Almost Two Years
So much has happened since I had my heart catheterization in March 2021. I’ve shared the incidents leading up to having a heart catheterization and subsequent triple heart bypass before. But now it’s time for me to see my cardiologist for an annual revisit. I don’t recall that I was told to make an appointment to follow up with him, so it’s been almost two years. My family physician casually asked if I had the follow-up and I was embarrassed to tell her that I hadn’t. I made the appointment. It’s now time to face the music. There were a few sour notes since I last saw him.
It will be almost two years to the day when he did the heart catheterization and this appointment. That procedure said that I either needed several stents put into place or I needed bypass surgery. He advised that since I still had a healthy heart (no previous heart attack) that I go for the bypass operation. Because I was a diabetic, the stents would only provide temporary relief and I would eventually need to have them redone. I was shipped directly to the hospital and three days later, I was under the knife.
The hospital ran several tests before they split my sternum to gain access to my heart and the vessels that service it. One thing that they did was shave my hair from my neck to my ankles. I’ve heard of men who voluntarily go to have “man-scaping” done and I don’t understand why they would subject themselves to being scrapped or waxed. Hair itches like crazy when it grows back and being shaved made me feel even more naked when I went to surgery the next day.
I’ll have to share all that’s happened since then. The two things I’m sure he will be worried about are the episodes where I had double vision and the triglyceride lab test being so high. I believe that the two incidents are inter-related. It will be interesting to see what he has to say. I’m sure I will be chastised for not making the “first” annual appointment to see him. There may be fireworks in the month of March. I’ll have to wait and see.

 I resurrected this post from my archives after someone reminded me that it was Ash Wednesday. Sorry I'm late.

Are You Catholic
This incident occurred while I was still working in the emergency room at Frick Hospital, Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania. It was the B.C. era, meaning it was in the days before computers, so when a doctor ordered an x-ray, the nurses would have to write the patient’s name, birthday, cubicle number, what part of the body was to be x-rayed and why it needed to be x-rayed on a small chit of paper. Then the nurse would have to hand carried the requisition to the radiology room and given to the techs inside.
One day I carried a request into the radiology room and as I turned to leave, one of the techs said, “If you see the priest, tell him to stop in and give us ashes for our foreheads. We also want him to bless the x-ray machine.” It was then I recognized that it was Ash Wednesday.
Just as I reached the door my warped sense of creativity and humor kicked in. I said, “You know, when the priest comes in, you guys could set up a confessional booth in the dark room. He can open the doors for exposed sins and unexposed to give you your penance.” As in all radiology rooms at that time, there were film storage bins with doors marked as to whether the films had been exposed or whether they were yet unexposed. My mind made the comparison to the Catholic confession chamber with confessed and un-confessed sins.
I heard them laugh as I exited. Later in the day, I carried another chit for an x-ray to the techs. When I opened the door the priest was already inside. He had already placed ashes on the techs’ foreheads. One of the girls pointed to me and said, “There! That’s the one.” Apparently they told the priest what I had said about the darkroom “confesional.”
The priest turned to me and asked, “Were you an altar boy?”
“No.” I replied.
He tried again, “Are you Catholic?”
“No.” I answered again.
He tried one last time, “Do you want to be Catholic?”
My reply was again, “No!”
My response was almost lost in the two technicians’ loud laughter. The priest didn’t laugh, but I’m fairly sure that I saw a smile on his face.

