Monday evening, we went to the library. It started raining about the time we came out, and the children ran lickety-split to the Suburban. On the way home, it rained harder...and harder...and harder...until we could scarcely see directly in front of us. All of a sudden, I thought I heard the tornado sirens.
I rolled my window down, and, sure enough, the sirens were blaring. I turned the radio on, and heard a frenzied announcer stuttering at high velocity all about ‘activity’ here and ‘activity’ there. Finally coming round to Platte County, he stammered that we were indeed in some sort of ‘activity’.
‘Activity’? Would it be possible to learn what type of ‘activity’ we were in the midst of?
No, it would not.
It could have been a raging blizzard, a tsunami, a hurricane, a typhoon, an earthquake, for all we knew. The announcer never said, not once.
We raced home, leaped out of Suburban, and dashed into the house, getting quite soaked in the process. We tuned in to another station, one we couldn’t get in the Suburban, and learned that there was rotation in the clouds a mile west of town, and there was the threat of hail, along with strong winds.
A few branches fell here and there, and then the storm passed over.
Larry came home early Tuesday because of the threat of rain and hail--but that was the one day it didn’t rain and hail. But Larry said he had lots to do in the back yard--and he does: it is all messy and cluttered back there with the sorts of broken, half-finished-but promising jetsam and flotsam such as people who can fix anything collect; and there are also piles of sawdust and bark that need to be cleaned up.
So what did he do? He worked on a funny-looking little old-fashioned three-wheeler that he bought from somebody who lives next to the house his crew was working on that morning. Just what we needed. It wanted to keep company with the six-wheeler and the go-cart, I suppose.
We all went for a ride Tuesday evening. First, we got blizzards and shakes from the Dairy Queen, compliments of Dorcas. Hester used her $5.00 gift certificate, given her by one of our teachers who has a birthday on the same day...and we paid her back the amount she didn’t spend. We took a blizzard and a bowl of soft serve vanilla ice cream to Dorcas and Mama, respectively. While we slurped our ice cream, we delivered a few birthday presents to the children’s friends.
Hester, Caleb, and Victoria went to Hy-Vee with me that night. Caleb and Victoria, in particular, always want to go, if there is a place to go and someone to go with. Hester spotted a gigantic, long-haired, stuffed dog atop the freezers, regular $60, now on sale for $12, and decided that was exactly what she needed to spend her birthday money on. Victoria carried it around through the store, making people laugh, because the beast was so much bigger than she is.
Several times the next day, I found myself walking carefully around that big dog, so that I didn’t step on his paw, or tail, or something. Oh, yeah, he’s stuffed, I thought, feeling sheepish. But I wasn’t the only one who did that. I tell you, he looks real.
Hannah and Aaron came visiting Wednesday afternoon, bringing Aaron’s one-year pictures. She gave me the 8x10 I liked best; I bought one 5x7, too.
I finished Hester’s dress that Hannah sewed for her birthday, and Hester wore it to church that night. I got it done (minus sleeve headers and overlocking) at 6:05 p.m., just barely in the nick of time. Hannah had embroidered flowers on a white collar with Venice lace sewn around the edges. The dress had a peplum at a V waist.
Around 5:00, a severe thunderstorm hit, with hail and high winds. Just before it began, Joseph ran out to put the camper down, but nickel-sized hail started pounding him, and then the rain poured down, and he put it back up and ran back in. And the canvas got torn. Rats. I knew that storm was coming, but I didn’t even think of the camper being up. The ripped part of the canvas is now lying near my sewing machine, waiting for me to repair it.
A house a mile west of town had all its windows broken out. A couple of people were hurt by baseball and softball-sized hail, and a motel west of Lincoln had part of the roof blown off, exposing 14 rooms.
But the storm was over by 6:00, so we safely went off to church.
Thursday evening, Larry had that goofy three-wheeler running nicely, so Teddy climbed on and rode it down the alley, looking rather like a goofball--and acting like one, too. Every time he came back past us, he pretended he was going to run over our toes, and I had a suspicion that, if he should misgauge by about half an inch, he really would run over our toes.
“I hope he doesn’t kill himself,” I muttered; “He’ll deprive the village of its idiot.”
Later, I went to Hy-Vee for milk. Larry wondered why, if I spent so much on groceries Tuesday night, I hadn’t gotten any milk.
“Hadn’t gotten any milk???!!!” I yelped indignantly. “When do I ever go to the grocery store and not get milk???!!! And do you,” I continued apace, “want me to get enough for a week at a time, and will you drink the old sour stuff at the end of the week???!!!”
