This was my prayer...a piece of ground not over large with a garden and near to the house a stream of constant water.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

The big picture…

                                                                        

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    Here is a picture of what is now referred to as “advertising art”. It is one of those 30-plus or so coffee urns used for church suppers, AA meetings, wakes etc. Decades ago, companies would send you really cool stuff like this in exchange for saving up and sending them a specified number of proof of purchases. Well, my mom was a dedicated member of the Wakefield Culture Club. Clubs for women were a major part of life, especially in smallish towns like the one where we lived. The women raised money to do all sorts of good deeds like buying socks and underwear for mental patients at the state hospital nearby. They also had a lot of social activities—card parties, dances, luncheons, meetings with themes like “little treasures for your little treasures” where they had a guest speaker come in and show them the correct way to make an arrangement of flowers in a tea cup.

     The highlight of one year was something called a “Tom Thumb Wedding”. Members’ children were dressed up like members of a wedding (I am still envious of Sally Spotts because she got to be the bride because her mom was president that year). I did not even make “Mother of the Bride” or groom. I had to wear one of my grandmother’s old Easter hats destined for the rummage sale box for that year and was just a “guest”. But there was real wedding cake so it was not a total bummer.

     Because the ladies did so much eating and food-related stuff—covered dish suppers, strawberry and various other dessert specials, teas with dainty sandwiches—there was a completely outfitted kitchen adjoining their club rooms situated on the second floor of the Carnegie Free Library. And the one thing I most admired (given my aforementioned infatuation with “advertising art”) was the coffee urn that looked like a giant can of Maxwell House coffee. Well, darn it if when the ladies club went out existence and their stuff was divvied up, my mom got my beloved urn! She never used it, keeping it wrapped up and stored far back in some closet. I could only dream…

    Then one day, out of the blue, when I was married and began to entertain I asked her for the urn and she gave it to me. Now in my family this was an earthshaking event. There were many odd, psychologically unsettling dynamics in our family and one was that my mother would deliberately withhold from me anything that I expressed even a mild interest in. But she handed me her urn and I just loved it. Walking through my pantry and seeing its bright, shiny oversized label would make me smile and feel happy.

     And then in 1995 my life became a perfect storm. I lost my wonderful job because my employers were trying to get rid of my husband and not having the guts to just can him, my firing was the shot across the bow designed to get him to resign, which he did not do, breaking my heart. Then I became seriously, mysteriously sick and was bedridden. The marriage was in shambles and I was much-too-early menopausal. And my husband came home on a Friday night two days before my parent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary and said he took care of sick people all day and did not want to come home and do it.

     Of course my mom and dad were the first call I made. Sobbing hysterically, I told them of my devastation.  And the first thing my mother said in a very alarmed voice was “Where is the coffee pot”? Now my head was spinning and I was dazed from what I had just said and my mind could not process what was this thing about the coffee pot. I felt like I was on that old ride at Kennywood where you spin around and the floor slowly drops out from beneath you… And she kept asking me over and over about “her” Maxwell House coffee urn. Every time she talked to me, that damned urn… So I managed to remember to put it in my car and as soon as I pulled up in their driveway, she came out and asked me for it.

     Fast forward a few years… For one of the holidays, I suggested to my mother that she make coffee in her urn to accommodate the company coming. She turned, stared directly at me and said “What urn”? She had given it to Lisa the cleaning lady she told me just like that…

     So what is the point of this story? Well, it is for you to make of it what you will, dear readers. But to end on a happy note, a few years ago I was wandering through the now-gone and much lamented “Ye Olde Curiousity Shoppe” fleatique” here in Ligonier. And there in a dark back room was “my” Maxwell House coffee urn, all shiny and undented just like new. I grabbed it up like I was reaching for a life jacket on the Titanic. It was marked $10 and I did not haggle the price, a treasure to me at any cost. It now sits in a prominent place on top of my refrigerator, gathering dust. (I am five feet tall and one of my basic tenets of housekeeping is I do not dust anything too high that I cannot peer directly at). But it was some small healing for me to find that pot. Has that ever happened to you? I hope so…

Monday, November 26, 2012

Don't you just love UPS? and an interesting little story "If You Go Out in the Woods Today"

     So many things today just don't work. I once wrote a piece called "The 20% Rule" that I have upped to "The 40% Rule"in which I described everything in one month of my life that went wrong (and not of my doing). For example, Fiona my beloved 15-year-old Border collie was suffering from congestive heart failure and was on diuretics. To make sure she never had an accident, I ordered two waterproof pads from WalMart on-line, using their site-to-store delivery option. After a brief wait, I drove the 22-mile round trip to pick up the pads. I opened the box and they were fireproof pads. Now, I checked with my vet and never in the history of veterinary medicine had a Border collie been reported to spontaneously combust. So another round trip to return the WalMart pads. Dare I reorder? I decided to use my refund to buy some cheap plastic/vinyl table cloths from Dollar General and fashion my own peepee pads, using soft old towels and small blankets. God love her, she made it to the very end without an errant drop...I pray I will be able to do the same.

     Anyhow, I have never been disappointed with UPS. I love the sound of their always-washed, shiny big brown trucks, the "thunk" sound their gears make when they are stopping by my walk, the way the delivery person bounds up my steps and raps on the door. UPS always brings small joys and happiness, never bad news or sadness except for the one time they brought me the cremated remains of a beloved kitty. I burst into sobs as the UPS man handed me the package and I explained to him the contents of the small box. He gave me a "there there" pat and told me he had taken gentle care of kitty. UPS never brings letters from the IRS, or bills or other scary mail. The UPS man knows only good things about you unlike the mail carrier who sees ALL of your mail and knows everything from your religion (if you have one), your politics, your debts, your educational level, etc.  Most especially, I look forward to the first sign of changing seasons when the length of the delivery man's (the delivery person is usually a guy) pant legs go up or down. I live next door to a business that gets a lot of all kinds of deliveries in every manner of vehicle, but my heart is with UPS. And they always wave.

     So here is a great UPS story:  Several winters ago, a woman I knew who was quite contrary and seemed to delight in doing things people told her were foolish, took her dog out for a walk about 4:00-ish on a very wintry afternoon. She lived in a heavily-wooded "community" at the foot of the mountain that had been intended as a summer escape in the 1930-40s from the heat and dirt of Pittsburgh. About half of the houses were now permanently occupied, the rest opened up only for the summer. There were still many lots that were uncleared, never built on as air conditioning and air pollution controls in Pittsburgh caused fewer people to flee to the mountains. The small ski slope nearby had been long-closed. The roads through the place remained deliberately "quaintly unpaved" ie., poorly maintained--dust in the summer and ice and ruts in the winter.

     But out she went on that blustery day, snow flurries now falling faster in thick wet blurs. Heavy late-day snow had been predicted. And the small road she chose was one with houses only at the farthest ends. Her wonderful dog was a Springer Spaniel named Mildred Pierce. Mildred was what I call a galumphy dog: rotund, big pawed, whose way of greeting you was to lunge at you and lick you with her slobbery kisses. She had those enormous, droopy, red-rimmed eyes of her breeed. Even those of us who adored Mildred acknowledge that she closely resembled a manatee. Mildred was never leash (or any other way) trained. She was a tugger, especially if she saw one of the many unexpected and dog-driving crazy things that lurked in the woods. 

     And so, Mildred lunged on her leash. Down went my friend with Mildred on top of her. My friend rolled the dog off of herself and was made breathless with pain when she simply tried to move. Mildred began to whimper and lick her mother furiously, a melange of snow, tears and doggy slobber on the human's face (and possibly the dog, too). My friend hollered and yelled. The human sound was blunted by the thickly falling snow, the wind and the forest at whose edge she had landed. She unleashed the dog and pushed and shoved Mildred's rump to try and enocurage her to head back home, like the old "Lassie" episodes when Timmy had fallen down a well.

     Now Mildred was the essence of creature comfort, loving her many soft beds covered with antique quilts, the fireside, cuddling next to humans, endless belly rubs and most of all her food bowl. But Mildred would not budge from her mother's side. The enormous pup wedged herself closer and closer next to the prone body. It is unclear just whom Mildred was trying to keep warm. The dog whimpered and yelped softly. The person yelled. But no one came. By the way, cell phone reception in this leafy glade was non-existent even if this most cantankerous of women had one.

   By now it was almost dark. The wind had picked up considerably and snow was mounding over everything, disguising everything--rocks, rhodendron, tree stumps, dogs and humans. My friend saw that she could die here on this road, frozen to death, unable to move even the tiniest bit.

   Just as she was closing her eyes (have you ever read Jack London's "To Build a Fire"?) she was jolted awake by the familiar "thunk". The much-beloved UPS man for this area was making one last sweep of his route. Only fate and the elaborate UPS routing system led him to turn down this very road. His lights caught Mildred's pleading brown eyes visible through the heavy snow. He saw my friend's hand feebly waving at him from the small drift that had formed over her body. The rest is pretty much a routine rescue/broken hip story. UPS delivered once again!

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     BUT THEN, the story gets really interesting. My friend recovering from hip surgery in the hospital received a phone call from a "neighbor", the kind who would normally not even call you if your house was on fire, in her woodsy plan indignantly asking if my friend was going to sue UPS--take those bastards to the cleaners!!! Soon it became apparent that the story had spread throught the village that a woman and her dog had been mowed down by a UPS truck!!! Remember that kiddie game "Gossip" or "Telephone"? Well, a real life version had spontaneously occurred in our small town. And the poor UPS man was stopped on the street and yelled at in the library for nearly killing some poor woman and her dog! Well, the furor finally died down and my friend's hip and Mildred soon recovered.

