale beer and stale smoke. We entered the apartment by a door beside the tavern.  We would go up a dark stairway and into a dark smelly hallway.  The first door on the left was the door to their apartment.  I really don’t know how many apartments were in that hallway, but there were probably at least two more.  Hers was the one right above the tavern.

She kept the apartment immaculately clean.  She had a knack for doing great decorating with very little money.  She was also very talented at sewing, knitting, and other needlework… but not such a great cook. The apartment had her touches on everything, down to the hand-painted towels in the bathroom.  I know her father didn’t appreciate what she did, as he made her life miserable with criticism.  His lack of cooperation in keeping the apartment neat  also added to her work.  He also did nothing to help her and I don’t remember ever seeing him without a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  I don’t know enough of his or her past to know why he was the way he was, but there must have been a time when he was not that way.

After she graduated from high school, she got a job with a local law firm as a private legal secretary.  Her shorthand and typing skills were excellent and she was also very intelligent.  She saved her money and as soon as possible rented a small garage apartment of her own.  She was eighteen and was totally on her own.  Sometimes when her father was drinking heavily, he would come to her apartment and ask her for money.  She was afraid of him.  She began spending more and more time at our house with Mom and me.  Finally, Mom convinced her to move in with us.  She lived with us for at least a year.  Mom was somewhat formidable and her dad didn’t really want to mess with her, so he left my friend alone.

She finally gained the courage to go back on her own, and she made a home for herself again.  I visited her frequently at her apartment and she and I did a lot of things together socially.  I was also working and we would go shopping together and sometimes by matching outfits.  I was never as good at crafts as she was, but I tried, and we had a lot of fun doing them.  She learned how to knit argyle socks and sweaters, and I couldn’t even do a chain stitch.

She married my late husband’s best friend, and the four of us did a lot of things together.  She and her husband moved away, my husband died, I remarried, and our friendship became a long-distance thing.

I called her because I had been thinking about her one day, and got her answering machine.  Her husband called me later in the day and said she had been taken to the hospital and diagnosed with brain cancer.  I sent her flowers, and was able to talk with her the day before she died.  I know the connection we had was the reason I called when I did, and I am thankful to God for allowing me to say good-bye to her.

Friends like her don’t happen too often in a person’s life.  When they do, we need to cherish them.

 

This year is going difficult for a lot of people.  The economy is bad, many are unemployed or underemployed and yet the commercialism of Christmas continues unabated.  Children have expensive expectations as television touts the toys that merchants wish to unload on the holiday shopper.  Parents are made to feel they must not love their children if Santa doesn’t leave his whole bag full of stuff at their homes.  What a lot of pressure for a holiday that is supposed to be a Holy Day!

When I look back at Christmas past in my life, I remember two years particularly.  One was the year all of us cousins received a baby doll.  There were four of us girls and as the youngest, I got first choice of the dolls.  They were identical except for the colors of their dresses and bonnets.  We were at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  After the evening Christmas meal was finished, the dishes were washed, and the house put back in order, only then were we allowed to open the drapes to the parlor and see the decorated Christmas tree .  The tree was a cedar tree that had been brought in from the pasture earlier in the day and decorated by the adults who were not involved with making the Christmas dinner.  The wrapped presents were under the tree…except for the dolls…they were in the branches of the tree.  I was three or four years old at the time, and I still, believe it or not, have a mind picture of that tree and those four dolls.  I chose the one dressed in yellow.  I do not remember anything else about that Christmas.  I don’t know what Santa brought to my house, if anything.  I only remember those dolls.  Many years later, I was told that Uncle Leo and Aunt Jean were responsible for the dolls.

Another Christmas I remember was the year that Montgomery Ward introduced Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  We went to the local Montgomery Ward store and were given a book containing the story of Santa’s new reindeer.  I vaguely remember that Santa was in attendance and handed out the books in the basement of the local store.

When I was twelve, I wanted a bride doll.  I had picked out one from the catalog and hinted about it a lot.  I got a kind of raggedy ann doll instead.  I remember the disappointment, but lived through it. I know now that my parents couldn’t afford a fancy bride doll, and the raggedy doll was the best they could do that year.

Today television lets children know what the most wanted toys should be.  It really was not much different when I was growing up as Sears and Montgomery Ward both put out Toy Catalogs.  These catalogs were full of toys of all kinds.  One of the games my cousin and I liked to play was to go through the catalog and pick a toy from each page.  We made our lists for Santa by looking in the catalog.  We never got everything on the list and , in fact, we got very few of the things….usually one major gift…and by major, I don’t mean expensive.  Sometimes a gift might be something someone had made for us.  It was also something we needed.  I do remember that every year there was a really big orange in my sock and usually some nuts and candy.  I loved the really big orange as that was the only time in the year that we had them.

I do remember getting roller skates one year.  They were metal, with metal wheels and clamps that attached them to shoes.  These skates were held on by tightening the clamps with a skate key.  I also remember getting a red bicycle one year.  This was during the war and the only bicycle available was a boy’s bike.  I learned to ride it with difficulty as it was really too big.  Lots of skinned knees from falling over learning to ride.  It was a 26 inch bike and the only one I ever had.  It lasted forever!

Christmas is important to children.  It is also important to parents.  Hopefully, the pressure  of the economy won’t diminish the joy of the holiday this year.  We have all had times when we couldn’t afford to do what we really wanted to do at Christmas. By being creative, maybe we can all make this year a Merry one and one when the joy of the season and what it really stands for will take the forefront of our celebration!  Merry Christmas to all!