Sunday, May 24, 1998 - Last Day of School, and Radiator Calamities

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My format is now changed: that is, my letters will have a different, not-so-interesting, but easier-to-read, appearance from now on, on account of the fact that I am going to take a copy of each one and put it into a big notebook. I began playing all my old letters out, starting with the first one I recorded on disk with my old word processor, which was December 28, 1994.

I plan to do something with these letters; I’m not just sure yet.

I wonder if any of our older relatives have any of my old letters, dated before December 28, 1994? And, if they do, I wonder if they would mind if I took copies of them and gave them back to them? And how much do you suppose shipping and handling would be for such a stack of papers?

I’ve printed out approximately 300 pages, and it’s made a stack about an inch and a fourth thick, and it’s heavy. So it wouldn’t be cheap to mail a big pile of letters.

Monday and Tuesday evenings, we ate supper at Pawnee Park, after which we played softball or football. There was a wood duck in the trees, but all the resident fowl were heckling him so badly he kept flying off, making big circuits over the Loup River and some nearby woods, then re-alighting. I wonder why all the little birds took such exception to his presence? Or was it the kestrel that was causing all the upheaval?

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Teddy called my name softly, and pointed up. He was watching a Northern flicker going in and out of a hole in a dead tree. I waited and waited, but never did get a picture of it. I gave up and took Teddy’s picture instead.

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I showed Victoria how to blow a dandelion, and she promptly stuck one straight into her mouth, then rumpled her nose and made a face. I howled, and plucked out seeds and fuzz. Then, explaining things in explicit detail, I carefully demonstrated on two or three dandelions. I handed her one--and this time, she did it right, afterward looking terribly pleased with herself.

Monday night after the children went to bed, Larry and I rode our bikes to the bank, post office, and library. Caleb, hearing of our plans, suggested that he could ride his tricycle! haha Those poor little legs would be worn to a frizzle-frazzle before we got a block away from home.

One evening Hannah went with Bobby and his family to the Sirloin Buffet for supper, to celebrate Bobby’s graduation. Did I tell you that he won a hard-cover, unabridged, Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for getting straight A’s from ninth grade through twelfth grade?

Last Saturday, Bobby’s brother Jonathan, working in the garden, unearthed seven baby bunnies. They figured the mother would desert them after having her home demolished, so they’ve been raising them themselves. (I’m not so sure the mother wouldn’t’ve come back; I think perhaps if they’d just left them right where they were, and put the dirt and grasses back the way they’d found them, she might’ve done just fine.) Anyway, they got special milk from the vet, and fed them with an eye dropper every two hours. Two bunnies died, but the other five seem to be doing fine, and have even started eating grass. Hannah sometimes helps feed them. They are just beginning to jump and hop, and they are terribly cute. Bobby brought them over to show us, and they were all snuggled into a donut box.

Bobby had no sooner departed than Caleb announced, “I’m hungry for donuts!”

This week I finished my dress, mended several things, patched a few jeans, and started on Hannah’s dress. I think, if I want to finish all the Fourth-of-July sewing in time, I’d better speed up!

Hester and Lydia finished school Tuesday, the 19^th, at noon; and the other children’s last day was Friday, the 22^nd. They had a picnic at Pawnee Park that day, and, although rain had been forecast, it didn’t rain until the picnic was over. Several years in a row they’d been rained out, so everybody was glad they finally got to go to the park.

Late Tuesday night I went to the grocery store. Although I knew we were in line for a severe thunderstorm, I thought I had plenty of time to get everything I needed and return back home before the storm arrived. But I didn’t reckon on the brainless turtle at the checkout stand who couldn’t seem to get anything to scan at all. Give her credit for being patient, however; she calmly ran each item baaack and forrrrth, baaack and forrrrth, over the scanner, until she either accidentally tilted it to the right angle (at which point the scanner scanned twice, on account of the slowness with which the item was traveling over its electronic eye), or she gave up and, slowly and methodically--but not necessarily accurately--punched in the entire bar code number by hand, checking and rechecking.

Aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhh! In the meantime, I could see out the front windows that the storm had indeed arrived, and was getting worse by the minute. By the time everything was bagged and sacked (and that took forever), it was a fierce downpour.