Different Tastes
I had another consultation with my dietician. They were necessary after my triglycerides were more than four times the expected normal high. I’d already tried many cholesterol medications in the past. Most caused abdominal pain. The newest one didn’t cause the pain, but I had nearly every other side effect, so I was referred to a dietician instead.
On our first meeting, we went over things I eat, my exercise, drink, etc. When he ascertained that my diet wasn’t a chief factor, he started to strongly suggest that I exercise more. And to be entirely honest, I am more of a couch potato than an athlete.
Next he honed in on my rest and sleep patterns, saying I should be getting 8 hours of sleep. I explained it would never happen in the winter. I needed to wake every four hours to toss wood into my wood burner in the basement. That’s where I shared with him there is more to exercise than walking. Six times per day (and night) I walk down two flights of stairs and back up. I also haul firewood into my basement from the woodpile outside. Usually I load two wheelbarrows with wood, wheel them into my cellar, then unload them. If I do this, when Sunday comes around, I don’t have the work to haul in wood inside. I only have to feed the wood burner.
We discussed my fluid intake. I share that I drink about three liters of water, sometimes with sugar-free drink mix each day. That seemed to please him.
He‘s been insisting that I eat more water soluble fiber. Vegetables and high fiber bread, while cutting back on carbohydrates. I’ve been trying, getting closer, but not where he’d like me to be. He also wants me to drink Fair Life milk. To me when they removed the sugar and fat, they took out the taste. I explained to him I might as well use water on my cereal. He then suggested I try Fair Life Chocolate milk; he and his friends love it. I wasn’t impressed with it. I plan to take REAL chocolate milk from Whoa Nellie Farm and let him taste the real thing. I am used to REAL milk, none of this oat or almond “milk.” As a kid, my dad Carl Beck would take a gallon jar to a neighboring farm for unpasteurized, unadulterated milk fresh from the cow’s udder.
Lastly he asked about stress. When my triglycerides were high, I was having double vision, and worried whether I was having a stroke or a brain tumor. The double vision has been resolved. I have to wait until I have another blood test to see if there is improvement.

Spreading More Seeds
Friday and Saturday the biblical outreach printers “Bearing Precious Seed” from Milford Ohio visited Mt. Zion Community Church. We volunteered to assist in the assembly of printed Gospel booklets of John and Romans. Their church ministry is to print Bibles and Gospel booklets in many different languages when missionaries express a need. In past times our church has assisted in folding the covers, then stuffing the printed text inside the covers, and stapling them together before trimming and boxing the final product. In the past we have assembled the Scripture texts French, Portuguese, Korean, and Spanish as just a few examples. This time we were assembling two texts, but actually in three languages. The single language we assembled was in Spanish. It was the books of John and Romans. It is destined for South America.
The other language of John and Romans was assembled. Its destination is for the country of Malawi. Each booklet contained a dual side-by-side English translation and the language of Chichewa. Chichewa and English are the languages that are spoken in Malawi.
Our church was blessed to finish the rush orders for both languages. We finished the booklets needed to complete both orders for shipping. We assembled over 5,000 booklets of Scripture in Chichewa and over 7,000 Gospel texts in Spanish. The task was completed in record time. Often it is necessary to take a lunch break and finish the project after, but we were done by 1130 am, then went to lunch.
The difference was having extra hands. Our assistant Pastor had a boy’s teen group event Friday evening and breakfast for them Saturday morning after a sleepover. The extra hands were a real blessing. Most if not all of the young men were cheerful even after going to bed at 2:30 Saturday morning. Their youthful vigor and strength were greatly appreciated.
With the teen group there were about 40 people who made the task easier. The old adage “Many hands make light work” was certainly true. As we sat around the tables, we were able to chat with others of the congregation. I think it draws the people closer together.
I was surprised at the variety of food brought in for our pot luck lunch-break meal. I even baked some chocolate chip cookies for the affair. There was a fair amount of leftover baked goods saved to serve Sunday morning between our church service and Sunday school.

