Last Sunday night when I was staying with Mama, she told me how one night last week after she’d gone to bed, she was lying there awake, thinking of all sorts of things…
She recalled a time when she was a young teenager, probably sixteen or seventeen, driving her father’s car in to the little town of Bethany near their farm. She went down a hill…and then, there between two hills, the car quit.
Someone gave her a ride in to town, and she directed them to her Uncle Willard’s mechanic shop. Uncle Willard was her father’s youngest brother. He was in the very back of the shop, working on a vehicle, and she had to make her way all the way through the long shop to find him. He stopped what he was doing, and, with Mama, drove back down the hill to the car. He seemed to know just what to do; he cleaned out the carburetor, and the car then started and ran perfectly.
Mama thanked him and told him she would tell her father about it.
“Now, I must have told Dad and Mother, as I always did tell them things of that sort,” continued Mama, “but beyond that, I don’t know what happened. I can’t remember anything else.” She stopped and laughed at herself. “So here I am, seventy years later, wondering: Did Uncle Willard ever get paid???” She shook her head, smiling at me. “Isn’t that silly; I have trouble remembering what I ate for breakfast, but all of a sudden I’m remembering that car quitting down at the bottom of that hill, way back in the early 30s. And it’s sure too late to find out if Uncle Willard got paid, now!” And she laughed again.
Monday evening, we took Janice, my sister-in-law, a birthday present, and visited with them for a little bit. She gave me a bucket of detergent--OxyClean--to try on the menfolk’s work shirts. So, as usual, I think we once again went away with more than we took.
On we went to the Haddock’s house to take Amy her present--a set of enamel pans with fruit painted on their white sides. Her family has given her a set of Society’s very best pans--the same kind John and Lura Kay gave us when we were married; but I know it is always nice to have a few light-weight pans, too, for this and that.
Meanwhile, Teddy went to the big J. C. Penney’s in Norfolk and purchased pants and shirts on sale--for instance, $25-$32 pants for only $6. And then he was all set for his honeymoon--as soon as he packed everything into his suitcase, that is, along with other thises and thats.
I wrote him a list (imagine!!! He actually asked me to write him a list!!! I thought he was kidding, the first time he asked) of all the things he might possibly need. I hope he reads it. I made sure to write ‘tent’, ‘sleeping bag’, ‘keys’, ‘gas can’, ‘jumper cables’, ‘fire extinguisher’, ‘parachutes’ (that’s our code word for those items slightly less innocuous than ‘socks’, around here), and ‘Amy’.
Hester has finished her report on Venus. She printed out quite a few pictures of the planet, and also the solar system, which she glued onto a big blue posterboard. She polished it off by decorating it with Dorcas’ sparkly, metallic puff-paint, and then she recruited me to write ‘Venus’ at the top in wide gold script. That’s been my job ever since Keith made his first posterboard, way back when he was in grade school.
I have a little book that Bobby’s late grandmother gave me long, long ago, called ‘How to Clean Anything’. But you know what? It is sadly deficient in that it doesn’t once mention the phenomenal cleaning properties of coffee. Yes, coffee. I know about its cleansing qualities from experience.
You see, Hester and I were in the big bathroom one morning as she was getting ready for school, which entails combing her hair with all her might and main, regardless of snags and snarls; and she knocked over my big mug of Hawaiian coffee, which was bad enough; but then she just let it lay there pouring out, while she looked at it somewhat blankly. Aarrrgggghhhhh!!
“Pick it up, pick it up!!” I screeched, unable to reach it myself, and she finally did so. I grabbed a towel, snatched up all the things it had spilt on, washed what needed to be washed, wiped what needed to be wiped, and dried what needed to be dried. And now you ought to see it that countertop--it’s shining like a newly minted penny. Or at least like a just-washed countertop.
Tuesday night, I started sewing a yellow calico three-tiered sailor dress with a red calico collar and sash for Victoria. I got it done Wednesday afternoon, and then she could hardly wait for evening, when she could wear it to church.
