As I lay awake during recent carotid artery surgery, a lifetime of reasons for putting off exercise passed before my eyes. These reasons are ludicrous.
The neurosurgeon said not to beat up on myself, that genetics rather than lifestyle led to my developing the arteries of a 70-year-old man. “Of course, we'll never know whether exercise might have helped,” he added.
Bad cholesterol genes notwithstanding, I’d pick my parents all over again. My father passed along the LDL cholesterol, while my mother passed along a 17-year history of daily 5-mile walks. At 80, she's covered over 25,000 miles, takes 1 pill a day, and eats to her heart's content and safety.
Day after day, year after year, I've had a zillion reasons for not exercising. Heck, I had more excuses for not exercising than Merck has $10 cholesterol pills.
Looking back on it, it’s hard to say whom I should blame the most for my sedentary lifestyle: Mother Nature or Motherhood itself.
Weather has always played a key role in our lives. So wouldn’t you know it that, invariably, just as soon as I got myself psyched up to exercise, Mother Nature sent the Blizzard of 1983 and the Tornado of 1994? And remember the Flood of 1991? In between, there were cold spells and heat waves. If the weather was perfect, there was always Southern humidity, which might have triggered a heatstroke or a bad hair day.
What correlation is there between weather and exercise, you may wonder?
Personally speaking, I do not have the genes for athleticism, nor do I own the right clothes for the gym. That leaves 2 options: either I walk outside or I do Lamaze breathing exercises in the den. Even at this stage in life, just to type the word “Lamaze” sets my teeth on edge.
Walking, therefore, is all that's left for a fiftysomething who dares not jog, swim, play ball, or dance without someone's grabbing the video camera and hysterically envisioning how she will look on America’s Funniest Home Video show. Ask my sisters, or ask my children, who NEVER risked their lives, asking me to throw them a ball.
You could always walk inside, you counter, and hope there are no spectators. That sounded like a good option to me in the 1970s, when I bought a treadmill powered with rollers, not electricity. The treadmill became a fixture it in the farm kitchen, set between the wood stove and the window. But no sooner did I get on the treadmill than 4 little boys put on their cowboy boots and ran off to swing on the vines across Sandy Run Creek.
There were 3 good years, however, in the 1990s when our company offered a kicker for employees who exercised enough to earn the President's Physical Fitness Award. The kicker? $25 and a certificate signed by the President. While my President was at McDonald's, I was walking the streets of Boiling Springs -- and have his signature to prove it.
Then I up and quit.
At this stage in life, if I want to hang onto what's left of it, I've got to become as zealous about exercise as I am about eggplant, for I'm running out of life faster than I'm running out of excuses.
“This week,” the farmer suggested, “why don’t you write about the Easter bunny instead of me?”
Readers of this column who DON’T know my husband personally may think that’s only fair. In fact, some may think that a dutiful wife would give up writing about her husband for Lent.
The problem with the above suggestions is that I’m a born, bred, and born again Baptist. If that weren’t enough, my Daddy was a turn-of-the-last-century Baptist preacher, which means that in our parsonage we did not acknowledge Lent, much less the Easter Bunny.
Over the years, however, I have encountered people of other persuasions, i.e., Methodists, who use Lent to religious advantage by giving up sins and/or luxuries as a way of preparing for Easter. I have run scared that some overly zealous Baptist, of which there are a few, would introduce Lent to our denomination.
Were that to happen, what would I give up and why? The only dietary indulgences I have left are black coffee, Diet Coke, and angel food cake. Or, should I have give up my remaining hobbies: watching CNN, sending e-mail, or going to yard sales? From my Baptist perspective, seems like I would be better off to add something for Lent.
When it comes to the Easter Bunny, my religious sixth sense fails me. Frankly speaking, I just don’t think the Easter Bunny likes me. I can’t remember Daddy’s preaching against him from the pulpit, but I knew that my folks didn’t think the Easter Bunny was a welcome addition to Easter observances.
Lest you think us deprived, while we may not have gotten baskets of goodies, we did get decked out for Easter in new outfits, from the hats on our heads to the patent leather shoes on our feet. We even got new dusters (Sunday go-to-meeting spring coats.)
We also dyed eggs and were allowed to hide and hunt them on Sunday.
And we always had an Easter lily in the house, lending its unique fragrance to our memories. And Easter was the only day that the choir sang the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
The farmer, who grew up a country Baptist, was shunned by both the Easter Bunny and the New Clothes Bunny. His family did not give up anything for Lent; instead they added foods, such as fresh English peas and beets, baked rooster, and wilted lettuce.
