Just when the farmer and I were beginning to like being home alone, our youngest son finished his freshman exams, loaded his pickup, and returned home for the summer. After we finished jumping for joy, Miles lugged his stuff to the bedroom and reality set in.
Within a day, his room and 1/3 of our house was decorated – and I use that term loosely – in a combination NC State/NC Wildlife Commission motif. Let me give you an analogy: our house is to Veranda magazine as a camouflage truck is to The New Yorker.
We love our son. It’s his stuff that takes some getting used to.
Ditto for his schedule. He’s 19 and truly believes that if he wants to go Wal-Mart at 1 am, that’s his business. This summer, if he took a notion to go canoeing at 4:30 am, he did. And if he wanted to order a pepperoni pizza at 11 pm, he expected us to get up and help him eat it.
I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to put our children on a schedule. Evidently colleges no longer have curfews, dorm mothers, or lights out. At college, kids learn that life is pretty much a 24/7 activity.
Within a week, I put my foot down my foot and reminded Miles that this was our house. Despite the similarities, this was not NC State, and he needed to abide by our rules. I had read this ultimatum in a parenting column or Ann Landers.
So the next night when he waltzed in at 2 am with a bagful of fishing goodies from Wal-Mart, I stopped playing Solitaire on the computer long enough to give him a piece of my mind on how the body needs rest and a sensible schedule.
You could tell that Miles was unimpressed.
On the positive side, when children come home for the summer, they break the deafening silence of the empty nest. Of course Miles brought his CD player home with him. He introduced the farmer and me to “musicians” we had never in our wildest nightmares heard of. But after several days in Cleveland County, Miles resumed playing country music tapes. I never thought you would hear me say, “Thank goodness for the Dixie Chicks."
Within 18 hours of his summer break, we said goodbye to the empty nest syndrome, and the empty refrigerator syndrome, and the empty washing machine syndrome. Once more, life was wonderful!
Then August 15 rolled around, and Miles said maybe he should throw a few things on the truck and head back to NC State. And, oh, by the way, since he hadn’t cut down as many trees as he had anticipated, what about money? He had hoped to pay for his second year, but with the market tight and the weather hot, he didn’t have as much in the bank as he had hoped.
Don’t children understand that we would die for them in a heartbeat? I hugged Miles as tightly as a 19-year-old allows, and slipped him a tuition check.
Then I took pictures, the farmer gave last minute fatherly advice, and Miles left for his sophomore year. He took with him our best tomatoes – and our hearts.
Our family is plagued with 2 lifestyle problems: we can’t keep our watches running and we can’t keep ourselves from running late. Watches and batteries are a large expense item in our budget.
The men in our family do heavy, outside work for a living or for a hobby. To them, bush hogging is a great way to spend your day off. Go figure.
What this means is that their wristwatches get crushed, cracked, and then lost in the Johnson grass. Even the hardiest Timex will eventually bite the dust when it eats enough Cleveland County red clay.
Our family owns a few antique clocks and cuckoo clocks. Old clocks, being somewhat temperamental, are environmentally challenged by the commotion inside our house. It is a good day if we wake up to the sound of just one of them ticking.
That leaves the digital clocks on the coffee maker, oven, and alarm clock. Thank goodness the farmer and I got our education while they still taught ciphering. We tell time digitally by adding and subtracting. For example, if the digital alarm clock is an hour and 50 minutes off, we simply add 110 minutes and come up with the correct time. Ciphering works well till Miles comes home from school and resets the contraptions.
You would think that at least one family member, the female, could maintain a running timepiece. Over the years, however, I have run through as many watches as I have diets. In my glory years, rinsing cloth diapers was the culprit. Fortunately, those were also the years you could land a new watch by sending in five Frosted Flakes box tops.
When the children grew out of diapers, I took up canning and freezing and the moisture problem intensified. If I really needed a watch, one of the boys would loan me a Mighty Mouse one.