Every night, all week long, Teddy was busy moving things out. One night he carried a tonnage of shirts out of the house and put them into his pickup, and Lydia and Caleb were ‘helping’: opening doors, picking up dropped items, getting in the way, and such like. Giggling, mostly, over their brother’s antics. Yes, he was being a goof, as usual, sometimes staggering and tripping along under a small load as if it were pressing him down into the turf; other times strutting and marching with a ponderous stack as if it were made of Styrofoam.
There was High Excitement Wednesday morning, because it was Picture Day at school. And Victoria got to go to school at 8:30!!! Well, actually, she went at 8:20, just because she couldn’t wait another minute. She was home again by 8:25; she’d gotten to be the very most firstest of all. She came back in the door laughing and tee-heeing, because the lady taking the pictures had called one of her little friends ‘Jennifer Jelly Beans’.
“And her name isn’t even Jennifer!” giggled Victoria.
Thursday, I made a shirt for Caleb. It’s denim-colored cotton with maroon piping, and below both front and back yokes is a 2 ½” strip of fabric with wild ducks printed on it, at the bottom of which is a paisley print in maroon and navy. When Caleb’s was done, I started on a matching one for Aaron. His will not have the wild duck print; I used every last millimeter on Caleb’s.
By Friday afternoon, Aaron’s shirt was done, and I started on an ivory-with-pink-and-blue-flowers single-knit top for Lydia. Hannah came for a few minutes, bringing some pants and a shirt for Caleb…she gave him one, I gave him the other. That day, they celebrated his birthday at school (he turned nine on the 13th, Teddy and Amy’s wedding day), and he was delighted that he had a new shirt to wear for the occasion. His teacher gave him a large, hardback dictionary.
Hannah called later that afternoon, having all sorts of troubles with her dress…she’d put the lining in the top--and she had the lining pieces opposite from the outer pieces, so that the wider left side and narrower right side didn’t match up. Further, she’d just finished putting the sleeves in--for the second time--and wondered whatever to do. Her machine makes tiny stitches, even when it is set to take the longest stitch possible, and it is dreadful trying to take a seam out. I offered a few suggestions, wondering if any of them would actually work; and she decided to keep trying…
Wedding rehearsal was at 7:00 p.m. When it was over, Esther came to visit for a few minutes while Keith practiced some songs that the young men’s group and the octet (four men, four ladies) were planning to sing for the wedding.
We gave Teddy and Amy their presents that evening (one less present for them to wade through Sunday night): white sheets and pillowcases with machine embroidery, and a navy Velux blanket.
The Suburban is ill. For a long time now, the ‘Check Engine’ light sometimes comes on, and when it does, the vehicle doesn’t act quite right. It revs up too high before it shifts…it doesn’t idle smoothly… Well, now neither the dash lights nor the park lights nor the taillights are working. Larry checked the fuses; it’s not that. But he’s been working on the brakes on his pickup, so the Suburban languishes. Someday I’m going to get a ticket, because nowadays it is dark when I take Joseph to work in the morning. I suppose brakes are slightly more important than taillights; but when you drive calmly past a police officer, he’s going to immediately notice if you have no taillights; whereas he will be none the wiser if you have no brakes (unless you run into him or something).
Saturday, Larry went to get a haircut, but there were no barbers to be found.
“Ah, well,” I remarked, “at least you won’t look like a skint rabbit in the wedding pictures.”
“But I won’t match anybody!” he wailed.
The next morning, we had to laugh, because he was ever and ever so right: Everywhere we looked, all over the church, there were skint rabbits. Did they all go to the same barber to get skint, especially for Teddy and Amy’s wedding?!? Why, even Keith had lost every vestige of sideburn to his name!
Robert called to ask me what name I thought he should use in the ceremony, ‘Teddy’, or ‘Theodore’.
“Well,” I said, “it would be more formal to use ‘Theodore’, since that’s his given name; but if you accidentally say ‘Teddy’, don’t worry about it. After all, that’s all we’ve ever called him; we’ll know who you mean!”