And instead of dyeing eggs, they would “fight eggs.” The farmer says his PaPa Borders won these fighting contests, hands down. They suspected him of using guinea eggs.
So here we come to Easter 2003, with our mixed bag of memories of Easters past and our longings to celebrate in ways that are fresh and meaningful.
This year, Easter seems more like Thanksgiving. The farmer is thankful for the rains. I am thankful for grandchildren and a return to health following surgery. And we both are thankful for an end to the worst of war’s hostilities and the willingness of so many to sacrifice life itself for freedom. Which brings me to the message of Easter: that the Lord lives and, to the extent that we allow Him into our lives, he frees us, generously giving us faith, hope and love. Hallelujah!
If you think there may be no bigger irritant than a reformed smoker, you haven’t been exposed to a reformed fat eater.
March 3rd was for me an epiphany. After enduring, wide-awake, a 2-hour operation to remove the fatty blockage from my right carotid artery, the blood began flowing to my brain and I saw things clearly. Actually, the rest of my life came into view.
I could play the “blame game,” blaming my suffering on genetics. Or I could face facts, admitting I had cooked my way into the operating room. In the recovery room, I swore off eating fat myself and poisoning others with it as well.
My family is not overjoyed with my decision. In fact, they are resisting my efforts to save them from themselves. Give them time and perhaps they’ll develop a taste for the fat-free foods that are rooting out the country ham.
In our refrigerator, you’ll now find homemade hummus -- a protein spread featuring minced garlic and garbanzo beans. Before you flood the Shelby Star with calls about the fat content of hummus, let me assure you my recipe doesn’t call for tahini. If this is Greek to you, ask the farmer, who’s been introduced to the ingredients.
On second thought, best not to mention this recipe. The farmer doesn’t care one whit that eating garlic will add 5 months to my life. He says I’m taking on the smell of an old dairy cow who’s eaten a patch of spring onions.
Since my operation, I’ve been relearning how to cook. And I’m cutting out of the newspapers those weird recipes I used to cuss. Healthy recipes I’ve introduced into our cuisine are carrot soup, baked fat-free hush puppies, broiled catfish fillets with Dijon, ratatouille, chicken shish-ka-bobs, turkey spaghetti, and Minnesota wild rice (which looks/tastes like burnt turnip greens, per the farmer.)
By the time our church puts out a new cookbook, I’ll have culled the recipes and be ready with the good stuff. I hope the church is ready. A church member should be able to submit healthy recipes to a church cookbook without being considered an infidel.
Of course, mostly I’m eating lots of wonderful fresh fruit and vegetables – spending most of my time and money in the produce section.
What about the reaction of my friends? They say they are truly sorry I have to eat healthy foods. Let that digest a while.
What a pity, they say, to watch me dine on vegetable soup, fresh pineapple, asparagus and hint of chicken while they are enjoying a double cheese, double bacon, pound of hamburger jumbo combo, with fries, and a diet drink.
The other reaction from well-meaning friends is temptation. “We all have to die of something, ” they say, insisting I have a helping of Double Heart Attack casserole. Sometimes they even add, “You’ll probably go through life eating right and then get run over by a Mack truck.”
The above theories landed me in Weight Watchers, the operating room and almost the hereafter.
Coupling good nutrition with eating makes good sense. And, as I’m excitedly discovering, makes for some mighty good eatin’.
Last week’s column could have been subtitled “Carotid Artery Surgery for Dummies.” If you like watching operations on TV, you’ll like this column too, which could be subtitled, “Your Husband and Your Operation.”
The day following the March 3rd carotid endarterectomy, I was released from intensive care to the farmer’s care. To his credit, the farmer assured the nurse he believed he could stay awake long enough to drive us home from Baptist Hospital, Winston-Salem.
But as luck would have it, the farmer was hungry and thirsty. Would I mind if he stopped at a Burger King near Mooresville so he could get something to eat?
This was nothing more than “déjà vu all over again.” I remembered the morning our third son was born. That 1976 day, en route to the hospital, my young husband ate breakfast at a greasy spoon while I fidgeted in the car, contemplating my lot in life.
Twenty-seven years later, surely the farmer would make a compassionate male nurse. Indeed, after eating a Whopper combo, he felt much better and drove us to Boiling Springs without further ado. I collapsed in bed.
Rising to the occasion, he next turned the house upside down searching for just the right cowbell for me to ring if I needed him. Finally, he found the ten-pounder my sister brought him from Austria. If I could have picked the bell up, it would have been just what the doctor ordered.
