They Refuse to Stay Buried

Many times memories refuse to stay buried and will resurrect. These are mostly what I write about and share. While I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland, I got a telephone call from my mom, Sybil Beck. With phone rates being so expensive other than local calls, I was surprised. I was 20 years old and no longer a teenaged kid, what she had to say hit me hard. My grandfather, her father had died. He was the first really close family member to die. A coal miner at night and working his farm to feed his family during the day, he had finally worn himself out.

Hardening of the arteries had been overtaking his mind for several years. He was so used to tending the farm and caring for his animals, he was constantly restless creating problems for my grandmother Rebecca. She had to constantly on the alert to keep him from wandering off. All of his animals were sold off and the barn had collapsed, but in his mind, they were still there and needing him.

Multiple times he would rise from his padded rocker and slip on his shoes. Grandma would ask, “Ray, where are you going?” He would reply, “I have to take care of the horses.” Grandma would have him look out the window at the rubble from the fallen barn and remind him, “The animals are gone, Ray.” He would shake his head, kick off his shoes, and settle back into his chair in front of the television. His tobacco spit can beside him n the floor.

Chewing tobacco was a habit that he’d picked up at the coal mines. Many miners chewed tobacco to remind themselves not to swallow the coal dust laden saliva. It wouldn’t be long until he would become restless, finally rising out of his chair and there would be a replay of his desire to check on his animals.

Grandma did have a helper. It was a stray that they got named Laddie. It was a large mongrel, collie mix, mostly black with some brown and white markings in its coat. It was an outside dog and would follow granddad when he managed to escape grandma’s watchful eyes. Laddie was a faithful companion, hanging close to Grandpa’s heels. Laddie seemed to assuage Granddad’s restlessness and the need to have animals near.

The phone call was hard for me to bear. The time, finances, and the distance made it impossible to attend his funeral, but my memories of him refuse to stay buried.

Ice and Cold and Snow

The first days of winter weather have finally settled into Western Pennsylvania. The ice, cold, and snow have been flirting with sunshine and warm days until now. Winter has suddenly become serious. The northwestern wind has blown in thick snow clouds and bitter-cold temperatures from Canada and the Arctic. Several days ago, I saw a flock of geese racing southward ahead of the frigid air. Their loud honking harsh in the quiet evening sky as they passed overhead. Their yearly calling has always left me with a sad and lonely feeling as they make their retreat. The flock’s fading voices overhead somehow made the entire area seem emptier.

I can remember as a school age child walking the 150 yards to the weathered wooden bus shanty. Often I would have to clamber over a thick ridge of ice and snow deposited by the snowplows of the road crew left from clearing the highway. I would stand inside with several friends to avoid the worst of the wind and cold. We would huff thick puffs of steam from our breaths, sometimes pretending we were smoking.

The wait-time would often be 15 or 20 minutes until the yellow and black school bus lumbered into view. The brakes would screech as the behemoth came to a stop. The flashing red light at the front and rear of the bus, top and bottom would halt other vehicles. When the bus came to a complete stop, the driver would open the rubber-edged, wing-like, windowed doors with a harsh squealing sound. Single file we would climb the metal steps to the relative warmth inside.

Kids from three different homes gathered inside the bus shanty on school days waiting to be rescued from the cold. When we went outside, we were bundled in layers of warm sweaters, scarves, toboggan hats, gloves or mittens, boots, and thick coats.

It is different today. Students are collected from each house as the bus makes multiple stops. I’ve watch as high school kids clad in shorts and a “hoodies” jacket stroll from inside a warm house, across a small front yard, and climb aboard the waiting bus. They don’t run. That would ruin their image of “coolness.” Their leg hairs would have frozen off if they would have had to wait in a bus shanty like I did.

As a child I never minded the snow. Sometimes, I actually enjoyed it, especially when the snow was deep and caused a school cancellation. But the cold is a different story. I didn’t like the cold. There were times I can recall the inside of my nostrils sticking together when I took a deep breath. I can’t remember that there were ever any delays for the starting time. It was all or nothing event; either it was school or no school.

Christmas Traditions

There was a time that my house was filled with the scent of pine and other savory aromas the nearer the Christmas holiday came. The artificial tree looks great, but alas the smell of the outdoors is no more. The tradition of bringing a live tree into the house passed when my uncle Theodore passed away. He and I would go roaming through a pine covered area near the farm to cut a tree for my grandmother Miner and one for me and my family.