Can You Dig It, I Did.
As I grew older, the need for more room grew as well. My dad and mom, Carl and Sybil Miner Beck bought a small house along Route 711, between Indian Head and Normalville, Pennsylvania. The basement was large enough for a coal bin, large coal furnace, and a water heater. Mom found room for a wringer washer as well. The running water for the house came from a spring about 200 yards away. The rest was a crawl space.
As my parents needed more room, my dad chiseled an opening in the cinder block wall. Then I helped my dad dig the heavy clay soil. He used an old, iron wheeled wheelbarrow to haul the dirt out of the cellar. When he got closer to the outside wall he threw the dirt onto the wooden bed of an old truck.
It seemed that digging filled much of my youth. In my preadolescent years my hands were filled with a pick, mattock, and a spade. Our house didn’t have an inside bathroom. We had an outhouse instead. At the prodding of my mom Dad decided to build an indoor bathroom, I helped to dig the pit for the septic tank and the drainage lines.
My brother Ken and I had to help dig a new water line from the springhouse to our home. The old line had corroded. Water pressure had been decreasing for almost a year. Digging the line was a daily chore. Dad would assign a certain amount to be dug and Dad expected it to be done. One day he came home and was upset to see we hadn’t reached our quota. After chewing us out he went to finish what we hadn’t done. What he found was a huge flat rock almost 18 inches thick and the size of a dining room table top. It extended two feet beyond both side of the sides of the ditch. He tried to break it with a sledge hammer. When he couldn’t break it, his solution was to dig under it pushing the plastic pipe beneath it.
A small stream flowed behind our house. Dad would have us remove the silt that would fill it causing it to flood. We‘d spread it to one side lessening the flood of the winter thaw. Dad loved his lawn mowed and neat.
In the winter summer tools were put away and the heavy scoop shovel came out. Its main purpose was to throw coal into the furnace and shovel out the ashes. But when the snow accumulated, it was used to remove snow from walks and the driveway. Shoveling snow wasn’t as bad at home as where I live now. My childhood home was partially sheltered in a valley and drifts were rare.

Laddie
When I hear the word Laddie, I think of the Scottish term that describes a young man. My wife Cindy Morrison Beck was of Scottish descent. Her ancestors came from the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides Islands northwest of Scotland.
I also have family memories associated with the word Laddie. My uncle Charles Bottomley and Aunt Violet Miner Bottomley owned a long haired dog of collie mixture. His shaggy coat was black with some brown patches and a white star on its chest. My recollection was of my uncle on the porch laughing at Laddie and me. What caused him to laugh? I was holding Laddie’s chain leash and Uncle Charles called, “Here, Laddie.” When he did, the dog was off like a shot. I was pulled from my feet and suspended in the air like a banner in the wind before gravity claimed me and was dragged through the grass behind this canine rocket. I was either too surprised or too stupid to let go of the leash.
The second memory falls to a time when I was exploring in the woods behind our home. I heard a whimpering sound and followed it. I found a puppy in a decayed hollow space at the bottom of a tree. Carrying him back to our house Sybil Miner Beck my mom said, “We can’t keep him.” Then she said, “Look at those paws. He’ll be huge. Let’s see if we can find him a home.”
I’m not sure who she asked, but the dog ended up at my grandparents Ray and Rebecca Rugg Miner’s farm. Grandma immediately called him Laddie. This could easily been the end of the story, but my grandfather had a way with animals and Laddie became his guardian angel. Laddie arrived at a good time. Granddad’s dementia was worsening. He would sometimes wander around the farm to care for animals that he no longer had. Laddie was his constant companion. Wherever Granddad strayed, Laddie was at his side.
The incident I am recalling occurred was when Granddad got lost in a wooded section of his farm. When he didn’t come back to the house Grandma became worried and called the family to search. They came and scoured the farm, checking in unused buildings and the rubble of the collapsed barn, then expanded to search the fields and woods. They found Laddie laying at Granddad’s feet watching over him. When questioned, Granddad said, “I was tired and sat down to rest.”

