Beaver's House

        I am from the generation who grew up watching Leave It To Beaver.   The show was a family-oriented sitcom, but as a child, I did not really view it as funny.  To me the Cleaver family was the quintessential American family, the standard that everyone else aspired to.  They had it all, good looks, a beautiful home, and an enviable lifestyle.  Of course, they were fiction, but kids don’t necessarily understand that fact.  I knew they were actors playing parts, but somehow I believed that somewhere families like that really existed.  Not that anything was wrong with my own family, but they sure did not resemble the Cleavers.

                First of all, there was Ward Cleaver.  He wore a tie to the dinner table!  I grew up on a farm, and the only men I saw in suits and ties were in church.  Even my male teachers dressed fairly casually. It was never clear from the show what Ward’s job was, but he apparently had authority.  As much as I admired him, Ward Cleaver scared me.  He brought that authoritarian style home and seemed unnecessarily stern.  Wally and Beaver were wary of him, and even June seemed to tiptoe around and defer to him.  He might have looked good, but I would not have really wanted to live with him.

                I could relate a little better to June Cleaver.  Not many of the women I knew were as thin and stylish, but they did at least wear those shirtwaist dresses and sometimes pearls.  June was a housewife like most of the mothers I knew; it is just that like June herself, her house was always perfect.  Speaking of her house, viewers who followed the show from its inception remember when the Cleavers bought a new house and moved.  It was a television event when the Cleavers moved into a beautiful Colonial-style house on Pine Street.

                The house was a large two-story house in a well-manicured neighborhood with sidewalks in front.  It was a symbol of success; the Cleavers had arrived.  Oh how I coveted that house! Now there is a house for sale in our town that looks exactly like the Leave It to Beaver house, at least on the outside.  I can just see myself living there; it would be like a childhood fantasy come true.  I would put on my shirtwaist dress (even though I lack a waist) and my pearls and serve an elegant dinner.  Of course, there would be one hitch in my fantasy---I’m afraid Doug would refuse to wear a tie to dinner.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Summer being the time for travel, Doug and I recently journeyed back in time with a trip to Louisiana.  We began our journey with a flight to New Orleans.  We landed at the Crescent City on a Saturday evening, and after quickly renting a car and checking into a hotel, we made our way into the city.  We spent the evening touring the French Quarter and eating some of New Orleans’ legendary seafood.  However, the next day was the real beginning of our history adventure.

                We rose early (for vacation that is) and traveled to the National WWII Museum. What an emotional journey!  As soon as we walked in, we faced a very realistic exhibit of a troop train, and unexpectedly I began to cry.  Every WWII veteran I have spoken to has begun his story with a ride on a troop train.  Those trains, scenes of poignant departures, have become symbols for the tremendous changes our nation underwent during an uncertain, chaotic time.

                After the troop train exhibit, we immersed ourselves in the past with videos, pictures, artifacts, and personal stories of soldiers and people on the home front.  We spent the entire day and barely scratched the surface of this amazing museum. We truly felt consumed by World War II.

                The next day we toured two antebellum plantations.  The most impressive one, Rosedown, is operated by the Louisiana State Park Service.  It was the home of Daniel and Martha Turnbull who were cotton planters and owners of 450 slaves, a number difficult to wrap one’s mind around.  The Turnbulls were exceedingly wealthy and owed much of their splendid lifestyle to the labor of enslaved people.  That being said, life was difficult for most people during those days.  The Turnbulls lost two of their three children to disease and drowning and endured the uncertainty of the Civil War.  Women’s lives were particularly difficult given the cultural restrictions imposed on them.  Imagine sitting in an un-air-conditioned house in the middle of a humid Louisiana summer while laced up in a corset.

                The highlight of the trip for Doug was Port Hudson State Historic Site, the site of a 48-day Civil War Battle. Operated by the Louisiana State Park Service, the site includes a museum, living history programs, and six miles of walking trails that take visitors through the areas of intense battle.  However, the thing that made this particular site so meaningful was the fact that Doug found where his great, great grandfather fought with the Arkansas Infantry.

                Thus ended the perfect vacation for us---one steeped in history and enhanced with delicious local cuisine.