Finding the perfect tree was a real chore. These pines grew wild and were shaped by the whims of nature. Armed only with a small saw, Ted and I searched the area for likely candidates finding this one too small and that one had bare areas. They were eventually rejected. My grandmother lived in an old farmhouse with twelve foot tall ceilings, so Ted had more leeway than I did. Cindy was very choosey with our tree. It had to be full and the Christmas tree star had to brush the ceiling of our mobile home. This created a problem. When I was among the trees in the grove, sometimes my judgment was off and I would have to cut more off when I got it home. One time, to get the height, I had to choose a very bushy tree. The height was right on, but the bottom of the tree branches spread out wide. They filled half the width of the trailer and we had to be careful as we walked by not to knock off any of the ornaments.

Today, the artificial tree has taken its place. The ornaments that we bought our children each year now reside in their homes on their trees. My tree is far from bare. With the lights, garland, and ornaments collected over the years, I can barely see the green needles.

A tradition that has now replaced eating the family meal at my house is the gathering at my Sister Kathy and her husband Doug’s home for a Christmas brunch. Their beautiful home is the house of our Grandparent’s Beck. Gathering there seems like a tradition is still carried on within these familiar walls. I wish a very Merry Christmas to all of my readers, friends, and family.

Yesterday’s Chores

With Christmas growing ever nearer and colder weather just around the corner I tried to catch up on some unfinished chores. Vacuuming the stairs to remove Willow the cat’s long, white, shedded hair was a necessity. She has a habit of claiming several stair treads as her own napping place. The steps were well on their way looking as though they were made of mohair.

While I waited for the frost outside to depart, I wrapped a few more Christmas gifts. Eventually, I will finish and be able to remove Santa’s workshop from the top of my bed and I’ll be able to claim more than one small side of the mattress. As I wrapped the dolls that I’d bought for my three granddaughters, Celine, Moriah, and Hannah, I became upset that the manufacturers decided to save a few cents by not covering the display portion of the dolls with cellophane like they used to do. Trying to cover the dolls, I poked several holes in the paper. They are making the Christmas paper more cheaply as well. It isn’t as strong as it once was. Even with careful folding, the cheaper paper has a tendency to tear.  The old time paper with metal based dyes was much stronger and after underwear and socks were removed from the wadded up and discarded paper, it was impressive to see the flames change color as the bright piles were burned in a fireplace.

When the sparkling frost coating disappeared, a jolly old fat man appeared, carrying several ladders and chimney cleaning supplies. Not clad in a red suit, but navy sweat pants and an old orange hunting jacket, he climbed onto his newly acquired metal roof. Up on the housetop he sprang, carefully and slowly, thrusting the metal pole deep into the recesses of the chimney. Built-up soot and creosote gave way to the determined force of the old man’s probing.

He thought his antics would go unnoticed by his daughters, but alas, one son-in-law driving his black Chevy sleigh spied the jolly old man and of course he reported the old man’s escapades to his spouse. The old man had already been banned from the house roof several times before and now finds himself confined to the doghouse roof.

On the way home from last evening’s writers meeting, Rocky the raccoon made a wild dash from the darkness, trying to cross the road in front of my car. I wasn’t able to stop in time and alas, Rocky is no more. The black plastic from the front of my car has also bit the dust and is no more as well.

The best thing of the entire day was that the wood burner is working great and my house was toasty warm as it welcomed me home.

Strands of Pearls

When I consider my life from my birth to my death, it will be the string upon which God has placed pearls of different shapes, sizes, and colors. These pearls are the people that have been friends or family. Their size and their beauty have nothing to do with their physical appearance, but everything to do with the amount of time they have been in my life and how much they have influenced me.

Parents, grandparents, and children are the largest and brightest pearls on my string of life. They have been much closer to me for a much longer time than most others I’ve come in contact with. These jewels aren’t always the smooth, round, opulent orbs that we see in a jewelry store, cradled in a velvet box. These pearls have irregularities, more like fresh water variety of pearls, yet they are still iridescent and glow brightly, stored safely in the vault of my mind. Their beauty has been tempered by time and by love. Even though some of these pearls have now gone on to meet their Maker, I can still see them and feel their presence in my life.

In my strand, there are a few off-color pearls, perhaps not the choices that I would have desired, but for some reason they are there. They are pearls that a jewelry maker would have tossed aside and not placed on a string. These rougher, less couth or less polished pearls were placed on my strand, adding interest if not beauty to the whole of my life. Some have worn my strand in places while some I’ve been able to polish, refine, and make shinier.

It is odd that my thoughts wandered down this path at all. Someone mentioned the word pearl and my mind began to recall the women that I’ve known who were named Pearl. I was going to write about them. The first Pearl was a Sunday school teacher and soprano in the church choir. I can recall this plum woman as a child. Then, there was the influence of my wife Cynthia’s grandmother, Pearl Agnes Johnson. These women were who I’d planned writing about. And then my mind was whisked away from the influence that these women had on my life to the influence that others have had as well.