Fun, Facts, Fiction, Fairytales
Most of us remember times when we were growing up that we were told things that we thought were true until we became older, things that were shared at home or repeated on the playground. What started me thinking about these stories were the white half moons on my fingernails. It reminded of what I was told as a child that caused them. I believed the little white marks naturally appeared were because of the little white lies I’d told. Sometimes I’d look at my fingernails and wonder what lies I’d told confused as a kid when I couldn’t recall if I told a lie or not.
How about the tale people tell about petals on a daisy? When a girl picks the flower, she is to pluck its white petals one by one from its bright yellow center, chanting “He loves me…He loves me not” until the petals are all gone. When the last petal falls, it will reveal whether or not the person she is thinking about really loves her. I supposed that it would work if a guy removed the petals.
Another repeated tale about a flower is the one about dandelions or buttercups. Someone would pick one of the blooms and hold it just below the chin near the neck to see “if you liked butter.” That was a silly little game that we used to do.
An untruth my mom Sybil Beck shared with us as kids; she would boil water for eggs making hard cooked eggs sandwiches. If she didn’t let them cook long enough and the centers were even slightly runny, she would say that she boiled them too long. The reason…when as a child she fussed if her mom, Rebecca Rugg Miner served an underdone egg she made up the story to get my mom to eat the egg.
That reminds me of another misconception my mother had as a child. She thought cows were the mothers and horses were the fathers. She also thought cats were the mothers and dogs were the fathers. In her mind, because men and women looked different, so should the animals. Later, she used to laugh about it saying, “I grew up on a farm and should have known better.”
So many times as children we are told old wives tales. Each family has their own collection of stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. Like coveted recipes, these tales have been shared, laughed at, and loved because they show us that we were once naïve and innocent. They make us human and have created the human beings that we are.

 Tree-mendous Christmas Memories
There was a time in history when a person could go out into a grove where pine trees grew wild and harvest one. The person would cut the chosen tree, then haul it home. It wasn’t quite stealing, but very close. These unclaimed trees were always fresher and cheaper than going to a sales lot to purchase one. A friend was doing just that. His wife drove them to get an evergreen for the holiday. Once he and his axe were out of the car, she sped away with plans to return collecting him and the newly acquired tree. The friend would recognize that it was his wife when, she flashed the headlights and he would hurry back to the road with his prize, then quickly load it into the car. Trunks of cars were larger back then and unless the tree was huge, it would fit in the car’s trunk with only the tip of the pine peeking out from the tied down lid. If the limbs were too large, the tree could be tied to the car’s sturdy steel roof for the short trip home.
It was cold that day and my friend was warmly dressed in his red and black Woolrich pants, coat, and hat. Thick Woolrich clothing was the accepted winter and hunting clothing of that time period. Having cut the tree, he squatted on a bank above the road to watch for his wife’s return. When headlights of an oncoming car flashed, he hopped down onto the roadway only to find that it wasn't his wife. The oncoming car had rolled over a bump in the road and the headlights only appeared to flash. He told me that the surprise on the driver's face was stupendous. He suddenly leaped into the roadway. Can you imagine driving along and seeing a man clad from head to foot in red at Christmas carrying an evergreen tree in one hand and an axe in the other unexpectedly hop into view?
~*~*~*~
When my wife Cindy and I started our own home, our own Christmas traditions, and decorating the tree, one thing she insisted on was that the tree was live and the star topper had to touch the ceiling of our mobile home. Our mobile home had a vaulted roof in the living room in front of the windows. One of the live trees I harvested had a full branched bottom. The star reached the eight foot ceiling, but there was a problem. The bottom limbs spread out more than half of the width of the trailer. All season long we had to skirt those limbs to walk through the mobile home, BUT the star brushed the ceiling.
That was the last live tree that we had. Until then, my uncle Ted and I went together to cut Christmas trees; one for Grandma Rebecca Miner and one for Cindy and me. When he died, Christmas wasn’t the same. I no longer had the desire to drive to the grove of pines and cut a tree. That was the year we bought an artificial tree. The star touched the ceiling, but it somehow it didn’t seem to shine as bright

The Chair
The old man sits in a chair by the door
waiting for someone who's been there before.
His skin is as thin as rice paper page,
drooping face speckled with spots of his age.
Drowsy head bobbing with white hair askew,
as light leaves the sky and lawn fills with dew
No headlights appear and shaking his head
Weary he rises and shuffles to bed

The old man sits by the door in a chair
no children or friends come visit him there.
Stirring as thoughts of them surface and rise.
With muscles twitching he opens his eyes,
through rheumy lenses and limited view
he sees youth passing, amazed how time flew.
The door remains closed, sealed tightly with rust.
The chair's now empty, filled only with dust. 

The Sink Window
The old woman stands, leans against the sink,
and stares through windows to look and to think
Her steps now falter on knees filled with pain.
Wistfully her eyes stare down the long lane.
Wrinkles map her face. Age spots back her hands
wearying quickly from daily demands
No family seen she turns and shakes her head,
closing the curtains she hobbles to bed.