Sooo…throughout the sermon, it was ‘Teddy’; during the ceremony, ‘Theodore’. And I have to tell you, Amy sounded just a wee bit funny saying ‘Theodore’ during the marriage vows. She’s never ever before called him that in their lives--and they’ve known each other ever since they were born.
In 1983, Theodore Lyle was added to our family. He was a Teddy from the start, for he was the cuddliest baby ever. He’s been a Teddy ever since, and I expect he’ll never be anything other than a Teddy. With his enormous blue-gray eyes, the child garnered much attention wherever we went.
In 1983, Theodore Lyle was added to our family. He was a Teddy from the start, for he was the cuddliest baby ever. He’s been a Teddy ever since, and I expect he’ll never be anything other than a Teddy. With his enormous blue-gray eyes, the child garnered much attention wherever we went.
One day when he was a little past two, I said to him, “Teddy, did you know that your real name is Theodore?”
He grinned at me and wrinkled his nose. “No, I is a Teddy!” he responded.
“No, really!” I attempted to convince him. “Your name really is Theodore; Teddy is just your nickname. Your name is ‘Theodore Lyle’.”
Teddy giggled. “No, Mama,” he told me, “I is a Teddy!”
I tried the more. “Teddy, when you were born, we named you Theodore Lyle. That’s what is written on your birth certificate in your baby book. But we just call you Teddy.”
Teddy’s small nose wrinkled even more. He patted on my arm, giggling. “Mama!” he exclaimed, tapping on his chest with one index finger. “I is a Teddy!”
I gave up, and let the child be a Teddy.
Saturday, Joseph, Caleb, and I went to Wal-Mart. Joseph got a gift card for Teddy and Amy, and the neatest little airplane for Caleb. It is placed on a hand-held motor that revs up, making the propeller spin until it is really whining; then the plane is released, and it flies high and fast. Nifty! I got him a Battleship game (not the electronic kind; we already had one of those). I wish all games such as Battleship that have myriad loose parts and pieces that go with them, and buckets in which Lego goes, would be made with a strong magnet inside them, and all the little pieces were magnetic, so that if they got dropped anywhere in the house, they would gravitate fast toward the game or bucket with which they belonged. Trouble is…can things be made ‘magnet specific’?--‘smart magnetic’?--so that the pieces would be pulled in by the right game or bucket? Think what money I’d make if I invented that!
After we got home, Hannah came with her dress, and I put the zipper in for her, fixed the recalcitrant pleats that, according to the pattern, are supposed to be ‘easy’ but aren’t at all at all at all, and hemmed the sleeves. She’d gotten the unmatched lining and outer shell to tolerate each other, anyway.
That evening, Larry and I and the five youngest went off to Schuyler, turning north, then east on a country road until we came to a house that is up on I‑beams and blocks out in the middle of a cornfield. Somebody wants to sell it--for $1,000. Larry brought a ladder so we could climb up into it through the gaping hole where the basement stairs used to be. It’s a two-story house, and--I like it. When Larry was describing it to me a couple of days earlier, somewhat sheepish of attitude, I got the feeling it was a dinky shack…but--I like it. I think there are great possibilities for that house.
It would cost $8,000 to move it to a lot northeast of Columbus, plus $1,500-$2,000 for Loup Power District to move interfering lines; and, so far as we can tell, although we have checked with all the realtors in town, there is one and only one lot available for such a project, and that is on the hills northeast of town. I like northwest better; we will do more investigating. This house, I think, with all its replanting, renovations, and modernizations, might even be in our budget! We are hoping…
When we got home, Dorcas was back…all afternoon, she’d been helping Amy put mints and nuts into small squares of navy netting and tie them shut with pink and white curly ribbon. She had a present for Caleb: a stuffed Tigger with sensors all over him…he chuckles with his trademark chuckle (Tigger does, that is) (although when he does, Caleb giggles with his trademark giggle), and then says, “Find my ear!” (or paw, or tummy, or nose, etc.) After it is squeezed, he makes a sound to let you know you’ve squeezed the right thing, and then he goes on to the next round. But if you squeeze the wrong thing, he tells you so, and he talks so funny… After all points are found, he starts giving two instructions at once…and the instructions steadily get more complicated, and faster, as the game proceeds. Caleb loves it. She also gave him a couple of color books--one of all sorts of Tonka things, the other a History of Flight Color Book--and a package of Matchbox cars.
