Hanging Clothes Outside: a Prescription for Good Health

A friend recently sent me a cartoon that struck my funny bone. In it, two women stand near an old-fashioned clothesline as one ironically tells the other this device dries her laundry using the very latest solar and wind technology. It made me think about people who’ve never hung clothes outside to dry. It also helped me recall helping mom and grandma pin wet laundry on the line and then remove and fold it afterward. Grasping sun-warmed fabric and breathing in breeze-scented sheets and towels is a heady experience, even in a technology-oriented world.

I suspect if more of us depended less on dryers and more on clotheslines, we’d be healthier. Several recently published articles suggest older Americans need more sunshine to help with vitamin D absorption. I’m guessing the amount of time it takes to hang a basket of wet laundry and then retrieve the dry result delivers that daily requirement.  

Not only are many folks in need of more vitamin D, they also suffer from anxiety. Experts who deal with such issues remind us fresh air and exercise are good medicine for such ills. It would be interesting to know if our grandmothers fretted less because they spent more time with their clotheslines. After hanging a couple of loads of sheets and towels the other morning, I see how time outside listening to birds sing and feeling warm breezes caress skin contributes to a peaceful disposition. In addition, you get exercise by repetitively bending, reaching, and pinning wet fabric. Once my basket was empty and the laundry fluttered in the breeze, my concerns seemed to shake away as well.

Add that repetitive action to sunshine and fresh air, and you have the ingredients necessary to generate a good mood. It satisfies the soul to see a clothesline weighed down with clean linens and clothing. The reverse efforts of unpinning dry objects and folding them to put in the basket just as effectively reduces stress. Listening to and watching birds multiplies these positive effects.

In fact, once those fresh sheets and towels are ready to go back on the beds and in the cupboards, you discover another boon. What feels and smells better that sun-dried bedding or terrycloth? Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I swear line-dried sheets freshen a whole room. When I crawled between them that night, that outdoor scent plunged me into deep slumber the minute my head hit the pillow. The fact I’d labored to hang, fold, and put away king-size bedding and towels may have contributed to my exhaustion.

Humans have so many labor saving devices that make life easier. Despite such convenience, we should consider what we lose in terms of physical and mental health. Do some of our grandparents’ old- fashioned housekeeping techniques aid in vitamin absorption as well as connect us to the outdoors where sunlight, fresh air, and exercise renew spirits without requiring prescription drug use.

The Things We Keep

Tim O’Brien, a favorite author, wrote a powerful collection of short stories about his tour of duty in Viet Nam. He titled it The Things They Carried. Every time I read it, those young men who walked daily beside death remind me that humans treasure the logical and illogical. The personal items these soldiers added to already heavy equipment loads reveal that humans make room for talismans connecting hearts and memory. This trait isn’t singular to warriors. Those packing moving boxes must choose what to purge or save. What we keep tells our story.

We’re downsizing for the second time in five years. I hope our daughters appreciate that we’ve given away, donated, or sold numerous earthly possessions, saving them hours of labor when it’s time to move us into long term care or the cemetery. That said, we still own more than when we married four decades ago. After another move or two like this, I’ll have unloaded anything I never use as well as items of only sentimental value. During this process, I’ve discovered freedom exists in jettisoning belongings I think I might need vs. those I actually utilize. While I’m not yet a minimalist, I’m getting there. Why keep four pretty platters when one does the job?

Unfortunately, some belongings defy logic. I’ll never have a newborn baby again. I don’t require 35-year-old infant dresses. Yet, several went in the save pile. The moment I opened that crumbling box, impossibly small clothing transported me to those first days of motherhood when everything was so scary and miraculous. Looking at tiny dresses that fit our daughters for one or two wearings, I swear I felt the weight of little girls nestled in the crook of my elbow. Who knew that gingham and lace was a time machine?

A similar experience occurred as I opened a chest full of afghans and baby quilts my grandma and mom knitted, crocheted, embroidered, or cross-stitched. Even without the sensation of knobby yarn or tidy stiches beneath fingertips, I visualized these beloved women sitting in their favorite chairs, watching Lawrence Welk or visiting as they created family heirlooms. A person can use only one coverlet at a time, so a cedar chest protected them for posterity. The future keeps getting shorter, yet I still haven’t used all these treasures.

Who moves worn, scratched pans? A crumbling handle on its last leg and with more dents than a golf ball reminds me of decades of homemade mashed potatoes and chicken n noodle dinners. Whipping up a fresh batch of spuds in that shabby container works better than consulting a medium to connect me to the grandma who taught me to cook. Decrepit as it is, that well-used cookware goes with me.

Tim O’Brien’s characters carried girlfriend’s panty hose, letters, photos, and other non-essentials into battle. Until I’ve moved a few more times, baby dresses, handmade blankets, and Depression-era cookware will make the trip as well. My heart’s not ready to let go.

Kansas Day Dreaming

Windmills pull not only water up from below the earth but they also break a seemingly endless horizon to pull the eye toward heaven and optimism. In a stark, dry landscape, such attractions nurture not only bodies but also spirits. Just the memory of spinning blades drawing thin streams of cool water to spill into a tank is enough to send the mind back in time to recover damp earth scents and the sensation of green buffalo grass curling under bare feet. This ability to reclaim the past explains why so many paintings and photos of isolated windmills hang in Great Plains homes and galleries. This prairie icon means survival to anyone connected to this place for generations.

Wind has powered human life since early civilization. Confining it and making it work isn’t unique to Americans, but it has made homesteading and agriculture in Flyover country possible. Before these skinny towers lured  the eye upward from rolling waves of blue stem, Indian, and grama grasses, the arid nature of the place meant only nomadic people could survive here. Once Nathaniel Halladay invented the self-governing windmill, stickers—people who put down roots to stay through the good times and the bad—could claim homesteads and make dreams come true.