 

Cleaning the Refrigerator

     It's that time of year, those halcyon days between the spring semester and summer school, days that should be spent immersed in leisure.  But duty-bound person that I am, I must accomplish, produce, justify myself. So assessing the situation, I decided to tackle a long-neglected chore: I cleaned the refrigerator.
     Most of the time, I operate according to the old adage "out of sight, out of mind." What lies behind closed doors stays behind closed doors.  Nonetheless, I gathered my courage and opened the refrigerator, and the adventure began.
     I faced shelves and drawers laden and almost sagging with food, much of it readily recognizable.  However, some items lurking at the back of shelves had taken on new identities of the black, furry variety. Even some of what appeared "perfectly good" had expired use-by dates and questionable odors.
    Other than procrastination and laziness, there are reasons, if not justifications, for this blatant wastefulness.  First of all, I used to shop and cook for five.  When faced with grocery store aisles and meal preparation for two, I find it difficult to alter the dinner-for-five mindset.
     In addition, Doug and I have different eating styles.  He is a meat-and-fried-potatoes man.  While I enjoy those foods too, I really love fruits and vegetables. Doug, on the other hand, views fruit in a medicinal way, i.e. "an apple a day...."  No other fruits pass his lips unless baked in a pie.  So why do I, knowing that I should buy fruit  for one, purchase bags full of grapes and clementines? I realize that at least half of them will suffer a shriveled, moldy fate.
     Some of the jars and containers in my refrigerator were complete mysteries.  For instance, I found a jar of minced jalapenos. Now Doug nor I neither one particularly care for jalapenos, so why I would buy them is anyone's guess.  I would lay the blame on Doug, but I really don't think he is the culprit.  On his rare forays to the grocery store, the chip aisle is usually as far as he gets, Fritos and bean dip being his idea of pantry staples.  Well I kept the jalapenos.  They looked too good to toss, and who knows?  I just might remember why I bought them.
    Perhaps the most interesting, if in a gruesome kind of way, part of my refrigerator-cleaning effort was the meat drawer.  This is where I store cheese, deli meats, and other cured meats.  Of course, I found the requisite moldy cheese and green-tinged bacon, but the really amazing discovery was a pound package of breakfast sausage that had blown up like a balloon.  I did not realize that sausage could ferment.
    In due time I finished the task, ran the garbage disposal and lugged a large, heavy bag of cast-offs to the dumpster.  Next I have to tackle the freezer, but that is entertainment for another day.
    

High School Reunion

In my part of the country it is the time of year for high school reunions. There is apparently something about spring and the Easter holiday that make us want to socialize with people from our past.  What can I say? It is a tradition like Easter eggs and new clothes.

            In keeping with that time-honored tradition, I recently traveled to my high school reunion.  There were the usual hugs and comments like, “You look good.” Translation: “You are holding up well.” Of course, everyone knows that as Shakespeare would say, “Rosy lips and cheeks within Time’s bending sickle's compass come.”   In fact, since the school closed in 1990, Time’s sickle has been busy amongst the graduates. Everyone is asked to wear a nametag simply because gray hair, absence of hair, extra pounds, and wrinkles tend to obscure identities. The changes are sometimes disconcerting.  When one of my former teachers known for her sense of fashion shuffled in on a walker, I decided that remembering people as they used to be is often preferable to reality.

            After appearance assessment, the alumni get down to reminiscing.  It is funny what people remember and what they forget.  For instance, an old friend asked me who my sixth-grade square dance partner was.  My first reaction was to say, “Did we square dance in sixth grade?”  I remember square dancing in fifth grade, and it was a traumatic experience that I won’t go into here.  So I probably have blocked out any memory of sixth grade dancing.

            The one constant that I have noticed, however, is that regardless of what life throws at people their personalities do not change.  They may mature and grow wiser, but class clowns remain class clowns, shy people remain shy, and charmers will forever charm.  Thus once we see beneath the wrinkles and extra pounds, we are back where we started---teenagers just trying to figure it all out.

Spring Fever

     If the symptoms of spring fever include being easily distracted, less productive, and daydreamy, then I have fallen victim.  I dally over those indoor, mundane tasks of winter, procrastinating and dragging my feet. Why should I have to grade papers and do laundry when the lilacs are blooming? Redbud and cherry blossoms will not wait until I wax the kitchen floor.  The wind will scatter their delicate beauty, leaving me sensory deprived among the dirty dishes.

                The only remedy is to arm myself with rakes, hoes, and garden trowels. It is time to clear out the old, dead growth and uncover the hopeful, green shoots of perennials peeking through the soil. I am always amazed at the faithfulness of those perennials; come weed or drought, these hardy, optimistic plants never fail to show up and try again. Take for instance my backyard lantana.  As soon as frost has subsided, tiny spurts of green begin showing up around the last year’s dead wood. Before summer is over, grand bushes laden with a riot of orange and yellow flowers fill my flower bed. What a lesson in faith and perseverance!

                Now is the time when garden centers beckon and entice. As I troll the aisles, even the names of the flowers and bushes make me wax poetic.  Carolina Jessamine, Rose of Sharon, and Sweet William beg to live in the pages of novels as well as in my yard.  How can I refuse?  I will figure out where to plant them later.