     However, the "Telephone" mindset appeared unabated. For example, a lovely woman who had lived here forever returned home from a month-long vacation and was bombarded with phone calls and confrontations in the Giant Eagle asking why she had sold her house to Dick Cheney! And I, myself, stopped in to buy a greeting card after having blood drawn from my hand as those are the only skinny veins I have. A huge lump of gauze to stanch the bleeding was taped to my hand (I take blood thinners as does half the world) and the clerk bellowed "Oh my God!! are you getting chemotherapy"??? Then the three other customers (complete strangers) in the small store began to cluck and fuss over me, bombarding me with questions and comments, deaf to my ever louder voice telling them I was not getting chemo! One eyed me and commented that chemo can sometimes cause bloat in the face (what???). Another brushed my somewhat shortish hair as if to check if said hair was starting to fall out. I momentarily thought I was going to have to fight them off to escape the place. Talk about lack of boundaries...

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    Anyhow, this season, try to show the UPS folks how much you appreciate how hard they work to make our lives pleasant. Little brown rays of sunshine in my life.

P.S. "If You Go Out in the Woods Today..." is a line from my most favorite song "Teddy Bears" Picnic".

    

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

My best friend (Sue Ellen) since high school bakes a pie for Thanksgiving…

 

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   Today my BFFSHS and I were gabbing about just ordinary stuff and she mentioned how she planned to make a cherry pie to take to her son and daughter-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving. It did not start out well. When she opened the first prepared pie filling can, it was strawberry. At this point I would have considered a mixed berry pie or Marie Callender but Sue and her amazing eight-year-old granddaughter Katie got in their truck (they live in semi-rural Texas) and drove to their nearest convenience store and paid triple for a second can of cherry pie filling, praying it had not been on that shelf for several years. Additionally, she had forgotten that she had used the last of those terrific ready-made pie crusts and laid down another ransom for two packages. Thank God she remembered or another trip back would have been necessary.

     Back home, oven was pre-heated, crusts were fluted, foil sheets put on the newly-cleaned oven floor and 45 minutes until pie Nirvana. Soon the sweet smell of baking pie filled the house. My friend sat down at her computer to pay bills, check e-mail and she found that she needed to call the 800 number of her credit card company. She was chatting with a delightful young man who quickly answered her questions. He was in Baltimore and mentioned that he had had a “girlfriend” in fifth grade who was also named Sue Ellen. He was most likely glad to keep yacking to help the last shift before the holiday pass easily. Out of the corner of her eye Sue spotted flames coming from her oven. “Gotta go” she said to the delightful young man. “My oven is on fire”. “Well, Happy Thanksgiving and I hope I have provided the service our customers expect of us…” responded the well-trained young customer service man. Click! as the house could possibly go up next.

     Sure enough, the oven was on fire. What to do? Open the oven door? Throw salt on the flames, thus ruining the pies (she had ended up making two so as not to waste the strawberries)? Not wanting to panic in front of her granddaughter, she calmly turned off the oven and waited for the flames to subside.  Turns out, apparently, the self-cleaning oven had missed a glob of chicken fat, thus the source of the inferno. But the pies appeared unscathed. With the source of the flames removed, it appeared safe to just keep on baking the pies. The timer was set. Now 40 minutes until pie heaven.

     But no…she had set the temperature and forgotten to push the “start” button so the oven had become ice cold and the pies remained raw. This was one of the “What the hell!” occasions when you make an executive decision, in this case, reheat the oven and finish off the now uncertainly-cooked delicacies (with so much money invested, why not?).

     Well when the crusts appeared brown, out they came. And I, with my well-developed sense of doom and foreboding began to tell her of all the dire possibilities these pies might still face. I mentioned dropping them on the floor, having one of enormous (think Marmaduke or Clifford the Big Red Dog) and usually well-behaved dogs reach up on the counter and eat them, or a food-borne illness (remember I have a Masters degree in Public Health and studied for one semester the tragedies that can occur at even the best-intentioned church suppers). The pies could slide off the car seat during a sudden stop or could mistakenly be sat on. Endless tragedies could befall these pies.

    We discussed what a metaphor for life were these pies. Maybe sometimes the Universe just does not want certain things to happen but we just keep pushing. Think back over your own life and substitute certain life events, decisions, etc. for “pie”.

    Then I thought back to Thanksgivings past at my grandparents. My grandmother had a very old (now vintage) green enamel gas stove that sat up on four little legs. Our jobs as kids was to lay on the floor and run a dust rag under there to clear out the non-existent crumbs and dirt she just knew lurked underneath. It had no light nor timer nor electronic ignition. In fact, the pilot light for the burners and oven were lighted with thick wooden kitchen matches. I was scared of the whooshing and popping sound made when the gas caught fire. My great aunt Angeline was prevented from lighting the oven when she repeatedly singed off her eyebrows and melted her hair net. And the oven door had a spring on it like a wolf trap, capable of snapping child-size forearms in an unsuspecting second. What deliciousness emerged from that tiny space.

     In the lovely Victorian house I was privileged to live in for ten years, I inherited a marvelous Chambers stove (also now highly collectible). It put you in mind of a reclining snowman. It baked the best bread I ever had next to my grandmother’s. But, I replaced it with a six burner, double oven (one convection,) duel-fuel stainless steel sixty inch wide miracle of food preparation. The cost of it could have covered several semesters  at a community college. The ovens had to be constantly recalibrated, the 30,000 BTU burners cooked almost everything to a cinder. The knobs either got stuck or fell off.The stainless tell was impossible to keep gleaming without using nasty chemicals. I hesitated to cook on it as it was so difficult to clean.

   And I now look back on that that appliance lusting as just another example of be careful what you wish for and listen to what the Universe may be telling you.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Signs I love!

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   Since I was a little kid, I have always liked signs. I remember Mickluses’ store right across the street from our house on Crawford Avenue, full of all kind of signs for various products. I especially loved the “door push” on the front screen door for “Bunny Bread”. You can usually find some of these listed on eBay and they go for beaucoup bucks, regardless of condition in the category of “Advertising Art”. Salada Tea was spelled out in dull gold letters stenciled on the front window. Teaberry Gum advertising consisted of a humongously oversized pack of Teaberrry gum (empty of course). I really hoped Mrs. Micklus would give it to me when Mr. Micklus died and the store was closed, but no dice. There were signs for flour, coffee and every brand of cigarette. Do you remember the two dancing packs of cigarettes that used to be on live, early television? I always wanted to have Halloween costumes like that for me and my older sister. What were the ones you remember? Would love to hear from you on this!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Mr. Wu says “No way I’m going out in this weather to trick ‘n treat…”

 

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     Mr. Wu is Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. This is also his new winter coat. He wore it around the house few several hours, a surprise to me as he usually rips off his sweaters. Maybe he was chilled. Love the expression on his face!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Still here...

I have been "radio silent" for a while. All us okay but just not moved by the muse and I had (still have remnants) of a flu-like icky virus. All I could manage was watching CDs of Pee Wee's Playhouse and Downton Abbey. Wild dreams, too. Thought my friend Rose was coming in and out of the house and turning the lights on and off. My porch was full of neon/psychedelic old radios and televisions. I am not sure if it was a fever of 102 or the Nyquil. Will have something up soon or see my article in the Saturday Post-Gazette "Opinion" section. Ciao!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Well I'm finally here in Nantucket...


     I do not write a lot of poetry. I did when I was in junior high but was accused by my Engish teacher of plagiarizing a sweet little poem I had written about "dancing alone by the sea". However, in the summer of 1979, I composed my one and only limerick. I had been miserable with a mysterious tummy problem. But my baby sister Kate had been working at a restaurant in Hyannis Port on the Cape and needed help moving to her apartment at the University of New Hampshire.

     Additionally, I had just met a man and was in that delicate stage of a pre-relationship relationship.
He had been very gracious about my GI issue. So while at the Cape during a side trip to Nantucket, this limerick just popped into my brain and I immediately jotted it down on a postcard and sent it off to the new guy. He was delighted and we dated for a long time...

                                           Well, I'm finally here in Nantucket
                                            Eating lobsters and shrimp by the bucket
                                            I'm feeling just fine
                                            And sending this line
                                            As there's hardly a chance I'll upchuck it!

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Peaches…

 

     This little gem of a book is one of my favorites. Peaches are without a doubt my favorite fruit and at this time of year they are, in my opinion, at their best. In this book, the author tells the story of his family’s California farm. Their specialty was growing Sun Crest peaches. As the author so lyrically puts it “Yes, the wonderful Sun Crest tastes like a peach is supposed to.  As with many older varieties, the flesh is so juicy that it oozes down your chin. The nectar explodes in your mouth and the fragrance enchants your nose, a natural perfume that can never be captured”. Such gorgeous writing…it makes me feel like I am hanging over the kitchen sink or porch rail eating this exquisite fruit.

     The title “Epitaph for a Peach” came about as this farmer had been told by commercial buyers that these peaches had a “problem”. When they ripen, they turn an amber gold rather than the “lipstick gold that seduces the public”. And the “better” newer peaches could last for weeks in cold storage. “Epitaph” first appeared as a story sent by the “frustrated and desperate” author to the Los Angeles Times, telling the story of these enchanted peaches and how he was soon to have the bull dozers come in and tear out the 350 remaining trees. Well, in the best of happy endings that we love the peaches were saved.