I got totally soaked, right down to the skin. Brrrrrrrrrr. But what I was worried about the most, was that large hail had been predicted, and the last thing I wanted was hail dents on my pretty Suburban! Boy oh boy, you should’ve seen me driving home that night. I tell you, you’d’ve wondered why in the world a little thing like a slimy, muddy road in the New Mexican Outback would’ve ever fazed me.

As I rounded the last corner to our house, a handful of hail fell all around me; but I never heard a single hailstone hit the Suburban. I raced madly up the driveway, skidded into the garage, and shut the door. There! Safe.

Teddy brought a box of computer disks home from Wrights’ house to try them on our computer, and make copies of several he liked. Friday night Hannah and I were experimenting with some disks, and we found one programmed for making cards with all sorts of pictures on them, banners, signs, calendars, and so on.

“Oh,” I said, “We never gave Bobby a graduation card yet! Here, I’ll make one.” Hannah knew I was teasing her, because we both were of the opinion that our dot-matrix printer was incapable of doing anything more than print type, such as this type you are reading here.

I wrote a few obnoxious remarks, hit several buttons. . . . Hannah laughed at me. And then, suddenly, we nearly banged heads as we both rapidly leaned forward to see what on earth the printer was doing!

It was printing.

Furthermore, it was printing exactly what I’d typed! I'd paraphrased a saying my father used to have: “If his brains were made of rubber, it wouldn’t be enough to make a mosquito a pair of boots!”

Friday Norma brought us a big box of frozen steaks--rib eye and T-bone. We fixed them for dinner Sunday, and they were really tender and juicy.

We took our flowers to the cemetery Saturday afternoon; the place was already covered with flowers. Upon our return, I discovered that the mail lady had left a small box with some poppies from Michigan Bulb Company. So I planted them, and then I pulled a small forest of weeds which had sprung up during the week, no doubt because of the moist, overcast weather we’ve been having.

Sunday afternoon we went for our first drive of any consequence in our new pickup, garnering an overabundance of attention everywhere we went. The littles kept up a steady stream of giggles, refueled each time somebody’s head spun around for a double-take.

Today we’ve all been packing and getting ready to go to Oklahoma to get three pickups we bought some time back, but which we’ve been unable to get, not having a pickup that could pull that 48-foot slant trailer loaded with three big pickups. Just a little while ago, Larry completed the last task, carefully shut the hood--and wondered what sounded funny. He opened it back up and discovered that the hood had bumped a battery cable, which bumped something else, which pushed the radiator into the fan, creating a large gaping wound in that brand-new $500 radiator. And, this being Memorial Day, there is no place open where we could buy a new one; and, anyway, Columbus doesn’t have such radiators; they must be ordered from Omaha. So we couldn’t get one until tomorrow morning, at the earliest.

Poor Larry; that’s disappointing, after spending all day working on the pickup, and finally getting done! But he didn’t give up; he hunted around in some of our other pickups, and came up with a usable radiator. He’s just about got it in now; if it works, we’ll soon be leaving. If not, we’ll wait.

Such is life!

Sunday, May 17, 1998 - Tornadoes and Fish

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It is now very late, long past time for bed, and I have dawdled away the time, reading a book by a preacher from China, Watchman Nee, one of my favorite authors; and when I was done with that, I accidentally spotted the new Reader’s Digest, which I hadn’t had the opportunity to read yet, because one of the kids confiscated it before I even knew it had arrived, and I read several articles and ‘Laughter, the Best Medicine’ before I could get stopped.

But Larry is sawing logs on the couch beside my desk, and my coffee mug is steaming with gourmet chocolate/raspberry coffee, and I’m ready to type!

We still haven’t recovered from whatever this bug is that we’ve been passing around among us; most of us have earaches, swollen glands, sinus infection, bad coughs, headaches, purple skin leprosy, ear lobe, and toe jam. Or various combinations of the above.

Tonight I came home from church early with Caleb, who kept coughing. I’d been holding Victoria on my lap, and she was well entertained with a felt book my sister had made one of the older children. It has little pockets on the back of each page, in which are little felt figures which go with the picture on the following page. I took the figure of Jonah out of the pocket and stuck it into the whale’s mouth. This struck Victoria’s funny bone, and she, who generally never makes a peep during church, snickered.

