Journal: Old & Even Older Photos, a Wedding, & More Cleaning

Last Monday, my  cousin Debra’s husband Fred sent an old picture I had never seen before:

In the back are my Great-Aunts Maye B. Bennett and Alice ‘Allie’ Bennett, my Grandma Swiney’s sisters; and in the front are my Uncle Robert Bennett ‘Bob’ Swiney, Aunt Geraldine Swiney, Uncle Donald ‘Don’ Swiney, my Grandma Lola ‘Essie’ Swiney, and my father, George Dean Swiney. 

Aunt Allie raised Grandma Swiney from the time Grandma was eight years old, because her mother had died from complications related to childbirth.

Funny, I bedecked my little girls with giant bows like Aunt Geraldine had on.  They later laughed about them – but if they don’t rig out their own little girls in humongous bows now!

Fred also sent this picture of his wife Debra when she was in the second grade.  She was a little thing – still is, for that matter, well under five feet, as was my grandmother.

This photo reminded me of a story my Uncle Don – Debra’s father – told when I was young:  They lived on a farm, and their four children, Ronnie, Roger, Patty, and Debbie, rode the school bus to school each day.  At the time of this story, Ronnie was in 8^th grade; Debbie was in 1^st.  There was a big kid (he’d probably flunked a grade or two) in Ronnie’s class, and he was a bully.  For some reason, he zeroed in on Ronnie, who, like others in the family, was a bit small for his age. 

Why did teachers and school bus drivers let that sort of thing go on?!  Inexcusable, for adults to let one child be cruel to another.

So there they were, traveling down the road, when suddenly the bully yelped and went to blubbering loudly.

The driver looked in his mirror – and discovered that the kid had a bad nosebleed.

“What happened??” he demanded.

“Swiney punched me in the nose!” wailed the boy.

The bus driver, in the way of all bully-enablers everywhere, ordered, “Ronnie, you get up here and sit in this seat beside me right this minute!”

“Nooo,” bawled the bully, “Wasn’t Ronnie!  Was Debbie!!!”

The driver was suddenly struck dumb, and didn’t look into the mirror again.  The other Swiney children reported that he appeared to be trying very hard not to laugh.  He never said another word, and Debbie sat quietly, as good as ever, small lethal fists folded sweetly in her lap.

As usual, I spent the majority of the week scanning old photos.  Here’s Victoria at Pawnee Park on the Fourth of July, 2004; we were at our church picnic.  (Note the bow. 😉 )  

Below are Andrew and Hester on the same day.

Remember how last Sunday night Jeremy and Lydia were in line in front of us at Arby’s drive-thru, and paid for our food?  And how when we got home I ordered some groceries from Wal-Mart and had them shipped to Jeremy and Lydia’s house?

Well, Tuesday morning Lydia wrote to me, “Did you happen to have some Wal-Mart groceries delivered to my house?”

“Hmmmm...” I responded, “what in the world would ever make you think such a thing as that?”

“LOL!” she answered.  “It had your name all over it!” 

“Does your family like Chicken & Dumpling soup?” I asked.  (A little late to ask, after I already sent it to them, isn’t it?)  “It’s my favorite of all of Campbell’s soups, so I therefore think everyone else must love it, too.  Your father recommended chicken noodle soup, because ‘Everybody likes that! – and they might not like Chicken & Dumpling soup.’  So I started to click on it... but then changed my mind, because ... well, because I really love Chicken & Dumplings!  And if anybody else doesn’t, well, they should, that’s all!”

I thought about it for half a minute, and then added, “I do actually know someone who doesn’t like Chicken & Dumpling soup:  your Uncle Loren.  He said those squishy things in it give him the cold shudders.  😂”

“The kids will eat Chicken & Dumpling soup,” Lydia told me.  “Our favorite kinds are the ones with beef.  The kids also like chicken noodle – and I agree with Uncle Loren 😅 .”

Ooops.  Too bad I thought ‘everybody likes Chicken & Dumpling soup’.  At least I sent a few other things!