After a few days of nursing care, the farmer was relieved to turn me over to our youngest son, Miles, home from NCSU for spring break. In theory, that sounded promising, until the menfolk hatched other schemes.
On my first morning in his care, Miles said to call his cell phone if I needed him, that he’d be back soon with the manure spreader. I should have smelled a rat – or worse.
An hour later, Miles woke me, hollering for me to come outside. With my sense of humor, he said, I was going to die laughing. I almost did.
The farmer had asked Miles to spread chicken manure on our yard and pastures, and Miles said it cracked him up to see the manure looking like giant chocolate chips sprayed all over our new house. Not only the house, but also my new bedroom shoes were covered with the stuff. I almost died -- crying.
"If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy," Miles muttered, and loaded the pressure washer on the Gator and began hosing down the premises.
Eventually, he hauled me back out of my sick bed to help. “Just let the clutch out of the Gator and let it roll down the hill," he instructed, "while I pressure wash the driveway."
That’s when my operation hit me full force and I had a pity party. “I am the only person in the history of Baptist Hospital who has just had carotid artery surgery and who had to get on a Gator and help clean up chicken manure.”
If you think I wasn't entitled to a pity party, ask anyone who lives within 14 miles of us. Any direction.
All my life, I have battled very high cholesterol of the very low density (VLDL) type. It’s the only bad thing inherited from my father and his side of the family.
Indeed, our cholesterol legacy is so pervasive that when our extended Hocutt family gathers, cholesterol is the primary topic of conversation for the cousins: who’s taking what and how much, whose children and grandchildren are affected, and who’s facing surgery.
My surgery took place March 3 at NC Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem. The neurosurgeon removed the plaque inside my right carotid artery, because the blockage was approaching 95%. The left side, between 50-75% blocked, can wait. Hopefully.
Fortunately, I have had absolutely no symptoms of the blockage in these arteries supplying my 56-year-old brain, though a friend commented, “Kathryn, you give new meaning to the term ‘blockhead.’”
Because I was awake during the operation, I got to see what they scooped out. “Your blockage,’ the surgeon said, “is impressive, not just in its diameter but also in its length.”
Note to readers: If you have not yet eaten your breakfast, put this column aside and come back to it later. If you are squeamish, read the weather instead. For I grew up during Lyndon Johnson’s heyday, when one’s operation was fodder for show-and-tell in the media. And since I was awake, I am privy to the details: I can answer questions ranging from how my Adam’s apple felt during surgery to how the various surgical team members fared during Winston’s recent ice storm.
So, for the gory details: One of the anesthesiologists held the blockage up with tweezers so that I could see it. “Looks like a fishing worm,” I managed to grunt. The neurosurgeon obviously operates on lots of country folks, because he said, “That’s how most of my patients describe the plaque.”
Frankly, during the nearly 2-hour operation, I did not feel like being very original, much less expansive, in my descriptions. I was heavily focused on remaining cool, calm and alive.
When I chose “Baptist,” I unwittingly chose this surgery under local anesthesia. “It’s our policy,” Dr. Wilson explained, “because we believe you will be safer this way. If something goes wrong, you can tell us about it.”
On a scale of 1 to 10, with childbirth being 144, this operation registered a 10. And when the farmer and the preacher visited me in intensive care, I had just one statement to make: “I will never eat fat again.”
Someone asked whether the doctor had said that I should cut the fat out of my diet. “Yes,” I responded, “but not with words.”
During my brief hospital stay, the residents in neurosurgery were brought round to review my case. Thankfully, at my age, I am not the typical candidate for a carotid endarterectomy. However, a lifetime of moderation coupled with 2 decades of the latest cholesterol medication has not overcome the genetic tendencies to produce cholesterol and deposit plaque.
I am thankful for a very successful outcome for this particular surgery. And I am living up to the promise I made to God, the preacher, and the farmer in intensive care.
“Pass the steamed eggplant.”
Last Saturday night began as just another quiet Saturday night – as quiet as it can be in the ‘hood with Lawrence Welk blaring loud enough to set off the dogs.
This calm, this stillness, was burst to smithereens with the arrival of the grandchildren, ages 3 and 1. No sooner did they arrive than we “killed” the TV. We had volunteered to baby-sit, and it was time to bound from our recliners and devote full attention to following the grandchildren around, assisting them in most everything they wanted to do.
By this time, we know what to expect, for both Morgan and her little brother, Aaron, first go through the rituals established during previous visits. Step one: they remember the juice, helping themselves to little boxes of apple juice – of course “getting it and opening it myself!”