Before I was done with that tirade, he was frantically fishing my keys out of my purse for me, draping my sweater around my shoulders, and ushering me towards the door, while the littles chortled.
Finally at the end of the week there were only two more days of cramming antibiotic pills down Socks’ throat, and we’d be done with that siege. Poor little thing; he was awfully good about it, and, to make me feel even worse, every time we picked him up to administer the dosage, he purred sweetly--until I pried his mouth open and stuffed the tablet in. Then he’d gulp and look woebegone, and I’d scurry to give him a treat of some sort or another. His tail is all back to normal now, arching above his back in a tight curl reminiscent of a Siberian Husky. The infection is gone, and he has gained back some of the weight he lost.
The next morning, when I should have given him his pill, he jumped up on my bed, purring, and gave me his unique sign of affection--holding quite still and pressing his cold little nose against my wrist. He then laid down on my feet and began his ritualistic ablutions, taking special care to wash behind his ears.
I decided he was well, and done with his prescription. ‘Besides,’ I reasoned, ‘They probably gave me a few extra pills as a precautionary measure, in case the cat spits them out outside and buries them stealthily in the ground.’
Thus Socks and I happily went on with our sunny morning, sans pill-cramming.
Friday, I swept and mopped the kitchen floor, and then spent the rest of the day outside.
Larry, Victoria, and I had gotten a trailer load of wood mulch the night before, and I spent all afternoon and evening putting it around my flowers on all sides of the house but the east.
Joseph, Caleb, and Victoria helped me, Victoria with her little wagon, filling it as full as she could get it, and then pulling it around the house to the flower beds. After I’d unloaded several wheelbarrow loads of the stuff, Joseph took over. He piled it high, and then took off running like a maniac, tearing around corners and under trees as if mad dogs were at his heels.
A bush we planted behind the house several years ago has grown into a mammoth. It’s huge. There are buds all over it; soon it will blossom. I need more hostas and lilies of the valley for the north side of the house.
We watched a mother robin feeding her baby high in a tree. The baby flew to our rooftop, flapping with all his might and main. When he landed, he lost his balance and slid downhill for a ways, his short stubby tail flicking frantically.
Joseph used the weed eater behind the house, and I went back by the trees along the alley to see if there really was any poison ivy or oak like the children and their cousins have been thinking.
Well, there wasn’t any in the particular places they have been walking and playing, and the vines and leaves they suspected were not poison ivy...but I did find poison ivy, growing right up the side of the mulberry tree.
Joseph whacked it down; let’s hope he didn’t actually touch the stuff.
Lura Kay told me that she was pulling weeds under her pine tree in the front yard and got into something poisonous, probably ivy. She got it on her face, neck, arms, legs... She had to go to the doctor for a shot for it. She is getting over it, but it still bothers her.
I should think so! I once got a spot of poison ivy or sumac or something on my leg, just a little spot about the size of a quarter. And I wanted to scratch the living daylights out of myself; I could hardly think of anything else but how badly I wanted to scratch it.
But I had gotten the best pictures of a cottontail rabbit that I’d ever taken, with the sun back-lighting him and creating a halo all around him, and turning his long ears golden pink. I took several shots, and then he lifted his head and peeked at me through the prairie grasses--and I got him. My best rabbit picture.
So the spot of poison ivy was worth it.
And I can say that with conviction...now that I am over the poison ivy.
My nephew Kelvin has been digging up sod around John and Lura Kay’s house; they have had a bit of landscaping done, and Kelvin is putting red mulch around Lura Kay’s rose bushes, honeysuckle, and other flowers and bushes. He gave us the sod to put on the south side of our house where the grass has died out; so Larry spent part of Saturday afternoon putting that sod down. The new grass Joseph planted in the front has done well; it looks a lot better. Keeping lawn and flowers nice is a chore, have you ever noticed that?!
My butterfly flowers are blooming. The trumpet vines--most of them, anyway--got knocked down in that hail and wind storm. I weeded the flower gardens and cut all the old blossoms off the peony bushes. Some great big buds never even bloomed before they collapsed. Why do my peonies always fall over and land on the ground, while all around town I see other people’s peonies standing upright, nice as you please? Bah, humbug.
Friday evening, Teddy asked Caleb if he wanted to go with him to Amy’s house. Amy’s little brother, Kyle, is just a couple of months younger than Caleb, and they are good friends. Caleb had just come in the house from playing outside, and he was hot and sweaty, and had a bit of dirt smudged about his face. He’d only a moment earlier poured himself a big glass of lemonade and plunked down in his chair, and he hem-hawed for about two seconds: “Well, uh... Yeah!”
