Revisiting Old Friends

Friends enrich our lives in so many ways, and during Christmas, I’m reminded that they’ve improved my baking skills. I’ve written previously about family recipes that link one generation to another. This year, I savored old friends’ and co-workers’ yellowing cards with their fading handwritten instructions to make cookies. As I examined each one, I thought about the hours that woman and I had spent working and sharing our lives. These aging pieces of paper connect us more surely than rope or chain.

Until I met Jeanette when I worked as a teller at Ellis State Bank, I don’t believe I knew what a snickerdoodle was. She included them on her Christmas cookie plate and hooked me forever. Like the woman who shared the recipe with me, these treats comforted whoever ate them. This mixture of sifted flour, eggs, butter, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon baked into crinkly golden orbs could warm the Grinch’s hard heart. Looking back, I hope I shared some with fellow workers. It would have been easy to nibble on one every time I passed the snack table in our work area. I know that when our daughters see that customary family recipe, they must wonder who Jeanette is. I see her faint script and recall how welcome she made me feel as bride in a new town.

For holiday celebrations, my nuclear family made old –fashioned fudge as well as sugar and chocolate chip cookies. As a result, Nestlé’s chips and powdered cocoa were the only kind of chocolate you’d find our cupboard. Imagine my surprise during my first teaching job when Sue, the home-ec instructor, had students create snow on the mountain cookies that required melting bars of baking chocolate. After I tasted the first bite, I had to have the recipe and discovered how to melt these rich squares in a double boiler before stirring in other ingredients. Learning this skill added a new dimension to my developing kitchen efforts. When I look at Sue’s precise handwriting, I recall a confident woman who mentored my first two years of teaching. She didn’t hesitate to tackle difficult recipes or sewing patterns with teenagers as well as complicated coaching strategies with her ball teams. Her example encouraged me to live as boldly as she.

A few years later, I added another staple to my annual Christmas platter. Sondra, a fellow garage sale aficionado, introduced me to peanut butter kiss cookies. A former elementary teacher, her handwritten recipe is as tidy and precise as this dear woman who systematically mapped out our garage sale trail. Step-by-step, she guided me through the complication of taking ¾-baked dough out of a hot oven and centering chocolate stars in each melting ball to finish up a pretty and irresistible treat. Since I learned to make these, they’ve become my mother’s favorite cookie. To this day, I can’t look at Sondra’s handwriting without thinking of the fun enjoyed by two budget-minded young moms on a mission to score bargains every Saturday morning.

I have about twenty of these deteriorating cards stashed in the recipe drawer in my kitchen. Barring catastrophe, they’ll last as long as I do. Should disaster strike, saving these links to important people from my past will be a priority. I can copy the recipes. I can’t replace those handwritten words that transport me through time.

"The Day the Music Died"

Don McLean sang about Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper Richardson’s deaths when he wrote the lyrics, “The Day the Music Died” in his beloved “American Pie.” Current events make me think of another sad meaning to those memorable words. Anyone who’s worked with teens over the past forty years will relate. 

As a high school ball player and forensic team member, I recall quiet trips to events. Coaches didn’t turn on the bus or van’s single radio because they wanted us focused on our competition. The ride home was another story. Team members honed negotiation skills to select a radio station from the many choices others shouted out. Once noisy teens determined the favorite, they convinced the driver to crank the volume high enough that riders in the back seat could hear the lyrics clearly. Music was a group activity in those golden days.

Over the four decades of my teaching and coaching career, this changed. During my first twenty some years of loading kids in a district vehicle to haul them to distant schools, life continued much as it had when I was a participant. Passengers were expected to be quiet as they would be in a prayer chapel going to our destination. However, trips home began with lively discussions about what music to listen to and raucous sing-alongs to ever-changing tunes. This was karaoke before it became a popular party fun.

My favorite memories of these good old days revolve around December bus trips when girls who loved to carol filled the seats. Headlights guided us homeward over the dark plains while greenish console lights inside set a holiday mood. Sweet voices of tired round-ballers sang about hay-filled mangers, heralding angels, gift-bearing wise men, and silent nights. Following those serious toned old tunes, the vocalists would throw in a crazy version of “Jingle Bells” or “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” I may have been exhausted after a 16-hour day teaching and coaching, but I treasured those after-game songfests.

Technology that I normally loved assassinated these singalongs. Over time, as more teens climbed onto buses with personal devices and earbuds, travel became quiet as a morgue. Eventually, the driver or I  picked the radio station uncontested because the passengers were listening to individual playlists. By the time I retired, I had to wave my hands or tap someone on the shoulder to make contact. 

The positive side of this new reality is that no one has to listen to music he or she hates. Folks who don’t enjoy interacting with others slip into private worlds while sitting shoulder to shoulder and remain there until the vehicle stops. The negative involves the same issue. No one learns to deal with the frustration of other people’s preferences.

The element that makes me saddest is that pre- individual electronic devices, music brought students, coaches, and drivers together. It didn’t isolate them. Those mostly dead after-game soirees taught tolerance for other’s musical tastes, negotiating skills, and an appreciation for noisy camaraderie.

“A Baby Is God’s Opinion That Life Should Go On.”

Anyone reading or listening to news over the past few weeks must, as I do, long for comfort and continuity to counterbalance life’s new normal. What better way than to root ourselves in customs that go back enough generations that they’ve withstood the test of personal and national distress. Our family honored such a tradition recently with a shower to celebrate the birth of our youngest daughter’s first child. As I put away a dish passed from my grandmother to my mom and now to me, I thought about the generations of women who’ve gathered to celebrate an impending birth.

The women who used this dish immigrated from greener landscapes to the arid plains of western Kansas. Some lived through the Civil War, the Plains Indian wars, The Spanish American War, WW I, The Great Depression, WW II, The Korean Conflict, Vietnam, and recent events. My mother who was born in the midst of the Dust Bowl worked only a few blocks from Murrah Building in Oklahoma City and drove past its ruins and later the monuments to those who died that day. When I want to shut my eyes and ignore things that terrify me, I remind myself I come from sturdy stock. We do what is necessary to survive and thrive in a difficult world.

The poet Carl Sandburg states many families’ optimism in the future, explaining why it’s necessary to rejoice when a child is born. He wrote, “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”  As I watched women who love our daughter delight in giving handmade quilts and leatherwork, practical gifts, and books, several thoughts ran through my mind. I appreciated the hours of labor those crafters spent creating heirlooms that will comfort this child and pass to future generations. I’m grateful for the gifts that ensure the safety and wellbeing of our new granddaughter and for the thoughtfulness of mothers who’ve already raised kids and know what a new mom needs to ease that first year. The growing stack of books next to the mom-to-be’s chair told me how this group valued the ties of language and ideas and wanted to pass on their favorites. One Great-Aunt touch all our hearts when she included a favorite book she received as a little girl. Each of these presents warmed my heart and validated Sandburg’s message.

While the adults enjoyed visiting and remembering their own early parenting experiences, toddlers attending helped pass out gifts and make sharp observations. One cousin-to-be wants that baby to come out to play. Others were more interested in the immediate delight of raiding the mint and nut bowl.  Each of these little ones reminded all of the adults of how swiftly infancy passes.

This long practiced custom of giving gifts to prepare new parents for their long awaited child states so clearly that our hearts cherish the hope new babies offer. Those of us who’ve raised our own, enjoy helping expectant moms and dads get off to a good start. It’s also a needed reminder to savor every moment and to work to leave a better world for the next generation.