Once hopeful settlers declared the boundaries of their land, they drilled into the ancient underground lake beneath their feet to find water for themselves and their livestock. Those fortunate enough to tap into the aquifer no longer had to depend on live springs or the capture of unpredictable rains in a cistern. Where native occupants packed and moved when a water source vanished, this new technology permitted incoming settlers to create their own oases in what people east of the Mississippi called the Great American Desert.

This newly patented device promised more than it could deliver to many would-be ranchers and farmers who headed west to claim free land. Now days, poets, artists, historians, and the curious cruise dusty country roads to look for crumbling telltale towers silhouetted by collapsed ruins in the distance. Sometimes bullet-riddled vanes still spin in the wind, emitting a haunting banshee cry. Ironically, greenery growing at the base of these relics hints at still present underground treasure.

What these backroad wanderers find are stories written in dreams, sweat, and imported resources. Anyone who stops long enough to let their eyes wander over a former homestead in the middle of a current farmer’s wheat field or pasture has a decision to make. Do these ruins reveal the prelude to the lovely brick home and giant metal sheds up the road a few miles, or do they tell instead the sad tale of a forgotten family who left during hard times? Too often, the second version is the truth, but few of us find that romantic or memorable. We prefer the first, a tale of expectation and success.

Hope is what Halladay and his competitors’ windmills delivered and what makes them iconic prairie images even now. As long as some of us call these isolated plains home and long to remain here, someone will keep photographing or painting bent and tumbling towers that pierce the horizon and tell us dreams can come true.

Quilted Treasures

 I’d be the first to tell you I’m not a quilter and unlikely to become one unless catastrophe requires me to recycle old clothing remnants into blankets to warm me or my loved ones in the cold of winter. While I don’t have patience to construct such intricate coverlets, I admire those who do. When our youngest daughter learned to quilt in a high school FACS class, I was thrilled she’d continue a family tradition that has waned since my great-grandmother last sorted through her ragbag to come up with pieces to create a lovely blue and red star heirloom my mother treasures. While much of quilting is traditional and similar, like many other old time crafts, it, too, has changed with new technology and access to specialty stores.

When I examine older quilts, it’s clear the seamstress used up remnants of material or old clothing. Often times the design seems haphazard as the maker found ways to incorporate a prized child’s dress or shirt or a particularly lush piece of velvet or silk into a typically cotton or wool base. I feel like I can read the story of a family’s existence by running my fingers over these antiques at an auction or in a second hand store. 

A simple patchwork quilt I once bid for and won was made of dark colored men’s suits and ties from the early part of the 1900s.What a thrill to move my fingers like they were reading braille from one block to another and feel the differences in the weights and weaves of summer and winter fabric. The quilter had also incorporated skinny and fat ties from different eras into this construction as well. She hadn’t intended to be artful. She’d meant to keep a body warm during a drafty plains winter. After sleeping under my prize, it was clear the seamstress had succeeded. In no time, I was toasty. As dull and plain as this was, I found it well stitched and lovely.

My own ancestor’s quilt is much the same. It is made of practical, fabrics that started as every-day clothing and ended up as a charming bed cover. When I look at the tiny stitches, I feel I know this long  dead woman who had  to have been exhausted from raising a big family and helping to run a livery stable and boarding house in southwest  Kansas.  Somehow, she found time to make something so useful yet pretty out of rags.

Most quilts I see made today are every bit as lovely if not more so than their predecessors’ examples. The difference is that the quilter has visited a specialty shop to buy coordinated yards of fabric that please the eye and match a room’s decor. While the patterns may be intricate, new technology simplifies the cutting and stitching compared to those efforts of a woman working with simple tools by a flickering oil lamp.

A quilt display at the Dane G. Hansen Museum illustrated everything I’ve tried to express in this essay. As I walked from one presentation to another, I could see the differences between those made long ago from saved scraps and those constructed using modern techniques. Each one was beautiful in its own way. And, in case anyone is wondering, I wouldn’t turn down any gift of a quilt.

Flour Sack Connections

By a generation, I missed wearing flour sack clothing. After drying dishes with Grandma’s treasured dishtowels that originated as such containers, I was relieved the Depression was over so I didn’t have to dress in something that started as a bag. However, over decades as I’ve listened to stories of those who did, I realize I missed making memories that people still talk about 70 to 80 years after the fact.

What’s interesting is the fondness I hear in the voices of the people who were children during this hard time as they recall those flour sack dresses, shirts, undies, towels, and quilts. Instead of seeing them as a mark of hardship, many women talk about how pretty the dresses were. One explained how her dad and older brothers would drive the horse and wagon into town to pick up that season’s supplies. Her loved ones spent extra time to look for the prettiest prints to bring back to their women who would later turn them into clothing.

Another lady talked about how her mom hand-stitched a pink flowery print into a dress pretty enough that it was passed from one girl to another as the “picture taking” dress for that family. After seeing some of the detailed handwork accomplished by that generation, I don’t doubt that it was every bit as beautiful as that storyteller recollected.

Others commented that their moms and grandmas had made them summer jumpers out of these sacks. I can see how the big ones would require only a few changes to turn them from a flour container to a young girl’s dress. A bonus is that they’d get softer every time they were washed.

Another woman talked about how she didn’t have a dress for prom. Her mom used those bright prints to create a special outfit so her daughter could attend this special occasion. After all these decades, I could tell how much it meant to wear such a pretty dress. On the other hand, I can’t imagine a modern teenager being nearly so happy to wear a gown that started as a flour sack to such a function. I also bet present day teens won’t recall their prom gowns with nearly such affection.