The children are grown and the garden is full of Johnson grass. Yet I’ve run through 2 watches already this year. In desperation, I shopped for a scuba diver’s watch. “That kind should hold up under kitchen duty,” I thought. These watches probably make sense, but I didn’t like the way they looked with my hot pink fingernail polish.
Then it hit me. Buy the watch you’ve always wanted: the one sold by the Southern Highland Crafts Guild in the store along the carriage trails in Blowing Rock.
Never mind that it was flooding on the mountain last Saturday. My sister-in-law and I ran down the mountain through the torrential rain and into the crafts store. Dripping wet, I announced, “I’m here for the watch of my dreams. My watch quit on me last week while I was rinsing okra.” The older, dignified clerk looked me in the eye and said, “Lady, you need to make some changes in your lifestyle.”
I bought the watch anyway. Riding back down the mountain, Brenda read the helpful instructions from the artist/watchmaker. The artist wrote that creating my watch “helped her break through present limitations and boundaries.” Furthermore, she explained that “creating jewelry bears truth to my personal journey of self-realization.”
As icing on the cake, the watchmaker wrote, “This watch comes from my heart, and my hope is that it touches yours in a way that inspires you to share the true joy of your own path.”
If it will just help me get to church on time, I’ll be ecstatic.
On they day we broke ground for our new house, we looked across the pasture at our old dairy barn and sighed. The farmer sighed, pleased that he at last would be living within walking distance of headquarters. I sighed because I would evermore wake to the sight of “Headquarters,” with its collection of rusty barbed wire and pasture gates, old John Deere crop sprayers, and assorted barrels and tires, possibly dating back to 1951.
“At least it’s our stuff,” I thought. “So I’ll get over it.”
The farmer, on the other hand, said, “Just look at our view – the barn, the pasture, the horses. I reckon this is sort of what heaven will be like.”
Clearly, that was not the day to drop the bomb -- to suggest cleaning up “Headquarters.” As older wives understand, husbands have to have their space; and it’s infinitely wise not to invade their space with our vacuum cleaners, trash bags, and Lysol.
Six months into the new house project, imagine my surprise when the farmer announced he should “doll up the barn.” I would have called this an answer to prayer, but I had not had enough faith to pray for this miracle.
“I reckon we need to clean the place up,” the farmer admitted. “The metal roof on the barn just looks terrible. The painter is coming tomorrow. Does metallic silver suit you?”
Indeed, the glistening metal roof does take your eyes up -- and away.
To the farmer’s chagrin, painting the roof has opened Pandora’s box. Our 4 sons took the paint job as a sign that their father might cotton to a massive cleanup.
It began slowly, with Miles’ looking for stuff to haul off with Big Red, the 1965 International dump truck. Miles struck pay dirt at the barn. Several truckloads later, however, he had hardly made a dent in the dairy barn cleanup.
Last weekend, the boys organized a more structured cleanup. Although I was plainly NOT invited, I sort of nonchalantly happened by and very discreetly did some tidying up.
Of course I looked for snakes as I raked trash, toted off pallets, and rearranged angle iron. I pressure washed the front door and wall of the dairy barn and suggested that the broken door panes be removed. Then, in a grand finale, I shoveled dirt to fill up rat holes that were big enough to house a colony of possums.
You remember last weekend, with the temperatures in the high 90s? It occurred to me that if I keeled over shoveling old hay and whatever, it would be worth it. After our weekend extravaganza, the men brag that they have turned the farmer’s headquarters into a veritable Taj Mahal. Obviously, they haven’t seen the Taj Mahal.
There is still much to be done. In the old days, when ours was a working dairy barn, the health inspector had the necessary clout to keep the place Grade A. Currently, we are approaching Grade P.
What’s the next step? I’m slipping the boys bribe money on the side. And the farmer? I’m promising to cook up a sure ‘nough country meal including mashed potatoes on the next Barn Cleanup Day. The farmer thinks too much cleaning is not a good thing, but if I throw in sweet potato pudding and peach cobbler, he just might take the bait.