     One of my treasured life moments occurred in a peach packing shed out in the Sand Hills of South Carolina about this time of year almost seventeen years ago…so hard to fathom, still so real to me. My beloved, late mother-in-law had grown up just on the other side of those peach farms. In other trips up there to see family, it had always been winter. I was puzzled driving through the endless rows of shrunken, bare trees, barely five feet tall. Peach trees, I was told.

     Then that humid, blistering day, Mom said “Let’s stop at the packing shed for peaches”. I just wanted to stay in the ice-edged air conditioned car. But, I got out for Mom. Not knowing then that there would be such little time with her nor admitting that my marriage was as ephemeral as those peaches would be. I adored her and am now so thankful that  I climbed out into the steamy, dusty fields. The tractors and wagons with the sun-warmed peaches pulled in. I asked a worker a question and all the heads in the shed turned towards me, it seemed. “Yankee” one of the men said and another spat near my shoes. “This is my Sue-darling” said Mom and hugged me and kissed the top of my head. I had never felt so safe and loved in my life. She took charge of that entire packing shed, it seemed, ordering men to bag or box our peaches.

    “Yes, ma’am” the foreman came over and gave us his personal attention. He reached into his overalls and pulled out a knife I know only as a switch blade. “Flick” and a blade appeared. By now, I had spent enough time in the South Carolina countryside to know he was not fixin’ to kill us (or more likely just me). He carefully felt through a basket of peaches and pulled out the most gorgeous of the gorgeous. He sliced it in half, juice running down his hand. “Taste” he said, smiling at us. And just like in Masumoto’s book, my senses exploded. I had peach juice on my chin and hands and tears running down to meet the fruit juice. Mom watched to see my reaction and looked as delighted as if she had given me jewels. The packing shed boss who had given us our peach refused any money and carried the peaches to the car, placing them in the back seat like they were newborns.

     Well, I came down with a terrible bronchitis and had to leave for home early. I fanatically packed six already bruising peaches in a carry-on, determined to get this treasure back home with me. But the fight was bumpy and my peaches rolled up and down the aisles of the plane. By the time I made it to my kitchen, they were a mess, nothing like the peach I had held in the packing shed. Ephemera… You just can’t hold magic in your hand for very long.

    

    

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Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Adventures along Route 30, in late summer…


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  Ever since I saw my first “Burma Shave” sign while on one of our family adventures back in the fifties, I have had an affinity for roadside signage. You can tell an awful lot about places by these signs. Two of my favorites, ones I look for at the beginning of every summer, are “lopes” and “cukes”.  But the sign “toma/peps” is even better. I waited too long to get a picture of “cukes” but I did manage to find this sign for “lopes”. So I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the Loyalhanna Trading Post…and what a joy!

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    Here are Connie and Gianna. Gianna fell in love with Mr. Wu (also along for the ride) and I fell in love with her. She is one of those remarkable, smart, poised young women/girls who are such a delight to meet. On the left is Connie. She has such a striking look and gestalt…what I like to call “Woodstock” (although I would never risk insulting her by calling her that to her face as she is way too young for 1969). What I mean is she has that cool, natural, laid back look I always wanted. Sort of Christie McVeigh or Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul and Mary. I could almost smell the patchouli.
   Well, the Loyalhanna Trading Post has something for just about everybody…. I felt like I have made friends there and their produce is crispy and so fresh. Soon, they will have cornstalks and pumpkins, and hopefully, Christmas trees.


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 Then, on to the main destination…Dunkin Donuts in Latrobe where I had a delightful iced coffee, bought a bag of ground coffee and Mr. Wu got a free donut hole. No pics at DD but they are such a great, friendly, professional bunch… They know the two of us by now and I would love to pay them a special visit, pics and all. People are a little puzzled when I ask them if I can take their picture for my blog but always say yes and seem pleased.
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  Here is another seasonal sign I always enjoy seeing. I found out last year that in order to get the free pooch cone, you have to buy a person-sized item. As neither my dog nor I should be eating DQ, Wu and I bee-and-a-by-and-a-bow-and-a-bopped right past, stopping only to snap my pictures, and was content with my iced coffee.
   So back up through the gorge to Ligonier, past the lush and simply gorgeous golden rod, Joe Pye weed and all those other autumn wildflowers. Take the time to stop and read the signs and explore the people behind them… You may just find someone amazing and for sure someone interesting.
    John Steinbeck travelled with Charlie and I travel with Pu Yi Wu. (FYI—Pu Yi was the last emperor of China…be sure to see the amazing “The Last Emperor”, a best-picture Oscar winner, directed by Bernado Bertolucci). Note, in the lower left hand corner, the mega-size package of toilet paper. It has been there for several weeks as Mr. Wu likes to occasionally sit on it so he can look out the window better and I think it could serve as a buffer if his basket should slide off the seat, in the event of a sudden stop.

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Monday, August 20, 2012

Phyllis Diller…

 

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     The death of Phyllis Diller was announced today. She has been a personal inspiration ever since I first saw her on television, probably in the late 1950s or early sixties. She was so, so funny. I could understand her jokes because they were jokes that reflected the life of my mom, her friends and most of the women I knew then. If this lady could be funny, then being a girl and being funny must be okay. Just recently in the blog piece about the wrecking of my garden/yard I used a quote of Phyllis’ I have loved through the years, the one about dusting my stove.

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   My first grown-up job was working in the ladies’ gloves department on the first floor of my much-beloved Joseph Horne Company store on Stanwix Street in downtown Pittsburgh. Open late on Thursday nights, I often drew this graveyard shift. Then one cold night, across the empty store walked Phyllis Diller. I, at first, pretended to not recognize her but then lost my manners and asked her if she was indeed Phyllis Diller. “No” she said with  a smile “I am her body double”. Well, this gracious, elegant, beautifully dressed woman bought a pair of expensive, wrist-length, silk lined kid gloves (brown, size five). She lavishly thanked me and praised me for my glove knowledge. And off she went to the old “Holiday House”  supper club in Monroeville where she was headlining. I felt anointed by the funniest woman, nigh person, on the planet.

     And, even as a little kid, I was funny. Now being an elementary school laff-riot was not generally appreciated. For one reason, a lot of my humor arose from the people and situations around me. My filters were still undeveloped. I had a fourth grade teacher named Winifred Thompson and she always had it out for me. I had the kids rolling in the aisles…”Appearing today in the second floor lunch room following her smash performances near the monkey bars is….ta da drum roll, please…little Shecky Parker!!!” (although my name wasn’t Parker then, it just sounds better now).

     I tried to keep most of my comedic stylings out of earshot of adults but when I got on a roll, it was hard to stop. What really brought down her wrath was when I got the kids to call her “Miss Tom-Bomb”. That made the other kids bust a gut and they kept saying it over and over again in their shrill, loud little kid voices. Hysterical, right? Especially when you are nine. Also, Miss Thompson had enormous breasts that looked exactly like those projections so prominent on the front of the Cadillacs of the time.  They also reminded me of WW II era bombs so often depicted in the movies of that time i.e., “Twenty Seconds Over Tokyo” ergo the “Bomb” part of her name.

   Well, she got me back good. We had this “Health Chart” where kids got different colored dots depending on their various levels of hygiene. She always gave me red dots because, she said, my fingernails were dirty. Then, she blamed me for giving Ronnie Beighley cooties! My mother shot that one down real quick even though a few years later my older sister did catch cooties for which the entire household, including my visiting Uncle Terry, had to endure several humiliating and odiferous prophylactic “treatments”. Let me say for the record that not one louse, ever, was seen crawling in my blond hair.

     But Tom-Bomb’s most vicious retaliation came when she refused to put my construction paper “leaf” up on the “tree” signifying my excellence in penmanship. Now let me say that, next to Carol Betters, I had the best handwriting in our class. Everyday, Miss Tom-Bomb would drag the “tree” right next to my desk and look me right in the eye with a sneer, put other kids’ leaves up and shove mine away. So I got the message early on that I should only selectively be funny. I learned to use humor a lot to keep from getting attacked. It also became an adaptive way for me to cope with stress, anxiety, fear and sadness.

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     So, my beloved Phyllis Diller, thank you for the gifts you gave to many of us. You were smart and funny without resorting to bawdiness, foul language, or personal attack. You were always on my list of people I would want to have dinner with (along with the recently passed Nora Ephron who was my commencement speaker at Chatham College in 1978). Of all the well-known people who have crossed my path (I once used Ted Koppel’s bathroom at his condo on Captiva Island, a story for another time) selling you those gloves meant the most to me. I am so blessed to have retained and, as of late, nurtured my funniness and I thank you for keeping that alive in me for so long.