After the song service was over and the sermon had begun, we realized Caleb needed to be taken home, and I decided to bring him, because my ears and head and tonsils and nose and toenails hurt, too.

I whispered in Victoria’s ear, “You can sit on Daddy’s lap,” then handed her to Larry.

She beamed. She hastily gathered together all her little felt pieces, and I handed the book to Larry.

She was so excited about sitting on her Daddy’s lap and looking at this wonderful book, that she whispered rather loudly, “Buh-wooon!!”, showing him a figure of a little girl holding a balloon.

I tapped her on the head to remind her to be quiet, and she looked back at me with big eyes and went back to playing soundlessly with her book, looking up momentarily to give me a big smile as I got up to exit with Caleb. She’s a sweetheart, she really is.

Several nights this week Caleb has come upstairs, nearly in tears, to tell me his ears were hurting. When Caleb is about to cry over something, you can be sure it hurts.

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Hannah crocheted a cute little sailor outfit for a little bear. It fits in the palm of your hand, and its little white ‘buttons’ are no bigger than pinheads. It’s for my niece Susan’s little boy Matthew’s first birthday. Hannah is now working on another one, which she will put a ruffly skirt on, for another little cousin, Jamie, born on the same day as Matthew.

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An unknown flower came up in the middle of my carpet bugles, just as if it knew it matched them. Until afternoon, its petals are closed, and it looks just like a tulip--except for its center. From afternoon on, it opens up and spreads out. Perhaps it’s an anemone? The columbine are blooming. They’re one of my favorite flowers—probably because they remind me of the mountains.

Friday morning and afternoon, the entire eastern half of Nebraska fell victim to severe weather, including thunderstorms, hail, lightning, and tornadoes. My mother called about noon to tell us there was a tornado on the ground north of York, about 45 miles south of Columbus, and it was moving north at 40 miles per hour.

“Dear me!” I says to meself, “I mustn’t get caught in a tornado with me hair mussed!”

So I went off to wash it. The tub looked inviting, so I decided to take a bath, too.

I was just rinsing the shampoo out of my hair and preparing to put on the conditioner, when - - - The tornado sirens went off.

“Yipe!” says me. “I mustn’t get caught in the tub in a tornado!”

I rinsed faster. Finishing in just under 45 seconds, I jerked on my clothes and rushed to the door to see if there was anything out there worth all the fuss. Rain was blowing so hard, it didn’t seem to be falling at all--just driving straight from the south, horizontally to the north. I could only just make out the church and school directly across the street, and my mother’s house, across the street and slightly to the north, was nearly invisible. Our trees were folded right over, and the sky was a dark, gunmetal gray.

I ordered the children to the basement. “You might as well clean your rooms while you’re down there,” I told them.

While listening to the radio and the police scanner, I poured myself a cup of coffee and watched the sky. There were several funnel clouds on the outskirts of town, and at least three tornadoes within ten miles. I didn’t used to know that a funnel cloud is not a tornado until it touches the ground.

The sky began to lighten, and the vague shapes of neighbors’ houses were once again discernible, so I went to blow-dry and curl my hair. The school’s Spring Program was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. that evening, and, as the mother of one of the graduates, I knew I would be in line for plenty of camera fire.

We learned from the radio that Columbus had sustained winds of 125 miles per hour! Trees were blown down, a roof was blown off, and other damage was reported; but, actually, we got off better than you might’ve imagined. By late afternoon, the sky was clear.

The Spring Program was enjoyable, with the music being particularly wonderful and inspiring.

You’d never guess how well Caleb likes the music, by his comments shortly beforehand: “Are we going to have a lunch downstairs afterward?”

I nodded. “Yes, we are.”

He contemplated. “How long do the kids hafta sing?” he asked, with some measure of concern.

“Caleb!” I remonstrated. “You sound like you think the eating is more important than the singing and playing!”

He looked a bit abashed. “Well, I really like songs and singing and horns blowing,” he hastened to assure me.

All of the teachers, and my sister, Lura Kay, the principal, were given framed certificates of appreciation for their years of teaching. Somebody asked Hannah, who, from her vantage point on the platform, had a clear view of Lura Kay, what her face looked like when my brother, Loren, called her name.