Here are Larry, Victoria, and Caleb at the 4th of July picnic, and below is Lydia playing volleyball at the same picnic.  Have you figured out by now that I made everyone’s shirts and dresses?  Hester, upon seeing the photo of herself and Andrew, commented, “I really liked that dress.”

I had totally forgotten about making all those clothes, until I saw the pictures.

After giving Loren his food Tuesday afternoon, I loaded the Jeep with bins and boxes full of pictures, old papers (financial and otherwise), newspaper clippings, Christmas and birthday cards, wedding invitations, etc.  When I got home, it took almost two hours to sort through it all – and I’m not a slow sorter, huh-uh, nosiree.  I saved most of the pictures, and pitched almost everything else out.  Loren’s few remaining hairs would probably stand up on end if he saw what all I throw out.  But... he asked for help clearing it out, and that’s what I’m a-doin’.  I am glad he hasn’t come downstairs to help me, except for that first day, two weeks ago.  It’s easier to clear out jetsam and flotsam if the owner of said jetsam and flotsam is not helping.

Loren was imagining all sorts of things last week, thinking Norma was there... thinking he was going to go with her to the store, but when he went in the other room, she left without him... and so on.  The previous week when he asked if I knew where she could’ve gone, I said I didn’t know, as I didn’t have any idea who this person was; but he didn’t need to worry, because whoever it was, he’s not married to her, as his wife has passed away.  In the past, this has sometimes calmed him down; but it doesn’t always work.  Tuesday when I called him at 3:00, as I do each day, he said ‘his wife’ had left, and he didn’t know where she’d gone.

I wonder... did he remember me saying I didn’t know who he was talking about, and it wasn’t his wife – so this time he was determined to let me know it was his wife??  I have no idea if his thinking is that complex or not. 

So I said, “Hmmmm,” in an intelligent tone and talked about something else, telling him what was in each of his dishes of food.  As soon as he got all involved eating, I scurried downstairs to get a few more bins and bags.

Most of the pictures are going to Janice’s sister Judy, as there are a lot of her children and grandchildren.  There are also some old family photos, including some of Janice and Judy’s grandparents.  Judy was pleased to get those.

I took a load of towels, linens, and décor to the Goodwill, and then got back to the photo-scanning. 

After scanning this picture from about 1983, I sent it to Keith and asked, “Do you remember trucking along in this little vehicle?  😊”

“Haha, yes!” said Keith, “and then when the younger kids were in it, I remember pushing them at about 100 mph down the sidewalk with their feet up over the steering wheel.”

hee hee  I haven’t found any pictures of that, though I certainly do remember it.  Maybe I never took any pictures of it?  When I get a bit too petrified, my finger can’t push the shutter button!

After church Wednesday night, we went to Super Saver – a grocery store we hardly ever set foot in – in order to use a $20 gift card I found in one of the Christmas cards in the aforementioned bins.  (I wonder how many I didn’t find?  Like I said, I was sorting fast.)  I didn’t give the card to Loren, because he never goes to that store, either, and he wouldn’t, even if he had a gift card.  Sooo... I bought food that I would share with him.

Among other things, we bought roast beef sandwiches and ate them as we drove to Cuzzins’ Corner convenience store and gas station, where Caleb had told Larry they now sell E-85.  Sho’ ’nuff, they do – but instead of $1.78/gallon like it is at the Schuyler Co-Op or the Shelby Cubby’s, it’s $2.28/gallon!  A quick bit of figuring told me that, after calculating the cost of driving to Schuyler or Shelby, it’s nearly a wash which way is cheaper.  But at least having E-85 in town saves about 45 minutes, and we don’t use up two gallons just getting back home again.

My cousin Fred sent another picture I had never seen before – my Grandpa George W. Swiney “and customer”.  (Unknown what that’s about; did he work at a station?  Possibly in those years right after the depression, when he lost his farm and then worked night and day to get it back again.)  Pictures of Grandpa are few and far between; he did not like to have his picture taken.