P.S. I collect Horne’s memorabilia, ergo the hatbox in my accompanying picture. If ever you are digging through a basement, closet, flea market and come across something from Horne’s pick it up and I’ll pay you back.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

My Birds’ Nest…


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   As I joyously crowed (sorry) earlier this summer,  a robin family built their nest atop the light right outside my kitchen door. I was fascinated for weeks. I purposely restricted my entry and exit and delayed, for much longer than esthetically desirable, the spring clean up of my porch. “Well” I reasoned “I can’t even think of sitting out there (much less taking Mr.. Wu with me)” as the parents were admirably protective of the nest and then their babies. Wu heard the cheep-cheeps of the babies long before I could and it was driving him nuts.
     I just was so thrilled and moved when I would catch a glance of their scrawny heads and their beaks outsized for the rest of their bodies. I once came home and found three of these birdie heads, yellow beaks wide open, draped over the side of their nest. They must be growing I thought somewhat wistfully. My friend Janet who lives way out in the country and has a lot of experience with wildlife (birds being the least of them) told me the babies would grow and the nest abandoned before I knew it. The way I was acting (telling anyone who would listen about this miracle on my porch) you would have thought I had a nest of bald eagles out there.
     Then, as Janet had foretold, the birds were gone. To me, the babies were still too ratty-looking and big-beaked to even start to leave their nest. But they were gone… Alas, I had no excuse…except the terrible heat…to delay doing the summer porch clean-up. I was embarrassed for the UPS guy and the Jehovah’s Witnesses to see and potentially trip over the rubble of discarded snow/ice melter (pet-safe and environmentally safe), tangled strands of tiny white lights (NOT Christmas lights), boots, a broom with only half a handle and the hulk of a long-deceased hanging basket.
     So what did I focus on? The lopsidedness of the nest. Why was one side of it so perilously scraggly, hanging over the side providing (at least in my mind) a perfect slide for the tiny, slippery-looking babies to cascade to their death right on top of my wicker recycling basket? While the nest was under construction, I had noted this and just assumed the birds would correct it. But it stayed like that. And I seemed to fixate on it every time I saw the miracle inside. Here was when I self-applied the brakes on the cranky part of my brain that ruminates on such small imperfections and has deprived me of so much joy in my life; I seemed to have been born this way, doing this ever since I was a kid.
     I self-congratulate myself every time I self-correct like this. Thankfully, I do it less often as time goes by. I will always be “prickly”, some days more than others. My dear, late friend Ginny said that if women couldn’t b**** (ventilate) we might blow up. But now I can look at the weeds and dead blossoms in the garden and not instantaneously collapse into the abyss of self-loathing and failure such a garden would have once brought on. Those birds reminded me of a lot of what is truly important. And a lot of us have grown up in not-so-perfect nests and still managed to fly out of them.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Girl Scout Cookie Time…a lesson learned long ago


    Growing up when I did, especially in a small town, Girl Scouting was a big deal and one of my earliest passions. I just loved everything about it in that crazy cuckoo way I seemed to often adopt when small…the uniforms, pins, various headwear, my scout leaders and the weekly troop meetings held at the tiny cottage that was our Girl Scout Little House in Connellsville. It was a real testimonial to your town if you had a “Little House”. I begged my mother to take me to the second floor of Troutman’s department store every time we went to town where the Girl Scout section was in the “Girls” section. This was the domain of kindly Mrs. Scott who would also fit many of the little girls of the town for their training bras to help ease them into the transition to womanhood. She assured me that no one would laugh at me as I needed a TB earlier than most girls and that it was okay to wear an undershirt both over and under it.  I wheedled until Mom gave in and bought me a pair of official Brownie pajamas, mostly to shut me up about the training bra. Also, Mrs. Scott was one of the few grown-ups who were really nice to me and did not see me as such a weird girl who was chubby and talkative and craved their attention. She made me feel pretty. Oh, and I wore those PJs to rags.
    And the highlight of our scouting year was the annual cookie sale.  This was when I hit my stride. I viewed the sale of every cookie as saving scouting! Orders for cookies were taken in February for delivery in early March, an event that coincided with my birthday on the 4th that, in my little mind, made it somewhat even more magical in only the way that a little kid’s brain works. A harmonic convergence as it would later be called in the New Age or so it seemed to me.
    Anyhow, I would dress up in my full scout regalia and reluctantly cover it with my mother-enforced outerwear that I quickly unbuttoned as soon as I was out of her sight. I was so proud of the badges I had labored to sew on. There I always carefully consulted my Girl Scout handbook with military precision, lest a badge or pin should be out of place. And the weather was always awful…cold, wet, muddy, dark. But after school and on Saturday of cookie order week, like the post office, out I would go to rack up my orders. I wandered into strange neighborhoods and across dangerous streets and knocked on the doors of every house I could find; I would retrace my steps and return to houses where no one had answered the first time. I filled up order sheet after order sheet. My eye was on the prize.
     Then the cookies would arrive. My dad would drive our “Uncle Buck” black Ford station wagon to the distribution “Cookie Station” and he and I would load my cases of cookies into the back. Then when we got home, all those cases would need to be hauled into our house where I would spend hours sorting them according to my order sheets. Then I would plot out a map of the most efficient delivery routes to assure their speedy arrival to their no-doubt anxious buyers. Fedex could have learned about distribution routes from me. I would load up my brother’s Red Flyer wagon with cookies, covering them with an old yellow raincoat to keep them dry and made trip after trip.
     And I kept an anxious eye on the other girls’ number of orders. My greatest dream was to be called up on stage at the annual ceremony honoring the official beginning of Girl Scout week to be awarded the certificate for selling the most cookies. It was always given out by (I shall call her Mrs. Crumb) doyenne of scouting in Connellsville. If you have seen Downton Abbey, it was reminiscent of the Dowager Duchess (played by the wonderful Maggie Smith) winning the prize at the village fair for most beautiful rose, year after year.
     As if it were yesterday, I remember one particularly bad weather year. It sleeted, rained, the wind howled and I was freezing (my woolen gloves were frozen solid after being dropped in a puddle) but I had one more delivery to make to Mrs. Pernatozzi. There was the option of a short cut through the baseball field behind our house that would cut the trip in half. The field was total mud but on I went. Half way through, both the wagon and I were totally bogged down in the mud. My mom had made me wear a hand-me-down pair of rubber boots that were sucked right off my feet by the mud. My nose was running and I was hungry (but would have starved rather than touch my customers’ cookies) and I was exhausted. I started to cry. Maybe if I yelled for help, someone would come and help me. But I was too proud (and stubborn) to start yelling. So I took off the worthless boots and slogged my way through the mud and climbed up Mrs. Pernatozzi’s porch. Thank God she was home. She paid me for her cookies and did not, in any way, acknowledge my wretchedness. Bent over, but pulling the empty wagon, I cried all the way home. My dad said that I looked like I had been on the Bataan death march and I had no idea what that meant as we had not gotten anywhere near WW II in school.  And, I had wet my pants a little. What a metaphor for certain parts of my later life…
    The day arrived when Mrs. Crumb would announce the winner of the cookie race. She kept ongoing tallies throughout the sales period. And I lost by ten boxes. The winner was a girl I will call Gloria (not her real name). Gloria’s dad and uncles ran a small chain of old-fashioned drug stores, the kind with lunch counters. It turned out that Gloria’s dad, in collusion with Mrs. Crumb, had bought case after case of cookies that he then in turn put out on the lunch counters in plates, for free. He was giving away free cookies to customers in all three stores. All of this to beat me (an acknowledged champ at selling cookies) so that his daughter could march up on stage to glorious acclaim and get the certificate that I had so painfully earned. I was robbed!!!
    I had a complete meltdown when I found this out (mind you I was ten years old). I was crushed at not only losing my crown but for the cheating, as I saw it, and unfairness of these adults, all aimed at a little girl whose whole world was being a scout! Of course, I went to my mom and dad. Yes, they said, it was unfair and probably cheating but nothing could be done. Well, I screwed up my courage and looked up the phone number for Mrs. Crumb. I hung up the first time she answered as I was so scared of her. Second time, I told her in a wobbly little voice just what had happened and how unfair it was, and how hurt I was (I spared the details of my slogs in the mud, etc.). Well, she said in her lofty snooty-lady voice (this to a ten-year-old kid) that what was really important was how much money was raised for all the scouts to share and individual contributions were not what was important. Another blow…I silently put down the phone and had learned a powerful life lesson.
   You may think it odd and say “Well, so what…why has this been such a big deal in your life? And how old are you”? But it had a profound impact on me. Memory of it would often pop up at the oddest times. I think a little bit of me died off that day. I never again had the spark, zeal for scouting or a lot of other things. To this day, I am a great supporter of Girl Scouting. I always buy a box from every little girl who asks, giving away most of them. In their faces and joy, I see some of what I was like. I tell them how I was a Girl Scout, earning my Curved Bar (now called the Gold Award) the equivalent of being an Eagle Scout. Hoping there is no “Gloria” whose parents badger co-workers to buy cookies, giving in my mind, an unfairness still.
  
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Monday, August 6, 2012

One of the (many) pleasures of small town living…


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     Today I just had to go outside, leaving the cool cave of my air conditioned house. The hot, humid endless days and stuffy nights have created a summertime case of cabin fever.  I had appointments, overdue books, unfilled prescriptions and hair way beyond shaggy. So, I bribed myself by telling myself that I had a filled loyalty card from Dunkin Donut and was thereby entitled to a free drink, of my choice. I really wanted some iced coffee. So off I went…
     At this point in my life, I allow myself to be cranky, at least internally so. But it turned out to be a fairly smooth day out and I was grooving on that coffee. I always enjoy the drive up the mountain through the gorge, so shady and cool. The wild flowers this year are lush and stunning. I could close my eyes (except that I am driving and would not do that, of course) and open the car window and tell just how close I am getting to Ligonier by the cooling of the air. (And then the smell of the kettle corn stand and the swampy smell of the low-lying parts of the Loyalhanna).
     Then, when I climbed up to my porch…ta da…there was this pile of fresh produce from my really cool friend Neil, who works next door. I read somewhere a long time ago that finding fresh, homegrown produce at your door is a sure sign of having friends. I found two crispy, unwaxed cucumbers (or cukes as the road side stand bills them) and a perfect zucchini. For dinner tonight I will have sauted zuke, prepared with egg and fresh basil from the pot on my porch. Some freshly grated parmesan cheese on top (none of those flakes of cheese-smelling stuff that comes out of those round green cans--a sacrilege I tell you and nothing a real Italian would ever buy), added along with a small message sent out into the universe for my Italian grandparents. Nona would be proud of me, fixing this simple dish.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The “Ham without a Country”

 

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I have had, in my freezer, a fifteen pound ham from about mid-May. The price had been drastically reduced after Easter and, like those forlorn Christmas trees left on the lot on Christmas Eve, sat all alone in the “Manager’s Special” case at our Ligonier Giant Eagle. Now, I eat very little meat and may have a piece of ham at Easter if someone else cooks it, but this was one beaut of a ham. Most likely it had not been bought because of its size and had been quite expensive before the reduction. Solidly frozen at minus 8, it now is a little scary and reminds me of the Titanic icebergs, melting polar ice caps, drowning polar bears, etc.

