Dad’s Wonderful Idioms

My second round of an upper respiratory tract infection caused me to think on my dad, Carl Beck. Growing up at home when one of us would catch a cold Dad would always manage to pull out some saying that was guaranteed to make us kids feel worse. Noses that were sore and dripping with mucus always brought out, “Snottier than a sheep buck.” I haven’t been around sheep that much, but would assume that the ram sheep had mucous noses.

Or he might say our noses were “running like a maple tree in spring.” This I do know something about. Every spring, many of the locals will drill holes in the maple trees push in a drip spout, and collect some of the sweet sap as it rises to nourish the tree. The sap comes out in a steady drip, drip, drip. The old timers hang individual buckets to collect the sap, but newer generation use a connecting hose system into a large collection tank.

My absolute favorite saying, Dad saved for the days when we had a sore throat, we were coughing, sneezing, running a fever, and were huddled beneath blankets trying to feel warm. He would say, “You know how to get rid of a cold with a sore throat?” We knew what he would say next and although we were feeling miserable we would play along and ask, “What?”

“Drink ten gallons of water and sit on the stove until it boils.” He would smirk and walk away. I’m sure that he wasn’t being mean, it was just a saying as were the others that were passed down to him. These aren’t the loveliest of memories, but are part of what made me the warped and imperfect person that I am.

I must admit that I've shared one or two of his pearls of wisdom with my children.

What a Weekend My weekend of woes actually started Friday. Every other Friday afternoon is one of my writers meetings. I got a call from a fellow writer the night before asking for a ride. That was no problem, she lives along the way. She reminded me to bring my camera. She loves old barns and there were several along our route. Early Friday morning, another writer called and asked for a ride. No problem, she was along the way. I asked for her address for my GPS because she lives along some back streets and is difficult to find with my memory alone.

Once in my car, I found that I’d left my GPS at home. Instead of returning, I asked my first passenger to fetch her GPS. I also couldn’t remember the address so we called the second rider for a repeat of her address. After much twisting and turning of back roads, we made it to her house and to the meeting on time.

After the meeting and dropping off passenger number two, passenger number one and I got our photos of two barns, one I wrote a blog about its beauty and the second was a barn she was making a collage of it in all weather and seasons.

Saturday, was the book signing at Craftique in Greensburg. As I drove through Greensburg, the weather was nice, so I had my car window cracked for the fresh air. All was well until a police car coming in the opposite direction sped through a water puddle, shooting water through the opening. At the book signing, I didn’t sell a single book.

I have the congestion and sneezing of another cold and can you believe it, Willow the cat is also sneezing. I wonder if she has a cold or maybe she’s grown allergic to me.

Dealing With a Stacked Deck

Overnight the snow plows continued to do their job. The wind and snow worked their magic as well. On my deck there is now about eight inches of stacked snow and in my drive is a new layer of snow plowed from the road. Yesterday, I cleaned most of the snow that had been packed into the wheels of my car, but as usual, they were once again filled. This may not sound like much, but try to drive a car with an unbalanced wheel. It makes the car shimmy like your sister Kate. Driving with any kind of speed causes the steering wheel to jump and shake. I went out this morning to attempt to remove more this morning. I poked and pried more out, but I knew it wasn’t enough. I started my car and moved it sideways in my driveway. I am hoping that the sunlight will finish off what I started.

Moving my car proved to be another chore. The snowplows not only filled my wheels, but managed to slide a layer of dense snow beneath my car. Because of that, I was almost stuck in my drive. After rocking it forward and back a few times I was able to drive it into a sideways position.

Since I was already dressed and outside, I decided to finish clearing out the driveway. I was still sore from yesterday’s snow detail, but against the moaning and groaning of my aching body, I finished my chores and hurried inside to the comforting warmth of my wood burner and breakfast. Oh, by the way, my deck is still stacked with eight inches of snow and it can stay stacked until the spring thaw.

Striptease

This year instead of the usual layer upon layer of ice and snow, the weather has been doing a striptease show. First, a cold, blustery wind will push the snow and ice clad storm dancer into the area to deposit a load of frozen precipitation. Then the snow plows would come to curl back the drifting snow and spread layers of anti-skid material and salt on the road runways. Home owners have had to bundle up and attack the snow-laden walkways and drives with brooms and shovels. The fortunate ones are identified by the revving of their snow blowers, the engines of their four wheelers or their riding lawnmowers with snowplows attached. A few have plows affixed to the front of trucks. I do have neighbors that have a backhoe with a bucket on one end and a scoop shovel on the other. In past years they have stopped to move piles of snow from my drive when it reaches the point that I can no longer see to exit my drive.