After this appetizer, Morgan cooks her supper. Pushing back her red hair, Morgan sits at the counter and stirs her saucepan of tomato soup. We heat what’s left of it. Since the cooked soup will always be too hot, one ice cube, just the right one, is added, stirred, observed and discussed till it disappears. We have either a budding scientist or a Julia Child on our hands.
Meanwhile, our grandson alternates between unloading the spice rack and playing my new baby grand.
Morgan heads for my tray of earrings, always selecting the blue screw-on rhinestone earrings I got off eBay. This is how I know she’s ours – she has my earring genes. She favors rhinestones, which I've promised to her when she's old enough to date: 28.
With her earrings on, Morgan announced she needed to wash her hands. This took the rest of the evening, as she alternated between washing the sink, the faucets, her face, the mirror, the cup beside the sink, the soap dish, and my hands. When she reached for the cotton balls, wonderment broke out, so I propped myself against the counter, knowing I would be holding her over the sink for quite a spell. What a mystery it was as she held each cotton ball in the sink full of soapy water and watched it expand. She never tired of squeezing the water out and watching it fill back up. By the time her parents came, we were thoroughly sanitized and soaking wet. She stuffed the cotton balls into the bathroom drinking class while I dried her shirt with a hairdryer.
No sooner had their taillights disappeared than the farmer and I collapsed. I’d tidy up in the morning.
During the night, the farmer made his usual trek to the bathroom and went for his customary cup of water. I slept through the fit he pitched.
Sunday morning he told me of the close call he’d had during the night. First he had drunk a glass of soapy water, he said. But what happened next liked to have got him: he nearly choked on a wad of cotton balls.
The farmer said next time the grandkids come, he’s hiding the cotton balls. “They’ve found everything else,” I thought. “Why bother?"
Everyone worries just how safe the children will be when the grandparents baby-sit. What I wonder is, who's worrying 'bout the grandparents?
When the phone jangled during the President’s State of the Union address, I was annoyed. Hearing my brother’s voice, my attitude changed from annoyance to anxiety. “Everyone is OK,” he began. “However, someone broke into Mama’s house tonight.”
I dialed Mama, who said this was ‘just one of those things.’ “Why, I’ll sleep just fine. I’m not afraid.” Once again, I marveled at her courage.
After determining that she was indeed OK, we changed the subject to the loot. “What did they take?” I asked. What I wanted to ask was, “Did they find anything to steal?”
Mama is a mountain-born Scotch-Irisher who lived through the Great Depression. But if you were to visit her home, you would think she might be Shaker. Or Old Mother Hubbard. In her kitchen, for example, there is nothing out on the counters save a Bible, a 1960s radio, and a giant microwave.
As for antiques, there’s a piano, a treadle sewing machine that Mama uses as a plant stand, and a 1960s vinyl lawn chair that doubles as a den chair. The rest of her furniture she refers to as “the furniture your Daddy had when I married him.” (1945) Daddy, a Baptist preacher, had mostly desks and plain bookcases.
As for electronics, there is an old stereo that will play her classical records and cassettes. She has a VCR that works half the time. And she has an avocado washer and dryer. Slim pickin's.
Mama reported that the thief tried. He went through the filing cabinets, which still contain the sermons Daddy preached over a lifetime – possibly the possession of greatest value in the house.
Other drawers in the house were emptied. One contained holiday decorations made by the grandchildren, including the paper plate turkeys. Another drawer held the scarves from deceased female relatives. Another, inexpensive memorabilia from her trips to Egypt, Russia, India, China, Australia, et al.
Mama said she did have 2 $10 bills in the house -- and was greatly relieved that the thief didn’t find her money.
Later, she discovered that 3 rings had been stolen: one she had found while out walking, one from an aunt, and a Mother’s type ring we had given her. Those 3 and her den telephone were the only missing items. Mama couldn’t imagine why the thief didn’t want the rest of the jewelry. “Some of it is Sarah Coventry!” she stated.
Her Instamatic camera had been pitched on the bed. Mama’s opinion is that the reason the thief didn’t take it is because she caught him by surprise upon her return home from her Old Testament Seminary Extension class. “That’s also got to be the reason he didn’t take the transistor radio and flashlight ya’ll gave me for Christmas in case of another ice storm. Why the transistor and the flashlight are brand new!”
When I called Miles to tell him of the break-in, he chuckled, “Grandma will be OK. Word will get out on the street that that house is not worth doing time over.”