“Well,” said Hannah, “she looked as surprised as a person can look without changing their expression!”

Saturday we went to Ansley for more parts for the six-door crewcab, which has actually been taken out on the road near Larry’s shop and put through its gears, although it doesn’t yet have its throttle cable hooked up. It chuckled along merrily in fifth gear, not quite 25 miles per hour, not even worried about ‘lugging’, and such like, which the Ford power-stroke would’ve found distressingly troublesome.

Since May 16 was Go-To-Any-State-Park-Free Day and Kids-Fish-Free Day, we took advantage of the occasion by stopping at Sherman Reservoir, where we fished and ate supper. Larry caught a large-mouth bass.

Then Dorcas called, “Daddy, my lure is caught on something.”

“Wiggle it back and forth,” instructed Larry, “and then reel it in a little bit.”

Dorcas wiggled and reeled.

Reclaiming a little bit of line, she frowned in consternation when she lost what she’d recovered and a little bit more besides. She wiggled it. She reeled it. And then suddenly a large fish shot straight out of the water and arched gracefully into the air before diving back in and making like a submarine.

Dorcas gasped. “DADDY!!” she cried in startled astonishment, her voice echoing clearly across the lake, “I’ve got a fish!”

Larry quickly abandoned his pole and came to offer advice and assistance. Dorcas reeled the line in rapidly, then flipped that big fish up onto the rocks along the shore. It was a walleye, a big walleye.

That was all we caught; but we brought them home, Larry cleaned them, and they are now residing in the freezer, awaiting a few more of their cousins to join them, until we accumulate enough to make a worthy supper. Mmmmm! I like to broil them with lots of butter and diced green peppers.

Out on the water were many boats, jet skis, and even a sailboat, although I thought it was much too windy for that latter vessel. Several times I thought they were goners, but the little craft righted itself and sailed valiantly on. An old blue fishing boat anchored a short way out, and the two men aboard cast their lines into the water. The littles thought the boat was backing up, because of the motion of the waves from the wind. The men caught several fish, just in the length of time it took us to eat supper.

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Some people came along, about dusk, with a little dog.

“Oh, brother,” I muttered to Hannah, “just look what they’ve done to that poor little Chihuahua—they’ve clipped his ears and tail to make him look like a miniature Doberman Pinscher!”

We tut-tutted.

Guess what. It was a miniature Doberman Pinscher. A ‘Mini-Pin’, they call them. Her name was ‘Jamaica’, and she was eight months old.

(Yes, I did notice that the little dog stepped along smartly just like a Doberman, and not like a Chihuahua, but how was I to know they could shrink Pinschers??)

Guess what we saw at Butch’s Auto Repair and Salvage in Sumner the last time we were there? Our poor old blue crewcab, in decidedly worse shape than it had been in when we sold it.

Leaving Sherman Reservoir, we continued on to Ansley, picked up the parts we needed, and then headed for home. By that time, it was nearly dark. Some twenty miles to the southeast, we passed a sign which said, “Bowman Reservoir State Recreation Area.”

“Next time, let’s check that one out,” I said.

Caleb gazed out the window at the rolling hills and trees, trying to see the lake. “Are there still fishermen out there?” he asked.

“Sure are,” answered Larry. “Some of them will be out there all night!”

Caleb nodded. “Especially that blue boat,” he noted. “’Cuz he was going really slow!”

Today it was so windy that a good portion of the area farmland was flying about in the stratosphere, I think.

Victoria declared, “Is whewy!”

Hannah and Hester were invited to Bobby’s house for dinner.

As Hannah blew in the door, along with a mighty gust of wind, she exclaimed, “Whew! My hair’s a mess!”

Bobby replied loyally, “Your hair always looks nice.” He turned his head and looked at her. “Except now,” he added.

And now I really must go to bed, and take Larry with me. He’s going to have a severe crick in his neck, I’m afraid, from the angle at which his pillow is reclining on the arm of the couch. Aleutia must be having nightmares about giant rabbits eating her milkbones, or something; she’s yowling and garrumphing and snarling in her sleep, and her toenails are clickety-clacking on the floor.

Now, if I can just get my wits about me enough to press the ‘File’ button on this word processor before I hit the ‘Off’ button, like I did last week, losing several pages of type!