I want to thank all of the pearls that have been a part of my strand of pearls no matter how large or small you think you have been. To those who have passed, to those who are no longer close, and for those who are near, you still shine beautifully as I see you in my mind.

Bits and Pieces

While driving to church Sunday morning, I heard two men on the radio discussing the loss of a child. One man’s son who died after an auto accident became the subject of the talk. The initial impact of the crash hadn’t killed him, but the son and the driver had been at a party drinking alcohol. Trying to avoid legal trouble, both boys fled the scene. The son sustained injuries and slowly bled to death. He hadn’t died in the crash, but died because he hadn’t sought medical help after the accident.

The father shared a story of being at the funeral home. Many of his son’s friends thronged to the funeral parlor to pay their respects. Quoting the father, he told them, “Your being here won’t change anything, but your being here means everything.” I thought how true. Things that we say or do may not be able to change another person’s difficult situation, but our being there often means more than anything that we can do.

I want to share another thought. I heard a biblical scholar semi-explain the visit of the angels to the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. These shepherds were raising sacrificial lambs for the Temple to be propitiation for sin. It meant that these yearling lambs had to be firstborn males and without spot or blemish. Often the shepherds would swaddle and wrap these lambs in cloth to protect them and prevent damage from occurring. The angel’s announcement, “Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger” meant something very much different than what we now think. The pronouncement was a foretelling of the Christ child as the sacrifice for world’s sins. Those words of comparison must have puzzled the shepherds.

A final bit is another bit of knowledge that I learned about Christ in the tomb after His crucifixion. When the disciples visited the empty tomb, Christ’s grave clothes were lying, yet He was not in them. The napkin that had covered His face was wrapped together in another place. It was another historical representation of an Old Testament tradition.

When the master sat at his table to eat, he might leave the table for some reason. While he was gone, the servants would look to see how he left his napkin. If it was tossed haphazardly onto the table, he was finished eating and they could clear the table, but if the master folded it and placed it on the table, the master wasn’t finished and would be back. And so it is with Christ, He will be coming back.

The Christmas Candies

I smiled as I lifted the old candy box down from the top closet shelf. It was worn from many years of being handled. I remembered the year when my wife and I had gotten the box of assorted chocolates as a Christmas gift. The candy was long gone, but the box had gained a second purpose of collecting buttons, thread, needles, and a variety of other accumulated odds and ends.

I flipped open its broad yellow and white hinged top. A faint aroma of the chocolate wafted up and stirred the memories lodged in my nostrils. It took me back to an almost embarrassing incident that makes me smile now. My wife was still alive and our three children’s ages ranged from four or five years old to twelve years old.

My wife had invited some of our old friends over for a post-Christmas celebration. It was to be a time for talking, snacking, and exchanging of gifts. Those friends had three children of their own and it made a perfect fit for our friendship and for exchanging of gifts.

My wife had prepared a tray of vegetables and dip, a tray of crackers with a cheese ball, and a tray of assorted cookies to serve our guests. As she showered and got dressed, I set the trays of goodies out on the dining room table. It looked festive, but I thought the cookie tray looked a little plain and would look more celebratory with a few of the chocolates scattered on the tray. I pulled the candy box from its spot under the Christmas tree. I opened it up and lifted the first piece of chocolate from its resting place inside. It was still cradled in its crinkled brown paper cup.

The aroma and the sight of the confection made my mouth water. I hadn’t eaten one of the chocolates yet and it tempted me. I was feeling a bit hungry and seeing all of the food on the table I thought I would try a piece now. As I took the candy out of its paper wrapper, I thought that it felt a bit odd. Turning it over, I had a surprise. I could see that one of our kids had picked the chocolate coating off the underside. Apparently the child hadn’t liked the crème that had been hidden inside and returned it to its brown crinkled paper cup. Then slipping it back into box, they made it look as if it had never been disturbed.

I ate the disfigured piece of chocolate even though I could see that the crème inside wasn’t my one of my favorites. The frugal nature in me rejected the other option of throwing it away. The waste of food would have grated on my upbringing.

I picked out a second piece of candy from its paper nest to put onto the tray. This one felt odd too. When I turned it over, it had the bottom coating of sweets scraped off as well. The chocolate layer was gone and the creamy filling was exposed.

I looked through the candies. All of the chocolates had been mutilated, rendered bottomless, and returned to their candy box homes. That evening none of the sweet confections ever made it onto the cookie tray. Completely by accident, I had discovered and avoided an embarrassing situation.