Mama has spent a lifetime laying up treasures in heaven and is rich beyond measure. Some of her valuables are in the house, in the books, the music, the plants, the Bibles, the photo albums – but most are in the lives of others.
By the time you read this column, the farmer surely will have survived Valentine’s Day. After 32+ years of marriage, we have learned that we get along better if we celebrate the “Day of Love” separately.
Therefore, as I write this column in contemplation of February 14, the farmer’s plans include giving court square carriage rides. My plans, on the other hand, include attending “The Messiah” at Gardner-Webb University.
You may be wondering why I won’t do the wifely thing -- why I don’t plan to hang around the court square in order to be near my Prince Charming? There’s an arguably great reason for my boycotting this season’s carriage rides.
It’s because I really got bent out of shape during last season’s carriage rides. It happened on a bitterly cold Friday night, December 20. Being a team player, I had hung out in Uptown Shelby to be “with Prince Charming.” Granted there is not much for me do to help with the rides, except to supply the drivers with barbecue and to keep the car warm so that they can unthaw as needed.
As that glorious Christmas night wore on, I got out of the way, parking my Toyota in an alley just off the court square. And I dutifully turned the Toyota off and on, keeping it warm -- for them. The more I listened to the rhythm of the horse hooves, the more I became mesmerized, almost hypnotized. In the twinkling of an eye, I was sound asleep in my car -- parked in an alley at 9:30 PM on the Friday night before Christmas.
So what do you think my husband of 32 years did next? He finished giving rides, loaded up the horses and carriages, rounded up our boys, and headed the caravan to Boiling Springs. To a man, they forgot they had a wife, a mother and a Toyota.
However, to their credit, when they reached our barn in Boiling Springs, one of our sons asked, “What about Mama? She usually beats us home, but the house is dark. When we left Shelby, Daddy, did she say she was going Christmas shopping?”
Cool as a cucumber, the farmer observed, “Last time I saw your mother she was dozing off, parked in the alley by the old Post Office. Don’t worry, she’ll be on in directly. She must not have seen us leave, but when she wakes up, she’ll figure it out.”
No one put out an APB. No one rang me on my cell phone. No one prayed for my safe return.
Eventually, the chill in the air did wake me up. I was frantic: someone had kidnapped the farmer and all his horses. Then I looked at the courthouse clock: 10:30 PM. If I hadn’t been half frozen, I would have been mad as fire.
So here we are approaching Valentine’s Day, and I do have it all figured out.
Once more my husband will be giving romantic carriage rides. Solo.
You won’t see me hanging out uptown to be near my Valentine. Been there, done that – and my Valentine lived to tell about it.
Although I lived my first half a century without benefit of e-mail, I cannot conceive of living another day without it. What is even more difficult to conceive is that there are people out there, and you know who you are, who neither send nor receive e-mail messages. And you don’t intend to! It’s not my business to send you on a guilt trip over it. Lord knows we don’t need any more nuts on the Internet highway.
Except for one lone exception, the farmer is a card-carrying member of the “Who Needs E-Mail? Group. Last Valentine’s Day, however, someone assisted him in sending me a Valentine’s e-mail, which I opened, in my misguided excitement, with the entire office looking over my shoulder. He comes off probation in 2 more years.
Since turning 50, I have become an e-mail and Internet addict. Thanks, Al Gore. To me a day without e-mail is like a day without coffee. It’s unthinkable; it’s unbearable.
Of course at work, e-mail is a necessary godsend because of the reduction in paper mail. And, if you are one of the lucky “girls” whose mothers made you take typing, you can compose and deliver an electronic letter faster than you can hand scratch an address on an envelope.
Yes, gender inequity also applies to e-mail, if you are keeping score. In high school, it never seemed right that we were relegated to the typing classes while the boys took study hall or something comparable. There we sat, practicing our “qwertys” faster and faster until we could type an error-free document at 60 words a minute.
Thirty years later, we have the last laugh. We can e-mail so fast that folks at the office stand around and watch, certain that we must be in the Guinness Book of Records online. Since we are also conversant with the shift and caps lock keys, we don’t e-mail in all upper case or all lower case. And we know where the punctuation keys lurk on the keyboard.
But it’s at home that I truly savor e-mail. Blessed with a diverse group of friends of every gender, age, locale and political persuasion, I get lots of “good reads.”
Sometimes the spasms of laughter are just what we need. Other times, e-mails are tearjerkers, saddening us with the stories of individuals who have overcome great difficulties.
