Sure enough, last Monday we didn’t even get enough snow to stick to the ground. Lincoln, on the other hand, got seven and a half inches, and Seward got five. No fair, no fair. And it was probably our last chance!
Caleb went to school that day for the first time in a week. He came home so tired, he fell asleep on my bed while Hannah and Aaron were here visiting, and didn’t even notice when he put his knee on the long hair of Kitty’s tail and she told him a thing or two. I rushed to poor Kitty’s aid, telling Caleb to move over quickly, but Caleb couldn’t seem to get his wits about him, and I was obliged to move him myself.
That kid doesn’t look so very big, but I tell you, when someone weighs about half as much as you do, they aren’t so very easy to move, huh-uh!
I sent him off to his own bed to take a nap, and he gladly went. The poor child slept for four hours.
One afternoon, Victoria was looking at the pictures in her little blue Bible, particularly the ones having to do with the Easter story. She asked me to read a story to her, and held out her Bible. By chance, it opened to one of the first pages at the front of the Bible, a story called ‘How We Got Our Bible’. So I read it. Caleb, hearing me starting to read, trotted in to listen, also. It told all about the original writings, what language they were written in, how many men wrote the books of the Bible, when the Bible began to be translated, and the terrible trials and persecutions people went through when they were translating it. Sometimes portions of the Scriptures had to be smuggled into other countries where were people who knew the language, and then into yet another country where were printing presses with which to duplicate the transcribed copies.
One time when we were staying in a motel, I read to the children the story of the Gideons, who have supplied nearly every hotel and motel room in the entire United States, and many other countries, too, with a Bible. It’s a wonderful story; if you are ever in a motel room, pick up the Gideon Bible that is sure to be there, and read about the Gideon family. The story will be right near the front of the Bible.
One day this week, Hannah’s sewing machine threw a tantrum and refused to zig one more zag (or perhaps it was a zig it declined to zag), so I finished her suit on my machine. It’s really pretty...the material is a soft, mint green with aqua, teal, and rose-colored flowers; the top has a long peplum that drapes nearly to the knees in the back, shorter in the front; and the skirt is A-line.
Before starting on Hester’s Fourth-of-July dress, I patched jeans and mended a few things. Hester’s dress is now about a third done.
For supper Monday, we had soft-shelled chicken tacos and pears. Yummy, it hit the spot. And, as we hadn’t gone to the store yet, there had been absolutely nothing in the cupboards or refrigerator or freezer to eat. Well, that is, unless anyone wanted to eat uncooked dry beans, which they didn’t.
After supper, Larry, Victoria, and I went to the grocery store, thinking to take a quick jaunt through the store and purchase only a few necessities, and perhaps a little smackerel of something (a la Winnie the Pooh) for a before-bedtime snack, since our supper had not quite filled us to the brim.
An hour later we arrived at the checkout stand with the cart so full of groceries, Larry could hardly push it, partly because it was one of those recalcitrant carts that insists on yawing off one direction while one wheel skids and refuses to roll.
We came home and fed everyone Kudos and Oreos and Reese’s Pieces until we were stuffed with all that junk food, and then we sent the children off to bed. Good thing that sort of thing doesn’t happen very often at our house, eh?
Tuesday after school, it looked bright and sunny outside, with the sky all blue, so the little girls put on jackets and bounced out the door.
In fifteen minutes they were back, noses, cheeks, ears, and fingers red as tomatoes, hunting up coats, hats, and gloves.
Hannah came, and Aaron, too, of course, bringing with her the hats I’d ordered out of a hat catalogue from New York City. Most of the hats are bought unadorned, and all sorts of matching trim is available. The buyer can then decorate the hat as she prefers. I ordered a smallish navy sailor hat, an off-white pillbox with curved creases and ridges in the crown, and a large off-white sailor. Hannah fixed them all up for me, making big bows out of different widths of horsehair braid, affixing beaded trim around the crown, and garnishing one with a large, teardrop-shaped gold-and-pearl button, another with a dark purple and green beaded iris with leaves. On one she put netting, on another fine veiling.
Yes! I like hats!
After school Tuesday, Caleb was once again exhausted, so he went off and took a nap. But it wasn’t long before Larry came home and started working on the go-cart, started it with an unearthly roar, and promptly awoke Caleb. He came stumbling up the steps half asleep, picked up his glasses, started to put them on, all the while tilting farther and farther backwards, until Hannah and I both exclaimed alarmedly at the same time and I snatched him by the arm, at which time he jerked himself back upright, which was probably a jolly good thing, or he would have pulled us both down ker-splat.