And with that, he picked up his somewhat dirty cap and started to put it on his mussed, sweaty hair.
His brother and his mother both howled at the same time, and he jerked the cap back off, looking startled. I hauled him off to the bathroom, where I scrubbed his face, ears, neck, and arms, and combed his hair. He put on his belt. I handed him a toothbrush with toothpaste on it; he used it, and then he was ready.
He was glad he decided to go, he told me later, because he had all sorts of fun playing with Kyle.
Hester stayed overnight with her best friend and cousin Emily, who lives on a small farm east of town. Hester really likes to go there, not only because she likes Emily and all of her sisters and little brother so well, but also because the place is something of a menagerie, with multitudinous persuasions of animals--and especially horses. Hester loves horses.
We were 2/3 of the way there when she announced, “I forgot my nightshirt.”
So we turned around went all the way back (with one short pitstop to fill our coffee mug), and got her gray-with-red-plaid pocket/hood/trim nightshirt that I had gone to the trouble of mending and washing the previous night, specifically for the occasion.
Hester walked up to the Kochs’ door lugging her new big fluffy dog, and we saw Emily laughing as she came to the door to let her in.
We then went to Pawnee Park to play tennis. We had the radio on, listening to the College World Series baseball game between Nebraska and Virginia. For a while, we were ahead 7-4; all of a sudden, it was 10-8 in their favor...then 10-10...and then Virginia got one more run and won the game. Waaaaah.
We had only just walked onto the courts when there was a loud explosion, like a gun shot, and a shattering of glass all over the first court. It was one of the big lights, high on the poles round about. Good grief! That could be dangerous; do those things do that very often??! In about ten more seconds, several of the children, and perhaps Larry, would have been right under that light, and that glass flew out with force.
When we first started playing, it was rather obvious that we hadn’t played for a coon’s age (how long is that, really, I wonder?), and we spent some time insulting each other over our ineptitude. The trouble with doing that is that after each insult one makes, he is bound to make an even worse blunder than the boggle he was mocking.
Our game was played with many interruptions from Victoria asking one or the other of us to field her ball, which she hits to us by holding her racquet up over and behind her shoulder, parallel with the ground, and then, with the tennis ball balanced on it, she swings it forward and hurtles it toward us, rather on the order of a catapult. Twice then, after one of us hit it back to her, she swung at the ball and actually hit it. This made things altogether exciting indeed.
“Oh, I do know how to play this game!!” she cried exuberantly; “I do, I DO!!!”
So saying, she marched purposefully onto the court we happened to be using, placed herself squarely in front of the net, and then, with her small nose practically lopping over it, she held her racquet straight up in an aggressive stance and announced emphatically, “I can play now; I know how to hit the ball!” She grinned at me happily. “Do you want to hit it to me?”
I lobbed it to her, gently, and slightly overhead, so as not to hit her.
She stood still and watched it sail above her. “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said sympathetically, as though I’d lost the point, “You hit it too high.”
After playing tennis for a while (or perhaps it was volleyball; I’m not sure which) (or maybe it’s ‘venneyball’), Joseph got his new football out of the Suburban, and he and Larry played catch. In between grabs, Joseph scarfed down part of a bag of mixed chips--Cheetos, Sun Chips, pretzels, and Doritos. Lydia, who had taken Victoria to get a drink, reentered the court, prepared to continue the tennis game--and there was her father, right in front of her, snatching a football out of the air.
“How am I going to hit that with my racket?” asked Lydia, looking at it glumly.
She walked to the net where we had earlier seen a big toad. Looking for it, she lifted the net--and the toad, who had been sitting on the net where it swooped onto the ground, gave a jump and landed himself splat on Lydia’s foot. She screamed and air-danced a bit, gravely endangering the life of the hapless amphibian.
Victoria, after a hearty laugh at her sister, went off to entertain herself with the five golf balls we’d found when we arrived.
Later, Lydia, Victoria, and I went to Hy-Vee, because Lydia wanted a big dog of the same size of Hester’s. She chose a brown and white bull dog. It doesn’t look as real as Hester’s, so Lydia is a wee bit disappointed; but she’s pleased, too, just because the thing is so monstrous. Just what we need in our already-too-jam-packed house: two enormous stuffed dogs.
Saturday morning, I awoke with a bean crosswise in my big toe (or perhaps it was a bone in my leg; I can’t remember which). I took a shower and washed my hair, thinking that would make me feel better. It didn’t. So I went back to bed for a couple of hours.
About the time I’d fall asleep, somebody would come in the back door, slamming it with all their might and main, which makes the walls in my bedroom fall down and the ceiling land on me. I’d just barely get them all propped back up when someone would go slam-banging through the door again, knocking everything flat once more, and sometimes throwing me clear out of bed.
