Whittlin' Joe and Smokin' Johnny Carson

We lived down on Strong Street and they lived up on Highway 96.  They lived the second house in from the corner in a brown tar paper shack.  I call it tar paper but it had a coating on it with flecks of brown, red and black.  You know what I mean, kind of like the asphalt shingles on roofs today.  Their yard was small but it was big enough for a chicken coop and an out house.  It had one tree and that is where Whittlin' Joe could be found every afternoon after school.  He sat on a wooden chair and leaned it back against the tree trunk and whittled his little things he whittled whatever they were.  I suspect he was there all day and not just after school, but that is when I saw him.  The chickens ran free in the yard and some times one could be seen coming out of the house.  They had a small trailer and it was said by my brother (who knew these things) that the trailer was full of things they had whittled and in the summer they went on the road and sold stuff.  I could not argue, because I did not know.  I just know I walked on the other side of the street because they scared me.
I had heard rumors that sometimes Hank Windiate would stop and pass the time of day with them.  Hank lived at the end of our street and was crippled.  I do not know why, just that one arm and one leg were pretty small.  He had a buckboard and an old brown horse which he harnessed and hooked up to it on a daily basis and "went into town."  I have no idea why he went into town every day, but he did.  There were rumors that he had been married at one time and his wife had died.  Hank was another one who let the chickens run in and out of the house.  Hank took sick and died and the town people came and built a fire in his yard and burned everything that was inside.  I never understood that.  And I do not know what happened to the goats, chickens and horse either.  This is just how I remember it.
Between us and Hank were two houses.  First was Rudolph Reinke and his girls, Irene, Delores, Florence and Venita.  He had several more girls who had grown and gone, but Irene was my age and Delores a year or so older.  The mother had died when Irene was a wee tot and Rudolph was left to raise the kids.  He did handyman work and left early and came home late.  He also raised pigs and he could be heard doing his chores and singing hymns in German while he went about his business.  The girls made doughnuts every Saturday morning.  They also had a cow so they made real butter.  They used to trade us butter for the white stuff with a yellow dot that passed for margarine in the old time.  I liked that.  They had a dog on a chain that barked all the time and I do not think anyone ever petted it.
Between Reinke's and Hank was Jake Smith and his wife who I never knew because she looked really mean and stood very straight when she walked.  She walked into town and was a cleaning lady for someone.  Jake was a retired peace officer and he liked to show us his gun and tell us what would happen to us if we ever did anything wrong.  He would arrest us because he still had his badge and he could do that.  He had a chair in the yard and used to tip it back against the tree and nap.  Pretty sure Jake was the instigator of the "sneaking up on Jake Smith while he was asleep and tying him to the tree."  Boy, was he mad!  Of course he was not tied very tight, but it was just the idea of catching him asleep that the boys could not resist.
Walt King lived over on the highway on the other side of our block.  He raised beautiful flowers and a garden to die for, which he did one afternoon.  We saw him sleeping face down in his garden all afternoon and so when mother came home we told her and she and Rudolph went to investigate, but we had to stay home.
The Feins and their son Howard lived between us and Whittlin' Joe on the highway.  Howard was probably 25 years old and still lived at home.  He worked in his garden a lot.  He raised mostly flowers.  I stopped to see him sometimes, but once he made his false teeth jump out at me and scared the living shit right out of me.  I did not even know there were such things as false teeth.  When I told mother she just laughed and said to stay away from there because I was probably aggravating him.  I pretty much avoided him after that.
Right catty cornered from our house was a lot that was a square block with an empty house on one side.  I mean a deserted falling down house with no roof.  Joe Hedrick held his rodeo's there.  I always liked to watch them ride the broncs.  Joe or Jerry.  One was an old man and one was my age.  Today they have an exotic animal farm on the other side of town.  I think it is a bed and breakfast, or it was.  I have not been back in years so I do not know.
Behind our house about half a mile was the cemetary.  I used to love to go there because it was quiet and sometimes there were pretty flowers.  I just looked at them.
So, these are my thoughts this morning.  I sure wonder where they come from?

A sharecropper Christmas or Gibby is gone, but the memories are not.