A gentleman involved in this discussion stated that he doubted modern companies would accommodate patrons the way milling companies did during that dark time. Another individual commented that it would be nice if current packaging were designed to suit dual purposes. I hadn’t considered that before, but it would reduce waste in the landfill if people took advantage of such forethought.

For those of us who came along too late to wear those flour sacks, we get excited when we find a box of them at an auction or a quilt or apron made of them at a thrift shop or antique store. These treasures connect us to our loved ones’ lives.

I’m glad I come from people who made and wore flour sack clothing. I’m glad I dried dishes with those old towels. I wish I owned a quilt constructed from those bright rectangles. Most of all, I’m glad I heard the stories.

The Force: Music

It’s interesting how certain tunes and lyrics transport our minds from the present to another time and place. I can’t listen to “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog” without finding myself traveling backward through time to age fifteen when I rode shotgun up and down the main drag of a small southwest Kansas town. With our windows rolled down, summer breezes riffled our hair until a comb could hardly pass through it. Oncoming drivers blared horns to greet one another as part of the nightly ritual. These discordant sounds disrupted KOMA tunes that established the rhythm of our popping bubble gum.

To this day, listening to oldies triggers an out of body experience for me. It’s impossible to believe more than four decades have passed since those notes first burned their way into memory, making a recording more permanent than any 8- track tape or vinyl disc that spun round and round on a turntable. Every one of those songs is a treasure trove of almost forgotten sensory experience: sights, sounds, smells, and feelings.

Though I’ve been happily married for nearly forty years, I can’t listen to the Moody Blues sing “Nights in White Satin” without thinking of every broken heart I ever survived. Oddly, I don’t think it’s the words that elicit those memories. That wavering, haunting melody plucks my emotions as if they were strings on a big old Irish harp, leaving me wrung out and raw as if a break up just happened.

It isn’t just old rock songs that have this effect on me. Sitting in church on Sunday morning listening to “Rock of Ages” or “How Great Thou Art” carries me back to five- year-old me perched next to my Grandma in the pew. I feel the remembered warmth of morning sun coming through emerald, crimson, and amethyst stained glass that depicted Bible stories I was learning in Sunday school. I smell my Grandma’s floral scent and see her hands holding a worn hymnal. I hear her tremulous voice singing those beloved words. When I hear those hymns, she’s with me still.

A song that distances me from my own lifetime is “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I can’t listen to its arresting rhythm without tears filling my eyes. As its notes wash over me, the stanzas send chills up my spine. I envision tent-lined camps filled with homesick, scared young men fighting for life and country. I see them sitting around flickering cook fires, running roughened fingers over pages in treasured Bibles, seeking comfort and strength for whatever was coming. I see lightning and hear trumpets. Juliet Ward Howe’s imagery turns me to jelly every time I hear it.

The same thing happens when I hear “Oh, Danny Boy.” The words and music capture the sorrow of every Irish mother and lover that sent her man into battle or off to America seeking a better life. I don’t know of a more poignant combination of lyrics and melody. If someone plays it on the bagpipes, I’m a goner. No one carries enough tissue to sop up my tears.

Music is a powerful force. It reminds us of who we were and inspires us to be more than we are. 

 

Barbie’s Bouquet Ready for Pickin’

Only a Grinch could hate spring’s arrival. What’s not to like about warmer days, leaves unfurling, grass greening, tulips and daffodils bursting into bloom, lilacs perfuming breezes, and white blossoms exploding on Barbie’s wedding bush. This plant is really called spirea, but for little girls playing dolls, this shrub provides bouquets enough for a hundred wedding ceremonies--hence its nickname.

I hope cascading branches loaded with clusters of tiny white blossoms still trigger little girls’ imaginations. When I was a seven-year-old, the moment our neighbor’s huge bush exploded into a frothy, white wall of flowers, I began constructing bridal clothing for three Barbie dolls and their redheaded friend Midge. 

My mom’s ragbag wasn’t safe. If we’d had paper towels or napkins back then, I’d have used them as well. Ones that come in tidy squares would’ve served this wanna-be wedding designer perfectly to make stunning one-use outfits. Without the availability of handy paper products, I creatively turned worn out washcloths, tea towels, hankies, and leftover fabric into long trained gowns and flowing veils. If I could’ve used mom’s nice fabric remnants, those outfits would’ve dazzled kings and queens. However, I knew better than to get into her good stuff.

As it was, I snagged onto any piece of cloth big enough I could use a needle and thread to turn it into a gathered skirt with my gigantic, looping stitches. Once I completed my dolls’ dresses, I looked for filmy material to turn into lovely headpieces and extensions that trailed behind plastic brides and attendants. Sometimes the best option involved toilet paper. It romantically floated behind the bride as she walked to meet her groom.

Nowadays, little girls accustomed to buying couture fashions off the internet for their Mattel fashion toys would turn their noses up at a bride going down the aisle in a terry cloth skirt and a TP veil. However, fifty years ago was a simpler time, and my friends and I thought the ensembles we painstakingly created were elegant.

The highlight was the bouquet. In my neighborhood, at least one resident grew a big, old spirea bush. He or she would permit polite little girls to fill pockets or pulled out shirt bottoms with miniature nosegays that once ornamented those flowing stems.

I suspect that one of the reasons May and June originally became popular wedding months had to do with the availability of beautiful spirea sprays brides could carry on their march to the altar. Who needs a florist when nature provides so richly? 

Once our Barbie’s wedding attire was completed to our satisfaction, we’d tuck perfectly sized nosegays into our dolls’ tiny hands to complete the effect. Back in our bedrooms, we’d create a lovely chapel with a colorful ribbon to guide Barbie and her groom to the front of our little sanctuary. Along the way, we’d strew left over flowerets from the tiny bouquets. Each Barbie’s perfectly round bridal arrangement must have dazzled her handsome groom almost as much as her designer gown and creative veil did.