So how did I end up with this ham? Well, my cherished Goddaughter, whom I call Sauce, was graduating from Slippery Rock University. On my own, without consultation with anyone, I got the idea of giving her a graduation party! The “centerpiece” of the party would be this magnificent hunk of pork. I envisioned the graduation parties of my era, if you were lucky enough to even have had one.

Let me tell you as a little background that in the fifties most kids had birthday parties once, maybe twice during their grade school years. Yes, birthdays were observed most typically as part of a family’s regular meal and, in our family, during the “Birthday Month” Sunday family dinners at my grandparents. If you had happened to be born in a month with a lot of other relatives’ birthdays, you were really screwed having to share it with (usually) adults. The cakes were homemade with the exception of once or twice a kid in my family getting a gooey, waxy-iced confection from Karnes Bakery down next to the Thorofare in Connellsville. (You could have waxed your skis with the lard they used). I was the recipient once at age seven and asked the clerk taking the order for extra princess pink roses that I would then scoop off the cake with a spoon, getting as close to heaven as a chubby six-year-old girl can get. This party to which I could invite eight friends was my reward for having stopped biting my nails, all twenty of them. Magically, all it took for me to stop, cold turkey, my nail biting habit was the promise of this birthday party. Oh, how it were that easy for me now to control unwanted behavior! My mom twisted pink and white crepe paper streamers from the chandelier in our dining room, I got a new dress, and then there was that cake. Only my wedding, thirty-one years later could ever rival the splendor of that day. I still have the pictures of my party, somewhere. The wedding pictures, long gone in the detritus left behind after divorce.

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Well, the evening after graduation, I began gushing my party plans to Sauce.  There was a slight pause on her part: “I don’t eat cake” she said. Now when had this angel of a little girl, one for whom I had carted many cakes for from the Giant Eagle, stopped eating the birthday cakes she had so adored? Then I mentioned the ham and the buns, condiments, potato salad, soft drinks I also envisioned for the party. Also, the beautiful tables decorated in girlish colors of pink and green (her sorority colors). “Godmother” she smiled at me. “My friends and I have reserved a VIP room at (insert trendy name here) club at Station Square for tonight. You can come if you want. I’ll put your name on the VIP list”. She might as well have been speaking Greek; I did not understand what she was talking about. Then, I felt, well…stupid. And so out of date. And old. I still saw her as the little girl I had physically “left” behind in Pittsburgh when I sold my house and moved to Ligonier. She, and the world, had passed me by. What else about how her life had changed did I not know? And how had I let the way the world now worked evade me?

But this I did know. This was the “little girl” who had slept outside in a cardboard box in February to raise money for the homeless. The kid who had given away her treasured Halloween costume to a little boy on her block who had no costume. The little girl who moved with astonishing grace and poise through hardships that would have broken many adults. Her perseverance and grit in growing up to be magical, dazzling, together at 21 like I had never been. Her seemingly instinctual empathy and desire to do great good in the world.

And so, she walked across the stage to receive her diploma and would glide off into the evening like Cinderella wearing the shoes pictured above. I got over my “attitude”. But I still have the damned ham. I have tried to give it away, to churches, food banks, and several individuals. I even offered it to the Mayor of Ligonier when he came to my house to try and repair my telephone as he is a retired Verizon employee and Ligonier is that kind of town where just this sort of thing happens as folks are so kind and helpful. People look at me a little oddly…what, a ham? Suggestions are welcome.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Welcome to my garden…Summer 2012

 

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This has been a really tough summer/growing season. It is telling that the “Welcome to My Garden” sign is on my porch, leaning against the house. This year, I have one hanging basket and one other porch plant, bought for $10 each at the “everything has to go” sale at the nursery. Earlier in the season, I had planted a few Basil plants and a sage plant (for use later is saging my house) in a pot, watered and fed them, but the heat has been just too much. My two large borders are most wild flowers with a few perennials managing to survive. What to do about my garden?

Last summer (actually beginning in January of 2011) the “Great Ligonier Valley Sewer Installation” started. Now, mind you, I have a Masters degree in public health and have a respect for up-to-date waste water treatment. I congratulated myself for being such a good steward of the public health. The staging area for equipment, supplies, pipes was in the parking lot of the business across the road from my house. Starting in the morning at 6:30 would be the beep-beep-beep of trucks and machinery firing up and the scraping of sand and gravel from enormous piles into the trucks to be carted off to that day’s job site. My house was the very, very, very last location to be hooked up to the main system so the dust, dirt, noise went on until last September. The comedian Phyllis Diller used to make a joke about how she dusted her stove; I did every day! Backhoes, trench diggers and other assorted yellow pieces of equipment tore up (yes, really tore up) my yard. I took to physically standing at the edges of what I still was calling my flower beds to keep the machines and workers from totally destroying them.

The workmen would see me coming, shake their heads and mutter I am sure extremely nasty things about me to each other. I am sure I looked as scary as I felt. One day, when I thought the worst was over, I happened to glance out my tiny bathroom window and see the enormous, roaring, belching back hoe, in one swoop, lift my six-year-old white birch up with its torn roots dangling in the air and unceremoniously dumped on a pile of dirt. It was dead, dead and totally brown within a few hours. Then one of my chubby, healthy blue spruces was covered with straw and also died within a few days. “Just contact the construction company” said the back hoe operator. “They will reimburse you”. Just how would they do that, make it right for me? I just felt so violated.

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Now, let me tell you I have a long history wanton destruction with this yard. (I almost took the “landscaper” who cuts the grass here to court a few years ago…yes, the landscaper; see fountain pictures). He deliberately rammed my fountain until it fell over, breaking it so it will never be usable again. Just right now, I cannot write any more about it as I get so depressed. . DSCF0170

Why has it been such a personal struggle for me to just plant a few small trees and have two flower beds? I can deal with drought, aphids, freeze, deer and the wind that roars across my yard but it has been humans who have so broken my heart. Why so much anger and disregard? I just want to grow flowers and have butterflies, hummingbirds, perhaps a dragon fly if I am really blessed. I did have that robin family put their nest right on top of my porch light, something I took as a sign of comfort from the universe. But then they,too, disappeared overnight scared away by the latest big dig. (See self-explanatory pictures).

Well, gardeners have a saying that your best garden is next year’s. I will probably start trolling through some seed and bulb catalogs soon… Gardens have a way of making us optimistic. Maybe the eighth time will be the charm.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

In Search of St. Joseph…

 

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  My friend Rose is selling her farm. Lots of “tire kickers” as my dad called them but no bites yet. Rose and I discussed the possibility of her burying a statue of St. Joseph to help bring a buyer. Let me say I am somewhat conflicted about helping her with this as, even though I am trying to be adult about my friend leaving and I know she and Dave must sell before buying a house in their new location, I cannot help but want them to stay here as long as possible. We tried to find somewhere locally that sold statues, and I suggested eBay, but Rose thought she might as well pull out the Joseph statue from her Nativity set, as she would be digging him up anyway. I, too, have a gorgeous Lenox “Jewels” St. Joseph but I have left him in my will along with the rest of the Holy Family, camels, angels, wise men, etc.to my friend Debbie, so I did not feel it was right to loan him out. The photo above is of my collection of early twentieth century chalk ware religious statues, complete with flameless candles from QVC, but no St. Joseph. (P.S. if you can name all of the statues in the pic, I will grant you three hundred indulgences).

  For those of you who do not know about the St. Joseph connection, he is the patron saint of families and homes (explanation not necessary). I am not sure when this particular practice began, but somebody somewhere (Wikipedia says the Poor Clare nuns started it but you know how unreliable Wikipedia is), started burying a statue of him in the ground of a property they were trying to sell and ***Voila!*** it sold immediately. Let me also say here that there is an element that feels it is disrespectful, if not downright sacreligious, and somewhat voodoo-like to use this practice. BUT I, personally, have heard such strong testimonials to its effect, (my sister Kathleen in New Hampshire told me an astonishing tale of a group of nuns who had been trying to sell their old, asbestos-laden, moldy school building for years and miraculously it was purchased almost immediately at the asking price after putting St. Joseph on the case), I feel it is okay to do, if done properly/reverently if such is possible..  I was raised Roman Catholic in the 1950s so am quite familiar with such quasi-pagan practices. Oh yes, there are rules. But my “bargain” St. Joseph kit came without a box or instructions so I had to wing it.