Not so long ago, I married a young man, my prince charming if you will, and assumed we would live happily ever after -- frozen in time. Though our wedding vows hinted that we might grow old together, I truly felt that my prince charming would find the Fountain of Youth.
I’m not sure Prince Charming has even been looking for it.
Age, they say, has a way of creeping up on you. When it comes to the farmer, age apparently has been galloping. Friday, the farmer hit the big 6-0. He’s not quite eligible for Social Security, but he’s old enough for senior discounts -- if he could remember to ask for them.
Remembering things – ah, that’s the challenge for the both of us.
I was in a meeting this week where an expert raved about the amazing capacity of the human brain. “Why, it would take 2 skyscrapers the height of the Empire State Building to hold the information that the human brain can retain,” the 30-something speaker said.
Of course I wrote this valuable information down so that I wouldn’t forget it. What I’m finding is that I will soon have 2 Empire State Buildings full of notes to help me remember what, when and where our stuff is.
The farmer does not make notes or lists. That’s why he got married and had children. He expects the 7 of us to pitch in and help him remember how many quarts are in a gallon, what his friends’ names are, and where he put the posthole digger.
In premarital counseling, the preacher mentioned that one day I might be eating for 2. He never mentioned that I would be remembering for 2.
For the first 30 years, this was no problem. Now my “rememberer” is facing burnout.
If I could remember all the examples, I would probably be scared. The other night’s senior moment, however, is too vivid to forget. The doctor had prescribed a high-powered antibiotic for Miles, and of course it was my job to remind him to take it. On Day 3, I reminded Miles it was time for the $10 pill.
“Would you mind going to get it?” he asked. “And would you mind getting the Moose cup of Coke I left in the den?
First I located the medicine, unwrapped the foil, and secured the pill. Next I headed for the den to get the Coke. On the way, I passed the candy dish full of candy corn. “No one will ever know if I cheat on my diet and eat a little candy corn,” I rationalized as I threw a fistful of candy corn into my mouth.
No sooner did I spot the Moose cup on the den floor than I bit into something hard. And very bitter.
“That’s the problem with candy these days,” I thought. “Quality control isn’t what it used to be. Somebody has let a hard piece of candy corn slip in.” I handed Miles his Coke and he reached out his hand for the pill, and that’s when it hit me. I had swallowed up his $10 pill.
As this reality dawned on him, Miles was astounded. “You took my pill! Why did you do that, Mama? I assumed I could trust you to get my medicine and my Coke without messing up.”
“Son, that’s the problem with assumptions,” I explained.
Especially when you’re dealing with a fiftysomething.
My high school English teacher made me read “The Call of the Wild.” It was my least favorite book – it has turned out to be my life. I can’t speak for city folks, but country mothers lose their sons and daughters to the lure of the outdoors.
As soon as he could thread a worm on a pole (approximately 20 months), our youngest son, Miles, took up fishing. In his teenage years, he met some sure ‘nough river rats who have taught him the secrets of the sport. He’s hooked – probably for life.
Fishing is nothing for a mother to get worked up over, you say. The day another son got married and I was having 20 Atlantans over for dinner, Miles filled the refrigerator with beheaded, soaking catfish – and 4 Styrofoam cups of bloodworms. Of course I protested, but he ‘s the “baby,” and the fish and worms stayed. It is almost impossible for a fisherman’s mother to play Martha Stewart.
Then there are the hours. Just when you think the family is tucked in bed, there’s the clatter of fishing poles, buckets, coolers, boots, and flashlights. “I’m going down to the river fishing with David Hamrick,” Miles announces. “It’ll probably be the middle of the morning by the time we work up our catch.”
I don’t want to bury my head in the sand, but surely it’s OK for a teenager to pull all-nighters down at the Broad River with 78-year-olds who’ve been fishing the Broad since the Great Depression.
In addition to the long hours, there is the expense of fishing. The hellgrammites and grasshoppers are free. And they are stored in buckets -- under our house, thank goodness.
But everything else comes with a price tag and storage requirements. Which means our den, my kitchen, and his bedroom are stuffed to the gills with tackle boxes, buckets, coolers, poles, and more.