Homemade dresses and seasonal spirea sprays made for many lovely spring weddings. It’s too bad there was only one Ken and that he had to marry each Barbie in a separate ceremony. At least his tiny boutonniere matched each of his brides’ perfect bouquets. No paid florist could have done a better job. 

How’d an Egg Get in the Water Pan?

We’ve raised chickens most of our marriage, so that’s thirty years of learning to understand feathered, cackling females.  I can confirm this species is messy, noisy, piggish, and sometimes mean–which explains the term henpecked.  They’re also dense and run like gawky, miniature Tyrannosaurs.  Despite their character flaws, I love my girls. However, one of them has me wondering.

Our chicken house contains nesting boxes that our ladies use when the egg laying urge strikes.  When they utilize these semi-private cubicles, life is easier for everyone, including me. It aids in keeping track of who’s producing and who’s off schedule. I can quickly see who’s performing well.

Based on recent collections, one overachiever is showing up other layers.  With such grand orbs, she deserves any luxury we can provide.  This hen and her friends appreciate the bucket of feed I deliver at noon for them and their rooster.  For efficiency’s sake, I gather their deposits—large and small--in my newly emptied pail.

Making life interesting on occasion, one of the cackle crew hides her daily delivery in the doghouse or under a cedar so I can’t find it. While the game of discover the hidden egg is time consuming, I understand. That lady worked hard to grow the equivalent of a double ping pong ball inside her and then eject it. 

One explanation I’ve come up with for these secretive types is that one or two get broody and want to hatch their clutch. These are the usual suspects when I find eggs in odd places so I save these gals a half dozen eggs during early summer to satisfy their mothering instincts. The bonus is later watching hens herd spindly-legged fluff balls.

Another time we get eggs in odd places is when temperatures top triple digits. Without air-conditioning or fans, the chicken house is stifling by mid-day. Often, late layers take advantage of the chiminea on my shaded patio. The cool sand inside the rounded cavity provides a perfect spot for the hen to lay her egg, announce her success, and hop out to sip from the bowl I keep nearby for thirsty creatures. This works for me because I see or hear the hen and find her treasure.

This brings me to my oddest discovery ever.  A friend recently asked if eggs ever fell out of hens where they were standing. “No,” I answered.  “The chicken knows an egg is coming and gets somewhere comfortable to perform her duties.”

Imagine my surprise a few days after this conversation when I went to fill the hens’ water pans and discovered an egg lying at the bottom of a rubber container. I know my hens sometimes wade as they drink, but I can’t imagine what possessed one to unload in that spot. This must be the same girl who occasionally stays too long on the roost, resulting in splattered eggs.   

I recently found oval treasures in the chiminea and under a cedar tree, but so far I have only found one in the water bowl.  Did that hen overhear the conversation with my friend and need to humble me? Who knows? Can a human ever understand a chicken brain?

May Day: Adapting Customs to the Weather

Since early times, different cultures have celebrated May Day with bonfires, Maypoles, and gifts of flowers. In today’s world where we can flip a switch to brighten a room instantly or find fresh affordable fruits, vegetables, and blossoms any time of year at a local market, it’s hard to imagine why many past civilizations honored the 1^st of May or similar dates.

In days before kerosene or electric lights, longer hours of daylight triggered communal rejoicing. Imagine month after month of more darkness than light in a small house where residents crowded around a nightly fire. Longer days alone were worth a party. When you added temperatures warm enough to trigger blooming trees and plants, there was ample reason to frolic and feast.

Most Kansans with a European background have ancestors who anticipated these annual revels in their original hamlets. Once families immigrated to the New World, they may have forgotten the reasons for the festivities, but they continued to follow old customs, which included delivering flower-filled May baskets and weaving ribbons around Maypoles.

As a descendant of several of those European cultures that celebrated springtime, I love making and delivering a few May Baskets to maintain old traditions and connect to my heritage. As kids, my brother and I constructed and distributed a goodly share of dandelion and lilac-filled paper cones throughout our neighborhoods. My own daughters will tell their children about sneaking up to hang a handmade container filled with tulips and irises on special friends’ doorknobs.

When May 1 arrived, I wondered how I’d manage successful deliveries as this supposed spring presented several challenges. It was cold. Make that really cold. The wind blew 40 or more miles per hour. It rained or pelted sleet balls during those frigid blasts. If there had been flowers to pick after recent snows and heavy freezes, it would have been a miserable day to collect them. 

Last year, my dilemma involved finding fresh lilacs because they’d been blooming for two weeks before May arrived. At least, I had them to pick even if they were bedraggled. This year, the problem was finding any of my favorite lavender sprays because the bushes were just leafing out. Even dandelions and chickweed were in short supply due the groundhog’s miscalculations.

Not one to let trivial details get in the way of success, I headed to the local hardware store’s garden department where I spotted envelopes brightly covered in pictures of giant zinnias, multi-colored wildflowers, and delicate cosmos. Then I stopped by the grocery store to pick up bite-size candies. Armed with grow-your-own-blooms and sweets to provide energy for gardening, my recipients could surely manage to plant their seeds and then wait patiently for the sweet-scented harvest.

My May baskets this year honored the spirit of the season, but the recipients will have to work to enjoy any posies. If this unpredictable weather continues, perhaps I’ll be sneaking into the gardens of those who received this year’s offerings to snip flowers from those zinnias, cosmos, and wildflowers for next years’ beneficiaries. Or . . . maybe I’ll skip baskets and flowers and decide inviting  friends over to roast a marshmallow to celebrate spring’s arrival is an easier and just as fitting tradition.