Now, I come back to the striptease. This year that is exactly what “Mother Nature” has done. Winter’s dancer deposits a quick load of ice and snow, before retreating back to Canada. Slowly, the temperature warms and the layer of white precipitation becomes slush. Areas of lawn and earth teasingly appear. The discolored snow melts and the shoulders of the road are exposed. More of the grass becomes bare. The repeat performances tease that spring will soon be here. I don’t cry for an “Encore,” but these dancers return and cover everything up again. I don’t have long to wait for the next show. Rain has come to prepare the stage for the next winter clad dancer. The weatherman has predicted snow accumulation for the next storm. I pray that it will be a tiny dancer, lightly clad, and beautiful. I don’t look forward to removing thick layers of her clothing from my walks and drives.

Winter Wearies

Winter Weary is another malady that afflicts a person during the chill winter months. It is more apt to appear near the end of the season. The first snowfall is often welcome with wide open arms and eyes, a welcome sight, covering the bareness of the trees and the fallen brown leaves with a bright white robe of eiderdown and lace. Slowly, as the shoveling, the cold, the ice, and the repeated discoloration of the pristine white drifts occur, I grow weary of the bleak, gray days and begin to long for the spring melt, the sunshine, and the warm breezes. I grow weary of dragging my homemade wooden wheelbarrow out to the covered wood pile, moving each piece to the one-wheeled conveyance, and pushing the heavy load to be stored in my basement. I grow weary of getting up in the middle of the night to refill my wood burner with the split logs from the fire ring. I grow weary of cleaning out the ashes to carry outside, adding their dust to the discoloration of the snow. Punxsutawney Phil did little to lift my spirits out of these dreary days of doldrum, sharing that there will be six more weeks of the winter wearies. SIGH.

I grow weary of carefully waltzing across the icy surface of my driveway, being extremely cautious not to fall. The slip and fall in 2015 has made me more aware of just how dangerous ice can be. I don’t want another head injury. The two bleeds in my head happening once was more enough.

I can’t wait until the gentle prying fingers of the vernal equinox, the gentle zephyrs and the warmth of sunshine chase the winter wearies away. The time when those dreary, tail end of winter days are replaced with the cheery, colorful days of spring.

Rogue Rodent

The other day, I wrote a note on Facebook about my morning shoveling snow and clearing my drive. It was an imaginative piece about the new fallen snow and the wind. The weather was still cold, the sky remained gray, ant the wind was still wearing its winter bluster, but as I looked around, something had changed. It seemed that something had softened. As I carried each shovelful of snow across the road, dumping it into an empty field, I was able to look around and I noticed the playfulness of the wind and snow. Scattered across my lawn were rolls of snow where the wind lifted some stray plop of snow and began to push it, gathering more snow as it rolled. There were about thirty of these bundles. The largest was almost fifteen inches in diameter. In my fanciful, creative mind, it was though the elements were gathering the material to build snow forts and a battalion of snowmen to wage war on Old Man Winter. It seemed to say, “Hold on. Spring is on its way.”

Then came February second and Phil, that pampered pet of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, was dragged from its snug, warm den to prophesy and forecast the next six weeks. I would be upset if my winter’s sleep was interrupted as was this plump purveyor of the future of weather. This chubby prognosticator of winter’s demise or whether winter will win a reprieve has spoken, responded accordingly and said, “I see my shadow. Now put me back to bed.”

The result of those “good” citizens of Punxsutawney is that we will have six more weeks of winter. I see that the prognostications of the weathermen are showing that there is a cold snap ahead and they confirm Phil’s portend. At times, I feel Phil’s projections are more accurate than the weathermen, but that’s another story.

Feeling Guilty

After years of placing postcards on my Facebook page, sharing them with my friends, I actually feel guilty that I am unable to do so right now. A corrupt file in the memory disc causes my phone to freeze and I lost my Facebook app for now. I hope to get that back up and running soon.

The postcards that I have been sharing are from as far back as the early 1900’s to modern times. Some have the senders, their message, and the postmark of their sending date. It is great reading or trying to read the sometimes faded words on the backs. Many are souvenir cards, unsent and virginal, the inexpensive way of having souvenirs of times and places.

These cards came from stashes that my mother-in-law, Retha Morrison and from my mom, Sybil Beck kept over the years. From the two donors, I have a boot box filled to running over, probably one thousand of these memories. I have been dubbed as their keeper and I decided to post a different one each day, sharing the places and times with others, rather than allowing them to die a slow death, hidden away.

Cards or Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are tucked among cards of local attractions, distant places, and of times of war. They share camps of soldiers, youth camps for Pittsburgh children, and cards collected from the times we camped out West. Some of the postcards are an artist’s rendering of the place, while others are crisp, clear photographs, sharing a true rendition of a place. They portray a vast panorama of deserts, mountains, cities, celebration, and people.

The great thing about postcards is that they are relatively inexpensive souvenirs and remembrances that quickly transport the reader and collector to another time and another world. They are easy to store and stir memories of a person’s past.