Of course there are the sensational e-mails designed to scare you out of your wits. Which means that before you let your e-mail give you paranoia, you must learn to think for yourself. The hard truth is that just because a friend or brother forwards you e-mail doesn’t mean that it’s true.
Eventually you learn to spot the markings of a hoax, a chain letter, or an urban myth. Thank goodness for the helpful websites with lists of such e-mail hoaxes and myths. If you don’t know what an urban myth is, it is today’s version of your grandpa’s “hoop snake” story, or your Mama’s “Captain Hook’s hand found on the door handle of the car in which you and your boyfriend were thinking of going parking” story.
Which brings me to Mama, who at 80, communicates via e-mail. Now if we can bring the farmer around, our cyberspace circle will be unbroken.
Our youngest son, the former Baby Miles, is away in school. Well, sort of. Just when you think you’re coping with the empty nest, your college kid reappears with more stuff to put in your nest – and more to withdraw from your nest egg. And you are glad.
NC State apparently took a month off for Christmas, according to Miles, who couldn’t wait to get back to civilization in order to hunt deer, cook fish, saw broken tree limbs, hang out under The Stoplight, go to our church, and of course, await the haul from Santa.
December passed all too quickly. We grew to like this crowding of our nest, our lives, and our schedules. By Jan. 3rd, however, after vacuuming the sawdust and Cleveland County mud tracked in for the 40th time, I envisioned whistling “Happy Days Again” when Miles would drive off for school, taking with him his Christmas camouflage loot.
Of course, when the actual leaving took place, I stood under the old oak tree and whistled “Abide with Me” to keep from boohooing.
There’s a certain ritual when your boy goes back to school. These rituals help you cope with the grief.
First, there’s the Un-Gorging of the Refrigerator. “Reckon you and the other guys would eat the leftover roast? What about the macaroni and cheese? And, here, take the pound cake, too. Your Daddy and I don’t need it. Oh, and there’s a dab of livermush you could fry up. Anything you see in the house you can eat, you can have.”
Next comes the Checklist of College Stuff “Have you got your book bag?” I ask. “And what about the project you were working on? Here, take my 2003 work calendar if you can use it.”
Then the money. A boy always mumbles “It’s OK” when you ask him if he needs money. Which prompts me to quiz him, every time, if he's been to those free MasterCard parties, if he’s ruining his credit, and whether he has enough money to eat. In the end, the mother will slip the boy money. The father gives the boy some sort of coded male look and says, “Your Mama wants you to have it. So take it, and stop on the way back to get something to eat.”
As the boy drives off with the “I love yous” barely audible over the mufflers, the mother yells, “Get gas. Drive carefully. And don’t get a ticket.”
On a dreary day in January, Miles returned to NCSU. Since there's little to do in Raleigh, he had to haul enough stuff in his pick-up to make a life. This trip he towed a whole hog barbecue cooker, a load of firewood and a chainsaw.
The farmer says it was the heavy load that caused him to run out of gas outside of Raleigh.
Thank goodness for Santa’s gift of a cell phone. When Miles called, the farmer asked, “What’s the problem? Just use the gas in your chain saw.”
The farmer had a smug look that said, “He called me, not you, when he needed help.”
So now there are just two left in our nest: me and ‘Mr. Father Knows Best.'
When it comes to the weather, it’s hard to know what to do anymore. Because of two key events planned for last Thursday, I placed utmost confidence in the predictions of experts. The weather persons spoke with such conviction, such precision. Their charts razzled and dazzled and eliminated any doubt.
“There will be light snow, with accumulations of 1-2 inches,” they said, so we did not cancel a training meeting at the office, nor did I cancel medical tests in Winston-Salem.
Wednesday night, having gone to sleep while watching the weather doppler, I awoke to thunder. Then lightning. Being Baptist, my first thought was “Wow, the rapture!”
But there was no Gabriel. There was just a weather person on the screen muttering “Mea culpa, mea culpa” or some other words of contrition. Then I saw it, heard it, and felt it: the howling thunder snow.
Worrying how I would rearrange Thursday on such short notice, I slept no more. What to do about the trainer driving in from Raleigh in the early morning? What about my personal medical dopplers?
By 5:00 AM the farmer was up, perking coffee, and giving advice: “Stay put. Get on the phone and call off everything.” Then my 61-year-old husband said, and I quote, “See you later. I’m going out to see how many hills my truck can climb.”
Time was a-wastin’. I had better call the men on my list, pronto. Sure enough, almost all of them were already out and about, challenging the elements to see if they could indeed get to the office. Don’t take this as sexist on my part, but none of the women were out in their vans seeing if they could make it up Billy Goat Hill.