Growing Bookworms or the Blessings of Community Libraries

Watching how much my two-year-old granddaughter loves books reminds me of a seven-year-old,  toothpick-legged child who thought she was a big girl when her momma handed her her allowance on Saturday mornings. Along with that shiny dime, that little girl’s mother permitted her to trek uptown-- first to the dime store and then to the library. The coin was spent in no time.  It took much longer to wander up and down the bookshelf aisles searching for the perfect three or four titles to carry home so she could escape into those well-turned pages for a week of exciting adventure.

Yes, that scrawny little gal was me. I loved my weekly visit to the library. Spending that dime occupied a half hour or so of exploring the toy department from top to bottom. I combined this with obsessing over an old-fashioned candy counter where glass compartments housed chocolate stars, jawbreakers, licorice, and caramel clusters among other treats a clerk scooped onto a scale before bagging my treasure. Munching on gooey chocolate all the way home was satisfying,  but showing off my book selections to my mom highlighted the morning.  And the best was yet to come. . . .

Hours of joyous escape and new knowledge patiently awaited me as I examined each cover to decide where my escapades would begin.  After I piled the books in reading order, I’d curl up in a sunny, warm spot in the house—maybe in the living room or on my bed where I could escape into other lands and other lives.  My grandma’s house had a great walk-in closet I could turn into my secret domain for hours while words danced off pages into pioneer wagons or princess castles or Nancy Drew mysteries.

When I had little girls, they, too, loved trips to the community library where they could scan shelves just their height until they found books that begged to go home with them in their little totes. When they entered their toddler years, our local librarian hosted a scheduled event that made this place even more appealing.  It was a terrible day when you were too sick to go to story hour.

Every time I open the door to a library, I never know what journey I’ll experience. I’ve traveled through the ages in a page-filled time machine. I’ve met kings and queens, famous soldiers and presidents, along with some rock stars.  I’ve read tales that drew tears and sighs and those that made me laugh until I had hiccups.  I discovered the key to avoiding boredom amongst all those silent friends.

What would life be like without public libraries? As a lifelong card owner, I can’t imagine.  What I have learned doing research inside those walls is that not every town had a library.  It took a zealous ladies’ organization or a combination of clubs to start libraries in prairie communities.  In Logan Kansas, women recognized the need for a library in their little town and, with rustling skirts, got to work establishing one that still exists today. 

Ellis Kansas can thank the Union Pacific and a specific employee, Mr. Dorrance, for starting their library.  It seems appropriate the city fathers named a street after the person who made such a difference in his world. Hays, Plainville, Stockton and 56 other Kansas towns can thank Andrew Carnegie  and local taxpayers for their fine libraries. 

The first Carnegie Library in Scotland had the adage “Let There Be Light” above the door. I like to imagine such a motto exists in some form above every library entrance. 

A Pelican in the Wading Pool

Nobody told me when I married a game warden that a pelican would take up temporary residence in my children’s wading pool. Nor did I realize my two tiny daughters and I would spend a couple of days throwing our hooks and lines off a bridge over Big Creek trying to catch enough fish to satisfy that visitor. On the other hand, that eating machine never expected to vacation at our house either.

This event occurred in the late 80s somewhere around Memorial Day weekend. City workers called to explain an injured pelican was devouring gold fish in the  power plant pond. Despite their efforts to banish it, the bird was in the water gobbling little fishies.

This intruder had to be evicted. Every kid in town, little and big, loved that rock pool where they tossed breadcrumbs and oatmeal to tempt orange and white swirls to the surface. Even to feed something as exotic as a pelican was no reason to sacrifice the community fishpond population.

While my husband already knew about pelican beaks, the girls and I learned swiftly to stay out of range of that powerful weapon /lunch sack. Mr. P wasn’t at all happy about his forced removal and tried scaring us with clacking sounds manufactured by snapping jaws. It wasn’t worth risking hand or finger amputations to save frantic gold fish.

 I distracted this fellow while my brave partner snuck behind to slide a huge rubber band around that slashing defense mechanism. Once we had it disabled, we could see a broken wing had driven the creature to the city watering hole for dinner. Who knows how far the crippled bird had walked to fill its rumbling belly. We carefully swaddled it in an old blanket and hauled it home to figure out a plan.

Three decades ago, cell phones and instant communication were a thing of future, and the rehabilitator Wildlife and Parks used wasn’t answering the phone that weekend. As a result, we brainstormed a strategy to care for this creature our daughters had named LA Looks for the spiky top notch on it crown.

The girls volunteered their little blue wading pool to house our guest and their services as fisherwomen. Each had a Mickey Mouse pole they used to cast off the wooden bridge east of our house. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so their dad left us baiting our hooks as he drove off on patrol.

After catching a few palm-size fish, our youngsters released them into the water-filled container Mr. Looks now called home. My husband had unbound the critter’s beak so it immediately slurped up our meager contribution. We stared in disbelief at how swiftly he scooped our catch into his mouth and how far his pouch distended once full of flopping protein. It looked like an expandable bag until he slid those critters down his gullet. Then it shrank immediately back to its previous size.

The bird immediately searched the water for more food. Obviously, a few little perch weren’t sustenance enough, so the girls and I headed back to the creek. We filled a stringer to feed our guest, and once again, his response dazzled us. 

It occurred to me there was no way the human part of this equation could keep up with the pelican’s appetite. I needed to make a trip to the IGA fish department. All the way there, I wondered what it was going to cost to board this fellow until he went to the rehabilitator. I prayed my budget was as big as his stretchy pouch in case he had to stay more than a day.

Along with fish the girls and I caught, we supplemented LA’s diet with frozen whitefish. These codcicles confused him at first, but he eventually slurped them down the hatch. 

While I’d never want to feed a pelican week after week, hosting one for a couple of days was delightful. We were happy to learn LA Looks survived  surgery to show off how many fish he could tuck in his pouch for nearby zoo patrons.