I loved to hear Daddy’s stories about him from the time I was wee little, and was always sad that he died so young – only 48 years old.  The doctor operated on him for appendicitis – but it was a ruptured ulcer.  Antibiotics would’ve almost assuredly saved his life.

I planned to get up early Thursday morning and work outside in the flower gardens.  I also wanted to haul four large drawers from the basement out to the trash pickup spot.  The drawers were sans the frame they were once in – my late nephew David made them to go under our children’s cribs, way back when.  They were made so well – plus, I was sentimental about them – I thought it would be nice to make a dresser shell for them to fit into.  But that never happened, and I don’t like clutter, and they’ve been cluttering the basement for too long.

I woke up at 3:30 a.m. and never got back to sleep.  I hadn’t wanted to get up that early!  I finally got up at 6:15, hauled the drawers out using the new gorilla wagon Larry got me a month or so ago, and then cleared old growth out of flowerbeds. 

A couple of hours later, I headed in for a bath.  I turned on the radio to listen to the news, as I do each morning.  The first thing I heard was President Biden saying, “No one should have to choose between a job and a paycheck!”

I AGREE!!!  People should get paychecks willy-nilly, never mind whether or not they actually work.  PAY ME!!!  PAY ME!!!  No, I don’t want a job.  I just want a paycheck!

Okay, okay.  I know that the rest of the sentence was “or taking care of themselves and their loved ones.”  He’s plugging for a program that would offer up to 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents and those who are taking care of an ailing family member.

Where on earth does all the money come from for all the things he wants??

Later that afternoon, I took Loren some supper – a roast beef sandwich, potato salad, yogurt, fresh-squeezed apple cider, and other items we’d gotten at Super Saver the night before.  I took apart the roast beef sandwich, lightly toasted the buns, warmed the meat, laid the cheese atop the hot meat to melt it slightly, and put Miracle Whip and a dab of mustard on the hot bun. 

Later, I did the same with the turkey sandwiches Larry had also gotten, unbeknownst to me.  Mmmmm, yummy, that was good. 

Some of the things I got from Loren’s basement that day were Christmas décor – including these pretty Thomas Kinkade light-up Christmas ornaments.  Fortunately, they were still in the box – and the box had Jeremy and Lydia’s name and address on it, so I knew who to give them back to.

I got 195 pictures scanned that day.  If I could do that every day, I’d most likely get done before Christmas!  But... the number is usually around 125.

Friday Loren’s supper consisted of ancient-grain-encrusted cod (those hyphens are very important! – without them, you might think the fish is ancient), Mediterranean blend vegetables, a blueberry streusel muffin, some Vlasik bread and butter pickles, coleslaw, a banana, Señor Rico rice pudding, and Tropicana orange juice. 

“He’ll probably complain that it’s too much stuff,” I told one of the girls, “and then start eating anything dessertish first.”

And that’s exactly what he did.  😅

I worked on the flower gardens for a little over two hours Saturday morning, from before 8 until 10.  Most of the gardens on the east, north, and west are cleared out now.  It was a good thing I went out early, because the temperature got up to 88° later that afternoon, with the wind gusting to 38 mph.

When I decided to come into the house, I put the wagon under the deck, started to go up the steps – and then remembered the bowl for the bird bath.  I got it out of the basement via the ground-level patio door (with Teensy badly wanting to come in – cats don’t understand about upstairs doors possibly being closed and getting themselves trapped), carried it around to the pedestal in the front yard, and positioned it.  Jesse, our neighbor’s full-sized Australian shepherd, spotted me, and came madly barking down the hill.  I twisted the heavy bowl of the bird bath to secure it in place, then turned to greet the dog.  In the meanwhile, the neighbor lady was yelling at him to “COME!!!”, but he never pays her a lick of attention.  I had on my ‘rosebush’ gloves, but I held out the back of a hand, and he stopped barking and came to sniff my hand quite nicely. 

