If you consider grease spots your badge of honor, you will not enjoy today’s column. Instead, go straight to the want ads for used pick up trucks.
If on the other hand, you have thrown away clothes and/or living room rugs because of grease tracked in by local yokels and/or your husband, this column could change your life.
The good news is that there is an old-timey, miracle cleaner that will remove diesel grease, axle grease, and John Deere tractor grease. It removes fresh AND set spaghetti stains. Possible it will even remove warts.
The bad news is that you cannot find this heavy, pine-scented floor cleaner. I am speaking, of course, of Lestoil.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why store counters are weighed down with cleaners that do a halfway job, when the best cleaner in the world is not popular and therefore not available.
I think it is a conspiracy. This conspiracy would not be a proverbial communist conspiracy but rather a capitalist plot. Think about it. What happens when the farmer accidentally spills diesel grease on his Sunday shirt and I can’t get it out? I have to buy another shirt. And on and on it goes.
It was by the grace of God that I learned of Lestoil. Even my own mother never knew about its power. Here’s how it works. Pour Lestoil on the axle grease, motor oil, or other stain. If it’s a really stubborn stain, brush with a toothbrush. Wash as usual. The stain is gone.
This works on clothes, carpet, upholstered furniture, farm caps, and linoleum floors. Because it works, we hoard Lestoil. Since the farmer has discovered that it is a superb hand cleaner, my supply is getting scarce.
So I called the local Lestoil sisterhood. The sisterhood is a group of ladies who are in on the secret. We look out for one another. If one of us finds a store that carries Lestoil, we send the message out over our Lestoil hot line. We stockpile it. What is hard to do, however, is to sell a sister one of our bottles. This precious commodity could be called liquid gold, if a lesser product hadn’t stolen that name.
Last week a sister called, and she was a nervous wreck. She was down to her last bottle, and our local supplier has quit carrying the stuff. She had driven to Gaffney, Cherryville and Lincolnton in her search.
In desperation, she called the parent company, Clorox Inc., and asked to speak to the head honcho. They can’t sell us cases of Lestoil directly, nor do they know who can. They said it was the American way.
There was nothing to do but get on the Internet. What I discovered is that there are Lestoil sisterhoods all over the country. And there is Lestoil trivia. The stuff was invented in Holyoke, Massachusetts, proof of something we REALLY don’t like to speak of -- Yankee ingenuity.
From Internet sources, it appears that Lestoil is popular in Puerto Rico. The farmer and I have been to Puerto Rico twice, but if something doesn’t break soon, looks like we’ll be going back.
In the meantime, I have 9 ½ ounces left. If you spot the stuff, let me know. Better yet, buy all they have. There might be a reward. A big one.
It’s a wonder that the mothers of America do not riot over their lack of recognition. I reckon what restrains them is that mothers understand their real power – which is their influence over us 24/7.
Such were my thoughts the other evening after I spoke by phone with my own mother. This is how the conversation went.
MAMA, age 78, says to DAUGHTER: “Kathryn Mae, there is something I need to say to you.”
DAUGHTER, age 54, breaks out into sweat, starts biting her fingernails, and feels herself clamming up. With a quivering voice, she asks, “Mama, have I done something wrong?”
MAMA: “Kathryn Mae, what I want to know is whether you are practicing your piano every day or not.”
DAUGHTER thinks of saying, but does NOT say, “My calendar already weighs 5 pounds. I’m writing myself notes in the palm of my hand to keep up with myself. I’m juggling so many plates in the air that I look like a walking circus act. And now you are making me feel guilty because I don’t practice the piano every day?”
DAUGHTER confesses instead. “No, Mama, I practice a whole lot but not every day.”
The MOTHER adds her concern: “Well, Kathryn Mae, the reason I mention it is so, hopefully, you can learn from my mistakes. At your age, I didn’t practice like I should have, and now I really have to struggle to get my eyes, hands and brain working together to play ‘In the Sweet Bye and Bye.’ I just don’t want this to happen to you.”
Then MOTHER slips in: “Didn’t you just buy a new, fancy piano? Shouldn’t you be putting it to good use?”
Then DAUGHTER, who took psychology in college and has mothered 4 grown children herself, switches bait: “Mama, what about your piano? Did you ever get it tuned? How much practice are you getting in?”
MAMA tells this amazing story: “Kathryn Mae, I made a New Year’s Resolution to practice the piano an hour every day. This meant I had to start turning on the heat in that part of the house. And I picked up a free calendar at the bank, and on that calendar I write down every day how many hours I’ve practiced. I’m making progress through the Broadman Hymnal, but I’ve got a long way to go to get back to the pieces I played at WC (UNC-G).”
MAMA continues: “Although I’m having a lot of fun, some days I just don’t want to practice. Kathryn Mae, life consists of getting up and doing those things we dread doing. But once we do what we know we ought to do, it turns out to be good for us. You’ll understand this as you get older.”