Even if I hadn’t caught the mutilated bonbon, our friends would have understood. They had three children too. It has become an amusing story in our family and someone will ask, “Anyone want a piece of chocolate?”

Cold and Windy

No, I’m not talking about myself, but the weather outside. The more I age, the more I dread the frigid temperatures and the gust of winter air. I like to have snow, but when it gets cold and the breeze becomes what my grandfather called a lazy wind, count me out. He said when the wind goes through you and not around you it’s a lazy wind. I want to tell Canadians to keep their refrigerator doors closed when the Arctic clippers decide to sail south.

Don’t suggest that I move to Florida, although some relatives want me to come to Florida and there are some relatives who wouldn’t mind if I left Pennsylvania. I have no plans to make the move below the Mason Dixon Line.

I lived in Orlando, Florida for two years, courtesy of the United States Navy as a corpsman and I didn’t really like it. Mosquitoes, sand spurs, and the humid heat in the summer aren’t on my menu. The only thing I found enjoyable about Florida was the fishing and my relatives. Winters were heavy jacket weather, but no boots unless I was wading in the rain.

My uncle Amos Jacob Stahl and his wife aunt Helen decided to move their family south. He was a stone mason and the seasonal work that the Pennsylvania weather provided could hardly support his large brood. They packed up and moved to Florida where he could work all year round. Their one daughter Anna stayed with us until she finished her senior year in high school.

While I was in the Navy, “Jake” or one of my cousins would want me to visit every weekend that I was off duty. They were all wonderful people. Amos and Helen have passed away, but Florida is still peppered with cousins and kin.

I frequently get invitations from them to come visit and I may. I left Florida the year before Disneyland opened and haven’t been back since. Although the adventure of touring the park is something that entices many, I prefer to keep my memories of the less bustling metropolis of Orlando intact. Perhaps it would be nice to see the faces of my loved ones again. It may become closer to reality and become stronger if these days of the lazy winds persist.

Lunching with Mustang Sally

It was time for the annual Christmas party of the Foothills Writing Group, formerly known as the Beanery Writers Group. Our octogenarian cheerleader, originator of the party, and usual hostess of the party Mustang Sally, has been dealing some ongoing health issues and is also caught up in the process of moving. Several times in the last year because of her health problems has moved closer to her family. Her original home and location for our previous get-togethers is presently rented and was unavailable.

To continue the annual Christmas affair, another writer, Claudette, graciously offered to hold the gathering in her home, but because we are all getting older, we have moved the meal time from an evening social to noon until four p.m. avoiding the drive home at night, especially now with those horrid blue-white headlights.

It was a covered dish affair, with a semi-assigned menu for each to bring. I brought a cheese, cracker, and venison log tray and mixed nuts for pre-meal snacking as the lamb, cauliflower, salad, and other delectable items were unwrapped and last minute preparations were made.

The open rooms and seating arrangements made it easy to circulate, talk, and eat. Many times we have a short reading to share, but not so this year. We were all engrossed in chatting and reminiscing, finding more common threads of our lives. Two other men were there, husbands of other writers. They were of the same generation as me and we shared war stories of the Vietnam era. Although I was able to care for some of the injured, my assignment as a naval corpsman was in the United States.

As the feasting and fellowship drew to a close, I played Santa passing out some candy treats. I guess I was elected because I was dressed in red from my Santa hat head to my feet. Sally distributed copies of her recently reprinted book sharing the adventures of her bicycling tour around the world and thus her nickname Mustang Sally, which is the title of her tales. It’s never too late to share your life and  never too early to wish one and all a Merry Christmas.

Four Wheeling Down Memory Lane

Wednesday morning my brother Ken and I tried to fill our antlerless deer tags. Our search was fruitless. Even though we saw several, the area we were hunting in was overgrown and the deer were moving too fast to distinguish if they had antlers or not. We hunted in several areas with the same results.

It was such a relief for me to ride on four-wheelers instead of walking. I appreciated it more as we drove along abandoned logging roads. These vehicles made short work of climbing steep hills, rolling over the rugged and rocky paths, and making the need to wade across puddles and creeks unnecessary. No need for me to work up a sweat or tramp through the woods with wet feet.

One spot on our ride we spooked a red tailed hawk from its perch. It silently spread its wings and soared away. Driving farther we wandered through several acres full of short-needled and long-needled pine trees. Growing wild, they were naturally shaped and in all sizes. The sight was enough to make a Christmas tree vendor drool.