About that time, early AM, our Boiling Springs sons turned up at the back door, announcing they had come over to tell us they had made it to our house without a hitch. Think about it.
Home alone with everything cancelled, I planned to cocoon. Then the father of our grandchildren called. “Get ready, Grandma. We’re picking you up in 20 minutes to go sledding.”
Out came the long johns, the hand-knitted sweaters and mittens from Newfoundland, the toboggan from my college days, and the snow boots long ago outgrown by Baby Miles. I was not photogenic, but I would be warm.
As I pulled the toboggan tight over my one-day-old $50 permanent, I questioned my sanity. How was I going to explain this to my hairdresser?
And what about my doctor? He had insisted on the carotid dopplers ASAP – and I was going sledding instead. Would a country grandmother survive?
It took us an hour to get the snow packed just right. The boys said I was invaluable in the role of snow packer, sliding down the hill on my backside.
We sledded, tubed, and then Son Jason brought out the kayak! What a thrill to kayak out of control down Oak Street Hill.
“If I die of a stroke, tell ‘em ‘she went happy!’” I yelled.
Our 3-year-old granddaughter appeared impressed. And this country grandmother did live to see another day.
What about the weather forecaster? Let’s see if he shows his face by Groundhog Day.
By the time this column appears, Thursday’s snow will be a memory.
A few will have frozen the storm in time, capturing snow scenes with digital cameras and transmitting these images over the Internet to friends in warmer climates. Being a digital camera owner, I proposed to send a local snow photo to a friend in South Africa, but the snow melted before I learned how to use the contraption.
Of course, this is no one’s fault but my own. We had ample notice of last week’s storm. Indeed, what amazes me is the precision with which forecasters foretold this one.
The Charlotte weatherman had stated that Thursday’s snow would start falling at 5 PM. Although the weatherman missed it by 10 minutes, no great harm was done. The day had already been upset by the mere prospect of snow.
It’s probably not a bad thing that an inch or two of snow can excite grown adults. Amply warned, women dressed for snow and men drove for snow.
At our office, as the clouds thickened and the temperature dropped, coworkers checked their favorite weather websites and gave us intermittent updates on the latest tweaking of the weather. Occasionally someone would go delusional and claim to have seen, felt, or smelled snow. Phone calls were made to family members far and wide to discuss the sure-to-fall snow. To my knowledge, no one slipped out of the office for the grocery store in order to beat neighbors to the bread and milk.
When the snow came, almost on schedule at 4:50 PM, what a relief! We left for our homes, with visions of being snowbound Friday. We talked openly of what we would do with the gift of a “Snow Day.”
But the weatherman had overestimated what would happen north of Interstate 85. We got about one fourth of the snow he had promised us. Alas, the office opened the next day.
This scanty snow afforded precious little opportunity to create lifetime memories. And as Shelby Star editor Skip Foster so appropriately pointed out in his pre-snow column, the value of a good snowstorm is the warmth of the happy memories it leaves behind.
In our younger years, the farmer and I dug out the sleds the moment the weatherman used the “snow” word. Now we can’t remember where we put them. We raced the children to get into our snow clothes. We drove them from one end of the county to the other in search of the perfect hill for sledding. We begrudgingly relinquished a few of our turns on the sleds. Hopefully our sons rejoice as they remember this.
Now our idea of a memorable way to celebrate a good snow day is to cook a pot of pintos, build a fire, and be permitted to stay inside. As the grandchildren get older, I wonder whether their wonder will inspire us to sled again?
In the meantime, in the South, our snows are rare enough to be treasured. They are beautiful enough to catch our breath and capture our attention. And though they appear to be among life’s most perishable moments, they are instead among the most permanent.
Full of good intentions, I meant to begin 2003 with a New Year’s resolution on procrastinating. Because I didn’t get around to making resolutions until January 8, the one on procrastinating rang hollow.
There would have to be another resolution, such as dieting. Dieting is the reason New Year’s Resolutions were invented. Unfortunately, overeating is a 24/7 temptation. If I awake in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, the devil is up, tempting me to sneak into the den and steal the farmer’s Hershey kisses.
What could I resolve to do instead in 2003? The obvious resolution is to exercise. If my mother, age 80, walks 5 miles a day, why don’t I? Although Mama doesn’t berate me for being a couch potato, she probably should.