Bread: Machine Vs. Handmade

Here’s a challenge: can you tell the difference between handmade and machine made bread? Handmade means no mixers, no dough hooks, and no electronic devices of any kind until it’s time to pop those risen loaves or rolls in the oven. If taste buds can’t tell a significant difference, why would anyone choose an old-fashioned technique to do a job?

I had a bread machine for years and used it when I taught so I could come home to the comforting aroma of baking bread that accompanied the meal simmering in my crockpot. It was a way to produce home-cooked food without having to eat European style at 8 or 9 p.m. 

Whether it was my imagination or not, I thought handmade bread tasted better, so when I had time, I skipped the plug-in contraption and learned to crank out a pan of rolls or golden loaves nearly as fast as I could measure ingredients into the mixing bucket and push buttons. Along the way, I discovered hand mixing and kneading reduced stress that knotted my shoulders and made my head ache. The fragrance was a bonus, but bread machine provide that as well so it can’t factor into the debate.

Recently, a friend and I quibbled over the merits of hand vs. machine made. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. You get the smell, taste, and freshness both ways. What you don’t find with appliance-made bread is the sensory delight of combining flour, oil, eggs, water, sugar, salt, and yeast into dough.

The other day I mixed five cups of flour into a soppy yeast sponge with my fingers and then kneaded the result until it was ready to rise. Creating that recipe, I realized I relish this aspect of bread making. It returns me to those wondrous childhood days when friends and I spent hours mixing dirt and water to a perfect consistency to manufacture loaf and pie-shaped mud confections to bake on broiling summer sidewalks and driveways. 

I should’ve recognized the warning signs of becoming an artisan baker even then because my companions always tired of this activity before I did. I’ve exchanged gooey, thick mud for sticky dough squishing between my fingers, but that sensation of preparing ingredients to the perfect consistency and then forming them into shapes ready for hot cement or oven is the satisfying part of both activities. 

The good news is my stress-busting, adult bread-making smells much better than the muddy concoctions of my youth. In addition, dirt pies never make it in the door let alone to the table when you talk about flavor or sanitation.  Bread rules over mud pies any day of the week.

In truth, it doesn’t matter that you use a bread machine or Kitchen Aide mixer to crank out a warm, crusty loaf. No matter how you make it, you produce that yeasty aroma that says all is well with the world and fresh flavor you won’t find in plastic-bag-encased-slices on grocery store shelves.

The real difference is that hand-made bread allows bakers to experience the evolution of dough from sticky glop to an elastic mound that sounds like a baby’s behind when patted. For those who savor touch as well as flavor in culinary creations, we’re compelled to dig in to our elbows to fully enjoy the flavors that satisfy our stomachs and spirits.

Growing Older Has Its Merits

Growing older has its merits. You’ve made enough mistakes that you are wiser and more thoughtful. You’re comfortable with yourself. You take others’ opinions and feelings into consideration, but you know what you believe and consider that when you make decisions. You’ve survived catastrophes and tragedies enough that you understand time and love soften pain. Despite physical infirmities and the fact that when you reference commercials, movie stars, and music of your youth, youngsters don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Getting a monthly AARP magazine is a blessing.

That said, gray hair and wrinkles have downsides. One is becoming the oldest generation. The recent deaths of favorite uncles remind me that my husband and I are joining the ranks of elders. That’s hard to take when I think about how much I relied on these individuals for guidance, clarity, humor, and acceptance when I faced challenges or when I needed to know something about my family’s heritage.

An uncle by marriage survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor and served in the Pacific throughout World War II. He came home to be husband, father, and career teacher. Despite battle traumas Uncle Jay certainly faced, my brother and I knew only a kindly man who loved his wife, daughter, and a silly little dachshund. He kept an immaculate yard to de-stress from his classroom. To this day, when I think of him, I see Jay with hose in hand spraying down his already clean patio, watering his trees, or helping the love of his life with household chores.

My dad’s second brother Bob also came to maturity serving in the Pacific. He, too, loved his yard and garden and spent hours growing beautiful roses and luscious vegetables. I recall sitting with him in his front yard watching flocks of mallards fly in to feast on corn he set out for them every day. We didn’t talk much, but the pleasure he felt at these simple activities was evident. He found his peace in nature.

My dad’s oldest brother Seedy was a rough and tumble guy who’d grown to adulthood during The Depression and early Kansas oil boom years. When I consider him, I think of hard hats and rig clothes. My aunt kept reminders of his luck on a kitchen shelf. He and a drilling crew survived a fiery blow out, and the carbonized eyeglasses and tin headgear reminded me that life is tenuous.

This gruff uncle entranced his nieces and nephews by putting his thumb to his lips and blowing on it to make the brim of his hat rise. As a little girl, I tried and tried to make the same thing happen with my little straw cowgirl hat with no luck. I’d missed the part where he leaned back against the wall to create leverage.

Uncle Seedy always found coins in my cousins’ and my ears. Every time we visited, he mined a bank full of quarters and dimes out of these orifices. My joy in this activity continued when I took my little girls to visit him. Not surprisingly, they shared the family trait of sprouting money in their little ears. My aunt later told me a great-uncle had performed this trick with my dad and his siblings. Uncle Seedy loved passing on the magic.

Losing these men means missing their presence and their sense of homegrown fun at family gatherings as well as their wisdom and stories. After they passed, I longed to hear their insights about events that occurred before my time. They enriched my understanding not only of my universe, but also that of my parents.

It’s hard to think about stepping into their shoes. I don’t feel worthy or knowledgeable enough to carry their torches. I still can’t make my hat brim rise when I blow on my thumb or find money in children’s ears. 

Along with the benefits of aging come burdens. 