                Yes, as I trudge through days of chores and obligations, my mind is filled with flowering fantasies. I fret over which flowers to plant where and what plants go well together in a container.  I carry a vision of summer’s majesty crowding my sidewalk with an explosion of blooming color.  Spring has a grip on me now, and I am a willing hostage.

Searching for the Past

Recently my daughter Shannon and I went antiquing.  We visited two quaint little antique stores in Lawton complete with their resident dogs that greeted us at the door.  Each had an impressive array of china, Depression glass, clocks, furniture, and ephemera.  Browsing through those remnants of the past, I wondered what it is that draws people to antiques.  After all, a one –hundred-year-old plate is just a piece of glass not much different from what we can buy in any modern department or discount store.  I know some people collect antiques with an eye for investment, but for most of us it something more visceral, an urge difficult to define but felt within.      

            I bought three items that day: a Depression glass serving bowl, a cutwork lace table runner, and a postal greeting card postmarked 1916. Of course, each item is a distinctly feminine item and provides a glance into the lives of the women in our past.  I can imagine a housewife in the desperate throes of the Great Depression collecting beautiful glassware when she purchased staples such as oatmeal or flour for her family.  Inexpensive, mass-produced dinnerware was often given as promotional items.  Lacking funds for even essential items, she still would have taken pride in setting a beautiful table.

            When I place the cutwork lace runner on my dining table, I will be mindful of the hours of tedious, painstaking work that went into producing it.  Handwork and quilting were often a woman’s way of creating art under the guise of producing something practical for the home. Women also used these art forms as a way of occupying their minds in times of trouble and isolation on prairie homesteads. In Susan Glaspell’s short story “A Jury of Her Peers,” the main character uses piecing a quilt to “take up her mind.”

            Finally, the 1916 postcard will add to my Victorian postcard collection.  I collect these cards as a tangible way to connect to the past.  People seemed to use them the way we use email and text messages.  They were brief ways to let a special person know that someone was thinking of her.  It seems that most of the cards were to and from women—just like today where women maintain the lines of communication.

            I recently saw the movie Monuments Men, which tells the true story of a group of artists and art historians who saved valuable artwork stolen by the Nazis.  George Clooney’s character says that the mission was about saving a culture.  While Depression glass and needlework are not quite the same as French Impressionist paintings, they are products of our culture.  These everyday items of women’s lives give us links to times gone by.

Pining for Spring

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am through with winter.  I am ready to be released from this frigid grip, but as I gaze out my office window, I see overcast skies, a snow-blanketed expanse of grass, and daggers of ice hanging ominously from the eaves. I desperately need blue skies and sunshine.

            I know people from the northern areas of our continent would call me a wimp.  Well, so be it. Winter misery is exactly why I do not live any further north than Oklahoma.  Other winter-loving friends will expound on the beauty of the snow and ice.  Just send me a picture.  I will enjoy winter’s glories vicariously.

            I have taken to buying little pieces of spring to tide me over until the real thing arrives.  I purchased a wall calendar with illustrations of vintage seed catalogs.  The month of February’s picture of pansies can almost make me forget that my own pansies lie encased in ice on my front porch.  I also bought a bouquet of yellow tulips recently. They sat cheerily on my kitchen table as the snow and ice turned my back patio into a skating rink.  Then desperate optimist that I am, I bought a rose bush.  Yes, a rose bush.  For some unknown reason, one of the local stores had them on sale, so I bought one and carried it home in the freezing fog.  It sits forlornly in my front hall waiting to be transplanted into warm earth.

            Spring will come eventually.  As always in Oklahoma, there will be several false starts, but the season will change, and the earth and my spirits will renew.

Christmas Nostalgia

Perhaps no other time of year can evoke such nostalgia as Christmas. Indeed my favorite childhood memories center on the yearly yuletide celebration.  Looking back, I realize that my mother was the reason Christmas was so magical at our house.

            The whole process started with the selection of the Christmas tree.  As soon as our small town’s old-fashioned grocery store received its shipment of Douglas firs, Mama would be first in line to choose the perfect tree. It had to be purchased quickly, or it would dry out.  Our tree had to be perfectly proportioned and tall; after all, we lived in an old farmhouse with extra high ceilings.

            I don’t remember how we got an eight-foot tree home, but I could hardly wait to decorate it.  However, there was a ritual to be observed.  First, the tree had to be anchored in a bucket of moist soil to keep it fresh.  Then the tree had to stand for twenty-four hours so the branches would naturally spread out.

