My Sister’s Complaints

My sister Kathy has been complaining that I haven’t posted a blog about her, so I am going to do a few about her. This one will share some of the things that she hates and puts her teeth on edge like others feel about fingernails on a chalk board.

 I think the major thing that irritates her is hearing someone using nail clippers to trim their fingernails. The clicking noise almost drives her insane. At the first click she will give you “I dare you to do that again” stare. If you are brave enough to try it again, she will chew you out in no uncertain terms.

I found the best place to torture her was while we were sitting in church.

I was older and could sit with my friends while Kathy still had to sit with Mom. There would be a pause in the service, a moment of silence between hymns or at the end of a prayer and I would use the clippers; snip, click.

I would watch for her reaction out of the corner of my eyes. Kathy would stiffen and turn around, searching to locate the perpetrator of the clipper crime. The clicking sound would set her off, but she couldn’t say anything because we were in church. Putting on a face of innocence, I would watch and wait until she turned back around and settled down. I would wait a few minutes then click, another nail would be trimmed. Kathy would stiffen, turn, and stare with a look of death in her eyes. I would sit with a look of feigned innocence until she would turn around. The torture and the fun would continue as long as my fingernails remained.

The other thing that Kathy hates is pink, plastic flamingos. I think her hatred stems from her having to mow Aunt Estella’s grass. Estella had pink flamingos and other yard ornaments which Kathy had to move or mow around and that irritated her. Kathy and her husband Doug lived next door to Estella and they had to look at the ornaments when they would sit outside.

This hatred for these inanimate objects allows more ways for me to torture her. It gives me great opportunities to buy gifts for her birthday and for Christmas. Sometimes it is nothing more than a card with the pink pests on it to a pair of wire ones placed in her front lawn holding a banner of “Happy Birthday” and balloons. It could be a pair of salt and pepper shakers to a Lucite serving tray with a pitcher and glasses all bearing the likeness of her favorite character. I even found a pair of wooden home-made flower boxes that were built to look like flamingos.

But my all time favorite was the birthday present I found for her. I had an accomplice to help in the delivery of this flamingo that I had found. What I had found was a back scratcher that was shaped like a flamingo. I went to our local florist and bought half of a dozen pink roses. I had the florist insert the backscratcher among the roses and delivered to her home.

I know that she kept the roses, but I was never sure what happened to the back scratcher. She never did tell me what she thought of the “special delivery.”

My Sister Kathy

One day my younger sister Kathy came running into the house from outside and asked Mom for a glass of water. Mom filled a glass for her. Kathy grabbed the glass, turned and hurried back outside. The door had hardly closed behind her and she was back inside asking for another glass of water.

“I’m really thirsty Mom. Can I have more water?”

Our mom filled another glass for her and Kathy immediately disappeared outside. Soon, she was back inside asking for more water. Mom refilled the glass and decided to follow her daughter. There had to be more than Kathy just being thirsty.

What she found was surprising and also fortuitous. Somewhere Kathy had found some matched. She had set a box of trash on fire that Dad had placed outside of the basement door. It was against to cement block foundation, but right above it was our wood frame home; bad combination.

Kathy was trying to put out the fire without Mom knowing it. She knew that she wasn’t to be playing with matches and wanted to avoid being punished for it.

Mom immediately grabbed the hose, turned on the faucet, and doused the flames. Kathy had at least slowed the fire until Mom put it out completely. Mom was upset and Dad wasn’t happy either when he had to clean up the soggy, charred mess it left behind.

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Kathy was at the center of the next recollection as well. She still says our brother Ken and I tried to kill her, but I say, if she hadn’t been so nosy and wasn’t trying to do what the boys did, she wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

Ken and I were trying to build a tree house, but let me rephrase that for you. It would be an exaggeration to have called it a house. It was a tree platform. We didn’t have enough lumber or nails to build anything more.

There was a large weeping willow in our back yard. The trunk ad three limbs that we could nail the lumber to for the framework of the platform. The tree house wasn’t going to be impressive or lofty. It was about eight feet off the ground and nothing more than a floor without walls or roof.

We had just finished nailing the three pieces into the tree as the foundation onto which we would nail the floor boards. One of us had hung the claw hammer by its claws on the wooden floor joist when Kathy decides to join us.