The old woman wakes and on the sink leans,
her body is bent, face lined with ravines.
She stares at her hands, once supple and sure,
resting on the sink misshapen and sore.
Puckered lips sag into a toothless frown.
Her youth’s flown away her clock has wound down.
The curtains are closed as stray breezes sigh,
The windows are dark. The sink remains dry. 

Busy Children
Children caught up in personal affairs
no time for one who sits alone in chairs,
no time to give them and no time to think
of someone who waits and stands at the sink.
Busy with family everyday
not recognizing how time slips away.
Someday you will be waiting for a call,
wanting affection, no matter how small.

Quickly the children grow and leave the nest,
lifetime spouses die and are laid to rest.
Embers of hope weaken and barely glows
when no one calls and no one shows.
Traveling salesmen are greeted with glee
and “Witnesses” invited in for tea.
It will happen much sooner than you think,
and be you in the chair or at the sink.

 

 Good-bye Mr. Chirps
At one time, the “IN” thing was to have a chirping bird ornament hanging among the boughs of your Christmas tree. Most people would hang this gold or silver plastic, filigree-like ball where they could reach the on-off switch and entertain visitors when they visited their home during the holidays. It was powered by batteries or by electric plug in and played a recording of a bird song. Well, not actually a song, but a series of a single note monotonous chirps. CHIRP. CHIRP. CHIRP.
I was so glad when the Christmas season was over and the mechanical birds were laid to rest in storage boxes for at least a year. Longing for the silence, I would be free from the freaky, phantom-feathered friends, but sadly, it was not be.
My wife, Cindy and I were shopping in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. We climbed the back steps into the McCrory’s five and dime store. As we neared the top of the stairway we were greeted by the gloriously annoying twitter of a bird ball that had somehow escaped interment and was still free. It wasn’t waiting until the next Christmas holiday season.
I clenched my teeth and finished the climb into the sales floor. I began to hunt down the canary-like Caruso. Through the maze of merchandise laden aisles, I followed the siren’s song. I was on a “seek and destroy” mission, but I knew that if I shut it off, it would provide only temporary relief. I was sure some diligent store employee would notice the silence and return the songbird’s tweeting. I altered my mission slightly.
My wife had just started her shopping spree and I was sure there was at least another half hour for her to look. I couldn’t stand being cooped up for so long a period of time listening to the screeching of the mechanical monster.
When I found it, the silver egg was perched on a pyramid of plastic bird seed sacks. It proudly announced that there were seeds for his wild companions for sale. I circled the display. Nonchalantly, I meandered around it in ever narrowing circles, watching for employees that might be eyeballing me. One more pass-by and I lowered the boom. Actually, I lifted a bag of seed and then lowered the boom. In one swift movement, I dropped a plastic bag of seed on top of it, smothering it between the layers of seed. The loud, offending opera went from a Chirp, Chirp, Chirp, to a chirp, chirp, chirp that could barely be heard a yard away.

Orange Santa
My plans for Tuesday fell apart. I was able to wash a load of towels and hang them outside to dry, that was my first objective. My second was to head to Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania for some groceries and furnace cement. My third goal was to clean my chimney. When the flue clogs, it causes smoke to back into my house. It started several days ago, but with the snow and cold, I couldn’t easily climb onto my roof and clean the lining of my chimney without risking life and limb. But I knew that it was absolutely necessary. I had a headache Monday and believe there may have been some carbon monoxide leaking into my house even though the smoke and carbon monoxide detector didn’t alarm.
I needed furnace cement and went shopping first. I needed to be sure there was no frost or wetness remaining on the surface of my metal roof. By the time I returned from my shopping excursion, the wind picked up and being on my roof with a wind is no paradise. The morning had been calm and I almost wish I’d have donned my blaze orange jacket and scaled the heights to clear the clog, but I hadn’t and now it was too windy for Orange Santa to ride the ridge. My house has two stories and a basement, so a tumble from that height would cause major trauma to my aging physique.
After I came from shopping, I ate lunch. I was a good boy. I listened to my doctor and dietician by eating a salad of chopped cabbage, kale, and carrots. What can I say? It fills me up and it’s high in natural fiber content. As I sat in my recliner grazing on the salad, I thought, just perhaps I could reach up inside the clean-out door at the bottom of the chimney high enough to loosen the creosote clog until I can reasonably scale the heights and attack the soot from above at a later time.
It seemed to have worked. I built a sample fire and the smoke went up the chimney. My load of laundry was dry. I folded and put it away. The groceries are also stored. The jacket I wore became soot covered is washed and hanging in the basement to dry.