  When I put my house in Pittsburgh on the market, there was not much “movement” as the realtors call it. I was also told that I had a “unique” property (a very large, 102 year-old  Victorian that needed additional work TLC beyond what I was able to afford…one of the reasons I was selling…in a somewhat “urban” neighborhood)”). So, I made a pilgrimage to the Catholic store in Bloomfield, the “Little Italy” section of Pittsburgh. Nervously, I asked the tiny Italian lady behind the counter (who looked just like my Great Aunt Bettina Leonelli—bun, still wearing her wedding rings although my uncle Julius had been dead for two decades, a black dress, smelling like pizelles, the tiniest of moustaches)-- for a St. Joseph statue and she had no problem pointing out to me a bushel basket just inside the door filled with what I could see labeled as “house-selling kits”. I picked out the “basic” model at about $3.95 plus tax not seeing why a deluxe kit was justified (maybe if you are selling a McMansion but I was nowhere near that price range).

  I was informed that all the kits in the store had been blessed by the Catholic priest up the street; blessing was requisite or St. Joseph’s powers would not work. She also told me that, before I buried him, I should put him in a place of honor in my home and pray to him every day to find a buyer. Well, I started out with him plunk in the center of my kitchen table where I prayed for his intercession, done while peeling apples for pies, drinking my coffee, yacking on the phone, and so forth. And Lily, my cat, who had staked out the kitchen table as her nightly post, kept batting the hell out of him, knocking him as far as the dining room a good thirty feet away, batting the swinging door with her paws to get it open enough for poor St. Joe to sail through. He was plastic so did not chip or break. The first time she did that, I was convinced there had been a miraculous occurrence during the night, some sort of celestial or divine sign or intervention. I wondered if my Jesuit third- cousin was still alive. But after I had had several cups of coffee and an on-site consultation by my neighbor Ginny, another lapsed Catholic, was calmed down by her frank appraisal that the event was most likely cat-related (she, too, had cats).

  Nothing happened except for a string of crazy (truly, I could not have made some of these people up) people with no hope or means of ever buying my house: “Boy I always wanted to see what the inside of one of these big old Victorians looked like”. One particularly nuts woman made a second appointment to see the house, only to bring back about fifteen friends and family as she wanted them to see my long-haired Himalayan and Persian cats…”They are so gorgeous!” she kept shrieking and trying to drag my terrified wee beasties from under the bed and couch. I literally threw her, her entourage and the realtor out of my house.

So, it was time for St. Joseph to be interred. I got an empty glass Ragu (sorry, I won’t spare the truth) jar, wrapped St. Joseph in a paper towel, screwed on the lid real tight and buried him in the soft loamy soil underneath my kitchen window, next to my perennial Bleeding Hearts plants (somewhat appropriate I now see). Well, a few days later the couple who would eventually buy the house…some six months later after putting me through an ordeal Kafka would have envied…showed up. Do you remember the “Runaway Bride” of several years ago, the one with the really crazy eyes? This was her twin, I swear. Just looking at her made me freeze and I knew she was trouble. Where were all those really nice, honest, thoughtful buyers like on the HGTV shows? But buyers had come.

Then my other sister, who had successfully sold three houses on her own, sans realtors but with St. Joseph, called me and told me all of the rules I had not followed. For example, the statue needs to be buried by the front door. He is supposed to be buried upside down, not in a jar. And you are supposed to dig him up and take him to your new home so he can bless it. Well, I closed on my house in early January and it had been below zero for weeks and the ground was frozen so even if I had known I was supposed to dig him up I couldn’t have without a pick ax that I could well have taken to the buyers, I was that Lizzie Borden-insane by then (a story for another time, the selling of my house).

   So, dear readers, pray (if that is what you do) or send good wishes to my friends for the swift and smooth sale of their farm. I am going to start trolling eBay for a bargain St. Joseph…it would never hurt to have him on hand.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

One of my favorite books while growing up…


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        How I remember going down to the basement of the G.C. Murphy store on Crawford Avenue in Connellsville and buying this book! Like just about every little kid with certain books, I read and reread this story a million times. There were several reasons I really liked the story. Most of all, it was a story about two children--a sister and brother.  Even at five in 1954, I seemed to have a finely honed sense of the inequality between boys and girls (my dad told me I could not help him paint because I was a girl. He also told me that I could never pump gas and check the oil dipstick at Cheesy Soisson's Pennzoil station--a job I much coveted--for the same reason).

       Both kids in the story were not only welcomed into the family's candle-making shop by their large family of aunts, uncles and cousins but were encouraged to help make the candles. Also, they were Italian! The backstory here is that their grandfather Antonio had been a candlemaker in Italy and had made a coronation candle for the new Queen's father. Somewhat predictably...ta da...Angela and Toni's (the author's spelling) father, now in America, was invited to make one for Elizabeth. Then, in dizzzying fashion, the two kids not only got to fly on an airplane to London--quite a feat in 1954--but then they got to present the candle to the Queen herself!   It almost made me faint. No matter how many times I read the story, my little heart would always quicken when I was about to turn the page when this magical moment was to occur.  

       Unfortunately, as did many of my childhood treasured possessions, my book was put into the box on our attic steps with other stuff destined for the Wakefield Culture Club rummage sale. I found this copy on eBay and still get a little of that same fuzzy feeling when I pick it up. (I have myself convinced this IS my book).

      Best wishes to Queen Elizabeth on her 60th jubilee. We were Irish so there was never a lot of monarchy admiring in our house and I was just devastated at the treatment Princess Diana got, but the Queen was a real trooper during World War II and then there were those hats!!! My ex-husband used to tell me I was like the Queen, given my habit of walking around with a purse with no money in it.  Hopefully, maybe a little like her in some other ways.

P.S. I did get a brief glimpse of Prince Phillip, first president of the World Wildlife Fund International, while in Victoria, British Columbia. Love that panda! I was supposed to be sitting in a lecture hall at a really boring medical meeting, and I ran away before I started to tear my hair out. It was an unofficial visit so the Prince just got out of his car, spent about three minutes standing around with the provincial governor and wife, smiled, looked princely and that was about it. I figured it would be the only chance I might have to get even that close to a real bona fide prince. And, to date, I've been right.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Mr. Wu…


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       Here is the previously promised picture of Mr. Wu. For those of you who do not know the tale/tail of Mr. Wu, here goes. He is a rescue dog, found through the Action for Animals in Latrobe web site in February, 2009. He, his mate and their three newly-born puppies were left in a foreclosed house in Ohio. The mom (whom I refer to as Mrs. Wu) gave birth alone with no human presence. Blessedly, she and her three puppies were all healthy when found.

       An amazing woman from Latrobe named Jennifer rescued them. She is one of those people the late writer Cleveland Amory called "angels on the earth". Her life is devoted to animal rescue, focusing mainly on guinea pigs but she has a "Dr. Doolittle" house...you never know what wee beasties and critters she may have when you visit. She got all five dogs excellent medical care and lots of TLC. Mr. Wu was the first of them able to be adopted after he was neutered (the mom dog was still nursing her pups and she had to be spayed before being put up for adoption).

       Now a little background: my beloved Border collie, Fiona, had died in early January at age thirteen and I was devastated. All of my kitties (I have had a total of seven) were gone, too. It had been just me and Fee. I had sworn to everyone I could never go through the illnesses and loss of another pet. But in February, I called my friend Marlo to give her a heads up that I was trolling the internet for a dog. Then***bingo*** at the stroke of a key, there was Wu! He was pretty traumatized; he did not bark for three weeks. His coat was fully grown out though smooth, not matted but he still looked a wreck. He had been well-trained and would sit pretty if he wanted your attention. And he loves to kiss! When I went to get him, I put out my hand and he licked it...I was in love. His "personal best" record for consecutive kisses is 137. He could have kept kissing but I stopped him ay 137. Jennifer said he had been a good father, not all shih tzu males are, sometimes needing to be separated from the pups.

      When I called to adopt Mrs. Wu, she had already been placed. This story ends quite happily as she lives just across the street from Jennifer and has quite a cushy life. Mr. Wu has been down to see her twice and they remembered each other.  It was like something out of an old WW II era movie...they halted their steps, gazed at each other for a few seconds, then rushed towards each other and kissed! They played and snuggled...so sweet.

      Anyhow, that is the tail of Mr. Wu. He is so Zen and influences me to be Zen also...not always successful but more calming than having a Border collie in your house.

    

Newly-posted picture(s)...or the learning curve

       What do I do when I wake up at 2:30 am and cannot get back to sleep? I decide to try and figure out how to figure out stuff on the computer! My poor dog, Mr. Wu, whose picture you are likely to see soon, grumbles and gets up and goes out to the kitchen where it is cooler and darker and plops down to sleep.

       I sit here and tremulously drag down and click on things...I get so frustrated. I told my friend Rose yesterday that using computers, in my book, should be like using cars. You unlock them, get in, turn the key and***voila!*** you are in business. And I do not understand why I am so intimidated by them.

       Well, bird-by-bird. That is the name of a wonderful book about writing by Anne Lamott. She tells a story about how, when growing up, her younger brother waited until Sunday night to begin work on a big school project, due Monday. It involved writing descriptions and drawing illustrations of a number of birds. Understandably, the kid was panicking. Then his dad sat calmly down next to his son and said: "Son, just do it bird by bird." And so, I try to remember to jettison my usual "all or nothing" approach to doing things, especially new ones.

       So please bear with me. My blog looks a little "squee-jaw" as my wonderful grandmother used to say. Isn't that a great way to describe things that are just that?

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Favorites...

"To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed can make of this earth a garden".