There were eight of us living in a lathe and plaster house where the snow blew in sometimes because there were chinks in the plaster, but Christmas was always Christmas.  It was the one holiday a year that really mattered in that 2 bedroom house at 709 Strong Street in Nickerson, Kansas.  There were 3 things that would happen that day without fail.  Santa Clause would have stopped by in the middle of the night, Dad would stay sober and  there would be a meal on the table.  The wheels of progress had started probably the Christmas before when Mother started counting her pennies and making the list of what each one of us would receive. She always had a stub of a pencil and a list in her pocket. I never really got a good look at that list, but I am sure my name had appeared there some where.   All year she worked towards that one goal.  Mother's do that, or at least mine did.
School got out for vacation about a week before Christmas.  Every classroom had a Christmas tree. and every tree had tinsel.  The last day before vacation started was the day to "take down the tree."  The tree then went home with who ever did not have a tree up yet.  We counted on getting one.  There were 6 of us little urchins and the teachers would decide.  We always got one!  I remember the year I was the lucky recipient.  Can you imagine my pride at dragging that tree home the whole mile to our house.  I was so damn proud I thought I would pop!  And the teacher had left all the tinsel on it.  Of course by the time I got it home the tinsel had thinned quite a bit on the side that was dragging in the dirt.  I thought I would pop my buttons when momma propped that tree up and Christmas was on the countdown!
We did not have stockings, but rather we wrote our name on a piece of paper and placed it where we wanted Santa to put our gifts.  Funny, I don't really remember ever giving my mother a gift in all those growing up years.  I made her cards, but never a physical gift.  And then there was the time I babysat and earned some money and went to Doc Wards store and got her a stainless steel mixing bowl.  I did that because I had broken her glass one and felt really bad about that.  Well, when I grew up and moved away I would send her stuff, but that really doesn't count.
As the years went by and mother picked up more house cleaning jobs the piles grew bigger at Christmas.  The first one I remember was a coloring book, colors, a red rubber ball, and an orange.  The last Christmas I remember Santa Clause was when my brother woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me he had helped mom and dad put out the gifts and there was no Santa Clause.  That year I got one of those tin doll houses that clipped together.  You know, the miniature ones with mother, father, sister and brother and all the tiny furniture and you could buy more!  And always there was new underwear and socks!  Wise mother to make the piles bigger with stuff we had to have anyway!
And then it was my turn to be Santa.  In all fairness, I do not remember much about those years.  The kids dad and I divorced when the kids were small and he was good at bringing presents, but not much for the child support.  His reasoning was that I had the kids and all the pleasure they brought so why should he have to pay me?  He was the one with not kids to keep him company and in my warped mind I saw the reasoning that made him tick!
I was always a procrastinator and sometimes Christmas got there before I realized that as Santa I had work to do!  One year my friend Gibby was kind enough to help with the last minute shopping the day before Christmas Eve mind you!  We rushed from store to store and finally had the trunk full.  The next evening I put the kids to bed and Gib came and we began to assemble the gifts, one of which was a tin miniature doll house for Debbie.  Luckily (?) he had brought a bottle of wine and luckier still that I had lots of band aids because those damn little tabs were very sharp and the wine was very strong!  Well, and there may have been a second bottle!  I woke up on the floor and no sign of Gib.
(An aside here, I must tell you about Gib.  He was a friend of my mothers and they worked at the Red Rooster together.  Gib was gay and one of the first to die in the AIDS epidemic, when it was an epidemic. He died in California and we never knew where he was buried.  I do know when I conceived the Pueblo AIDS Memorial Quilt  he was foremost in my mind and the first panel made was for my sweet Gibbie.)
Many years have passed and many Christmas's have come and gone to bring me to this Christmas.  I do not have a tree.  I gave all my lights and decorations to my son.  I do not buy gifts.  I do not fight the crowds.  I will spend Christmas Eve in church and Christmas Day I will attend church and come home.  I am not bah humbug at Christmas, I just prefer to live with my memories.  The best part of memories is that they can be altered to fit the occasion and this year I shall have beautiful memories of wonderful children and bountiful love and I wish you all the same!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!  

Do you remember when you first remember?

I have reached a new plateau in my morning thought process.  Usually I wake up and remember what day it is and then begin to remember what all I have planned for the day.  Well today was just a little different.  I woke up and tried to remember how far back I could actually remember.  I remember when Dorothy was born.  Mother had to stay in bed 10 days.  Seems like it was harvest and dad was pretty upset that he actually had to hire someone to drive the grain truck into town.  We lived on the Stroh place at that time.  That would have meant I was 5 years old.  Oh, I bet I was so cute!  Not sure because I do not ever remember anyone saying, "Oh, what a cute little girl!"  I remember them asking Momma, "Wow!  How many kids do you have?"  I was named after my Paternal Grandmother, who I never met.  Or at least, I do not remember if I did.

I remember an aunt and uncle coming for a visit and they were rich because they had a car!  I also remember when it came time for them to leave that the uncle sat at the steering wheel with the aunt in the passenger seat and dad "cranked" the motor to get it to fire.  I often wondered just how that worked if there was no one to turn the crank.  Did Auntie in her finery and feathery hat do it?  A mystery indeed.

I can vaguely remember the day my dad brought home a Shetland pony named Star.  That horse came out of the trailer kicking and I do not think he ever stopped.  I was terrified of that damned horse.  He was brown and white and I could see him watching me and I knew if I got close he would send me flying.  My dad had been in the Cavalry and had been bitten on his upper arm by a horse and carried the scar his entire life.  To this day I live in mortal terror that a horse will bite me if I get too close.  Ito was the one exception.

I do not remember being flogged by the geese when I wandered into thier pen.  Mother did.  I do not remember Jake whacking me on the head with a turnip, but she did.  I do remember when the cow died and dad had to pull it down to the pasture, cover it with some sort of fuel and light it on fire because there was an epidemic of anthrax and "you just never know and it is better to be safe then sorry."  The government told us that.

I remember Momma getting out the stamp books when she went to the store because the government only allowed us to buy so much sugar, gasoline and other thing that were "rationed".  I do not remember having a Christmas in the Stroh house, but we must have.  I remember my step brother, Gene Bartholomew coming for a visit once.  He came with someone in a fancy car that did not need cranked.  He was just out of the Army and he was very handsome and smelled very good.  He only stayed a little while and then I remember talk of "prison", "forgery", and a "damn long stretch ahead of him."  He remained in my memory and in my life for the next 10 years.  He wrote me from prison and I answered all his letters.  He wrote in Calligraphy which I guess made him a very good at forgery.  I saw him once when I was about 16.  He left to hitch hike to Oregon, was arrested in Nebraska for "vagrancy", given a ride to the outskirts of some little town and disappeared off the face of the earth.  Some loose ends we just never get to tie up.

I have to interject here about my father and how he ended up with kids we never knew.  My dad was much older then my Mother.  He had been married before and they had 5 children.  A son and daughter had died during the great depression leaving them with 3 sons.  William Eugene Bartholomew, Richard Bartholomew, and Earl Bartholomew.  For whatever reason his wife died.  He put the boys in an orphange because he could not care for them and had no family members that could help.  Richard and Earl were adopted.  Gene was not.  Richard and Gene were both in World War II and both were "shell shocked" when they got out.  Richard was more affected then Gene, but neither of them were ever productive members of society.  I do know Gene married and had a son.  As I recall the son's name was Billy.  I expect it was William Eugene Bartholomew.  He may have children, but who knows and I do not know how to find out.

Well, I got a little side tracked there.  Some other things I remember about the Stroh place years are good memories.  Like herding the old cow along the road so she could eat grass and then when it was time to bring her home I would grab her tail and she would run for the barn.  Of course I got in trouble because she would not "let her milk down" after that little jaunt.

I remember Donna poking her finger in a turtles mouth and the turtle would not let go and if dad cut the head off the turtle it still would not let go "until the sun goes down."  Poor Donna!