Grandma's Cooking Secret

As a self-appointed foodie, I often watch Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives for cooking inspiration. Guy Fieri’s success at seeking out eateries with reputations for amazing fare motivates me to look for excellent dining on road trips.  Because of my research, I have a list of favorite restaurants. However, none of these culinary institutions matches the quality or flavor of my all-time preferred place to eat, Grandma Lottie’s kitchen.

I suspect every one of my readers has a family member who manufactures unforgettable meals out of a bit of nothing. That person in our family was an apron-clad Mrs. Santa look-alike who could turn the simplest ingredients into  feasts for kings.  I can’t think of anyone whose salivary glands didn’t kick in overdrive just thinking about a meal at Lottie’s table.

She’s been gone for more than a decade, so I’ve had time to consider what made her food so memorable. Her ingredients were common staples: eggs, flour, butter, dried beans, inexpensive cuts of beef, chicken, ham hocks, milk or cream, and sugar.  She would have been uncomfortable in a big city deli-grocery with aisles displaying fish, adobo, or wasabi sauces.  A trip past a meat department show-casing octopus, squid, or raw sushi ingredients would have left her shuddering.

After seeing a Face Book post requesting Grandma’s hot roll recipe, I think I’ve identified what made her cooking noteworthy.  She made everything from scratch.  She cracked the eggs and added the flour that turned into noodles and dumplings she added to her chicken or beef broth. Her combination of meat, broth, and noodles ladled over a heaping mound of hand-peeled, hand-mashed potatoes was the true ambrosia of the gods. She created everything filling the huge bowls setting in the middle of her table.  Nothing came from a jar, can, sack, or box.

I recall standing beside her  as she kneaded her famous bread dough that turned into airy dinner rolls, comforting bread slices that were palettes for homemade jellies, or legendary cinnamon rolls.  I’d ask for her recipe, and she’d say, “Oh, I use a little of this and a bit of that and mix it til it sounds like I’m patting a baby’s bottom.” 

It took me 1000s of mistakes before I understood I didn’t have to use exact measurements when cooking.  I, too, could mix a little of this and a lot of that to create breads, noodles, dumplings, and pies that reminded me of Grandma’s.  All that practice was an opportunity to feel like a girl again, watching Lottie transform Gold Medal flour and eggs into golden strips of rich dough or whisking eggs, milk, sugar, and cocoa together to turn an empty pie crust into a chocolate meringue wonder. 

Grandma couldn’t afford fancy ingredients or kitchen gadgets.  She made do with inexpensive recipe components and trusted that her sense of taste and touch would turn those into something special to feed family and friends.  Those of us lucky enough to sit at her table will confirm she succeeded time after time at proving she was a wizard in the kitchen.

The lesson for those who knew her was that it isn’t sophisticated ingredients that make a meal tasty. It’s time spent making dishes by hand that creates family legends.  Every moment I stir, roll, cut, and otherwise produce meals connects me to a woman who blessed so many with her gift of turning the common into the uncommon. The pay-off for preparing homemade food is life-long memories.

Holiday Baking Cooks Up Memories

As soon as nights get longer and colder, I find myself scouring cook books and magazines for festive recipes.  The irony is that I may whip up one of two of these temptations, but always, always, I return to childhood standbys.  While new flavors tease family taste buds, traditional recipes comfort and connect us to loved ones and times long gone.

A perfect example is my faded and speckled fudge recipe written on a tiny scrap of yellow paper.  I remember as a new bride calling my mom  for instructions to make my husband our family’s old-fashion fudge.  Every time I place that yellow square by the stove, I recall standing at the phone  that night, connecting with home which was hundreds of miles away.  I had a new little house and loving husband, but talking to my mother reminded me of the family that nurtured me and of happy childhood Christmases. 

Recently, I discovered the original fudge recipe printed in my great-grandmother’s Searchlight Cookbook, which my grandmother gave to me. It made me wonder how many aunts, cousins, and other relation had  mailed or called either Great Grandma or Grandma to learn to make this family favorite.  How many of them felt momentarily transported to their loved one’s kitchen and then stood over their own stove while feeling their mom’s or grandma’s presence.

Not only did my mother make amazing holiday fudge, she also let my brother and me help her bake red and green sugar cookies each Christmas.  We would add ingredients she had measured, and then we’d watch as she turned flour, sugar, eggs, and more into  a soft, sweet dough that she’d let us roll into  small balls.  (I wonder if she knows how many of those pre-baked cookies we sampled . . .) 

Once Kent and I laid out even lines of cookies  in a 3 x 4 design on her rectangular baking sheet, Mom would carry out three little dishes—one filled with red sprinkles, one with green, and one with a drizzle of water.  She gave us each a flat-bottomed glass to dip first in the water and then in one color of sprinkles.  Our job was to flatten the dough ball, imbedding the colored sugar.  To this day, Christmas brings those sparkling green and red cookies to mind.

Marriage means more than joining lives, it means joining traditions, so I added my husband’s favorite cookie to my baking repertoire.  His famiy emigrated from Switzerland in the early 1900s and brought their linzer tart recipe with them to Kansas.  That concoction of ground almonds, flour, cinnamon, sugar, egg whites, and strawberry jam now graces Christmas plates in Kansas and Tennessee.  

Cream candy, forgotten cookies, frosted sugar cookies, fudge, linzer tarts, and more keep not only our house but our daughters’ smelling like  holiday confectionary shoppes.  However, it isn’t just the scent of baking that permeates the air, it’s  generations of family memories tickling our noses. 

I like to think that I’m not the only one who reminiscences while cooking.  When my daughters use family recipes, I hope they sense their mom, mom-in-law, their grandmas, their greats, great-greats, and great-great-greats in the kitchen.  No wonder it sometimes feels a little crowded during holiday baking. 