Complete and Utter madness
The world has lost its common sense, losing common decency, and any kind of morality. What was once considered taboo is being accepted and promoted as normal. The number of murders and violent crimes are on the rise. The poisonous serpent’s bite of illegal drugs are killing people and destroying families, yet our government is supplying “clean” needles to inject this venom or freely dispensing the “anti-venom” to save them to do it all over again. They do little to curtail the flow of the noxious toxins across our borders.
Our nation is promoting ideas and ways of life that was considered a mental illness just a decade ago. These perversions are infiltrating our schools and houses of worship. Our government is giving it legal status and punishing those who don’t agree. The same lusts are swallowing up children into the evil of sex trafficking rings. These innocent babes are sold into slavery to perverts who use them, then either pass them on or toss them away just like a used Kleenex. These defenseless children are being brought into the United States across our borders or being snatched off our streets.
Hundreds of children that should be nurtured in their mother’s womb are being destroyed daily. “Doctors” may use hypertonic solution to scald and kill the child or a vacuum to suck the infant from the womb or sharp instruments to tear apart the child’s flesh to remove it from its safe haven, but the result is always the same…death.
More and more the government is changing laws that were in place to protect our citizens, but are now being twisted to allow, if not encourage evil. Liberal courts and judges are delaying punishment and watering down justice once enforced by our laws. Lawmakers are passing laws that allow criminals to escape retribution for their crimes. District attorneys are deciding which laws to enforce, often putting the criminals back onto our streets. The Bible states, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20
Isaiah 8:11 says, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”
There is only one anchor we have for truth and it’s unchanging…the Bible. The laws in America were founded on truths and freedoms found in the Bible. Not only has the government perverted those truths, but theologians have been rewriting the Bible in an attempt to circumvent certain verses or entire chapters. Old and New Testaments God prepares us for meeting Him and His Son, Jesus Christ.

 Another Newsletter Is Out
I am editor for the Down Memory Lane newsletter for the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society. I have several others who help to write articles, decide on photographs, and publish the collective of local information and photographs. I usually decide on the theme of the newsletter and collaborate with other members if they have anything else they want included. Once those items are shared, I put them in order and use tidbits of information as fillers to separate and define the ending and beginning of the nest article.
Since I am editor, I look through several old cook books and select one to include. These recipes could be from Colonial times, the Great Depression, or a local favorite. Since It’s me that decides, I call it “Hey Grandpa, What’s for Super” mimicking the television program, Hee Haw’s “Hey Grandpa.”
In the most recent issue we were able to use the oral history account of the Cessna plane crash on Laurel Ridge. A woman gave us written information of the incident. She was a young girl when it happened. The ridge was thick with fog that night, but she and her father were part of the search party the next day.
Another member of our group is Louise Sprowls. She has been diligently sorting postcards and filling albums with them for ease of viewing. The numerous postcards have been donated to our archives over the years. As she reviewed the cards, she decided to share some of the dates and information written on the reverse side of them. Her article is in our latest newsletter.
Also included is the history of the Methodist Protestant Church of Stahlstown, Pennsylvania established in 1832. The frame church building was replaced with a brick structure in 1890. There are photographs of the older church and the modern day building. A recent fire has damaged the edifice and efforts are underway to repair the damage and make it available to continue church services.
About three times each year the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society publishes its newsletter. The Society has a webpage posting activities for its members and inquisitive members to review. Cook Township Community Center houses our cache of artifacts, memorabilia, and records on Route 711 in Stahlstown, Pennsylvania. The website can be viewed at ChestnutRidgeHistoricalSociety.org.
A special note, to anyone trying to unclutter their homes and find photos, documents, and items having a local history, please offer them to your local historical society for preservation. Too much history is often discarded and lost.