 Kathy started to climb up into the tree and the hammer fell. The points of the hammer cut the back of her head. She bellowed and ran away. There was blood everywhere.

I am not sure who caused the hammer to fall. It could have been her or Ken or I, we were never sure, but she still believes that we tried to kill her.

Kids

One year for Christmas my wife Cindy and I were given a box of Brach’s chocolates as a gift. It was kept under the tree with the rest of the presents that we had received. We invited friends over for an evening of snacks and games. Cindy had prepared one tray of assorted cookies and one of crackers and cheese balls to serve. While she was getting showered and dressed, I put the trays out.

I had a brilliant idea. I thought it would enhance the appearance of the cookie tray if I would interspace some of the candy among the cookies. I thought it would class up the trays. I took the box of Brach’s out from under the tree and lifted a piece of the chocolate in its paper cup to put it on the tray.

As I picked up the chocolate, I thought I hadn’t eaten a piece of candy yet, so I decided to try one. I took it out of the paper cup and was putting it to my mouth. For some reason, it didn’t feel quite right. The bottom wasn’t smooth and even as it should have been.

I turned the candy morsel over. The bottom had been scraped off revealing the cream filling that had been hidden within. Which of my three children had done it, we never found out, but that was only the beginning. Each and every piece of chocolate had their bottoms scraped off and then the candy had been put back in paper cup and returned to the box.

I was so glad that I had been hungry enough to try to eat a piece or I would have served them to our guests. It would have been so embarrassing.

Our friends had three children just as we did. They would have understood, I am sure, but it didn’t make the whole incident less amusing.

Speaking of chocolate and kids, I will share a story about my father-in-law, Bud. It was Easter morning. Bud had gotten up early and broken the ears off his siblings’ bunnies and eaten them.

Thinking he was smart, he decided to hide his rabbit to keep it safe while the family was at church. He decided to put his bunny on the window sill behind the window shades and they went to church. It was the wrong place. When they got home three hours later, Bud went to retrieve his rabbit and found a melted brown pool of chocolate on the window sill and the floor with a bunny trail leading down the wall. He hadn’t thought of the sun shining in the window while they were gone.

None of his family would share their intact rabbits (minus the ears) with Bud.

My Greats

                I met my great-grandfather Curtis and my great-uncle Wes. It was at one of the family reunions held at my great-grandfather’s farm. His farm had a large two story clapboard frame house that had a full basement beneath it. Across a country lane was his barn, shed, and several other outbuildings.

                Great-granddad  kept the farm and the buildings in immaculate condition. Fields were mowed, crops were weeded, and fences were repaired and kept clear of brush. The farm returned the favor by returning its bounty to granddad. The farm’s yield was given away in bushels; apples, pears, and ears of corn. He was generous and often shared with family and friends.

                From what I can remember of my great-granddad and my great-uncle they were sitting in a swing on the front porch. Curtis was a tall, stick-thin with a tiny moustache and a balding head. Great-uncle Wes was completely the opposite. He was round and wore a dark suit with a tweed vest covering the broad expanse of his belly. He had a full white beard that reached halfway down his chest. He had a deep laugh that made him jiggle all over.

                At the reunion, I can remember the long tables of boards and saw horses were set out under several large trees at the edge of the field nearest to his house. They were covered with table cloths and food. Chairs lined the one table for the older people to sit. Everyone else found places to sit in the thick grass to eat their meal.

                Bees would buzz around, lured from nearby hives by the food and the sweetness of the desserts and lemonade. Even the apples under the close by trees in the orchard drew the bees to sip the juices from the damaged fruit. The bees were the special project of Curtis’ daughter-in-law Ruth.  She was a bee charmer and could handle her honey bees with her bare hands. She had to chase the older boys away when they started to throw apples at the hives.

                At one end of the table sat a huge crock. It must have held twenty gallons and it was filled with ice-cold lemonade. A tin dipper hung on the side to lift out the refreshingly sweet drink from the hunks of ice. The outside of the crock was glistening with condensation.

                In the back yard of the farm house was a hand pump. By moving the handle up and down, water could be drawn up from the well below. The water was icy, sweet, and tasted slightly of the rust from the iron pump. Great-granddad kept a tin cup hanging on the side of the pump for people who wanted a drink. If you didn’t hold the cup tightly enough, the gushing torrent of water would tear it out of your hand.