DAUGHTER thinks of saying but does NOT say: “I’ve been learning that lesson for 50-plus years myself.”
Instead DAUGHTER says, and means it, “Mama, you are a good influence on me. I appreciate all those years you made me practice when I was little. Thanks for reminding me. I’ll try to do better.”
And, since the phone call, DAUGHTER, age 54, is practicing her piano. And dreaming of challenging MAMA to a duet, say the “William Tell Overture.”
When the company you work for goes multicultural, among the perks to go out the window are religious holidays. What used to be Easter is now often referred to as Spring Holiday. Whatever you call it, I take it.
And so do our children, including our two youngest sons who have driven up from Raleigh to spend Easter with us. No sooner do we get over the empty nest syndrome than they’re back!
They bring with them their appetites. Loaf bread doesn’t mold, it evaporates. Cheese and whole hams also vanish. And as long as they keep coming home for visits, I know better than to throw away their collection of plastic moose cups. Instead, I brew tea and buy milk by the gallons.
Just when the farmer and I shrink our appetites down to a size befitting senior citizens, we get to chow down with still-growing boys who mow down roasts, platters of ham, and tubs of biscuits.
Besides cleaning out the refrigerator, freezer and pantry, they also reintroduce noise into the household. About the only time the farmer and I make a racket is when we attempt to carry on a conversation – and our conversations are about the children, of course.
The moment the boys enter the house, however, the silence apparently drives them bananas. So they turn their favorite electronics on and up, and leave them on and up for the entire visit.
I should have too much pride to tell you what happened during Miles’ last homecoming. His radio/CD player doubles as a clock. In order to get up in time to go fishing, he set the contraption to go off at 5:30 am. It played something resembling music for 1 solid hour before cutting itself off. Since Miles was a part of the deal, we tolerated the racket.
Then Miles returned to NC State, but the radio continued to serenade us every morning at 5:30. The farmer was beside himself, for no matter how many dials he turned and buttons he pushed, he couldn’t shut the thing off. We could have unplugged the gizmo but were afraid our backs would go out in the process. We even considered paying someone for a service call, but think what it would cost to fly someone in from Hong Kong.
So when Miles came home for Easter, Cline said, “Before you even think about dropping a pole in the Broad River, go to your bedroom and shut off your radio. It has been driving your mother and me insane since you left.”
Miles naively asked, “Why didn’t you just turn the alarm off?” I thought his father was going to take him out to the woodshed.
The other phenomenon that occurs during their visits involves the telephone. It rings early to get them up to go fishing/hunting/working; and late, to get them up to go fishing/hunting/Walmarting. This incessant ringing hurts the farmer’s good ear, and keeps him jumping out of the recliner with false hopes. But the phone is never for him.
I have to remind the farmer that the children will only be home briefly. They’ll eat, play current music loudly, and reconnect with friends. They’ll help us celebrate Easter in meaningful ways. Then they’ll disappear in a cloud of pollen. But if we’re lucky, they’ll be back for the next significant holiday: Mother’s Day.
For years I have mulched tomatoes with newspaper articles entitled, “Decorating Your House For Pennies With Yard Sale Finds.”
I was one of those proud Southern ladies who felt there were more meaningful ways to spend Saturday mornings than to be out cruising the neighborhood bargaining for somebody else’s high heels and/or Tupperware. So I boycotted yard sales, and meaningfully cleaned the showers with a toothbrush instead.
Then the farmer and I were overcome with the notion that we needed more house to turn around in now that we are getting older. We even convinced the lending institution that this was a good idea, and began our first new house.
Even with interest rates down, there won’t be much left over to furnish the place. Especially the den. What happened with our proposed den was that the farmer asked the builder to “super size it.” We will need hearing aids to say “howdy” to one another in that room. A big room provides options. We could take up basketball. We could borrow folding chairs and have church in there. But the question remains: how are we going to furnish this room during the week?
In a deja vu moment, I knew: Yard Sales. It is certainly providential that yard sale season is coinciding with our house building – and with spring fever. It wasn’t too hard to talk my daughter-in-law and sister-in-law into getting up before daylight last Saturday to go with me. And thank goodness for the Internet. I printed out the directions and off we went. Although we hadn’t counted on the low fog, our bargain-hunting instincts prevailed.
As luck would have it, the visions I had of purchasing a Broyhill dining room suite for $12.50 did not materialize. The closest I came was the $5 wingback chair that was more or less by the side of the road rather than in a yard sale per se. My sister-in-law assures me that the chair will be a classic when it’s refinished, refurbished, and “aired out.”
At another sale, I snagged a winter coat, scarf and gloves. I was on a roll, and at another house, found a huge magnet for a quarter, and at the next, a canning funnel for 12.5 cents. The magnet is for picking up nails; the funnel for canning tomatoes. Eureka!