I petted him, and his short stump of a tail wagged so hard, it bent the doggy in the middle, this way and that.  He checked out the bird bath to make sure I’d gotten the bowl centered on the pedestal properly.  By then Jennifer was coming across the road, so Jesse decided he’d better gallop on his way.

Late that afternoon, I saw a butterfly for the first time this year – a cabbage white.

When I quit scanning that evening, I had 17,108 photos scanned, and was working on the 58^th album.

At 6:16 p.m., Larry wrote, “I am on my way to get a pickup for Joe Swantek; be home around 11:30 p.m.”

The pickup was in Sedalia, Missouri, southeast of Kansas City, about 370 miles away, farther than Larry had expected.  Furthermore, he had a blowout on the trailer some hours later.  He wound up getting home at about 6:00 a.m. Sunday morning.

I was already up getting ready for Sunday School, which was starting at 8:15 a.m. that day, an hour and a half earlier than usual, because my nephew (our pastor) Robert Walker’s son Joseph (their only son; they also have five daughters) was getting married that afternoon at 4:30 p.m.  The main service was at 9:30.

Larry collapsed into his recliner and slept until I got home from church a little before 11:00 a.m.

At 11:40 a.m., I took Loren some food.  “The wedding is at 4:30,” I reminded him.

“Oh, that’s right!” he said.  “I’d forgotten.  I knew, but I forgot!”  Then, “It is on my calendar.”  

I looked.  It said “6:30 p.m.” on his calendar.  He gave me a bright pink marker to fix it.  I scribbled out the wrong time and wrote in ‘4:30’.  “I can call you an hour or so before the service,” I offered (which is what we do each Sunday morning).

“No, you don’t need to; I’ll remember,” he said with such assurance that I figured, Well, he probably will.

I told him I was heading to Wal-Mart to get wedding gifts, including one for him to give the couple.  He thanked me and said, “I’ll see you at the wedding a little after 4:00!”  

He can sound so... sure of himself.

I got a heavy wooden tray with metal handles for us to give Joseph and Helen, and a big ornate wooden bowl for Loren to give them.

We debated calling Loren a little before 3:00...  but didn’t.  When I had no notifications from the game cam on the front of his house or the StopTrace in his Jeep by the time we left home a little after 4, I thought, He forgot.

He missed the last wedding, for another of our great-nephews, which was also at 4:30 p.m.  He never seemed to realize he’d actually missed it.  I keep still when these things happen (he’s missed Sunday night services a few times, too), because 1) if I asked him about it, there’s no telling if any answer he gave me would have anything to do with the real reason or not, and 2) if he doesn’t remember and is not upset about missing the service, I certainly don’t want to remind him and perhaps upset him – and he very probably would be upset, if he knew he’d missed a service.

The three girls on the left are sisters of the groom -- all my great-nieces and great-nephew.  The two ring-bearers are my great-great-nephews.  One little flowergirl, my great-great-niece, is not in the picture, because she wasn't feeling just the well.

We were in the Fellowship Hall having the reception when a friend told me that she and some others had seen Loren pull into the parking lot at about a quarter after 6 – the usual time for our Sunday evening services.  He drove around the lot, but it was completely full.  We had arrived 15 minutes early, and still had to park on the street half a block away.

He went back home; I saw from the game cam that he got there at 6:31 p.m.

That makes me feel bad.  I’m really sorry I didn’t call him, despite him telling me not to.  I could get him a DVD of the wedding, but I don’t think he knows how to use his DVD player anymore.  He once pointed at his big screen and told Hannah, “I have never used that thing since the day we got it!” which wasn’t true at all; he and Janice used it a lot; he used it fairly often after Janice passed away; and he and Norma used it, too.  It was an award from NFIB for his sales.  He has a lot of National Geographic and WWII videotapes and DVDs, and Norma had a lot of animal movies that they enjoyed.