But he soon recovered. It was not long before he was trotting about the house with a pirate’s hat, made from the morning newspaper, perched jauntily on his head.
Teddy is still working on the hope chest for Amy. It now looks precisely like a hope chest, and he will soon be staining it. One evening he had to return to Menards to get another piece of trim after something went wrong with the first piece he cut. Larry helped him with the next piece, and things went on swimmingly. Or maybe woodily. Something. Anyway, they went on.
That evening I tried a new concoction for supper, something I found in the freezer at Hy-Vee: chicken noodle casserole, with the whole works included. It was remarkably good, especially for the low price I paid. There’s no way I could have put that mixture together so cheaply--or so easily.
The Schwan man came that day, and, to everyone’s immense delight, I bought truckloads and bushel baskets full of ice cream, fruit-and-cream bars, and frozen yogurt. We had Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream for dessert.
After supper, I thought about all the important things I needed to do...and sat down and read Victoria a pile of her favorite little books. Why is it that, the more I have to do, and the closer it comes to Easter (or Christmas, for that matter), the more of a torpor I sink into? Lack of sleep, maybe? Hmmmm...
ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.............
Wednesday, I gathered myself together again and altered a fuchsia flowered suit Dorcas gave me. First I tried taking in the side seams by making a smallish hole in a seam of the lining, just large enough so that I could fit my presser foot in to the seams, and tapering each seam down without removing the band at the bottom. I wound up creating an oddity of a mermaid tail that no mermaid would have been caught dead in. So I had to take the entire bottom band off, sew deeper seams all the way to the bottom of the jacket, and then put the band back on, after cutting off all the excess. It still sticks out a little; I could have cut off more of the band than I did. Oh, well; after I ironed it, it wasn’t too bad. Maybe if I quack every now and then--mermaids do quack, don’t they?--nobody will notice a thing wrong with it. Besides!--I have high-heeled fuchsia pumps, and Hannah loaned me her fuchsia pillbox hat, so I should look utterly too-too.
Wednesday was the children’s last day of school until tomorrow, Tuesday. We’ve had nice weather all weekend and today, so they’ve spent many hours outside.
The new Desert Dome at Henry Doorly Zoo opened Wednesday, and there were hordes of people beyond belief (that is, the hordes were beyond belief, not the people) (well, maybe the people were beyond belief, too; I didn’t see them, myself, but several times when we were at the zoo, we saw a few individuals who were definitely beyond belief) waiting to get into it. I want to go see it, too; but I think we’ll wait a while, till the crowds thin out...maybe a few decades or so.
Thursday, I took some documents to the Department of Health and Human Services to reapply for Medicaid. I called first, to find out what all I needed to take. The lady who answers the phone started to tell me; then her phone started ringing, so she told me she would connect me with a caseworker named Marilyn.
I have now come to the very definite conclusion that Marilyn is not a real person at all. On the contrary, ‘she’s’ a robot. Not one time has ‘Marilyn’ ever answered her phone, no matter how the woman at the switchboard insists she’s in her office. Not one time has ‘Marilyn’ ever returned my phone call, although once I got a ‘received your call’ notice in the mail, which profited me nothing. Once, about a year ago, I was ushered into a room where I actually ‘met’ someone (something?) named ‘Marilyn’ ...but I should have known that ‘she’ couldn’t possibly be human, because when I handed her one of our cats’ veterinarian bills instead of Teddy’s birth certificate, she studied it momentarily--and then flung her head back and guffawed.
Now, if I had’ve had my wits about me, I would’ve realized that ‘she’ was not at all a real live person, because the Department of Health and Human Services never--I repeat, never--hires humans who are capable of laughter. There, right in front of my nose, was proof positive that ‘Marilyn’ was a robot (robots can be taught to laugh, you know), and I missed it entirely.
Anyway, I took the papers I needed to their office, copied them on the Xerox machine, and handed them over. Now...let’s hope our application goes through before some kid needs a transfusion or a transplant or a transmogrification. (Is that a medical procedure?)
Friday, we went to the Goodwill in Fremont. Hannah and Aaron came, too. We stopped at a Mexican clothing store for children in Schuyler, where we saw the most gorgeous dresses you could ever imagine, and adorable little boys’ outfits, too; but they were beyond my budget. I purchased a few pretty headbands for a dollar each, and we continued on our way.