I remember the old yellow tomcat bringing a baby chicken to mother and I remember my horrified mother demanding Jake take that cat into the woods and kill it for killing her chicken.  Wonder how I slept that night?

I remember playing in a mud puddle by the house and how much fun it was when the water tried up and left little crunchy dried pieces of mud where it used to be.  Those were fun to walk on barefooted.

I remember mom holding me under her arm and washing my hair under the pump on the back porch.  Josephine pumped as fast as she could and I recall that water was so damn cold!

I remember "haircutting day"  when some lady would come and set us on a chair, put a bowl over my head and cut whatever was below the bowl off and that was a "bowl haircut."

I remember being in first grade and we surely lived there then, but I do not remember walking to school.  I remember walking to the store alone the first time from that house.

I remember Jake hanging out down on the river with a guy named "Blackie Joe" (?) and I remember the beautiful silver bracelet Jake gave me that he helped make, but I do not remember what I did with it.

I remember so much, but I do not remember what we ate.  I do not remember ever being cold.  I do not remember if we had furniture or an icebox, or what I wore for clothes.

I do remember being sad because we were leaving that house.  The saddest part is, I do not know where we lived before the Stroh place.  I do not know so much and the saddest part of all is there is no one I can ask.  Being the oldest sure sucks sometimes.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, I survived another year.  But is that good or bad?  Yesterday marked 74 years that I have been riding this big blue ball around.  I know I have good company in the form or Stephen Smalley, my cousin and my friend Mary Lou Abernathy, who I never see, and countless others that slip my mind.  All the kids checked in along with a mailbox full of cards from the dentist, insurance company, and the hearing aid place who recognizes every important moment of my life and assures me they are there to help me hear all the best wishes anytime I am ready to fork over the $4,000!  Ah, life!
I do like to look back at how far I have come from that little shack on the outskirts of Nickerson, Kansas.  That is where a mother and father made a home for 6 little Bartholomew kids.  Now there are 3 of us left.

Here I am on probably the last day that I was purely innocent.  The last day that I was completely helpless and I wonder where that blanket went!  I bet one of the younger kids got it as a handmedown, because back in those days, everything was handed down to the next kid.  Now do you realize that I got the handmedowns from my brother!

Doesn't look like he is wearing dresses, does it?  As a young girl I remember worshipping him my whole life.  We listened to the Grand Ole' Opry from Nashville, Tennesee on a car radio hooked up to a battery out on the porch on Saturday nights.  He is the one who taught me how to bait a hook and catch a fish.  He taught me how to choose the hardest clod of dirt in a plowed field and how to aim so I could hit someone in our clod fights.  He built me stilts which I fell off of and damn near broke my neck!  He dreamed of leaving Nickerson and coming back rich.  When he was 16 years old he forged his birth certificate and joined the Army.  Of course, he got caught and sent back home.

His name was Delbert Leroy Bartholomew, but in the 7th grade he became known as Shakey Jake.  That was later shortened to Jake because he did not shake.  He wore overalls and was befriended by a man in town named Roy Hasten.  Roy was an older man who had no kids and loved to fish.  I can remember him bringing Jake home and they always had catfish laid out in the back.  Some of them were really big, or at least big to my little memory.  When I hear the song "Bimbo" by Hank Williams, I think of Jake.

There is not enough paper in this world to hold all my memories of Jake.  I told you how he got that scar.  He did go away to the Army and he came home from Germany.  He married and had a son, divorced and had another son.  His second son and mine are almost the same age.  My father died in February of 1965 and Jake was killed that October.  My son was 1 month old.

10/5/37-10/31/1965

This was Mother.  I wonder if she remembered that dog?  Seems when we were growing up there was always an old cat hanging around outside, but never a dog.  Not sure I ever wanted one, but I am sure we never had one.  Dad did not like dogs.  I was always afraid of them.  There were always stories of "dogs running in packs on the outskirts of town, so be sure and keep the kids inside."  Never saw them, but like the Gypsy's (who I also never seen), we knew they were there and had to be ever vigilant.   Oh, yeah, and the cougars!  We could hear them scream down on the river and trust me, that scared the living shit right out of us.  Sure made me appreciate a home with doors.  Not that we ever locked them.  Doors had to remain unlocked in case a hobo or some homeless person needed to get in to get a drink of water or a bite to eat.  Times have sure changed.

So now I am rambling again!  I had one birthday party when I was growing up.  It was for my 8th or 9th birthday.  Mother was cleaning houses for my cousin Paralee Morris who was a teacher and was married to a teacher, so they were rich.  Paralee was the daughter of Frank and Helen Wocknitz.  Frank was the one who made Tony's Bologna and took the recipe to his grave.  She let mother make me a little party at her house and gave me a red Cinderella cookie cutter.  Birthday parties are just not a biggie with me.

(You must understand that all this stuff that I remember from 65 years ago may or may not be accurate and may change every time I remember it as well as every time you read it.  So it is best if you just read what I write and enjoy it and not try to make any sense whatsoever out of my poor befuddled mind!)

Enough about the birthday!  Fall is in the air this morning and I want to check the garden.  For some reason I would sure like to have a cigarette this morning, but I am always grateful when I realize that I gave those up.  That was a good change.  And change is what life is all about, isn't it?

Yeah, what she said.

Happy Early Father's Day to my dad, who for years wore the hat of both mom and dad, who bought me tool sets and training bras, taught me how to fish, curse, and say excuse me, who gave me the courage to stand up for what's right, and the compassion to help others. Dad, you raised some kick ass kids! We love you!

Just read this on face book and since the world has seen it I assume it is alright to put it on this blog.  I would hope the girl who wrote it would add a comment here.  It is always wonderful to see the love between a parent and child at any age.  I know this gal's situation and that makes it even more special. I confess it also made me sad.