                                                                                                      Goethe

"Be not forgetful to welcome strangers , for thereby some have entertained angels unaware".


Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Dinner in the diner...nothin' could be finer...

     Ours was a railroad family...the Baltimore and Ohio to be exact. My grandfather Commiskey was said to know as much about the boilers on the old steam engines as the man who invented them. Then my dad worked on the B&O for 42 years....the only job he ever had. And our family could get free passes to ride anywhere on the system which was quite a lot of places back then.

     My most memorable trip was one summer when I was probably about ten. It was a trip to visit my Uncle Terry and Aunt Bea who lived in Aberdeen MD, right along the line and not that far from Washington DC. I was exceptionally excited as they had won first prize at their church fair...a brown and white pony. I remember my uncle, whom I adored, lamenting that second prize was a color television and third prize was a "basket of cheer" (a bushel basket filled with liquor) and, instead of sitting and watching color TV--still a rarity--or partying, he had another mouth to feed. And  livestock to maintain.
    
     Of course with three boys of his own and a dozen nieces and nephews, there was no way that the somewhat ironically-named "Lucky" was not a keeper. They lived outside of town in a plan that had been carved out of a former farm. The farm's owners still lived in the farm house and their barn was still there. So... every morning my elegant Aunt Bea, an Audrey Hepburnesque mom, would trip-trap down the road, boys in tow, and bring Lucky to be tethered in their yard. Lucky's hooves had to be cleaned, he had to be groomed and fed, and then there was the clean up. How I still love my aunt and uncle to this day for keeping the pony for one whole summer.  And the dozen cousins all came and stayed, not to mention neighbor kids, school mates and any other kid visiting anyone they even remotely knew, all making the pilgrimage out to see Lucky.

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     My parents felt that my older sister was responsible enough for them to put both of us on the train in Connellsville for the daylong ride to Aberdeen. Now this older sister, named appropriately Mary Jane, was responsible for making my life growing up a living hell. She was mean, selfish, bossy, and she was so jealous of me you could see the rage in her. The greatest delight and focus in her life was tormenting me. But, I wanted to go on the train to see my aunt and uncle and three boy cousins and Lucky, the pony. So, I had to endure her abuse. Another aunt used to call her "Lucy Van Pelt", of the Peanuts comic strip. She was always conniving against me and instead of pulling away the football at the last second, she would do things like convincing me to walk across an icy sidewalk, knowing I would slip and fall. And I always seemed to fall for her ruses, just like Charlie Brown. I wanted to please her and make her like me...and for her abuse to stop. Once, I fell as a result of one of her ruses and got a concussion.  Remorse? Any punishment? Hell, no. Only delight.

      As for the train trip, my dad (and grandad) were well-known to the conductors, brakemen and engineers. I took great pride in asking the conductors when they came to collect tickets (in our case, passes) if they knew our dad, "Rusty" or "Red" Comiskey and it seemed they always did. We would be in good hands. I just adored the tiny bathrooms, visiting as often as possible, with their doll-sized rolls of toilet paper and guiltily took an extra one and put it in my purse. And then there were the wonderful dining car waiters and other staff, all African-American. I remember as if it were just today, being called by a smiling waiter in a white coat, into the dining car for dinner. He held out his arm for me to take to steady my walk back through several swaying cars to the dining car and I felt like a princess. I had on my favorite black and white taffeta dress with little roses around the collar and little puff sleeves. I was wearing black patent shoes with buckles and white anklets with lace trim.  And...white gloves.

     There were heavy linens on the table embossed with the B&O logo. The cream pitcher, sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers, flatware and the tiny vase holding fresh flowers were all silver plate. I was given the "grown up" menu in a dark blue leather folder with "B&O" embossed on the front and a gold tassel holding the selection sheet in place. And I wanted ham. Well, my sister insisted I get chicken. She threw what is now called a hissy-fit, literally hissing at me, her lips curled into a snarl. The Pullman waiter who had been my escort bent over me and said "This little lady will get just what she wants"! At last, an adult who could see my sister for the bully she was and get in her face. And I ordered creamed peas and a pear salad, no milk please. The piece de resistance was when the smiling cook in the miniscule kitchen (where such tasty, delicious food was fixed) sent me a small cake with a tiny pink icing rose on top. It was too beautiful to eat. I wanted to save it but just knew my sister would somehow smash it or ruin it as she always did for me. I swear there was steam coming from her ears.

     Then, just as I began to cut my ham, exotically topped with raisins (certainly not something ever seen in our house), the train entered a tunnel. I recall letting out a small gasp of amazement.  How could this possibly get any better? Lights in the dining car magically came on and I was sad when we exited that tunnel.

    I can close my eyes and smell that ham, even the icing on my dainty pastry. I can lean back and feel the swaying of the train cars and feel the click-clack as the wheels passed over the unwelded rails. I can feel my taffeta dress and hear its rustle. Here is a ham recipe from a wonderful cookbook "Dining on the B&O"with many of the official recipes from those splendid and elegant B&O dining car days.

                                      Grilled Ham Steak with Pineapple Ring--May 1964

          Order dinner ham steaks from the commissary. This is the ready-to-eat kind. Top the ham steak with a ring of pineapple, add 1 teaspoon of brown sugar and a small amount of butter. Broil it until it is good and hot.

                                                                     

                       
                                           

    

I just knew this was going to be a good day...

     When my eyes popped open today, the message that came to me was this was going to be a good day. It took a while, but while forcing myself to take the garbage to the dumpster tonight..after the heavy rain, after dark, after having a glass of wine I should have passed on...Ta da!!! There, right on top of the string of tiny white Christmas lights plugged into my porch light socket, right outside my kitchen door is a bird's nest! Seeing it just took my breath away. I cannot wait until morning to get a small mirror and check for eggs. And I wondered how long it has been there. I suspect I have been walking right by it...it did not appear over night. Is it not somewhat late for the birds to be building nests? Well, it is one hell of a swell place to put one. Extremely well sheltered, out of the way of prey, a garden with soil containing no chemicals and tons of grubs and worms, a bird bath (note to self: clean out bird bath). I just hope I will be a gracious, welcomed host.

     This is only my second bird's nest. The one I found deep within my Fraser fir Christmas tree one year I do not count although I treasured it and let it stay in its place of honor. In my garden in the city I would find those scraps of exquisite robin's egg blue shells and, sadly, a few times after heavy storms, the limp and soggy bodies of babies washed out of their nest high up in the hundred-year-old maple behind the house.  My other nest was tucked into the above-door niche at the front door of an ornate Victorian house. Fortunately or not, depending on whose opinion, it was right in the line of sight of my four cats. Neighbors would laugh at the sight of four enormous, long-haired puddy tats jammed into one open window space. I had to reinforce the screen from all their pushing and jostling for position. From time to time, I would hear a loud crash followed by cat meowing/grumbling when one landed on the floor. Not so great...given the location of the nest, there was birdie dropping all over my front doors and porch. But the small family thrived and soon moved on. My landlord doing what he called routine maintenance (he never did fix the stove) took down the nest while I was away. The cats and I were all crushed. Rumored to be bad luck to remove a nest, the next year for me was one of the worst ever. Why not the landlord, I wailed to the universe?

    Hopefully, this is my chance to redeem myself. I feel like making one of those Yosemite Sam-type signs saying "Back Off!!!. I will given written notice if I have to to my wonderful landlord to let no one near my nest. Maybe now I will even get some humming birds and dragon flies to visit and even more Monarch butterflies, if this is a sign. I think these wee beasties do not like all the traffic and noise around my house. Given the fragility and closeness of the nest, I may not be sitting out on the porch as much but, like my four beloved, now passed, kitties I can shove aside the dish washer and the Kitchen Aid mixer and watch them, each in our own safe and special spot.

    

    

Sunday, April 29, 2012

My mother told me a story when I was nine or so....

          I am often asked where my story ideas come from. I sometimes jokingly say "I just get up in the morning" but I really do not, even now, understand how my stories (all true...100%) emerge and look up at me from pieces of paper. J.K. Rowling told Oprah that Harry Potter was born when she was (penniless) riding on a train through the English countryside, looked out her window and saw the ruins of an ancient castle on a hilltop...Poof!!! a boy wizard was born. William Styron's inspiration for "Sophie's Choice" was from a young blonde woman he just happened to see one day.  They never spoke, he only had a glance of her and the heartbreaking young Polish mother came alive.
          My head has been collecting bits and pieces of pictures, smells, music, anecdotes, things I have witnessed or have happened to me as long as I can remember. Sometimes when a story is forming, I visualize what a cell looks like when it is beginning to divide. One little bubble of protoplasm squeezes out another little blob, and so on and so forth, then you end up with a 3,600 word piece, or a book or a poem or whatever.

          Some random slips of ideas, though, seem to keep coming back, over the course of decades; they seem to bug you, gnaw away never wanting to be forgotten.

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          When I was growing up, grownups tended not to talk much about the olden days or stories from their younger days, especially to little kids. My mom told me a story several times, though. At about my age, she was living in the carriage house on the estate of a prominent coal baron's family where my grandfather was the caretaker. That estate bordered another where a prominent attorney lived with his beautiful wife and three sweet little girls, all close to my mother in age. From her bedroom window, my mother could see over to the lush gardens where the girls and their mother would sit on summer afternoons. A large Oriental carpet would be spread under a tree and ornate pieces of Victorian furniture brought out from the house. She remembered the girls dressed in frills and ribbons, magical to my mother's Depression-era life. They even had a pony.
        