The trail followed ridgelines and through fields until we came to a spot that was familiar to me from my youth, Camp Wildwood. It was the land of strawberry picking and the play ground for my brother and I to ride our bikes. Once while we were riding, we saw our first naked lady. I’ve written about this true redhead before in my posts.

The primitive roadways are no longer as deeply grooved as when I was younger. Less traffic, they filled with leaves over the years. Those channels used to fill with rainwater and would shoot a rooster-tail of water from a speeding car. A friend was speeding in an old Chevy when we came upon a troop of Boy Scouts. I watched as they had to dive for cover to avoid the soaking spray. There is more to the story, but it’s been posted it before.

Our ride eventually took us to the Camp Wildwood’s old dam. The structure once spread its wings across Indian Creek to make a wonderful swimming hole. Much of the concrete has crumbled, but it still trapped much of the stream and kept our old swimming holes intact. The water was clear, but the color was dark green from the depth of the pool.

Our time was finished. We began our return trip, back through the logging trails. Huge towering piles of boulders and steep hillsides guided loggers who came before us who made these zigzag trails to haul out the timber. As we returned home, I was impressed with the steepness of the slopes carved by centuries of water and wind. We didn’t get a deer, but that that trip stirred and updated many of my childhood memories.

Loose Ends

When I’ve written the stories for my Mystery Series, Tommy Two Shoes, I was amazed at how important a small and seemingly unimportant item will become a significant and integral part of a later story. Once they’ve been edited and published, there is no way for me to insert a fact in a previous tale, so what was written has to be woven into the next book. I’m truly gob-smacked at how often it happened from one book to the next. I thought that these coincidences only happened in fairy tales (Or books that I wrote), but not so. Frequently, I have seen this happen in my day to day life.

I was able to meet a long time Facebook friend at his sister’s home. She is a near lifelong friend and former fellow employee. I was invited to her home for a brief visit and a chance to sample her famous sauerkraut/ chocolate cake…again. It was nice to finally talk to him face to face and understand more of what makes this man tick. He’s just a good ole boy from Texas with a commitment to see that there are new chapters of men who have pledged to protect abused children.

He was traveling with another member, driving from Texas to New England and back in an attempt to spread this worthwhile cause. I gave him a copy of the first book in the series and I gave his sister a copy of my latest book, Addie. She has all of the others. I thought it would be a good dinner gift instead of flowers. She gave him the copies that she read to take with him.

He looked across the table and seemed surprised that I’d written so many. Then he said, my wife said, she knew about you before we became friends. It was an odd feeling to think that I was recognized by someone so far away as an author. I didn’t have the courage to ask him how.

I really felt odd when he called, saying that another author wanted to charge him $3,000.00 to write his autobiography. Another would do it for free, but my friend knew the freebie author sometimes liked to embellish the truth to sell his books. My friend invited me to visit his ranch in Texas and to write his autobiography. I was astounded and afraid I would not be able to do it. To this point, I have only written fiction. I did suggest that he sit down and list the facts that he wanted included, then sit down with the volunteer author after something in writing to say, nothing could be published until it was cleared by you. That would keep the book straight and true with its control in your hands.

Texas Traveler

I have been friends and fellow workmate of Debby Keslar, a transplant from Texas. She was a baker in the United States Navy and another employee of Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania. Over the years, we’ve laughed and cried together until we’ve both retired. I’ve become good friends with her husband and her two daughters. One family member I hadn’t met was her brother James Curtis who still lives in Texas with his wife Jodi.

James and I became Facebook pals, corresponding back and forth, sharing posts, and generally teasing Debby. That changed last evening when he made a planned stopover at Debby’s. I got an invitation to stop over to eat some sauerkraut chocolate cake and chew the fat. James and his friend “Dragon” were on a return trip from New England where they are trying to set up new chapters for the guardians of children from abuse. He is very passionate and travels long distances on a shoestring budget to help ensure the safety and protection for these young people who are unable to defend themselves. James and his wife reside in Big Spring, Texas and his travel companion Dragon lives across the border in New Mexico.

Because we’d shared so much on Facebook, it was like meeting an old friend, kind of like slipping into a pair of well-worn slippers of moccasins after a long day on the feet. Stories flowed back and forth across the kitchen table. There were a few serious notes, but it was mostly laughter and sharing memories. I learned more about this dedicated man and his compadre. I’d never met Dragon before and it was great listening to this Vietnam Vet share some of his tales. James was a Marine sniper and being a military vet added another bond.

I left early. It was time for the family to reconnect before the troops packed up and left Debby’s the next morning. They had an assigned meeting in Oklahoma the next day. A long, arduous, trip ahead, be safe and God keep you both.