Taking the scenic route south of North Bend that goes past Morse Bluff, we then turned on a country road to the west when we spotted a lot of smoke, and several rural firetrucks heading that way.
It was a small forest fire, and there were a few structures that were threatened, including at least two farmhouses and several barns and outbuildings. We saw a little airplane flying over, dropping foam. Joseph took videos as I drove. He zeroed in on such things as the innards of the firetruck’s engine, the motor in the huge loader, the tread on the gigantic tires, and so forth, thereby proving that what boys focus on with a camcorder is not the same as what girls focus on with a camcorder.
While we drove, Hannah showed Aaron some of our board books. “Here’s a boat!” she told him. “Can you say ‘boat’?”
“Mmmmbuh!” he said triumphantly, making all the children laugh. He grinned at them.
“That’s right,” Hannah told him, “And here’s a ball,” she continued. “Can you say ‘ball’?”
“Mmmmmbuh!” proclaimed Aaron, immediately looking around expectantly to see if anyone was going to laugh. They did.
“That’s right!” said Hannah. “Now here’s Tigger,” she went on. “Can you say ‘Tigger’?”
“Mmmmmmmmbuh!” announced Aaron, with more exuberance than before.
The children screeched with laughter, and Aaron looked at them with a smug little smile on his face.
I went to the Goodwill especially to find a) an ivory skirt, b) ivory or beige shoes, and c) white pants for Caleb. I found none of the above. However, I did find four pairs of jeans for Caleb, two blue, one khaki, and one black; a sweater for Dorcas; several items of beaten brass for a friend of mine; brass candlesticks for a couple who will be getting married at the end of April; a set of three pans with vegetables painted on their ceramic sides, which I will give to Amy; ceramic jelly jars for Caleb’s schoolteacher (who is also Victoria’s Sunday School teacher), and a small ceramic flower pot for Victoria to give her; a pearl necklace from Avon; and a pile of books that Hester and Victoria got. The jeans and books were used; the rest was all new merchandise.
Things are higher priced there than at the Goodwill in Columbus, and definitely higher than any Salvation Army, anywhere. But I am pleased with my purchases.
We got Old Home fruit pies and some big blueberry muffins to snack on as we drove. On the way home, we stopped at Fremont Lakes State Park and let the children play for a little while. I tried my hand at batting the baseball with which they were playing.
I can still hit ’em, I sho’ ’nuff can! Move over, Mark McGwire; step aside, Sammy Sosa.
(I missed one or two pitches, too; but I’m not telling about that.)
Home rather late, I hastily fixed supper. Larry was sound asleep on our bed, and it took an act of Congress to get him out of there and into the kitchen to eat with us. I fixed potato soup and made fudgy cream cheese brownies, which we ate hot with raspberry rumble ice cream. Most of us ate grapefruit before the brownies and ice cream; those who ate those items on the menu the other way around sure did make funny faces over the first few bites of grapefruit.
As soon as supper was over, I cut out and started sewing white pants for Caleb.
Saturday, I finished Caleb’s pants, re-ironed the pleats in Hester’s green sailor dress, and let out the hem in some blue pants for Caleb.
For the last couple of days, Victoria had been hunting for the white gloves she’d worn Easters past. She finally found a couple of gloves, but they were not the pristine white gloves they once had been, and upon closer inspection, it was revealed that they were not even mates at all. Sooo...Saturday evening, about the time I needed to be curling the girls’ hair, I suddenly decided that I really must go to Wal-Mart to get Victoria some much-needed (or much-wanted) lace gloves.
Then, having just washed some of Caleb’s white shirts and seeing that neither were they in their former immaculate condition, I also got Caleb a couple of shirts that were on sale for only $3.00 each, regular $10.00. I bought him a tie, too--a real, honest-to-goodness, tie-it-around-your-neck sort of tie.
Upon my arrival back home, I discovered that the shirts, which were long-sleeved, hung about four inches below Caleb’s fingertips, so back I went for a smaller size, keeping the bigger ones for later use.
The only size eight was $5.00. It turns out, the long-sleeved shirts, being left over from winter stock, are $3.00; the short-sleeved ones, being new, are $5.00. More money for less material. Humbug.
After a necessary excursion to the grocery store, I set about ironing all the things we would be wearing the next day.
Easter Sunrise Service was at 6:00 a.m., and at 7:00 was breakfast in the church basement--ham, eggs, doughnuts, rolls, orange juice, milk, coffee.