My daughter-in-law in the meantime was snatching up wonderful toys, clothes and shoes for our granddaughter. My sister-in-law got the other wonderful toys, and just the right pair of sunglasses to wear while out on the playground at Boiling Springs Elementary.
In a grand finale, I snared 18 cork-backed coasters. That’s 9 apiece for the farmer and me to share. Frankly, as the day wore on, we began to feel a tad guilty about our extravagances. As Mr. Rockefeller warned, so go the pennies, so go the dollars. It was time to stuff it, and stuff the loot in the car.
Back home, the yard sale stuff is still out on the counter. Where will I put it? Probably out on the curb in my next yard sale.
April Fool’s Day is a mighty special day at our house. For exactly nine months after our June wedding, our first son, Jason, was born on April 1. What made this truly miraculous was that we had been told that I would never have children. As the farmer explains, the doctor who told me that I couldn’t have children simply didn’t take him into account.
That was 30 years ago. Today. Which means somebody at our house is getting some age on them. Is it the farmer, who is 59 going on 17? Or our firstborn, now 30? Or his mom, real and hypothetical age unavailable?
The aging of their children sends parents into denial. Like my own mother said to me once, “Kathryn Mae, you can’t be 50! Only an old woman would have a 50-year-old child.”
This moment of honesty soon passed. For the next time I visited Mama, she walked me out to the car, cleared her throat, and said, “Kathryn Mae, there is something I have been meaning to tell you. “You are turning out to be a fine young lady.” I left her house, went straight to Hardees, and got my senior coffee. Don’t tell Mama, but I have earned it.
Until it happened to me, I was clueless about the grand adventure that motherhood is. Only God could have created motherhood. And motherhood is a sign that God really does think a lot of women…But I won’t go there. Today.
Before Jason was born, I remember boasting to friends that a baby was NOT going to change my ideas, my activities, and my attitudes. I was right. Jason didn’t change them; he eradicated them. For a long time I didn’t notice this because I didn’t have time to think.
Nor did our first, or any of our other sons, turn out to be carbon copies of his parents. I envisioned Jason’s becoming church organist; he picks a mean banjo. Sorry, Mama, but I now prefer the sounds of "The Flint Hill Special" to the sounds of Bach’s "Fugue # 47."
Looking back on it, I think what turned Jason against classical music was “Peter and the Wolf.” To this day, if hehears the strains to “Peter and the Wolf,” Jason will bolt out of the room.
As an older child, age 6, Jason became the farmer’s right hand man. He tinkered with equipment, drove trucks (not until age 12), and milked cows. By the time we sold the farm, Jason had learned some of life’s hardest lessons on work, hard times, and stubborn cows.
A farm is a tremendous place to raise a boy. I’m thankful that we got to farm when the boys were small – and that we got to quit when we got older.
Over the years, I have come to understand that motherhood means hemming children up just long enough to set them free. Encouraging them to develop their own gifts is how I also ended up with one of Cleveland County’s premiere coon hunters. If they gave out awards, Jason would surely qualify. Lord only knows how many camouflage outfits and camouflage trucks he has gone through by the age of 30.
What has been most meaningful, however, has been to watch our son grow into the role of father and husband. We are proud of his love and devotion to his own family.
As my mother put it, he is turning out to be a “fine young man.” I only have one question, however. Where did the 30 years go??
Until four years ago, the closest we had come to California was the time the farmer and I volunteered for a stint of parasailing in Mexico. Looking back on this hare-brained idea scares me. We may have been just one stiff breeze away from sailing over California – or Hawaii.
My first formal, planned trip to California took place later, soon after my 50th birthday. San Diego was the site of graduation ceremonies for those who had earned a professional designation after years of exciting study in the realms of insurance, IRS regs, and age-weighted pension plans. Although it cost an arm and a leg to go to California, I felt I deserved to go to my own graduation. California is a good place to unwind when your head is stuffed full of regs and codes.
Last week, business took me a second time to California. Different organization but the same town – and the same hotel. Also the same long airplane ride, and glorious weather.
Nevertheless, the Marriott in San Diego is a great destination, even if you are fighting jet lag and a “been there, done that” attitude. Back-to-back meetings meant I was there for 5 nights and 6 days.
Regardless of destination, as you might suspect, there are different perspectives on business travel. Specifically speaking, there is the male perspective and there is the female perspective. Both types of travelers miss their own beds, coffee pots, and families. There the similarity ends.
As a newly minted Weight Watchers graduate, one of my goals was to sample the local cuisine, but within the range of my allotted points. While I was searching out the most authentic, low calorie fish tacos, the men in our group were searching for home cooking and/or a good cut of beef. If they had ever been allotted Weight Watcher points, they didn’t discuss it.