My mom and dad were separated in age by 20 years.  That may not mean much in this day and age, but back then things were different.  The father's job was to earn the living and the mother was supposed to stay home with the kids.  It did not work that way at our house.  Momma helped with the farming when Dad share cropped.  The 2 littlest kids were carried with her and the rest of us ran wild at home.  Well, technically, Josephine was supposed to watch us and she did.  She watched us play in the mud.  She watched us chase the chickens and torture the cat.  Donna poked her finger at a turtle and she watched us try to save her.  But that was 65 years ago.

My father was a man who lived in our home.  He had no patience for us kids.  He was just there.  I always envied the kids at school who could be seen around town walking with their father.  Or walk past and see the father figure mowing the grass.  A real sand and shovel memory if you get my drift.

It was not so with my father.  I knew none of his relatives although I was named after his mother.  He had 5 children from his first wife.  A son and daughter died as infants from sand pneumonia and 3 sons  were placed in an orphanage when his wife died.  I assume she died. Two of the 3 surviving sons were adopted.  Gene was not.  I have letters he wrote to my father from the orphanage that tear at my heart.  From the letters I learned that my father was never a caring man  to any child he had.  So it was never personal.  Just one of those "It is what it is." things.  Richard served during WWII and came home shell shocked.  Today we call it PTSD.  Earl married and had 3 children.  Gene spent most of his life in prison and finally just disappeared off the face of the earth.  He left a son named Billy who I remember only as a fact, but not a person I ever met.

My father never attended my wedding or acknowledged that there ever was one.  But he surprised me.  When I had my first baby, Debra Louann, he came by the apartment and looked at her.  When he left I found a bib in her crib.  For her 1 year birthday he had my sister Josephine make her a pretty red dress and bought her a pair of red patent leather shoes.  I have a picture somewhere.  I had forgotten all about that until   I started this paragraph!  He died before my second child was born.  I wonder if things had been different if we could have actually been friends?  Maybe....

But I can not think of that tonight.  It makes me too sad.  Life is just so full of missed opportunities.  So full of roads not taken and choices not made.  As I get older I think of all the things I should have done and all the things I should have said and I wonder if the good Lord let me live though all my past just so I could finally get it.  Lizzie, I am so glad you have this time with your father and I envy you so much.

That having been said,

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Plevna, Kansas, Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield

I know I have written about my Plevna years, but in case you missed it let me go there again.  Grandma Haas, who was Mother's mother, had a stroke mys last year of grade school.  Great Grandma Hatfield was pushing 100 and could not take care of her alone, so I was sent to stay with them and do what I could.  This meant I started my Freshman year in the little Plevna High School.  The whole high school was less then 40 kids.  Plevna was a farming community and all the kids in school were farmer's kids.  I stuck out like a sore thumb.  But it was what it was and there I stayed.  I do not remember any of those kids I went to school with.  There was a family named Smith that lived catty cornered from the grandma's and I went over there sometimes, but was under strict orders not to look at their television because that was the work of the devil!


The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and a whole bunch of girls.  I can recall 5 for sure.  I never saw a boy, so that may have been the family.  There may have been a son some where but I do not recall.  Mr. Smith had one blue eye and one brown eye.  That was something I had never seen before and have not seen since.  I see it occasionally in dogs, but never in a human.  Of course, I do not actually seek the phenomenon out, so it may slip by me undetected.

There were several things that amazed and intrigued me about the Smith family.  The first was the size of the house.  It was a two story that had never seen a coat of paint.  It must have been about 10 rooms and was lathe and plaster.  I know this because the ceiling of the foyer fell down and we were then relegated to using the back door because no one cleaned up the mess.  Later the ceiling in the front room would fall also.  That was more serious as Mr. Smith was napping on the couch under it when it collapsed and received a small cut.  We did praise God that it was not more serious!  One room contained a quilt frame which always held a quilt, but I do not know if anyone ever quilted or it was just there.

As in most homes of that era, the plumbing consisted of a privvy out back and a pump by the back door and usually one in the kitchen.  This was the other thing that amazed me about the family dynamic.  There were several wash tubs located in the kitchen.  They were there to hold the dirty dishes.  On Saturday, they heated water and washed all the dishes.  It was a bee hive of activity on that day as all the women folk were there and working feverishly to get the chore done.  When the dishes were all washed, dried, and put away it was time to heat the water and wash the clothes.  Saturdays were definitely work days at the Smith house!  Mr. Smith stayed in his chair by the window looking out at the back yard.  The dog stayed by him so it did not get stepped on by the scurrying women.  I did not go over there on Saturday.

Sunday I was expected to attend church.   Mom and dad would come for a visit about once a month.  They brought the 3 younger girls.  This was always special to me.  Dinner would be on the table when I got home.  It was always a feast and always the same fare.  Great grandma fried chicken and the rest of the meal materialized around that.   You know the comfort food thing?  Mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green beans, homemade dinner rolls, butter, jelly and pudding of some sort or another for dessert.  Some times a cake or pie.  Celery stuffed with peanut butter.  Pickled beets and sweet pickles.  The poor table would be groaning from all the food.  Never went hungry at Sunday dinner.
As I recall we never ate after the sun went down.  Dishes were washed and back in the cupboard in very short order.  The men folk, which usually consisted of my father, sat in the rocking chair with his thumbs hooked together over his stomach.  Grandma died in January of my freshman year.  Aunt Mabel came from Coldwater and took great grandma back with her.  I returned to Nickerson and the bosom of my family.

My father.  As I recall, my father was a big man.  His skin was very white and his hair had at one time been mostly red, but not a bright red.  It was more like a reddish blonde with a tad of brown.  He had freckles on his hands which were very white and not calloused at all.  I don't remember his eyes.  He had a big stomach and always wore overalls.  He wore brown, high top shoes.  Funny the things we remember from our childhood.  I think he may have been English with a bit of Irish, but who knows.
I do not think he liked me very much.  I know Mary was his favorite, but Mary was everyone's favorite.  Mother kept all of us girl's hair very short, but Mary was allowed to let hers grow long.  We were all so jealous!  Dorothy was the baby.  Donna and I were just there as  middle children.  Josephine ran away and got married very young.  Jake forged his birth certificate to show his age as 17 when he was 15 and joined the Army.  That made me the oldest of the youngest kids at home.  I relished in that and was very bossy.

