memories

Happy Birthday To Me!!

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I am 56 years old today.  My children called, of course, and asked me what I am doing today.  Cleaning house, naturally.  It is what I do.  For me cleaning house usually includes moving a piece of furniture or some pile of stuff I no longer want wherever it is piled. 

It’s a joke with my immediate family.  My older duchess fusses about my moving things around in the house.  Thoroughly encouraged by her Paw Paw.  She’s going to be fussing next time she comes even though I discussed some of my plans with her.  I moved our bed to another wall where I prefer it.  And in the green room I turned a bed a different direction and swapped two bookcases relocating the television that sits on top of one.

 I refer to the extra bedroom as the green room because it has a pretty moss green carpet.  I have two queen beds, a full-size iron bed and three large bookcases full of books situated around the room.  This is the room the girls and I sleep in when they come to visit.  We always watch television when we go to bed. The kitty cat movie was the only thing going for a long time.  That is Disney’s Aristocats. Recently, we’ve been watching the original Scooby Doo cartoons I have recorded.  This is why the moving of the television might be an issue.  She will likely make some comments about it and we will laugh at Granny always moving stuff.

Once upon a time, when I pulled the furniture out from the wall to clean behind it every few weeks, I would put the furniture back someplace different.  I would often just get up in the morning and without really planning, I would move things as I cleaned.  Large pieces of furniture. Like beds and dressers and sofas.  See the opening line of this post?  I don’t do that as often as I once did.  I guess that is one barometer of my aging body.  I am less likely to dig in to big projects.

Nevertheless, I did move a lot of furniture yesterday.  Pulling the books and “artifacts” as I call my collection of junk, was a big project.  I did get a chance to be reminded of some of the books I have accumulated and not taken the time to read. 

Another project I tackled over the past few weeks is relocating an old project.  I was in my twenties when I set some broken pieces of concrete from my great grandparent’s porch into an amateur patio.  I pulled out those pieces that were now in the middle of the cow lot and with his helpful tractor skills, we moved the blocks over here to the back of the porch.  I set in a new amateur patio as the first step toward a Houdash pond. Granny Sally always had a Houdash pond in her yard.  Wherever she lived, she put one in. Just a hole dug out and lined it with cement mixed in a wheelbarrow and spread by hand to make it hold water. That would then become the focal point for tropical plants and hold a few goldfish.  The goldfish did well if the pond was deep enough to discourage the fishing coons.  

I had one at our house at Camper’s Cove.  It was right outside the living room windows.  I dug it in August after dark one year.  There was a gutter that ran off the roof straight in to it and kept it flushed, filled and fresh.  Granny’s ponds were refilled with rainwater and a water hose, as needed.  My new one will be the same.

Why do I do all this?  Rearranging furniture, moving and situating my personal things, digging in the dirt, planting and tending things that grow.  Even sorting out and rearranging my clothes in the closet play a part.  Trying to satisfy the urge to create beauty and order from chaos.  To be simply creative. No matter how primitive my efforts.  I enjoy the process.  More times than not, I enjoy the product. 

He doesn’t seem to mind all my eccentricities.  He often offers to help with the big stuff and always helps when I ask for it.  I couldn’t do a lot of it without his support and wouldn’t without his approval.  I try to run things by him that will affect his movements.  Mostly, he just lets me go and do.  My projects are usually recycled materials and found objects.  If I can’t do 98% of the actual work myself, I skip it.  It’s the doing that counts and having what I’ve done my self. I don’t know any other woman that would be satisfied with my creations.  That’s okay.  I do it for me anyway. 

There is a new component to my work.  There are two duchesses who come to play here sometimes.  I recall how much I loved my grandmother’s tropical landscape.  I am trying to recreate one for myself and for them.  When they are older and see a banana tree or cannas blooming, they can recall summers playing in the shade of the bananas and ooing over the bright tropical blooms of the cannas.  And remember how much they are loved by a tolerant Paw Paw and an eccentric Granny. 

Oak Trees

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There was an oak tree here in the back yard when Mother started building this house.  Daddy said it was about 6 inches in diameter when he was doing some clearing and fence work for his Grandfather back in the 40s.  Grandpa Hamm told him to leave it for shade.  It was in the middle of a fence line then. 