A key difference, of course, is the way the species approaches souvenir hunting; i.e. shopping. When breakout sessions end, a woman’s idea of unwinding is to carouse around in a few local stores. Who knows when you might find just the right bracelet, watercolor, or teapot as a memento of your trip?
The men that I observed, on the other hand, shot out of the breakouts and headed for the nearest TV sets to catch the latest news on ESPN.
As it turned out, we were in the area where the rolling blackouts occurred. This really hit the women hard. Several ladies in our group saved a mint because, when the blackout struck, the stores’ metal doors came down, closing them up. Worse, the cash register and charge card apparatus froze up. This may not have been reported in the local papers, but it is a hazard currently faced by women travelers to Southern California.
The good news is that while I was battling rolling blackouts, the farmer reports that I was missing the blowing snow, sleet, wind and rain back home.
Nor was the farmer impressed with the fish tacos I had sampled. He didn’t meet me at the plane, but this is how I knew he really had missed me. He had cooked me all his favorite foods -- country ham, cornbread, collards and Folger’s coffee. Extra strong.
Behind every cliché, you will usually find more than a grain of truth. Now that country boys are few and far between, you may wonder whether it’s still true that “you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”
Our family put that cliché to the test last Sunday. Last fall, before we ordered $67 dollar tickets to “The Phantom of the Opera,” we asked the farmer if he wanted to be included. Unfortunately, he thought we meant “The Grand Old Opry,” and so he said, “Lands sake, count me in!”
He began smelling a rat when we said we would be driving to Charlotte for the performance, not Nashville. I began to smell a rat when I asked the farmer if he knew the location of the Blumenthal Center in Charlotte, and he asked was that where the Hornets played?
Our tickets were for the matinee, at 2 pm Sunday. Unfortunately, this hour coincides with the farmer’s Sunday afternoon nap. He warned us that if the music weren’t to his liking, he would just nod off to sleep.
“By the way,” he asked, “who is the phantom that you keep talking about?” He said that if it wasn’t the Grand Old Opry, it sounded like it might be the next best thing – some sort of thriller, similar to what you would expect from a Mel Gibson or the guy who played Dirty Harry.
I assured the farmer that this was a renowned Broadway play – that it had thrilled audiences around the world. “You’ll love the music, the costumes, and the choreography,” I said. “And to think that we can enjoy a Broadway play within an hour’s drive of Boiling Springs! We are so blessed.”
My husband was not amused. To his credit, however, he rose to the occasion, put on a suit, and got in the car with us.
On the way to Charlotte, we had to remind him that there would be suspense, nuances to the plot – surrealism, if you will. Just before we parked the car, we had to put it to him bluntly: “Just remember, it will be bad form to ask in a loud voice: ‘What is going on here?’”
We had pre-empted his Sunday afternoon nap, but the farmer said if he could have a cup of coffee, he thought he could make it. I pointed him to the food kiosks inside the Blumenthal, where servers asked him, “Latte or cappuccino, sir?”
You could tell that, though the farmer has consumed 4,587 gallons of coffee, no one had ever put it to him this way before.
The play began, and the farmer rared back in the comfortable seats. Before he went to sleep, a 2-ton chandelier swooped eerily up and down and back and forth over the stage as the orchestra played loudly.
I could hardly contain my excitement and anticipation at what would come next. The farmer, on the other hand, asked, “What was the point of all that commotion?”
Two and a half hours later, as we left the play, they were selling Phantom memorabilia in the lobby. If they had had a “Phantom” farm cap, I would have bought him one. Turned loose up street, or over at the barn, think of the stir he would create.
And if they do a sequel, “Phantom of the Farm,” he could be their man.
Last week’s column dealt with the resurrection of Big Red. Big Red is the 2-ton dump truck that has come out of mothballs: i.e., the red clay of a Cleveland County pasture. The farmer anticipates that Big Red will be the key player in getting the new house built on our farm. (Click here for photos of our new house.
So far, sightings of Big Red are few and far between. He’s not yet seaworthy, though Miles is coming home from NC State this weekend in hopes of taking Big Red out for a whirl.
Meanwhile, over on the hill, the house is taking shape. For better or worse, we are heading back to the country. Our youth, or glory years, were lived in the country. It appears that is where we’ll spend old age, or the golden years.
It’s enough to make me wonder if I might be in the early stages of dementia. What was I thinking when I agreed to move back to the cow pasture?
For 10 years, I’ve enjoyed living in uptown Boiling Springs – within hollerin’ distance of both our church and Gardner-Webb University. Uptown, no barn animals ever eat the boxwoods. No roosters wake us at morn - nor mountain lions at night. No old manure spreaders are decomposing in the back yard. And no hunters claim rights to the hickory trees.
Back on the farm, on the other hand, there will be barn animals, including a cussed goat. The farmer counters that every new house should have a goat, “to control crabgrass, eliminate poison ivy, and prune your landscaping.”