I never, ever exaggerate.
That afternoon while Larry was putting down the sod, I pulled weeds and cut down a few volunteer trees. Do you have as much trouble with trees sprouting all over the place as we do? We get sugar maple, buckeye, elm, cottonwood, and mulberry in the yard, in the flower gardens, and even in the flower pots on the porch. They grow tall and sturdy right in the middle of my rose bushes and trumpet vines, because I don’t notice their insidious encroachment until they are big enough to hang tire swings from and build tree houses in.
Later, we took a trailer-load of weeds, small branches, and dirt to a location near the train trestle across the Loup River where we can dump such matter. Larry, Caleb, Victoria, and I rode in Larry’s Cherokee, while Teddy, Joseph, and Lydia went in Teddy’s Ranger. They were intending to drive the three-wheeler on the trails along the Loup.
But Joseph had no sooner taken one turn down the spinney when it started raining, so we curtailed the jaunt, Teddy loaded the three-wheeler into his pickup, and we headed for home.
As we worked our way along a route that would have made a goat path look like an Interstate highway, across our track and into the woods flew the bluest bluebird I have ever seen.
Then, in the darkly clouded sky before us, there stretched a perfect rainbow, arched all the way across the sky from horizon to horizon.
That night, Teddy jumped the gun on Father’s Day, as usual, and gave Larry his gift: a Gerber fillet knife, and a glove made of metal mesh with a rubbery coating with which to hold the fish one is filleting. The mesh protects one from getting cut. Teddy is good at getting people gifts that are precisely what they need and want.
Dorcas gave Larry a pocket watch with an eagle on the cover. He is fond of pocket watches; we’ve given him several over the years.
Sunday afternoon, we drove to Sapp Bros. truck stop to get a gift for Lawrence for Father’s Day: a small wooden Victrola, complete with a swiveling horn and rotating barrel. It winds up and plays Edelweiss, and can be stopped and started with a little wooden peg on one side. I had filled a fat little album and two smaller ones with pictures for him, too.
I also found a gift for Hester to give Larry; she’d given me money to buy him something before we left. It was a thin, three-dimensional gold-plated ornament of mountains in the background, and Lewis and Clark with a few of their men on horses, riding fast. You see, I not only had to find a gift that I thought Larry would like; I also had to find one with which Hester would be pleased. The ornament, I thought, fit the bill.
Done with the Father’s Day shopping, we purchased something cold to drink and went for a drive northwest of town.
I stayed with Mama during church tonight. She hasn’t been eating very well again, and insisted that she wasn’t a bit hungry while I was there. And I can’t very well sit on her and cram food down her, can I? Anyway, we had an enjoyable visit. I turned the scanner on so that we might hear any advance notices of bad weather, but all we heard were twubbles and twials (a la Caleb, age two) the police were having with the various hoodlums, bandits, and desperadoes that take to roaming the pueblo at that hour of the night.
Mama exclaimed about a few pieces of intelligence that came over the airwaves; and then she readjusted her pillow and settled back. “I think I’ll just leave it to the police,” she said.
I grinned at her. “When we are listening to the scanner at our house,” I told her, “Larry sometimes asks us to hand him the phone so that he can tell the officers what to do.”
She laughed. Larry, as she well knows, is not much the sort to tell anyone what to do.
Dorcas arrived, informing me that Teddy, Amy, Keith, Esther, Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron were at our house. I gathered my things together and went home.
Keith and Esther gave Larry a gift certificate from Menards; Bobby and Hannah gave him a couple of CDs of songs by our special singers at our church.
For the younger children to give him, I had gotten a coffee mug with pictures of wild animals all around it, and a dark green interior. We filled it with a variety of Nips, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, and gum.
As soon as I arrived from Mama’s house, we all drove out to Lawrence and Norma’s to give Lawrence his gifts. I advised him that he would without question have to share those albums.
He laughed. “Yes, I think I already knew that,” he replied.
The house was full with the entire Jackson Clan there (the Larry Jackson Clan, that is). As usual, we tried our best to eat them out of house and home...cake and ice cream...frog-eye salad...cinnamon rolls...crackers and peanut butter...crackers and cheese... We even had the rest of a scrumptious apricot kolache tea roll Annette (Larry’s brother Kenny’s wife) had made.
When we’d eaten everything we could find to eat, we came home and ate some more. That was one hungry bunch, let me tell you. O O O o o o . . . Urrrrp.
And now I shall look at the video I took. Where’s my coffee mug?
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