            Finally, Mama would bring out the Christmas decorations, complete with bubble lights and loads of tinsel. Next came the presents under the tree. My mother did not drive, so she shopped by mail order, which meant that our mailbox was off limits to everyone but her.  Part of the magic of the presents was the wrapping.  Our Christmas gifts were beautifully wrapped not only with ribbons and bows but also with Christmas trinkets and our names in glitter.

            And the preparations continued with lights lining our front porch, a Nativity scene in the living room, and homemade date nut candy.  Of course, all of these accoutrements were not lavish.  The decorations were old and often homemade.  The presents were inexpensive though my mother’s spirit was rich.  I was, without a doubt, a fortunate child, for Christmases past still glitter in my memory.

Hobby Lobby Ladies

Sometime crafters, coupons ready

Crowd the electric doors.

For every Marge, Sue, and Betty

Christmas, hearts be steady,

Has come to their favorite store.

 

They pause in awestruck wonder

Before all that they adore.

 And at the glorious, glittering, plunder

sweep their thrifty plans asunder.

Who cares if they’ll be poor?

 

Cross-stitched sugarplums are dancing

As they traverse the store.

Homemade Christmas crafts advancing.

Their plans to stitch and glue enhancing

That someday stash once more.

October

There is a wistfulness to October with its mellow sunlight and fading summer blooms.  Flowers take on a desperate, anemic look as days grow shorter and nights cooler.  Bask in an achingly beautiful Indian summer day, and tread on frost-encrusted grass the next.  As if to compensate for felling summer’s glory, October arrays the landscape with gaudy, golden chrysanthemums and flashy orange leaves, a poor disguise for impending demise.

            I have lost so much to October.  I hold my breath until its burnished beauty fades safely away.  Too many loved ones have departed this earth, choosing to leave in the bittersweet days of autumn, avoiding the chill of November and the “bare ruined choirs” of winter, leaving me to cry amidst scarlet foliage.

My Life in Books

Recently while touring the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., I explored a special exhibit on Little Golden Books.  Among the many classic tales was one of my favorite childhood books, “Nurse Nancy.”  I loved that book!  Here was a little girl who wanted to be somebody; she had plans for her future, and she explored her options. Being a little dreamer myself, I totally identified with Nancy. Then I started thinking: I could browse through a bookstore or library and trace my life through the books I have read. Here is a quick synopsis of books and me through the years.

                Recently a friend gave me a lovely, worn copy of a Bobbsey Twin mystery. Just thumbing through it, I was back in Mrs. Mefford’s fourth-grade classroom listening after lunch to the adventures of Burt and Nan and Freddie and Flossie.  Fourth grade was also the year I became acquainted with Little Women.  Oh how I wanted to be Jo!

                A year or so later, I discovered Zane Grey and became a fan of the western genre.  I even tried my hand at play writing, setting my dramas in western outposts, complete with beautiful, brave heroines and handsome heroes. In addition to my western fascination, I became a fan of biographies.  My fifth grade classroom had a blue-bound set of biographies of famous people.  Of course, they were mostly about men, but a few outstanding women like Clara Barton inspired me.

                In my early teen years, I immersed myself in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Gone with the Wind. I vicariously suffered through the Civil War with Scarlet O’Hara and endured crushing poverty with Francie Nolan.  It was also during this time period that I read To Kill a Mockingbird. Any mention of that book and I am back sitting on my front porch swatting summer flies while totally engrossed in the lives of Scout, Jem, and Atticus.

                In high school I loved literature class.  I read everything assigned and wondered why anyone would complain about Charles Dickens. Great Expectations certainly met my expectations. I even loved The Red Badge of Courage. Then as an English major in college, I delved even deeper into classic literature and discovered works such as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and the poetry of Emily Dickinson.  Then in graduate school, my mind was occupied with Victorian poets, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, and Thoreau’s Walden.

                As a young mother, I devoured books while babies slept.  Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife got me through many an ear infection and bouts of colic.  I call it my Chinese period.  Then when my children were old enough to enjoy books, I became caught up in Bearenstain Bears, Curious George, and Little Critter.  Our visits to the library were weekly highlights.  I can still hear Shannon saying, “Get Melie Delie, Mama; get Melie Delie.” That was during our Amelia Bedelia period.  As they grew older, we read together.  My girls loved the Little House books, and Keenan and I shared Harry Potter.

                Over the years I have shared many books with my students—Tess of the D’urbervilles, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Gatsby, and The Age of Innocence just to name a few.  What a lucky person I am to have a job that requires reading good books! Any time I want to just kick back and read, I can justify such idleness by saying I am doing research.

                I suppose some people can remember periods in their lives by songs, movies, TV shows, or world events, but for me books serve as markers in my life. I can see in my mind what the world was like even down to the clothes I was wearing when I think about a book I was reading at the time.  I can’t imagine life without the comfort of a book.