Victoria gave Caleb her favorite stuffed orca from her collection. That’s what she does when somebody has a birthday, and she has nothing to give them ‘from my very own self’, as she says: she picks out one of her favorite possessions, and proceeds to give them that. Many are the times I’ve rescued one of her prized belongings before it headed off to WhoKnowsWhere, never to be seen again.
Larry trimmed up Teddy’s hair a bit, with me giving him frequent anxious advice not to scalp the kid the night before his Biggest Day Ever, and then he gave Joseph and Caleb haircuts, too.
I could hardly sleep Saturday night; I kept waking up suddenly, thinking we were late to the wedding, or that Teddy was at work and had forgotten to come home, or that Amy was sick.
When Teddy got up Sunday morning, he came upstairs all in a stew to inform me that his suit didn’t fit, it rumpled beneath the collar, stuck out funny in the front, and one pant leg didn’t hang right.
He was ruined, call off the wedding, everyone go jump in a hole and pull it closed over themselves. He thought I’d have to tear it apart, collar, lining, and all, and fix it. He thought he’d have to go to Norfolk after church for a new suit. He thought he’d have to wear his old one. He was done ruint!
I scowled darkly. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?!? I told everyone, I would not do any sewing for this wedding after Saturday, the 12th, so if they wanted me to sew something, they’d jolly well better get it to me before then!!!” I frowned at him, and then, when he showed every sign of bursting into tears, I was suddenly filled with oodles and caboodles of compassion…and sympathy…and love… Yes, Teddy is still a Teddy.
“The minute church is over, you put on that suit and let me see it,” I told him. “And no, you can’t go to Norfolk.”
“I’m gettin’ married in the evenin’; so get me to the church on time!!!” I warbled loudly.
Teddy looked unappreciative.
“Sing some more!” begged Victoria, so I yodeled, “La-aazy, Da-aaisy! I’m half cra-aazy!--all for the lo-oove of yooo-ooo-ooou… It won’t be a stylish marriage; I don’t even own a carriage… But you’ll look sweet … upon the seat … of a bicycle built for twooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!”
Teddy still looked unappreciative.
“Sing another!” requested Victoria, and I sang lustily, “O dear mother, pin a rose on me! Two young gals are stuck on me! One is blind, and the other can’t see! O dear mother, pin a rose on me!”
And, of all the nerve, Teddy went right on looking unappreciative.
At least Victoria admired my efforts…and so did Caleb…and Hester…and Lydia…
And then, all in the proper attitude for Sunday School, we trotted out the door to church.
Immediately after church was over, Keith informed me that his suit didn’t fit right. < == (that’s me, the minute he told me)
They’d taken the suit to a lady to alter about a month ago, then finally found out Friday she wouldn’t be able to do it because of arthritis and a ruptured cyst on her finger. So they took the suit to another lady, who’d altered it Saturday. I told him to bring it over.
He did…and I discovered that she’d taken it in--at the middle back seam. It’s best to do it at the sideseams. Further, she’d started at the neck, then suddenly taken a 45° angle inwards. The rest of the seam wasn’t straight, which accounted for the strange ripples all the way down. I took it apart and redid the seam, trying to taper it more gradually and making sure to get it perfectly straight. It was a bit hard to do, with a heavy suit hanging from the machine, and the slippery lining causing it to pull and slip all the more. The lining had been cut smaller, so I had to let out three seams ¼” each to get enough excess to re-hem it. An hour and a half later, I put in the last stitch and ironed it. It was 3:00, almost time for Keith and Esther to come to the church for pictures.
In the middle of that operation, I re-ironed Teddy’s pants cuffs; they turned out fine. He put on his suit coat and I looked at it…turns out, the reason it was rumpling below the neck was because he was twisting sideways to peer at himself in the mirror. When he stands straight, it’s flawless and impeccable. So I didn’t have to do anything about that, thank goodness.