                Farther behind the house was the chicken yard. It was surrounded by a wire fence. There were a flock of chickens and one lone turkey. The turkey was huge and when the Tom fluffed his feathers, he seemed twice as large. Even the cocky roosters steered clear of him. The chicken yard was bare of any grass from years of chickens living there and eating the blades of grass.

                I was too young to cross the road and see his cows and pigs, but I did see them in the fields. They looked sleek and fat and well fed like everything else on the farm.

                There was a rope swing with a wood, plank seat. It hung from a massive limb in a huge maple tree at the side of the house and if we weren’t swinging, we were throwing stones into a small stream flowed at the end of the side yard. Sometimes if the adults weren’t watching, we would pull off socks and shoes to wade and search for crayfish, careful to avoid their dangerous pinchers.

                The gathering of people would stay and last through two meals, talking and eating before goodbyes were said and people made their ways home.

Grandpa’s Barn

My granddad’s barn as built on the order of so many other barns in southwest Pennsylvania. It was built on a sloping hillside where one side of the barn’s foundation was partly underground while the other was open to the air. The side underground had a slightly graduated ramp that allowed access to the second story barn floor.

The part of the barn not underground allowed doors to be built to give the farm animals ingress to their stalls and mangers. The initial access was a large area that ran the length of the barn. It gave the animals a shelter from the cold and wet weather. They would wait there until the doors to their stalls were opened.

The second floor consisted of a wide main floor that gave Grandpa a place to store the tractor. On each side of the main floor, were areas almost as large. These were areas where the hay was stored: loose tossed hay and later when balers were available areas to stack the bales of hay. The hay storage had the roof of the barn two stories overhead, while the central floor had a floor above it for storage.

To one edge was a small square room for the keeping of corn and feed. It was solidly built of wood and covered in a wire mesh to prevent rodents and birds from gaining access to the grains that was feed for his animals. The barn’s skeleton was made of huge beams fastened by wooden pegs in tennon and socket joints.

Granddad always had two milk cows. He preferred Guernsey’s, saying that their milk was richer and filled with cream. He raised a bull for butchering in the fall, usually a short-horned Herford.  He had several pigs, raised for their meat.

At one time when I was small, he had two horses; one was a black stallion, named Blackie (of course), that allowed no one near but my granddad and one stupid kid. I was told I was that stupid kid. I toddled out of the house and walked to where my granddad had the horse tied. I was standing under its belly, trying to pet it. My mom and grandma went to get my granddad, they were afraid I’d get trampled if they approached. My granddad rescued me. I was young enough not to remember, only what my mom told me.

The other horse was an older female, and she was the work horse named Pet. Granddad would sometimes hoist several kids onto her back and walk the horse around to give us rides. Pet was gentle and would follow my granddad around like a dog.

My uncle Charles and Dale decided to work on Charles’ car in the barn. The beams made a great place to use pulleys and ropes to deal with the motor. It was an older Buick; wide and heavy. Charles backed it inside. The main section of the barn floor groaned under the weight. In one loud crash, the floor collapsed, remaining intact and the Buick was partly in the bottom of the barn. The back end was down and the front end was up. When the floor fell, it made a ramp and they were able to pull the car out of the hole. Later they were able to lift the barn floor back into place and secure it, stronger than before.

 

The outside of the barn as long as I can remember was a weathered gray, while the inside colors ranged from a honey color to a bleached bone hue. The beauty of them was enhanced by rays of sunshine slipping through the spaces between the boards of the barn’s siding.

Little can beat the smell of fresh mow hay stored in a barn. The smells of the animals below and a sometimes sharp tang to the smells of the hay and the feeds are almost perfume to a person who grows up on a farm or has worked on a farm.

Grandma Beck

In the later years for my Grandmother Anna Kalp Beck and especially after the death of my grandfather Edison Thomas Beck, her age and health limited what she could do for herself. My aunt Estella, my uncle Merle, and my dad would take turns making sure that she was awake, was clean, had something to eat, and then made sure she was settled for the night. They did this for several years.

She was frail and before Granddad died, she fell down the basement steps when he dropped his work pants at the top step. She stooped to pick them up and tumbled to the bottom, breaking the humerus of her arm. After being evaluated, she was kept overnight to decide whether to do surgery of not. Her health was less than optimal and the doctors thought she would have a poor outcome after the anesthesia. A hanging cast was applied and she was sent home.