The farmer promises to build new fences to keep the horses in. Frankly speaking, at my age, I don’t fantasize spending retirement running circles around stubborn animals.
I wonder if the sound of the other wild animals around the house will unnerve me? The farmer says this will not be a problem, since neither of us can hear any sound below 120 decibels.
The smells may be a different matter. Though both of us have the sinus problems common to middle-age, I don’t think I’ll ever reach the stage where I can enjoy fried okra with the smell of fresh manure wafting through the windows.
The builder asked if we wanted a real fireplace or just a fake one, for looks. The farmer nearly overheated on this one. The bottom line: when it comes to fireplaces, he wants the real thing.
So far, he hasn’t spoken openly of installing a wood-burning stove in the house. If necessary, I’ll wrestle him to the ground over this.
I have built the last fire I ever intend to build in a wood stove. Been there, done that, for 16 years. My hands have the splinters, scars and burns to show it.
I’ll miss city life – human neighbors, cars, dogs and cats. A postage stamp yard. A lifestyle in which you meet your neighbors out jogging, not chasing lost critters.
The farmer says country living will all come back to me. We’re going back to “God’s country.” Just us and God out there – and lots of stuff that goes bump in the night.
When midlife hit full force, we decided since you pass this way but once, we might as well build a house. (Click here for photo gallery.) The farmer reckoned that building on what was left of our dairy farm would put us one step closer to heaven.
Maybe so, but right now we are going through something akin to purgatory. We differ on everything from what trees to save to where to put the driveway.
Thank goodness another project came down the pike that has taken the farmer’s mind off selecting brick and mortar. He announced: “If we are going to build a house, we’ll need Big Red.”
He then called our 4 boys for heart-to-heart, long distance discussions on his plan to get Big Red up and running. The boys could hardly contain their awe at the prospect of the resurrection of Big Red.
I was excited for another reason. If they resurrected Big Red, that would take him out of the pasture, where he was sitting dead center in the view from the back.
Big Red. He came into our life in the early 1970s, a glorious 2-ton dump truck with a Detroit diesel engine. Many trucks have waltzed into and out of our lives over the years, but none had the mystique, the charisma if you will, of Big Red.
Maybe it was his brilliant red color. Maybe it was his size. Maybe it was the fact that he had both of his doors.
He could haul a LOT of silage. And though I was called into action to drive silage trucks, I was never allowed to drive Big Red. I knew my place in the scheme of things. Friends say I could sue, but what good would that do?
I asked the farmer the other day what made Big Red special. The farmer said, and I quote, “Big Red is tough. And he’s been in the family a very long time.”
“Not as long as me,” I wanted to add.
We quit milking cows in 1986, and the farmer put Big Red out to pasture. Literally. We couldn’t keep the Holsteins, but at least Big Red served as a reminder of our glory years.
For the last month, the farmer has been working against the clock to get the truck up and running so we can build our house. To fathom the correlation, you have to be married into a country family that understands that anything worth doing will involve a lot of hauling.
At last came the day the farmer got the fuel system working and actually cranked Big Red. If men cry, this would be one of those occasions. Of course he called the boys with the glad tidings: “Big Red is running.”
We were not home free. The next project was to replace the 35-year-old hydraulic cylinder. The boys went to work in their respective locations, attempting to locate the cylinder.
Praise the Lord, that part was also found! And the farmer has actually been driving Big Red around the pasture. In fact, he managed to drive up to the house site, and within a stone’s throw of the house, he dumped off the load of stuff that was on the back.
I am tough and have been in the family a long time, but this I cannot understand. The farmer says it’s ‘cause I’m not country, which is his cross to bear…
Everyone prints articles on how to survive the Christmas rush. There are more articles than you would ever want to read on the origin of Halloween and the safe way to cook a Thanksgiving turkey. When it comes to Valentine's Day, however, the media adopts a “don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy.
My hope is that, as you read this morning’s paper, you are having a wonderful post-Valentine’s Day Sunday. That’s the reason why, in last week’s column, I went against the grain and all but overstated how seriously women take Valentine’s Day. Granted my column may not be as exciting as NASCAR news, but there is more to life than who’s “on the pole.”
Ladies, I wrote that column for you – and also for me. Though the farmer might choose not to read my Valentine’s Day column, I could count on readers to bring some heat to bear on the situation.
But as Valentine’s Day approached, I did NOT have that “Smoke Gets in your Eyes” feeling. I did, however, have a bad case of “Sawdust in your Eyes.”
This came from holding our granddaughter while our oldest son sawed dead limbs out of old trees. I reckon this is why we need OSHA and safety glasses.
On the eve of February 14, the sawdust got worse. I decided that putting drops in my eyes would cool things down.