At night we played "kick the can"  with the neighbor kids.  That is a game of hide and go seek which entailed placing a can on the ground and the one who was "it" counted while everyone hid.  Then the "it" person had to find each one and bring them back to "base".  While the "it" person went to search for the remaining hidden, some one could sneak in and "kick the can" which freed the ones who were stuck in the "jail".  Game sometimes went on for hours.  In day time we had "clod " fights.  This required a freshly plowed field.  We usually chose small clods which had dried and threw them at each other.  They usually crumbled on contact, but if they had been baking in the sun several days, they tended to be a little harder and left marks.  As tempers flared, the clods got bigger and more then one tear was shed either from pain, frustration, or from an eye full of dirt!  Brother Jake decided at one time to pull out his .22 rifle.  Little shit!  The game was over for the day and he was the winner for sure.

More about Plevna later, but now I have to go tend to the geese.

Probably just lucky that damn hog didn't eat me!

Thinking back to the "good old days" is mostly just a matter of perception.  Today I am remembering Irene who lived next door.  She is the one that slipped on the trailer tire....oh wait.  I may not have told you that little story.  See, back in that time dad had horses and they were used to pull trailers, hay racks, corn wagons and mainly eat everything in sight that was green.  So this one trailer (and I can not for the life of me remember what it was called.) that was just a box and dad could put side boards on it so it held more, or leave one of the side boards off and we would pick dry ears of corn and toss them in the trailer.  The board on the one side was so when we tossed it, the ear of corn would bounce back into the trailer.

So one day the trailer was just setting there and 4 of us girls decided we wanted to "drive the trailer" to town.      The way we accomplished this was one girl got on each tire, hung on to the side, and walked on the tire causing it to roll.  Looking back, I am pretty sure it would have been a lot easier to just walk into town and leave the trailer set, but they do not call them the "good old days"  for nothing.  It was indeed a time of innocence!  Oh, and did I mention that the tail gate and the front tail gate (please do not ask me to explain why the front gate was called a front tail gate.  I am just here to relay the story!)  were held in place by a steel rod which came to end with a very sharp point?   It had to be sharp to go through the hole in the bed that held the tail gate and the front tail gate in place.  There, the scene is set.

So I got on one wheel, Irene on another, Delores (Irene's sister) on one, and I forget who was on the fourth.  Usually it was steered by whoever was driving the horses.  Pull on the left rein and the trailer went left.  Pull on the right and it  went right.  Pull back on both reins and the horses stopped and this stopped the wagon.   We had none of those finery's!   We had only our feet.  We knew if we wanted to go left it would be necessary for the two people on the left side of the wagon to walk backwards so the left wheels would not turn.  We were so busy testing our theory and celebrating our genius that we forgot what we were doing and Irene's foot slipped off the wheel..  The only thing that stopped her from falling off was the steel rod buried in her thigh.  I remember very little of the particulars of that afternoon.  I know there was a lot of screaming.  A lot of cussing and a hurried trip into Hutch in some body's old car.  I do remember seeing her leg and the wound from that rod.  What is uppermost in my mind is the amount of yellow fat that was exposed.  Man that was gross!

We all stood around looking at the offending trailer and you should know we got in more trouble over that then about anything we had done before.  We were lectured for hours about the hazards of playing on the trailer.  But we were determined that there must be a better way to get around than to walk.  Next came a metal 55 gallon barrel (I think that is right).  Hop up on that and start walking and the barrel, of course rolled.
         
Close your eyes and picture that!  The faster you walked the faster the barrel rolled.  Best part was, there was no stopping that damn thing.  The only way to escape the rolling barrel was to jump off of it!  If you could do that and land in the soft dirt of a field or ditch you were very lucky.  Believe me when I say, I was never very lucky.  After you leapt off the barrel  it continued it's journey without you and usually there was someone in it's path that was going to get bowled over.

Another favorite past time was pig pen jumping.  I know that does not sound intriguing to you, but listen!  Mr. Reinke raised pigs.  He had pens in back for each pig.  They all were joined in a row; the pens, not the pigs..  Each pig had it's own house which was kind of an upside down "v" roof and about 8 feet long.  What we liked to do was start at one end of the lot on the first roof and leap to the second roof without falling in the pig pen.  Now I know this does not sound like fun to you, but remember, we did not have television, the only radio was WSM Nashville Grand Ole" Opry on Saturday night,   and the chances of getting a new brother or sister was a lot better than the chances of getting a board game to play!  And we had rules.  Someone was always designated as the one to run for help if somebody slipped and the hog attacked them.  Luckily no one actually fell into the pen, but the old sow was there grunting and hoping!

After dark we played "kick the can, if we had a can.  If we had a can it usually meant we had eaten that day.   To say that we grew up on the wrong side of the tracks would have been an understatement and to say the people on Strong Street were "strange"  would have really been stretching reality.  Strong street and the people who lived there were what made me who I turned in to today.  I never tire of remembering my childhood home.  The last time I went back to Nickerson and Strong Street, it had all changed.  My house was gone and in it's place was a double wide trailer.  Reinke's, Smith's and Hank Windiate's houses were deserted as was Goodrick's and Ayres.  I am sure by now they are either gone or replaced.  But that does not concern  me.  They are still in my mind.  They will always be in my mind.

Sometimes I think I may have selective memory.  Maybe we weren't poor, but I am thinking that 7 of us living in a 2 bedroom house could have been a clue.  But we all grew up and did not starve.  When we left Nickerson, Mother left the 3 legged kettle we heated wash water in for so many years.  She vowed that our new home would have a hot  and cold running water and one of those indoor bathrooms.  Know what?  She was right!

I know I showed you this, but...