The blame for my laziness lies not with Mama or with me, but rather with the couch. Mama’s couch, a scratchy wool plaid sleeper, is older than Methuselah. It literally gives you the itch to get up and do something. Not so my couch…
When we selected a new couch for our new house, COMFORT was the guiding principle. Size came in second; color was third; style was last. Selecting the right couch took more time than selecting the right brick. If you own a furniture store, I came to see you. I sat, I stretched out, and I rated your couches on a scale of 1 to 10 for comfort.
This method presented a challenge for my sister-in-law, who’s my loyal shopping companion. She advocated focusing on STYLE first; followed by color; and lastly, size. What role should creature comfort play in the decorating motif, she wondered?
We thought we had hit pay dirt the day style and comfort came together in a furniture store in Lincolnton. The potential couch, however, had one problem: it consisted of 2 divided seat cushions. When Brenda and I sat down, the cushions parted, kind of like the parting of the Red Sea.
Since we needed comfortable seating for at least three, I worried whether or not that third person would sit down, dead center, on top of the parted cushions.
There was nothing to do but seek the opinion of strangers. With Brenda and me sitting on each end of the couch, my job was to attract yuppie shoppers.
“Excuse me,” I blurted out, pointing to the chasm between the 2 cushions. “If I invited you to my house, assuming you knew who we are, would you sit down on the couch with us? Or does this space between the cushions create a visual barrier for you?”
Most people, including my sister-in-law, acted as though I had popped a few springs.
Brenda asked what in the world I meant by ‘visual barrier’? The clerk and the yuppies, too, seemed to have a verbal barrier to my explanation.
In the end, I bought the stylish, jade green, 2-cushioned, very comfortable-even-if-it-does part-down-the-middle green couch. It’s in the den. I love it. I have bonded with my couch. That’s why I’m a couch potato.
I’ve resolved, in writing, to get off the couch in 2003 and get into an exercise routine. But when I gaze at my beckoning walking shoes, there’s a visual barrier that only we couch potatoes, a.k.a. “sofa spuds,” understand.
When the preacher said Sunday that the best things we usually get for Christmas are not things, I wanted to shout “Amen.” Couldn’t do that, of course, being a woman in a Baptist congregation.
Surely our preacher’s intentions were well intentioned -- to have us think about the true meaning of Christmas, contrasting the reality of eternal life with the temporariness of widgets. Nevertheless, I found myself revisiting Christmas 2002 during the rest of the sermon, ticking off gifts and mentally selecting the best.
For sure, the farmer’s best present was not a “thing.” His best gift was a country ham. This gift was an inspiration, yea a godsend. When my sister had asked what she could get the farmer besides a flannel shirt, from out of nowhere came the perfect answer: a country ham.
This gift absolutely surprised and delighted him. The icing on the cake was when Cynthia informed him of the ham’s origin: “Straight out of a country store near Knoxville,”
First thing the next morning, my husband took his ham to be sliced, and then wrapped it for freezing. The fact that it is a Tennessee ham has, however, taken some getting used to. “Not quite like Mama used to cure ‘em out in NC,” he says.
What was my best gift, I wondered? Christmas had been so hectic that I had hardly had time to savor either the eternal or temporary gifts. Then I remembered the Palm Pilot. Surely this would be my salvation in 2003. This contraption is supposed to tell me where to go, how to get there, and what to do when I arrive. Besides, it transmits this information to my home computer, where I can retrieve the data on where I’ve been, how I got there and what I did. Surely this is a great thing, indeed. The challenge, of course, is to master it, then keep up with it.
I treasured all the other gifts: the print of the Boiling Springs Snack Shop, the reading glasses, the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” DVD.
Our youngest son had asked for a mossy leaf camouflage coat. Somehow that didn’t seem enough, so Santa threw in a cell phone. “So that the boy can call us,” the farmer had said. For good measure, Santa left duct tape in his stocking. If you think this a tacky gift, you need to read the book on 2000 Uses for Duct Tape.
v Another gift that Santa brought each of us was a copy of the 2002 NC State Highway map. Indeed, I found myself on Christmas Eve wrapping some 20 maps for other family members. As the preacher said, “Usually the best gifts are free.” Such was the case with these NC maps.
Philosophically speaking, these maps will help guide us to our destinations in 2003.
And isn’t that what the best gifts are all about? Helping us live fuller, more productive lives, with a minimum of confusion and fear. Indeed, I’m excited about facing 2003 with the support of a Palm Pilot.
But I wouldn’t want to take one step forward in 2003 without the knowledge that as close as the palm of our hands is the ever-supporting hand of the Savior of Christmas, who holds us all.