In the meanwhile, Larry made Belgian waffles. I took a few minutes to scarf one down.
We all started getting dressed…
Suddenly from Joseph’s room came a distressed howl. A button had popped off his shirt.
“Take it off and I’ll sew it back on; it only takes a couple of seconds, by machine!” I said, and he did so, and I did so, and it did.
When he returned to collect his shirt, he was wearing the top part of his paisley green pajamas.
“You’ll be a standout in the pictures,” his father commented as he galloped past, having finally gotten himself up from his nap (but only on account of his wife splatting him good and proper with a handful of water).
Then off we went to church for pictures. The lady who had been hired to take pictures would let nobody else take pictures while she was. At first I thought, ‘That’s a bit rigid and unbending,’ but then I remembered when a photographer was trying to take pictures at Hannah’s wedding, and there were so many people, including children, rushing forward to take snapshots, that the poor photographer must have felt as though he were in a stampede. People weren’t giving him a chance to shut off his sensor-activated flash, and twice, I think, we caused his batteries to run down. I felt badly about it, and thought we could have used a good dose of manners and consideration.
I videotaped some of the poses and group arrangements the lady was doing, and we all enjoyed looking at it that evening when we returned home.
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| Sarah Lynn & Larry |
“I think I’ll wear these to the wedding,” he teased.
One of his friends gave him a small dartboard.
“Don’t use it during the ceremony,” I instructed him.
“Mama!” he said reproachfully.
Robert preached from Ephesians 5:21-33, about the wife being in submission and reverencing her husband, and the husband loving his wife, even as Christ loved and gave Himself for the church. People don’t like to hear that sort of thing nowadays, but if they would follow that advice, they would find themselves a whole lot happier. It was a wonderful sermon. And the special music and song service were beautiful.
At the reception, as soon as most everyone had finished eating, I brought out the cameras and launched into photography of all whittles and shapes.
Sometime in the midst of all this, the phone rang. It was the lady who’d taken my place staying with Mama--and Mama’s oxygen machine had quit working! John and Lura Kay rushed over there, called the woman who services the machine, and, within minutes, she was on her way with a brand new machine. There is always help to be found fast for those types of emergencies; thank goodness for that.
We were glad that Mama’s short interval without oxygen didn’t seem to hurt her; she is fine.
The fluorescent lights in the church basement sometimes make pictures look a bit sickly. I can improve matters by changing the aperture…if I happen to think I know what ‘aperture’ is at the moment.
Aperture (ăpˊ ər-chər): n. [Lat. apertura < apertus, open, p.part, of aperire, to open.]: It's a round thing that is inside the doohickey that attaches to the gizmo that makes the thingamajigger do smackets to the grunch. And if you don't use it properly, the glatternumpkin splats you across the face when you kachang the blimbernupticus. (it’s a squirting camera, I think)
After Teddy and Amy were done signing the marriage license, we took pictures in the sanctuary, with Sandy helping to arrange everyone. The camcorder quit working shortly before Teddy and Amy departed. Joseph was using it, and had just played with the titler, putting “Teddy and Amy’s Wedding” on--a funny time to suddenly announce what you’d been filming, when you’ve been taking pictures for over an hour already--when it would show nothing more than a blank gray view. The camera makes strange noises, too. Oh, what happened to it?!
One of the ladies working in the kitchen told me there was a big box of sandwiches and cake for us to take home, but when Larry went to get it when we were ready to leave, there was nothing there. Did somebody get hungry, I wonder?
I know I was sho’ ’nuff hungry when we got home! Fortunately, there was a little bit of leftover chicken pot pie, so I didn’t starve. The worst problem, however, was that my feet had been in Barbie doll shoes for over eight hours--and my feet are not Barbie doll feet. The shoes were comfortable enough; that is to say they fit; but they have a 3½” heel. Honestly, they are still sore today! (My feet; not the shoes.) (The shoes aren’t even slightly distraught.)
It was just about midnight when Teddy and Amy headed off on their honeymoon to Colorado. I expect to tell you all about it next week…
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