It grew to a monstrous size over the years, but developed a hollow all through the main trunk.  Hurricane Rita shredded every leaf and she was never the same after.  Finally, she was bare and dying.  Rock had a fellow with a big enough chainsaw come cut her down.  Laying on her side she was seven or eight feet in diameter where the branches started. 

There were many fish fries and barbecues under that old tree.  There was a swing that soothed me through many an anxious childhood trial.  The photo with this letter shows three of the four daughters left behind by her.  The cows enjoy the shade and acorns now.  There is one nearest the house he is planning to move the fence behind so we will have a shade tree in the back yard to gather around again. 

There is one memory that has come to the front for me lately.  Our central air conditioner has had a couple of problems this summer.  Made me think of how we used to live.  We had a window unit in the living room and one in Mother’s bedroom.  We have an attic fan that still works.  The window unit is mounted in the wall in the living room since Mother added on to the house in ’86. We added the central air when we moved in here in ’04.  I’m not even sure if the window unit still works. 

Nevertheless, my memory turned back to the summer of ’77.  At least, I think it was that summer. Might have been the one before or one after.  Mother wanted to redo the kitchen.  She wanted to rearrange the cabinets and hired a carpenter to come in and do it.  What to do for cooking while the kitchen was out of commission? 

In those days, eating out was a very rare occasion.  We usually only ate out when we went to see Daddy when he came in port or on one of the rare shopping trips to Beaumont.  Luby’s and later, Piccadilly cafeterias were Mother’s favorites.  The Monterey House or The Schooner were also occasional choices.  Locally, there was a Dairy Queen and a Pizza Hut.  There was a place in Spurger that made great hamburgers.  That was it. Convenience foods found in the freezer were Banquet TV dinners and frozen pizzas.  If there were microwaves then, only rich people had them.  Folks bought groceries and grew gardens and cooked from scratch in this part of the woods. 

What about not having a kitchen to do all that?  Mother set up a screen house and a canopy right under that old oak tree.  She set up a long folding table and a card table and the lawn chairs and what have you.  A cook stove and the water hose and the refrigerator moved out of the way in the dining area next to the kitchen along with the deep freezer and she never missed a beat.  We stayed out there all the time it seems.  Of course, I was a kid and that was a long time ago.  My brother could probably fill in more details and we have a couple of friends who were always there.  He is gone now, but she could provide some details, too, no doubt. 

Growing up, we lived closer to nature than we do now.  The windows were open unless it was blowing rain or too cold.  The attic fan drew in the air. Sometimes it was hot air, but moving over perspiring skin was cooling.   Even in winter, we slept without heat.  The propane heater was lit each morning. I don’t know of a time it was left on during the night.  We all had electric blankets. That helped a lot.  There are many days in winter no heat is even needed.  The days are mild and pleasant.  The windows would have been open back then.

If it was just me, I would run the central air and heat less often.  I would get rid of all the carpet in the back half of the house and situate more of the furniture away from the windows. Except the beds.  The beds are best left in front of the windows to catch the draft from the attic fan pulling the cool night air through the house.  The night sounds are soothing to the soul and the gentle light from the moon is magical. 

One fall he and I turned the central unit off and lived with the attic fan until it was too cold to have the windows open.  I have clear memories of lying there next to him in the moonlight with the draft passing over us.  There was something magical about those quiet moments with him I pray remember when the days of my life are closing. 

There are so many treasures in my memory of our loving each other these many years.  I continue to work toward creating more treasured memories with him all the time.  What would I have done without him always being my champion and hero?  His courage and stubborn will have saved us more times from more enemies than I can ever enumerate.  But He keeps track and rewards him with His mercy and grace.  His faith in our Lord is an anchor I hold on to through the rough times.  I am grateful beyond words for him.

I have drifted all over the place with my thoughts here.  But, isn’t that the way of memories?  They come trickling in and then they flood through the mind and heart washing us along in the current.  I’ll keep seeking the ones in the past to relate to the little ones and keep creating ones in the present to cherish as time passes.