I just want to point out some things of interest.  Like see that thing in the lower left hand corner?  Do you know what that is?  That is a sewing kit that sets on the cabinet or some where that it will be handy.  The whole thing is wooden and usually hand made.  The bird has a pair of scissors that makes up his head feathers and the blades are his beak.  Under the beak is various colored spools of thread.  In the center is a pincushion and in the pin cushion will be a needle.  I can walk in anyone's house now days and tell them I need to sew a button back on and I will be met with blank stares.  Needles and thread are just not the common items they were 50 or 60 years ago.
The couch they are setting on is a dark blue sort of plush fabric.  It is called an overstuffed divan.  The pattern etched in the fabric would have been some sort of leaf design or flower.  The walls are papered it is matched!  It is very neutral, because bold statements were not made in those days.  The pillows are of course, hand sewn, probably either by hand or on an old treadle.  I just don't remember the sewing machine at grandma's , but I am sure there was one there.
But the crème de la crème can be seen on the back of the couch between mother and grandma Haas.  See those white round things?  Those are crocheted sets that go on the back and arms of anything you set on.  These particular ones are made by first crocheting the round things.  They are made up of probably 85,000 tiny crochet stitches and probably in a size 20 thread.  Back in those days these were considered necessary.  If they were not on there the couch was "naked."  And trust me, it would have been more acceptable for me to cavort naked in the street as for that couch to not be finished with it's crocheted trimmings.  And the matching overstuffed chair would have a set that matched.  Heaven forbid that it looked any different.
And any table that was in any room would have a doily on it.  The center of the dining room table, a very large,heavy, round oak table had a big pineapple doily as the centerpiece.  It was about 2 feet across and the pineapple ruffles stood about a foot high.  When this was "soiled" it was washed and then "finished" by soaking it in a very heavy sugar water and then placed on a towel to dry.  The ruffles were pulled to full height as it dried and when it went back on the table it was perfect and looked like it had been ironed.
So that is it for this picture.  Oh, one more thing.  See how they are dressed?  Dresses, aprons, hose, shoes, the whole nine yards.  When those women came out of the bedroom this is how they looked.  They were dressed "for the day" and that was that.  You might catch me in my jammies at about any hour before 10, but not them.  I do not think I ever saw grandma in her night gown any time except when I put he in it at night and took it off in the morning.
So much for the grandma's for today.

(I know there are some of you out there who read this blog as a means of keeping up with family history.  You should know that I have my blog converted into a pdf. file  regularly and if you would like I can send it to you as an attachment.  I have not done it for this year, but just let me know if you want one and I will make sure you get it when it is ready.)









 

Look Debbie, you can not even see it.

Go straight up from                                               ^     That is all I have for a scar.  Go up from the red ^ and from the edge of my mouth.  Wasn't hardly worth bothering about, was it?           

Many years ago and far, far away.

Way back in the dark recesses of my mind is probably the first memory of my life.  It was before I started school.  Before sister Dorothy was born.  I must have been 4 years old when we lived on the Stroh place outside of Nickerson towards the Arkansas River.  I have many memories of that place, so we must have lived there for a while, or that was when my tiny mind was first starting to grasp things.

See there, how innocent I am?  So anyway, back to this memory.  We had an uncle. Well, we had several, but this one I am not sure how he was connected.  Was not on mom's side  unless it was a way distant one.  So it must have been one of the renegades from my dad's side.  His name was Uncle Ode.   That is all I know.  No last name.  Anyway, one day he came for a visit.  I probably seen him two times in my whole life.  Uncle Ode smoked a pipe, and like all little kids, I was fascinated with that pipe.  So he let me have puff.  I recall I must have done something because all the adults laughed.  He gave me several puff off that pipe and every time the grown ups laughed.  Then I got sick.  Oh, very sick.  And then the grown ups were not laughing any more.  Served them right, I think.

On the Stroh place, mother used to go to "Club".  I do not remember how often or where, but I remember "Club".  Us kids went with her, because there was one lady designated to watch over us and we better be good, and we better be quiet and there better not be any bad reports.  Back then parents ruled the home.   Now there is a tradition that I wish had been kept!

We had a chicken house and several times something had gotten in and got a hen.  So dad set out back and when the weasel showed up, he killed it.  Now, I do not remember our family ever owning a gun, so I am wondering just what he killed it with,  and I was way to young to remember much about that ordeal.  I think it was a weasel.  Could have been almost anything.

I remember us being on the porch one day and the cat came to the yard with a baby chicken in its mouth.  Mother dispensed Jake and the cat into the forest and I remember Jake had a hatchet.  When he came back he still had the hatchet, but I never seen that cat again.  Big yellow tom cat.

Jake and I were in charge of taking the old milk cow down to the road and letting her eat the grass in the ditch.  She would amuse herself like that for quite a while and when we seen her looking towards the house, we were supposed to go "bring her 'round".  One of our favorite ways of doing this was to grab her tail.  This would cause her to run for the barn a lot faster.  Otherwise we had to walk behind her with a switch and touch her rump when she stopped to eat grass.  That was pretty boring!  Course when we made her run, she did not give much milk.  No winning when you are 5 years old.

Sister Donna poked her finger at a turtle once and it latched on to her finger.  Much discussion on that one.  Cut it off?  No way!  It will never let go if it is dead and she will have that thing hanging on her finger for the rest of her life.  And try to catch a husband with a turtle head on your finger!  But be patient and it will let go when the sun goes down.  I do not know how that one played out, but I do not think she still has it hanging off her finger!  So it must have been resolved.

My brother Gene came home from the Army for a brief visit and then was gone and wound up in prison for writing hot checks.  But it was not his fault!  It was that damn Banks boy that made him do it.

The best part of that time in my life was learning to take care of my hair!  Sarcasm there.  The way we got haircuts back then was to have a bowl placed over our head and then trim around the edge of the bowl.  Hence the term "bowl hair cut".  This was second only to washing of the hair for pure enjoyment.  This is how that went down.  We had no hot water, and the only source of water was a pitcher pump in the corner of the kitchen.  This pumped into a sink (of sorts) which was attached to a pipe that ran through the wall and outside into the yard.  Mother would tuck me under her arm with one hand supporting my flopping head and sister Josephine would start pumping.  Ice cold water was pouring into my hair at about 7 gallons per second.  Shampoo and lather and rinse.  I learned very early not to scream , beg, and whatever I did do not wiggle or try to kick free because that just prolonged the ordeal and got my butt beat royally!  And you think you had it rough! 