The Great Plains and Small Town Hearts

Over a decade ago, I lucked into a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar titled  The Great Plains: Texas to Saskatchewan.  For five weeks, Tom Isern  led 19 other teachers and I to read and analyze literary and historical texts, discuss conclusions, and visit iconic sites to better understand what it means to live on the plains.

One identifying characteristic of this land is its vast horizon paired with  few vertical disturbances like trees or skyscrapers.   That distinction made it into plenty of diaries and journals as pioneers left locales where coves and hollows or great groves of trees cupped around them, making them feel secure as a babe in its mother’s arms. When my mom worked at the Meade County Courthouse back in the 60s, she discovered records of early immigrants institutionalized when they were unable to cope with the open t space and frequent wind.

Fellow seminarians from other regions shared that the immensity of our vistas disquieted them as well.  That reminded me of a Japanese exchange student I took on a visit to Oklahoma City.  She exclaimed over and over , “Why don’t you build cities in this land?  Why don’t people live here? You should use this space.”

For those of us accustomed to so much sky and so few upright interferences, outsiders’ viewpoints challenge us to think about where we live and what it means to be a plains person.  Recently, I’ve traveled the more isolated highways of western Kansas, stopping to explore almost-ghost towns like Densmore, Ogallah, and Edson that were once thriving communities.

 I love isolated miles of asphalt stretching infinitely over hills and valleys.  I smile  to think how these trails must confuse anyone who thinks all of Kansas is flat.  High spots abound that permit  travelers to see across counties.  Imagine Indians and other early explorers standing on these ascents to view scores of buffalo, deer, elk, turkey, and antelope.  In all directions, they saw a rich land that could feed many.

Seeing  crumbling remains of once well-built churches, multi-story brick or stone schools, plaster and lathe homes that housed growing families, and the always peaceful hilltop cemeteries reminds me that hopeful hearts once acted on the thought that this is an abundant land. These little hamlets about every 15 to 20 miles across the prairie remind us of Jeffersonian Democracy in action.  Here families worked the soil, tended their businesses, worshipped their God, and educated their children into a better life.

As folks gravitated away from these self-sufficient little villages to cities, they lost something.  These small towns tied to the land, these schools that required all students to participate in declamations, plays, music, and sports; these churches that took care of not only spirits but also physical needs of residents created well-rounded citizens who dealt together with whatever difficulties arose. 

In forested regions, close-growing trees hold one another upright when the wind blows, and in mountainous landscapes one rock supports another. Nature offers no protection in the  open plains, so humans must sustain one another.  Neighbors become one another’s rock, cove, hollow, and grove.

When I think back to that seminar and this place I call home, I acknowledge that lifestyles  change.  We can’t all live in self-sufficient villages, but we can celebrate open space that reminds us this is a rich land that feeds many and a place that teaches us to look out for one another.

Savoring Season's Cusp

Sometimes I find myself straddling a fence both literally and figuratively.  With my left leg on one side of barbed wire and my right on the other while I maintain control of that top strand, I pause to look both ways and consider which is best.  What am I leaving and where am I going? The cusp of summer and fall generate similar thoughts. 

As  a kid, I loved long summer days that meant playing Marco Polo and diving to exhaustion at the local pool, followed by evening games of tag and hide and seek.  Even after streetlights flickered on, sounds of kids hollering, “You’re it!” echoed throughout our sheltered cul-de-sac. While mowing required sweat, it also meant immersion in the scent of fresh cut grass.  After the shearing, it meant a barefoot massage as we walked over the carpet of stubbly lawn.  So much sensory delight only made me love summer more.

As an adult, summer remained my favorite season for years.  I relished long days out of doors, only now I hoed, planted, weeded, or harvested ripe vegetables.  Depending on the month, it meant picking cherries, chokecherries, apricots, pears, plums, grapes, or apples and then playing kitchen alchemist to turn them into jelly jewels.  It permitted watching fireflies dance across the yard and hearing  little ones giggle as they tried to capture them.  It was enjoying late night amphibian and insect orchestral productions. 

Time passed, and I changed. As a result, instead of dreading autumn, I  now anticipate it.  Through the years, I’ve learned  each equinox intensifies those numbered days.  At the beginning of summer, it seems I have forever to accomplish goals.  When day and night are equal, I appreciate each moment in my garden and yard because I know a single frost will soon end the growing season. 

Nature’s music sounds different as birds and insects prepare for southern journeys.  No longer do I hear mothers coaching young ones out of the nest.  Locust tunes are slow and lazy if they occur at all.  Toad and frog mating calls  cease while silent fireflies that performed to the other creatures’ refrains are buried larvae awaiting resurrection.

I visit our hilltop garden several times a day to see how the butternuts are curing and how this last tomato crop is finishing.  I loved reading about how Laura Ingalls Wilder’s family stored provisions for winter, so putting away golden squash  and carrots to eat in the coming months connects me to her pioneer stories.  Green tomatoes make great fried treats and relishes.  If there are enough big ones, I box them to mature so we have garden goodies well into December.

Each day, I walk through our pasture enjoying the blooms of Maximilian sunflowers, golden rod, and snow on the mountain.  Tawny buffalo and purple-red big blue stem grasses complement yellow blooms, creating an arrangement that competes with any early summer floral display.

While I relish summer’s warmth and seeming wealth of time, autumn has become my golden hoard.  I look forward to going through my closet and drawers to  exchange thin cotton clothing for bulkier sweaters and flannel pajamas.  This ritual along with my farewells to the garden and migrating feathered friends makes me feel like a snake shedding its summer skin. 

This folded edge between seasons is a gift.  As these days of sunlight and warmth overlap coming darkness and quiet, I give thanks for the blessings of each.