      Then for a few terrible days, she could look out of her bedroom window over to the house where the family lived and see the red glowing casket lights at the foot of the three small coffins containing the bodies of those charmed little girls. Their father, fearing losing all his money in the Crash, had shot them and their elegant, beloved mother in their heads. My mother became hysterically afraid of her own father, one of the most gentle of men ever on this earth. But all my mother could understand was that the dad of the three obedient, pretty, wealthy children had murdered them. If their father had killed them, might not her own? Perhaps this was not the best of stories for her to tell me but I seemed to instictively understand that, for her, this was a deeply important part of her life's narrative. And then, the little girls my mom had so wistfully watched in their idyllic garden seemed to become a part of mine. Well, some day and somehow, I thought, I will look up the story.  It was as though I could feel their small hands tugging on the hem of my sweater....do not forget us, and then they would fade away for a while. I did not even know their names.

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            And along came my two-week free trial on Ancestry.com. After hours and days I spent digging up stuff about my own family (see my previous blog post about my Uncle Dick Commiskey) I understood the richness available on-line and tug...tug...tug... What about the three little dead girls who had lived in the huge, beautiful house with the their pony? A few years ago, I had mentioned my mother's story to my cousin-by-marriage Victoria in Fayette County who is a certified genealogist and repository of local history extraordinaire. "Oh" she paused. "That was the Playford family". Her voice was almost hushed and I sensed that even now, some eighty years later, that terrible event was still a deeply painful memory for many there. Instantaneously "respectful" flashed before me. I pledged to myself to keep close the memory of this lost family. It is one thing to learn Uncle Dick was a scoundrel and a carnie bum killed when a VA hospital fell on him during an earthquake....my brother and my cousins all had great laughs but this was something so different...

          I chose to begin my search in the archives of the Uniontown Morning Herald. And in somewhat chronological order the Playford name appeared with hundreds of citations. William Playford had been the son of a wealthy coal fortune family and he had gone to Yale, all dutifully reported and began the study of law. He married an elegant, immensely loved younger woman from a prominent Baltimore family, Nancy Stirling. The paper reported their purchase of one of the grandest of many grand mansions built with coal and coke wealth.Then trickled in the births of their four daughters, one who died young, I suspect from the date from the Spanish flu. They were named Margaret, Nancy (after her mother) and Pauline.

        This was an age were the local newspaper had three "society editors" and seemingly every, even the most minute, activity of the social set was reported. The Playfords were everywhere. He was a founding member of the country club and head of the vestry at the Episcopal church. They entertained lavishly and often. Mrs. Playford was a gardener extraordinaire; her dahlias were especially prized. They, along with other wealthy local families (Uniontown at one time had seventeen millionaires--pre-Depression) regularly loaned out pieces from their art collection for an annual public gala. And what endeared me especially to Nancy Playford was her support and advocacy of early Girl Scouting. Not only did she work tirelessly to form the local scout organization, she led the girls on nature walks, taught needlework and flower-arranging and raised huge amounts of money for her girl scouts. The Girl Scouts in America had just formed and in many ways it was not a popular orgnization, looked down on by many as encouraging girls to be too independent and as one critic said "loosening their morals" by going into the woods without male chaperones fretting they might even start to wear pantaloons. But, I would guess, no one would have dared say this to Mrs. Playford.

        The three girls were frequently hosting or were guests of other privileged children of the region at birthday parties and teas. It seemed they were always reported as being delightful and wearing the most beautiful of frocks and little hats. Popular at that time were lavish "theatricals" produced by professionals from New York City and Paris (as reported in the papers). Hundreds of the privileged and cultured competed to have parts in these productions. Little Margaret Playford was both a "faerie" and a "buttercup" and my heart began to ache.  I knew what was coming; I kept looking at the dates of the newspapers I was scouring. It was like watching the Titanic sail, knowing how it would end. But I could not stop reading.

      And then I saw the bold, black headline across the entire front page of the November 14, 1930, edition of the Uniontown Morning Herald. "Members of Playford Family Die in Grim Tragedy". Despite the tabloidesque writing of the day, the overwhelming sense of horror was almost palpable. I froze. Is this what I had wanted to find for all these years? I felt despair and that shock we experience when suddenly knowing some terrible truth. The three girls had been shot while in their beds, two of them reading and doing school work. Mercifully, the third girl, Pauline, was still alseep but she did not die immediately, lingering for two hours, never regaining consciousness. I could see them in their pretty nightgowns, full of lace and ribbon trim. Mrs. Playford was shot next in their bedroom; it was not reported if she might have been awake to see her husband pointing the gun at her. My imagination wildy led me to see her rising from her bed when she heard the three gun shots that had killed her precious girls. She lingered for almost fourteen hours, dying in her elegant home according to the paper "too gravely wounded to be moved". A maid, hearing the noise she believed to be from the furnace, came down from the servants' quarters on the third floor in time to see Mr. Playford put the gun to his own head. I could not move from my couch, any sense of time drained from me. I was overwhelmed by grief.  What had I done? Why had I felt so compelled, even almost gleeful at the idea of finding out about this family? I felt like a grave robber.

       The papers of the next few days were filled with the story. An inquest was held but the facts were indisputable. A crude will done in pencil by Mr. Playford shortly before the killings was found. His close friends and colleagues reported that he had not been himself for several months, being irrationally worried that he would lose all his wealth, a fact quite untrue. His wealth was not in the market. His friends had persuaded him to get away from work and the town for some rest. The family had train tickets for Baltimore to leave the morning they died where they often visited with Nancy Playford's close-knit family. A picnic basket with foods for the trip had been prepared the night before and was waiting in the kitchen for the family. These small, wrenching details that always seem to magnify a tragedy...

      The funeral in the family's home was for family and "members of the bar" only. Burial was in the same cemetery where my grandparents are buried. It was reported that some 900 people crowded into the cemetery and along the cortege route, wanting to get a glimpse of the three small silver-gray caskets smothered in flowers that matched the two of their parents. The three sisters were buried next to their sister who had died before any of them were even born; the parents at their feet. How many times had I walked or ridden past those graves? The burial site is right in front of the hospital wing where I had been born in 1949, not that long after their deaths. The phrase "meaningful adjacency" came to me. Why had I felt such a strong connection to these unknown little girls for all those years?

      Still, I kept plowing through the newspaper archives. The publishing of the will. A debate over its distribution, the order of their deaths a factor. Mrs. Playford was the last to die, shortly before her youngest daughter. Who were the heirs? The girls each had small trust funds...how was that money to be disbursed? Then the paid ad in the paper announcing the sale of the contents of the Playford home, including, it was noted, garden tools and hoses. I was stunned...the thought of people, strangers walking through that sad and sacred place buying the dead family's closest personal belongings. My head throbbed at the thought. Would there be toys, the dishes the Playfords ate from every day, the night before their murders? Would there be more sensitivity today? There was one small mention of Girl Scouts signing up for some events on the Playford grounds, free to those who could not afford sleep away camp. Another "society column" note that a family had moved from their previous residence to the former Playford home on Oakland Avenue. Then a few years later, the huge ad in the paper announcing that the "formerly Playford home" had now been turned into a night club...yes night club--the Elm Crest Inn. Crowed the ad: yet another spot in Fayette County for dining and dancing... The second floor turned into a dance floor with surrounding rooms (the bedrooms) for private functions". Unimagineable.  The Elm Crest Inn did not last long and has been for quite some time home to an order of Franciscan monks.

      For a few years after, there would be occasional mentions in the local paper's society columns of Mr. Playford's sister. Then she died not long after. Her will was listed as being filed with her son as heir. Then, a few years later, another paid ad for a sale "Leaving town, Getting rid of everything" put there by that heir.

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      I could not sleep for weeks after my discovery. It seemed everywhere I looked, I saw pretty little girls and dahlias. I dreamt of my own birthday parties and of ponies. I looked closely at the treasured picture I have of my mother and her family posed among lush rose bushes my grandfather tended on the estate where they lived and in front of their carriage house. I wondered which window had been my mother's bedroom, the one where she saw so much beauty and then loss. And tears welled up at the most random times, for no apparent reason. I had the physical need to do something with my grief. And I pray it was respectful.

     I dug into the boxes of artificial flowers stored in my attic, untouched since my move from Pittsburgh in 2001. I almost instantly found the delicate pink spray roses I had wanted to find, those for the girls. But no dahlias, so I chose larger darker pink roses, frosted with small crystals that looked like drops of dew or tears, those for Mrs. Playford. I found the box with artificial fruit and pulled out branches of lemons, my grandmother's favorite. And on my way to the cemetery, stopped and bought a pack of the small, ugly smelly Parodi cigars my grandfather loved.

   There were no other people anywhere in the vast cemetery. I had hoped there would be a caretaker as I wanted to inquire about any of Nancy Playford's family members that might still be alive. I did not want to trespass into their family any more than I already had. I went to my grandparents' graves first. I had forgotten about their baby daughter Rose (my aunt) who had died at three from kidney disease. I pinched off some of the tiny roses and tucked them safely into the ground in front of her headstone. I did the same with the cigars and lemons for my grandparents. I patted the ground and left some small stones on top of each  of the headstones...I'll come back soon, I promised.

     Then I searched for the Playford plot and found it right away. Probably, you are thinking, as it must be prominent but it isn't and I seemed to sense just where it was. I will stop here and not share what I did...it is just something I need to hold in my heart for now in the place where those little girls stayed with me for all those years. They are not forgotten...Nancy, Margaret and Pauline and your lovely mother.