Well, I could reminisce all day here, but this is not getting the chores done.   When we left the Stroh place we moved to the Ailmore place.  I think my next book may cover some of my childhood lived in abject poverty, but you know what?  I would not have it any other way!

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When you are over the hill, you pick up speed!

Well, this is one of my more recent snap shots.  I mean this is a more recent snap shot that some one else took of me.  I even look blurry.  Age is not wearing well on me.  And it is happening so fast that I am about ready to jump out of the way of this speeding train.  By the way, my shirt says "Jesus is coming!!!  Quick   Look busy!"  Well actually my shirt just hangs there and does not say anything.  I embroidered that on there as a message to those who have the idle hands in the day to day life we are forced to live.

At one point in time I was into decorating the "Necessary Room"  with wise sayings.  The first to hit the wall was one that had a sheep and said, "Ewe's not fat!  Ewe's Fluffy!"  That was followed closely by "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most!"  I soon tired of that one and replaced it with "Either lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way!"  These little jewels were all made in counted cross stitch that I toiled long and hard over.

Well, now it is many years later and the old eyesight is matching the picture there and the counted cross stitch is a thing of the past.  I used to crochet with the smallest hook and use thread that was like a spider web and make beautiful doilies to put all over the house.  The thread I use is now rug yarn and the doilies have been replaced by a store bought kitchen towel draped through one of the handles of the stove.  I always tilled my own garden, but now I am thinking of having some one come over and do that for me.  Actually I am looking to sell the tiller and do the container gardening thing where I do not actually have to bend over.

When we moved here in 1983 it took me about 35 minutes to mow and trim the yard.  Thank God we had a hot, dry summer last year and the grass refused to grow!  The chore is now up to over an hour and that is not counting the 3 breaks I need to take to rehydrate and dry the sweat that now runs off my head in rivulets!  I thought about hiring this out to my grandson, but when I told him I would pay $20 for the work and he looked at me with disdain, I just wanted to rip his head off his body!  Proving that not only does either one of us know the value of a dollar, but also that my sense of humor is definitely down the crapper.

For the first 55 years of my life I did not need an air conditioner in the summer and a wood stove was fine in the winter.  Shoveling snow was just something I did when it fell on my side walk.  At some point in time I must have blown my thermostat, because now an air conditioner is a must and I ain't chopping that damn wood, no way.  Right before Christmas we had to really big snows and I managed to make it in or out, but this past week when I looked out in the morning and saw that crap I picked up the phone and called the step daughter.  "Was Michael on his way over or shall I go ahead and shovel this stuff myself?'  Dead silence.  We both knew the answer to that one!  And my thoughts on this were almost profound!

Why is youth always wasted on the young?  When we were kids growing up at home and it snowed, we never shoveled.  No one shoveled.  The tallest one went out first and "broke a path"  to wherever we needed to go.  Usually the first path was to the out house.  And luckily that path led past the wood pile so eliminated the need for the second path!  (My momma didn't raise no fools!)  Hopefully someone had chopped and stacked some wood on the back porch before the "storm hit" so there would be dry wood for the necessary parts of life like cooking.  We did have a propane cook stove, but we only used that on Sunday and not always then. 

Winters were hard back then.  The stove would inevitably burn out in the night so we had to rely on the pile of quilts on our beds for survival.  That and shared body heat.  Us kids slept in a pile on two beds.  Now each little angel needs their own room.  And a furnace to keep them the same temperature all night and day.  Course we did not know any better.  That was how the world turned back then.  So let me get to the point and I am sure there must be one.

I do not remember ever doing any manual labor growing up at home.  We must have because I am pretty sure there were dishes to be washed, meals to be cooked, floors to be swept and mopped, laundry to be done, chickens to be fed.  It is just that I do not remember ever doing any of that stuff back when I was young and strong and could have done it very easily.  Back when I could have made a difference in my mother's life I do not remember doing anything.  Youth is wasted on the young, like I just said.

I am drifting from my original goal because thinking back to my younger days always makes me nostalgic, so I am going to wind this up, but I will be back very soon and I am going into the years in Nickerson, Kansas in much greater detail.  For now I just want to tell you to seize the day, which in French is "Carpe diem!"  or something like that.  I now refer back to my final piece of needlework.

When you are over the hill, you pick up speed.

(And the nearer you get to the bottom, it becomes a very slippery slope!)

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And here is my sainted Mother when she was a Senior in high school.

I look at this picture and I can see a lot of myself in it.  Our teeth were identical; the same smile lines.  We both have the blue/gray eyes that change from one color to the other depending on what we are wearing and our mood.  My cheek bones are higher than hers.  We both had auburn hair.  In later years her's was completely silver.  Mine is still salt and pepper.

Mother worked hard all of her life.  I never knew a time when her hands were not busy.  I guess the first recollections I have of mom and dad were when we lived on the Alemore place in Nickerson.  It must have been located about a mile Southeast of town.  I had not started school yet.  We lived in a 2 bedroom shack with a kitchen and front room.  I call it a shack because it was not painted, not insulated, no electric, the water was in a pump out the back door.  Sister Josephine was in charge of us little kids while mom worked in town cleaning houses for the rich ladies. 

Now I am sorry to tell you this, because I know her kids read this sometimes, but my sister Joanne, as we called her, was very mean.  I recall once when my brother Jake and I walked up to Bull Creek and caught the biggest bull frog you ever seen.  I put it in my dress tail and ran home to show her so she would give me a box to put it in.  Well when I opened my dress tail that damn frog leaped out right in the front room.  She went ballistic and started beating me with the broom.  "You catch that damn thing and get it out of here!  Hurry up!  Hurry up before it pees on my clean floor!"