Wearing Baggy Pants
Bagging pants that sag below a person’s waistline and sometimes beneath the butt weren’t brought into fashion by prisoners and “wanna-be” thugs of recent years. Events like that occurred many years prior. Let me share a few examples. While visiting my grandparents Ray and Becky Rugg Miner’s house, my father Carl Beck happened to walk by the bottom of the staircase as Gram was walking upstairs. Ceilings in the old farmhouse were twelve feet high and the stairway was long and lined with a dark oak banister. Gram’s arthritic knees and feet made the ascension up the stairs slow. She held tightly to the banister for assistance. Dad saw something unusual. Apparently Gram forgot to raise her underwear from half mast while using the bathroom. Part of the white cotton garment was visible dangling below the hem of her house dress.
I’m not sure whether Dad was actually being gentlemanly or whether he was too embarrassed and afraid to say something to Gram, but he found my mom Sybil Miner Beck and advised her of Gram’s problem. Mom went upstairs to help correct the situation.
My sister Kathy Beck Basinger picked up the nickname Droopy Drawers. Our mom took a photo of her wearing only her cotton underwear as she rummaged through a dresser drawer where Mom kept her purses. The underwear weren’t really baggy, but they looked as though they drooped in the seat.
My uncle Theodore, Ted was stick thin. He would cinch his trousers with a heavy belt. When he felt his pants droop, he’d put his arms against the sides of his pants and try to wrest them upwards, He called in “rootching” his pants.
Another memory of baggy underwear I have, I know I’ve shared before. When my wife Cindy Morrison Beck and I were first married, we had to count our pennies making each dollar count. One day she walked past me as I sat in the living room. The underwear she was wearing had the elastic separating from the panty’s cotton material. It gave the panties a lopsided appearance of a person who’s had a stroke where the one side of the person’s face droops down. I said, “Surely we have enough money to buy more underwear.
She replied, “I can still wear them. They’re good enough for everyday.”
As she strolled by me the next time, I snatched them, separating the elastic and panties even more and I said, “Now they’re not.” I knew that she hated mending clothing and this was beyond her usual repair from a bevy of safety pins. She stopped, turned and said, “You tore them, you’ll have to buy me new ones.” And I did. Every year for Christmas, Cindy was assured of one gift…new underwear.

Sweeping Along
Sara was the head nurse on the medical/surgical unit where I worked at Frick Hospital in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania. She was rotund and always wore spotless white dress and nursing shoes at work. Because she lived about two blocks from the hospital, she always walked to work no matter the weather, rain or shine. Each morning she’d look out the windows at home to see what she should wear on her walk. One cold winter morning she looked out to see bare walkways. When she saw no snow, she showered, put on her makeup, did her hair, then got dressed. Because the walks were clear, she decided against wearing snow boots. She would wear her nursing shoes.
As she left her house she noticed that the ground was now covered. About one inch of light, fluffy, powdery snow covered the walkway. Snow had fallen while she was getting ready for work. As was usual for her, she was already running late and didn’t want to take the time to go back inside to change into her winter boots. Grabbing the broom she kept on her front porch she began to sweep her way to work. The air currant caused by each sweep of the broom cleared a space for her to take several steps. The wispy snow would dance out of her way baring the walk with each swipe of the broom.
She was almost halfway to work when a man saw her sweeping and stepping routine. He stopped his car alongside her and rolled down the car’s window before calling out, “Hey lady! You’ll make better time if you hop on that broom and ride it.” Laughing loudly at his wit, he rolled up his window and drove away. His car disappeared in a cloud of water vapor pouring from his tailpipe.
Late as usual, Sara arrived on our unit, but that day she was in such a snit. She was normally a germaphobe wiping everything off with alcohol before assuming her desk duties. But this day she forgot to wipe the telephones and desk area with alcohol until much later in the shift.