 

The hospital where she was admitted was the one where I worked. When I came in to work that night, the nurse taking care of her asked, “Does she speak a foreign language?”

I looked confused, not sure of what she meant. My grandmother was of German heritage, but I had never heard her speak anything but English. When I said, “No.” she continued, “Every time I go into her room, she is lying there with her eyes closed and she is mumbling a foreign language. I can’t quite understand what she is saying.”

A light came on. I knew what was happening. My grandmother was Pentecostal and she often prayed in tongues. When I explained that Grandma was praying, the nurse chuckled and said, “That’s a first for me.”

Her health slowly deteriorated to the point that she could not stay alone even after the broken arm was healed. She was admitted to a personal care home. The home had help available for her twenty-four hours each day. They made sure she was clean and fed, though she was bedfast. She retreated more and more inside herself in times of prayer. She knew the staff and was comfortable.

Eventually her health declined even more. She developed gangrene in one of her feet. The family had to make a decision; take her to the hospital or keep her at the care home. They weren’t sure what to do and my dad asked me what I thought they should do.

I reminded him of what the doctors said about her undergoing surgery when she had broken her arm and her health had deteriorated even more from that time. I said, “Grandma is comfortable and not in pain. She isn’t healthy enough to have her foot amputated. She knows the staff and they know her. She’s not in pain and the hospital is not going to be able to do anymore for her than here in the nursing home, but it is up to you. She’s your mom.”

After Dad got together with his siblings, they all agreed that it would be in their mom’s best interest to allow her to stay where she was. She was comfortable and was in no pain.

After nearly a week she died; quietly and comfortably in her bed, praying in a low voice. The flame of her life’s candle blew out.

Childhood Memories

I can remember an incident that occurred when I was about five or six year old. It took place on a hot, humid summer day. The men from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation were doing road inspection, repairs and cleaning the culverts in front of my parents’ house. My parents’ house was close to route 711 and had a heavy flow of traffic. The house had a small side porch where I could sit safely inside of the gated, railings and yet see what was happening on the roadway. I used to like to sit outside and watch the traffic most days, but today was something special. It was the activity of the road workers. It was even more interesting than normal. The orange vested men were directing the traffic as well as working.

I was sitting in the shade of the porch roof and was rocking in my child size rocking chair. It was wooden and its rockers were wide and thin, like skis that were bent. One of the rockers had a music box fastened to it and when I rocked, it played a tune.

My mom had given me a glass of Kool-Aid and in my child’s mind I needed it. It was hot out and I wanted to keep cool. I can’t remember what flavor the Kool-Aid was, but it seemed to have disappeared in no time at all. I was still thirsty and hot, but I didn’t want to leave the porch and go inside. I didn’t want to miss anything that was happening. The men were still working and directing the traffic. It was interesting stuff to a young kid.

I started sipping the water from the ice as it melted. The problem with that was I became thirsty long before the ice melted enough for me to take a drink. While I was tilting the glass, one of the ice cubes went into my mouth.

A-a-a-h, that tasted so good. It was cool and wet. So I began to plop an ice cube into my mouth and then shoot it back into the glass. It was working well. My thirst was held at bay and I could continue to watch the men as they worked.

Either I wasn’t paying attention or I became too cocky with the ice cube because instead of shooting it back into the glass, it shot in the opposite direction and went down my throat. It stuck in my esophagus; biting, freezing, almost choking me as it hung up about halfway down. It was painfully cold and it scared me. Was I going to die? Would it freeze my insides? I was almost in a panic.

I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t stand the pain. I remembered that hot water melted ice. I leapt from my rocking chair, bowling it over on its side, and bolted into our kitchen. Fear caused me to jump up onto the counter top in one frantic leap. I grabbed the handles of the faucet and turned on the hot water.

As soon as the water started to warm, I began to slurp at the stream as it poured from the tap. When the water became hotter, I could feel the ice cube start to melt. My esophagus grew less cold as the hot water trickled around and past the icy obstruction. Slowly, ever so slowly, I could feel the ice cube start to slide downward towards my stomach.

I instantaneously felt relief as the offending ice cube dropped out of my throat and into my stomach. I can remember the relief that I felt then. No more icy pain and no more fear of dying.