I stayed with Mama during Sunday School and church, and was rather sad to miss one of the main parts of the Easter story, and the only service where several of the young men played their horns (saxophone, trombone, trumpet). But I took videos of some of our friends walking to church from the parking lots on several sides of Mama’s house, and then played it for her, which she enjoyed.
Bobby, Hannah, Aaron, and Amy came for dinner, which was beef vegetable soup, chef salad, applesauce, and granola bars. Somewhat less than our usual fare, but after all that breakfast, we weren’t as hungry as usual.
After the evening service, we had lunch in the church basement: ham, deviled eggs, and doughnuts. Soon, many were getting out cameras and camcorders. I took my fair share of pictures, and when we got home we looked at the video I’d taken. Everyone laughed when a little four-year-old, Anna Beth, daughter of Teddy’s boss, marched through the school library, too-long sweater sleeves tugged down far below her fingertips and swinging wildly as she vigorously flounced forth, pumping her arms as she went.
Another little girl, about three years of age, pulled a book from one of the shelves in the children’s section, studied the front cover, and then ran eagerly to her young aunt, crying jubilantly, “I found it! I found it!”
Her aunt, one of the young ladies who stays evenings with my mother, sat down to read the book to the child, but the little girl suddenly turned and rushed off again, calling back, “I gonna get anothuh ’n!” And she did.
I love taking pictures and videos of the children.
And now...I hear the washing machine calling me.
P.S.: Recently, a dear old man, Don Gamble, with whom I've corresponded for some time wrote and asked me how we became acquainted. I forgot to answer that in my next letter to him; then, a week later, I wrote: You see, it’s not just 80-year-olds who show signs of Alzheimer’s; 40-year-olds do it, too!) (However, since I only forget half of what I know, I think I don’t have Allzheimer’s; it’s only Halfzheimer’s.)
"Anyway," I told him, "it was perhaps 15 years ago that we read your request in the CountRy magazine, asking for tapes of the Old Fashioned Revival Hour. Now, we are of the opinion that anyone who likes the Old Fashioned Revival Hour is an A-One, jolly good fellow, and that’s that. Sooo...just for the fun of it, we decided to surprise whoever-you-were and send you copies of every last OFRH tape we had, which was about 65 tapes, I think. We were aided in this endeavor by my blind friend, Penny. (You’ve probably read her name many times in my letters; she is one of our school teachers, and won an award for Teacher of the Year; she sings, plays any instrument you can think of, and is a walking, talking encyclopedia. The church has given her the use of the little white house north of my mother’s house.) She gave us a big box of empty tapes (she gets them at a reduced price from the Institution for the Blind, I think), and we set to high-speed dubbing."
But after we sent the man those tapes, we were the ones surprised, when he sent us in return a gigantic, heavy box (the UPS man has been somewhat hunch-backed and nervous of boxes from Leadville, Colorado, ever since) full of gospel records of all sorts. We enjoyed many of them, but there was one record in particular that, to us, was nothing short of buried treasure: a men’s duet--with our beloved Rudy Atwood at the piano!
The minute that record started playing, I cried, “Oh! Listen, listen!!! It’s Rudy Atwood!!!”
I grabbed the album cover and read it--and I was right. Rudy Atwood played the piano for the Old Fashioned Revival Hour for many years. So far as I know, we have every record he ever made, and we have recorded them onto cassettes and CDs, the better to preserve them. I learned to play the piano when I was little, listening to Rudy Atwood. He is my mentor, you might say.
Then, as if all those records weren’t enough, Don sent us several beautiful creations from his scroll saw. As I sit here at my desk typing, I can look up and spot several of them in positions of honor...a lovely sleigh in my bookcase, with a small teddy bear with ruffled, crocheted pinafore (made by Hannah) sitting inside it; a pretty heart-shaped necklace holder with hummingbirds on it; and--my favorite--a hanging nut bowl with a hummingbird design above it. How did he know hummingbirds were one of my favorite birds?
We are hoping to travel to Colorado later this summer, and we hoped to meet the man and his wife, perhaps for a short afternoon visit. We have traveled through Leadville several times in the last few years, usually in a great big hurry on some sort of business (monkey?); and we have always regretted that we didn’t stop to see them, if only for a few minutes.
"If that won’t work," I told him, "just post a big sign out front of your house: 'NO RUGRATS ALLOWED!!!' We’ll get the message."
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