Well, I do not work well under pressure and crawling around under beds trying to catch that jumping frog was definitely not something I was good at.  But she solved the problem by whacking it with the broom and then beating it to death there in the middle of the bedroom.  And guess who had the honor of cleaning up that mess?  Thirty minutes later my beloved frog was in the field out back and the floor was once more spotless.  She did not know that Jake and I buried the frog and I cried.  Seems like I spent most of my childhood in tears over one silly thing or another.  Jake was always my friend.

Up the road from us was the Rumble's house.  They were an old couple who always waved at me when I went by and sometimes I stopped.  He taught me the words to Buttons and Bows  and when I sang it alone the first time he gave me a shiny dime!  Back in those days a dime was a lot of money.  I lost it and that was that.  Across the road lived the Barthold sisters who were school teachers.  They had a forest behind their house and Jake and I used to crawl through the underbrush when they were in the back yard having tea and spy on them.  Damn!  That was exciting!

Back in those days we had phones and we were all on party lines.  The way you used the phone was pick up the earpiece and then crank the handle on the side for what ever the person you were calling's ring was.  That is if they were on your party line.  Other wise you cranked a long ring and got the operator, Mrs. Humphrey.  We were fond of picking up the ear piece and cranking in someone's ear who was talking on the phone.  Got a lot of lickings over that little trick.

My dad liked to drink in his younger days.  One year he was going to the fair in Hutch and mom made him take all of us.  Well, as soon as we hit the fairgrounds he found the beer tent.  He lined the three of us up on a bench ( little kids had to stay home) and told us to stay there for a little bit.  Hours later he bought us each an ice cream cone before he went back in to have "just one more and then we will go home."  As I recall that ice cream it seems like it was probably pineapple sherbert.  It was not good.  I was hot and tired and kept falling asleep, but we were all three scared to move cause where could we go?  Let me tell you, see that sweet little woman up there?  She damned near ripped that man's head off his body when we arrived home and she found out we had spent the whole day on a bench while he drank.  I actually think that was the end of his drinking days!

Our stay at the Ailmore house ended when a tornado (but they called it a cyclone for some reason) hit and blew everything away except the house and the big cottonwood tree at the end of the drive.  But what does any of this have to do with my mother?  I will tell you.  That period of our lives was spent in abject poverty.  That was the period of time when I learned, although I would not realize it for many years, what a real woman must do to survive with her children.  My mother had a will of iron and a spine of steel.  She went without so us kids could eat.  She worked all day and mended our clothes at night.  She foraged and canned food for the winter.  She could wring the neck on a chicken and have it plucked and in the pot with out ever losing the ethereal quality that shone from her eyes. 

There is a passage in the Bible that tells about my mother.  It is the one that says "Her husband shall call her blessed and her children shall adore her.  She shall rise up early in the morning."  That was my mother.  If I could be a fraction of the woman she and my grandmother were I would die a happy woman. 

I recall the very last time I saw my mother.  I had gone for my usual 5 day visit and when I left she was having some problems.  I remember looking into her eyes and seeing the my soul reflected back at me.  I recall thinking "I will never see my mother alive again."  And I was right.  I talked to her every Sunday at noon.  I always called her at that time so she would not be confused about whether I had called or not.  We would talk for about an hour about everything under the sun.  I rarely told her my problems, and she was always fine. 

As I begin to face my mortality it is the memory of those blue/grey eyes that makes death almost a welcome relief.  It is her down to earth common sense that has helped me over the hills and through the valleys of life.  I could fill a book with things my mother taught me, and never cover all the lessons.  So, I say this to you....If you have a mother cherish her.  If you don't then learn to cherish life, because some where some one gave life to you.  God did not put us on this earth to just take what it gives, he put us here to prepare it for those who follow behind us.  I hope I am doing that in some small way.  As I transition from Louella Bartholomew to Lou Mercer and back to Louella Bartholomew, I have remembered all you taught me.

And so,  Good night, dear Momma, you did a wonderful job and I will be there one of these days, so watch for me!

Nostalgia at this time of the morning? Sure, why not?

For some reason I decided to go back and read some old blogs.  I know what it was!  I wanted to download the pdf. of all of them as I want to have a record when I turn toes up and the kids are remembering me fondly.  I started out just pretty boring and mundane, but as time went on I managed to actually hit my stride there for a while.  So rather than tax my tiny brain this morning, I give you one of my first that I wrote about my mother. 

 

Friday, September 25, 2009

My Mother

My mother shaped my life by example and a lot of her down home wisdom. I am going to tell you some of these at this point and what my thoughts at the time were.

1. "Get that pencil out of your mouth. You don't know where it has been." (Where did that thing go when I wasn't looking?")

2. " Do you want a lickin'?" (Oh, yeah! That is exactly what I want, a lickin'!)

3. " If Beth stuck her head in the fire, I suppose you would too!" (How is wearing my socks rolled down comparable to sticking my head in a fire?)

4. "Eat that mush! There are people starving to death in China." (Well, I sure wish they had this mush!"

5. "Get that coat on before you go outside and freeze to death!" (Wonder how long it takes to flash freeze.)

6. " Do not stick your tongue on that metal pole, cause it will freeze there." (Of course I am going to do that if I can just make it to the pole before I freeze to death.)

7. "Break this candy bar in half and give your sister the biggest half so you do not appear greedy." (Yeah, give the big half to her because she is greedy.)

8. "The early bird gets the worm." (And why do I want a worm?)

9. " Stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off!" (There is a visual I do not need.)

10. "Keep your legs crossed or some little boy will look up your dress." (And what will he see?)

11. "I am going to knock your block off!" (What is a block? Is that possible? Where will my block land and can I put it back on?)

12. "Keep eating and you are going to pop open!" (So that is what that belly button is for! To hold me shut.)



And there is not a day that goes by that one of her idioms doesn't pop into my mind and jerk me back to the straight and narrow. Today this would be called child abuse, but back in those days it was just called "doing the best we can."

I would not trade my roots for any other roots in the world. I came from good, hardworking, honest German and I am sure this has helped shape me into the person I am today.