In theory, that might have been a good idea. But then midlife kicked in. Standing there by the bathroom mirror, I took off my glasses and reached for the Visine. Soon my eyes would feel better, I thought. This, of course, is not what happened. Instead of the Visine, I grabbed the wrong plastic bottle – and squirted toenail fungus medicine into my eye.
Suddenly my life, and a host of stars, passed before my eyes. I ran into the kitchen, hollering “help.” The farmer, who was comfortably watching the weather channel, simply said, “What did you say? You talk so low that I can’t hear a word you are saying.”
At the kitchen sink, I turned on the spigot and began rinsing my eyes with water, hollering in between. Finally, the farmer realized that something different might be going on. He came into the kitchen, saying I was making so much noise that he couldn’t hear the weather prediction for Oregon.
I should have known better than to expect sympathy. Instead, he gave the usual male response: “Sit down and explain to me how this happened. Why did you put toenail fungus medicine in your eye? Didn’t you read the label? It clearly says ‘do not bring into contact with your eyes.’ You always fuss at me for not reading labels. If you had, you would have known that this stuff is chockfull of alcohol. For the life of me, I can’t see why you would do this. What were you thinking?”
The next morning was Valentine’s Day. Though he deserved two of them, the farmer did not wake up with a black eye.
I, on the other hand, almost took a sick day. How could I explain that I had NOT been in some sort of hen fight? The only thing that made Valentine’s Day bearable was that the farmer remembered and/or repented. And he sent me 2 peace lilies.
Historically speaking, Valentine’s Day always starts off as one my favorite days of the year. From the time I could read Wuthering Heights, or the Book of Ruth, I have taken a hankering to what women refer to as “romance.”
What I did not realize was that while I was crying over “Gone With the Wind,” the man I would marry was wallowing in “Old Yeller,” “Black Beauty,” and “Popular Farm Mechanics.”
In fact, the more I think about it, the more miraculous it seems to me that a day devoted to romance ever got off first base. Or off the launching pad. Or the firing range.
I don’t know about your house, but at our house, Valentine’s Day is usually a bust. Though Valentine’s Day exists on the calendar, in the advertising section, and in women’s minds, it doesn’t really carry as much clout as, say, “Opening day of dove season.”
You could probably count on one hand the men driving local pickups who can’t tell you the date of “opening day of dove season.” Also “bow season” and “turkey season.” And don’t let the dents in the truck fool you. More money flies out the truck window in the pursuit of wild game than women have any idea. Trust me on this one.
Let me just say that it’s more than enough to over the cost of a dozen red roses, AND a tennis bracelet, AND in some cases I know of, a cruise to the Bahamas.
This is a reality that florists, jewelers, and wives could better capitalize on.
Ever seeking to help educate the public, let me mention another fact of life. Write the following advice in the margins of your Bible, your golf magazine, and/or your “Car and Truck Trader.” If your Valentine appears to take the high road and says to you, “There is no need to get me anything for Valentine’s Day,” you will dead end on a very low road if you take these words literally.
Take her words to heart instead. But I can see why husbands and “significant others” can get confused. They are clueless as to the hidden meaning of the above statement.
The above statement should be interpreted thusly: “There is no need to get me anything for Valentine’s Day. HOWEVER, because you love me so much, you think about me all the time, you enjoy nothing better in the whole world than seeing me smile, you delight in surprising me, you thank the Good Lord every day that you met me, and I mean more to you than even your Granddaddy’s shotgun, I can’t wait to open the gift you have carefully and painstakingly searched out just for me, your Valentine.”
Alas, what women do not realize is that when men look down the scope, they are thinking “antlers,” not “valentines.”
It’s the cause of much post-Valentine’s Day trauma.
Like most women, I’m a very practical person 364 days a year. My Valentine sometimes forgets that there are, however, 365 days in a year. And what a difference a day makes.
Especially if the day is February 14.
Grandchildren make the empty nest syndrome bearable. Especially your own. Thank goodness our grandchild lives around the corner.
What has surprised me the most is the transformation our granddaughter has wrought on the farmer. No sooner does he feed his horses than he goes to visit Morgan. Nothing but the flu or vacation can keep him away.
And he just dotes on each daily hug, word, or gesture. Of course, sensing this, Morgan runs to him with open arms to be swept up by “Paw Paw.”
My role as Morgan’s “Nana” is similar but with a few differences. When I see Morgan, I reckon the old motherly instincts kick back in. In other words, after raising 4 boys and surviving 30 years of motherhood, I have LOTS of opinions. They range from excellent to half-baked.
A grandmother’s hardest job may be knowing when to speak up and knowing when to shut up. Frankly speaking, I’m not there yet.
Last week our son grinned when I picked Morgan up and observed, “She feels hot. Are you sure she’s OK?”
Jason said, “Mama, have you noticed that every time you pick Morgan up, you feel her forehead and say the very same words: ‘She feels hot.’ Then you ask if she is OK.”