We drove by Loren’s house after leaving the church, and saw that he’d left his garage light on.  All the other lights were off.  He’s always been a stickler for turning off lights.

There was wild lightning on all four sides of us as we drove.  This morning while listening to the radio I learned that during the wedding, tornadoes had touched down 20 miles away, and a small town 16 miles to the south reported flooding.  But we only got four raindrops on our windshield on the way home.

Today road construction started on the Avenue onto which Loren’s street connects.  There is only one way out, and three other houses use that street.  Of course the construction crew will have to make a lane for people to get in and out, but Loren has been worrying about it.  After assuring him that there would indeed be a way for him to drive out, and seeing that he was still worrying, I said, “Well, if all else fails, walk over there to your corner (gesturing) and stand there and cry-y-y-y!!!”  (I said the word in a sad, wailing tone.)  “Someone will hurry right over and help you.”

So he laughed and started eating his supper.

I got up this morning planning to work in the yard, but it was too, too blustery.  The wind was gusting at 40 mph, and my eyes and ears don’t like that.  So I started the first load of laundry, took a bath (and a shampoo), and had a breakfast of an egg on a thin bagel.

Two hours later, the second load of clothes was in the washing machine, the first load was put away, and a nearly-new bathroom rug set was airing out on the back deck, pinned to the railing by the heavy metal bench.  The rugs had been at the bottom of a giant rubber bucket of unused linens at Loren’s house.  A little while ago, I put them in the bathroom on the main floor, then put the rugs I took out in the downstairs bathroom.  It’s nice to have thick rugs on the cold cement floor down there.

My just-a-little-over-a-year-old washing machine, which was worked on only a couple of months ago, still clonkity-clonks, and today about the time I decided, Okay, I must call the repairman again, it made a most horrendous grating noise.  

I called in a hurry, after that.  Why can I never find my receipt from Nebraska Furniture Mart when I need it?!  I found an online receipt at NFM’s website; but that might not be good enough.  I attached it to an email and sent it to the extended warranty company; we’ll see if they accept it or not. 

The dumb thing is, after that dreadful noise, the washer went right on working away – but it quit clonking.  Huh?

Here’s Victoria at the Petting Barn in Henry Doorly Zoo, July of 2004.

I took Loren some food – a Black Angus burger, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, a banana, strawberry yogurt, Welch’s grape juice, and coleslaw.  While I was at his house, I collected a humongous bin (which was too heavy for me, and now my back hurts), a giant garbage bag full of video tapes, CDs, and DVDs (which was also too heavy for me, and made my back hurt even more), a couple of folding chairs, and a box of cookbooks.

I came home, sorted through everything, and took a load of stuff back to the Goodwill.  It was so windy – with gusts now at 45 mph – it was hard to drive, hard to control the car door when I opened it, and hard to stagger to the garbage bin with bags of videos, CDs, and DVDs that nobody would ever need or want.  Now I have earaches.

Then, to add insult to injury, I somehow got a splinter stuck in my finger.  I grabbed a fine, steel-shanked pin and dug it out with more malice than finesse.  ‘Tupid t’ing.

I saved a set of WWII DVDs, two audiobook sets on CD, and my very own Grandma Swiney’s oatmeal cookie recipe, handwritten on a yellowed piece of notebook paper.  I had already stuck the box of cookbooks back into the Jeep to haul to the Goodwill, when I tipped the box and a bunch of loose recipes slid out of an old Betty Crocker cookbook – and there was Grandma’s recipe.

Yesterday I gave Janice’s sister Judy two fairly large jewelry boxes full of Janice’s jewelry.  She’s pleased to have it, and will share some of it with her daughter and daughter-in-law.

Back to the photo-scanning!  But first, I shall try some Essential Oil Lotion from Two Old Goats on my back.  ♫ ♪ Rub it in, ♫ ♪ rub it in... ♫ ♪

I have 17,108 photos scanned, and I’m working on the 58^th album.

,,,>^..^<,,,           Sarah Lynn           ,,,>^..^<,,,