One reason this health concern seems especially strange is that Jason remembers a mother who was no Florence Nightingale, who sent them out to play in their sand pile despite snow, wind, or hail. Or chicken pox, flu, or nosebleeds. He remembers a mother who quit buying thermometers after they broke the 245th one in 1981.
Is it possible that I am mellowing with age? Grandchildren have a way of causing such changes.
It is obvious, on almost a daily basis, how much Morgan is changing. These firsts are recorded in her baby book. What no one notices, much less writes down, is how the grandparents are changing.
Sometimes it’s hard to know whose antics are more amusing: the grandchild’s or the grandparents’. When a toddler crawls through the house, she’s as cute as a button. “Cute” is not the right word when her 59-year-old grandfather, who has had a back operation and a neck operation, gets down on all fours and attempts to crawl under the kitchen table.
And what could be more of a spectacle than grandmas who believe they can still turn somersaults? Four weeks later, I am just getting over the aches and pains triggered when I decided to “show out” for Morgan.
“See," I said, “Nana can do somersaults too.” No sooner did I utter those words than the farmer leaped out of his recliner to move back all the furniture and remove himself from danger. My heart raced as I attempted this feat, but Morgan was watching and that gave me the encouragement I needed to survive my “First Middle-Aged Somersault.”
Thanks goodness no lamps crashed to the floor and no hips broke during this floorshow.
Morgan was not overly impressed. She grinned, knowing she could outperform us, hands down. As her father did when he was a boy, she climbed up on the old upright piano, beaming, daring us to top that feat.
Thank goodness we remembered our God-given, adult roles: to protect and praise. So we clapped and said, “Way to go!” Then helped her down and set her free to explore, accomplish, and conquer her world. And our hearts.
When Mama used to warn me about eating too many buttered rolls at a sitting, I would brag: “I’m tall. I can get away with it.” Up to a point, tall people can hide weight gain. Eventually, however, when your width approaches your height, it’s time to take action. This happened to me after Christmas, when I finished up the fruitcake, chocolate-covered cherries, smoked almonds, cheese ball and red velvet cake.
The same sequence of events was taking place over at my sister’s-in-law house. Come New Year’s Day, she mentioned that we ought to join the post-holiday crowd at Weight Watchers. With my waistband cutting off my breathing, I gasped, “Count me in.”
Brenda said, “Count you in? They don’t count you. They weigh you. Wear the thinnest clothes you have.” We also agreed that we would finish up all the candy in our respective houses before we joined.
As you can imagine, the farmer was flabbergasted at this new expenditure. Why would we have to pay somebody to weigh us and tell us to quit eating Kit Kats? “All you have to do is cut back,” he proposed as a solution. He just doesn’t get it.
The night came and, stuffed to the gills with candy, we made our debut at Weight Watchers. The lady said that I was in danger of weighing more than my maximum weight limit. I knew this, or I wouldn’t have been standing there barefoot, shivering, cash in hand.
As I stood there, contemplating what lay ahead, I realized that by taking my shoes off I had let another cat out of the bag. My sister-in-law was fixing to have a cow when she found out that my toenails were painted blue. Icky, Carolina blue.
When I was facing the maternity ward, she would say, “Please allow enough time to paint your toenails before you go to the hospital. Just think how embarrassed you’ll be lying on the delivery room table with chipped toenail polish.”
I guess the blue polish is a sign of inner rebellion. As a Southern girl, I may be required to keep clean underwear and painted toenails lest I be rushed to the hospital, but who says these can’t be any color in the rainbow?
Because we had weightier matters at hand, Brenda took my tacky nails in stride.
About that time, the lady at the desk said we needed to set a weight loss goal. Would 10% of my body weight be OK? Sure, I said, as they notarized my weight.
Next came the program. It was heavy on motivation, a send-off we needed before re-entering the real world of Whoppers, hot fudge sundaes, and gravy biscuits.
The first night, to reward ourselves for getting hold of ourselves, we went out to eat. We both ordered taco salads, with the shells. We’d count our food points – tomorrow.
Then the sisterly rivalry began. A week later, we had collectively lost over 12 pounds, with Brenda the winner by a hair, or two tenths of a pound.
At the next meeting, we were showered with stickers, stars, and “attagirls.” After 30 years of motherhood, finally I have something of my own to post on the refrigerator.
Next to the recipe for Lemon Cheesecake Supreme.
Cousin Mary Emma from Charlotte called the other day. Although she has been sick with the flu, she wasn’t calling to get my chicken soup recipe. Due to her delirium, she has been unable to take down her Christmas tree. Feeling guilty as only women with their Christmas trees still up on January 11 can feel, she was hoping I would ease her guilt.
“Kathryn Mae,” she began, “knowing you, I’m sure you haven’t struck a lick at taking your tree down. I’ve never left my tree up past 4:15 pm on December 26, and I just can’t face myself any more.”
When it comes to Christmas trees, if yours is history, I think you should say so. Therefore, I was brutally honest. “Well, Mary Emma, actually we took our tree down on New Year’s Day this year.” This was one of my proudest moments.
Mary Emma took the news hard. This is the cousin who mails her Christmas cards before the Post Office distributes Christmas stamps, who wraps her gifts the day after Halloween. This is also the cousin whose family had their Christmas on the 21st so that they could get Christmas over with before the last minute. Think about it.
“Well,” Mary Emma said, “just remember that I have an excuse: the flu.”
I promised to lock her secret in the closet with the other family skeletons.
Indeed, as I have reflected on the symbolism of the Christmas tree, it occurs to me that the Christmas tree may be to women what a new truck is to a man. Women want the flashiest one on the block.
That’s why shopping for ornaments has become a year round fascination. It is not a bit unusual to be trying on an Easter outfit and hear your fellow shopper say, “Let’s check out their Christmas ornaments while we’re here. Maybe we can find some ornaments that nobody else has.”
There is an official Southern rule that you can’t wear white shoes before Memorial Day. Personally speaking, I think this rule ought to apply to shopping for Christmas gifts and decorations.
Women are too smart – and too busy – to have turned Christmas into a year-round game of one-upmanship. Why do we compete, sweetly of course, to be the first one to do our shopping, wrap our gifts, and decorate house and tree? And the competition doesn’t end on Christmas Day. That’s the start of Phase II: to see who can be first to pack up Christmas.
So you hear women brag, “I got up early on the 26th, bought my Christmas cards and wrapping paper for next year, took the tree down and put up all my decorations. Before supper.”
Though I’ve beamed with pride at taking our tree down on Jan. 1 and hauling the decorations to the attic on Jan. 7, I can tell you that these dates are unimpressive.
That’s OK. Like my cousin, I have an excuse. Leaving the tree up past January makes New Year’s Resolutions a no-brainer. My annual resolution “To take the tree and decorations down by Presidents’ Day” is a slam-dunk.
I will never win the unofficial Christmas games, but I just may be the Queen of New Year’s Resolutions.
When folks ask how Christmas was at our house, I come clean. “It was great, overall,” I say, “considering I blew up on Christmas morning.”
Blowing up on Christmas morning is not what a grandmother is expected to do. In my case, after a couple of weeks of frantically rushing around to get ready for Christmas, my nerves were stretched to the limit. All it took to push me over the edge was a little confusion over self-rising biscuits.
Our contribution to the larger family’s Christmas is a home cooked Southern breakfast with country ham, home baked biscuits, et al. With breakfast uncooked and looming large, Miles said he’d be glad to roll out the biscuits. So, he took my dishpan full of flour and Crisco, enough for 36 biscuits, and made 10 biscuits. When I spotted 10 biscuits the size of mini-pound cakes, I had a few choice words about biscuits.
While I was going berserk over how 20 people were going to make do with 10 giant biscuits, the smoke detector went off. The country ham was burning.
About that time, the farmer sauntered through the kitchen. When I mentioned needing help with breakfast, including the giant biscuits and the flaming ham, he said, and I quote: “Well, I have to go take a shower.”
Men just don’t get it. There is a time for personal hygiene, and there is a time to put personal hygiene on the back burner and cook grits instead.
With the shower running, Spencer, our #3 son, sensed that Mama was might near delirious, which was going to ruin Christmas for everybody. So he asked what he could do.
“Brush my teeth for me,” was my answer. Repenting of my smart mouth, I said, “Well, if you really want to help, get down the juice classes.”
Now women have a theory that men deliberately mess things up in the kitchen so we won’t ask ‘em to help. What I learned on Christmas morning was that men are not playing games – they actually don’t know this stuff.
By this time, Cline had emerged from the shower and the three of them discussed at length what constitutes a juice glass. Finally, they reached for the 12-oz. American Fostoria iced tea goblets. “These are not juice glasses,” I said rather loudly.
Eventually, they hit upon a better idea for juice glasses, choosing my collection of horse and buggy glasses. They are not the juice glasses we have used for 30 years, but they would work, I said to myself, biting my tongue for the 113,477th time in my life.
Next I asked for a serving bowl for the grits. Another male huddle. ”What does she mean by a serving bowl? Where are they? Which one do you think she wants?” Finally, they settled on the stainless steel mixing bowl -- the one with the beater marks from mixing up 4,555 pound cakes.
“You are crazy if you think I’m serving Aunt Brenda grits in a metal mixing bowl,” was my response. Later, I heard the farmer say, “She must not have liked the gray color.”
Ours was not a Norman Rockwell Christmas. However, if the truth were told about Christmas, it probably was normal. By the way, how was your Christmas?