Then there are the boots – muddy and/or sandy, and wet. You can always tell where a fisherman has been by following his trail – even through your living room.
Occasionally, fishing actually results in fish. And this is the issue over which I am fixing to blow a gasket. Not only am I an ardent believer in equal rights and equal opportunity, I am dead serious about raising our sons to share these beliefs. Imagine my reaction, then, when Miles announced he was having an all-male fish fry.
When I asked why he was excluding women, including his own mother, he said, “Because they make a big deal of everything. They’ll think we have to have napkins, plates, and flower arrangements. And they’ll insist on dessert.”
Evidently the first fish fry was such a rousing success, two weeks later he had another one – for everybody and his brother, excluding wives, sisters, and mothers. How do you think I felt, hearing my flesh and blood say on the phone, “Remember, this fish fry is going to be just for men. Oh, if a woman comes, we won’t kick her out, but she will probably get upset and start crying.”
Crying is for sissies. Obviously Miles still has some lessons to learn that I reckon even old fishermen can’t teach him. Poisoning his bloodworms, on the other hand, might do it.
In the good ole days, I wonder how many women were trapped into having vegetable gardens for fear of what the neighbors would say if they didn’t? The thought of not having a garden would have freaked my grandmothers out.
One of the unspoken benefits of women’s liberation is that a woman’s status no longer depends on how many pecks of cucumbers she pickles in a summer, or how many gallons of blackberry jelly she produces. (Ditto for blackberry wine, but I am not going there in this Sunday column. Ask your Baptist grandmother….)
The unwritten rules for summer gardens applied differently to Baptist preachers. Thus, living in the parsonage was a distinct advantage for my mother. It was simply understood that since the preacher did not own the parsonage property, he should not tear up the yard in order to grow carrots. Furthermore, if the preacher’s family had a garden, to whom would the members go with their buckets of squash?
Though this arrangement saved my mother a lot of wear and tear, I was clueless about the creation of squash, the evolution of a Big Boy tomato sandwich, and the curse of hoeing. All I knew about gardening was what I read in Genesis 1-3.
The day I walked down that Baptist aisle to marry a Cleveland County boy based in Raleigh, I was excited about leaving small town life behind. As it has turned out, I was clueless about a basic fact of life: Once a Cleveland County boy, always a Cleveland County boy.
To be fair, when he was just my boyfriend, Cline told me – repeatedly -- that his life’s goal was to return to Cleveland County. In my naiveté, I thought that “love” would cure this problem. Six weeks into marriage, we moved from our Raleigh trailer to his parents’ Cleveland County dairy farm.
And before we got unpacked, much less “situated,” the farmer planted me a late garden. Next he bought a “deep freeze.” And if there was any doubt he was serious, he built a stand-alone shed to house our stand-alone, 24 cubic-feet capacity freezer.
As it turned out, that freezer would contain not only our corn, beans, peaches, blackberries, cherries, okra, and Crowder peas, it would also accommodate the hundreds of pounds of hamburger that were the by-product of our working dairy farm.
All of this begs the question: “If I had known then what I know now, would I marry the farmer all over again?” The answer is about as clear as a pot of boiled okra.
For his part, the farmer has a ready answer: “Boys, just think what your Mama would have missed if she hadn’t married me!”
So far this summer, I would have missed coming home from work and making blackberry jelly. During the week of our son’s wedding, I would have missed fooling with 2 churns of sweet pickles, 9-day and 14-day.
And last Friday, I would not have come home from work to find a back yard full of pick up trucks loaded to the gills with freshly pulled Merit and Silver Queen. The next day, the farmer hinted that, after 31 years, I might be a keeper. “And just think how lucky you are. You were able to freeze 61 quarts of cut-off corn and get in bed by 2 am!”
It is nothing short of a miracle…one I would not want to repeat. Until next summer.
Thank goodness as soon as the farmer and I married, we started having children. There is a very important reason for having your children early. It’s so that in the later years, you can keep up with them and with your role.
What really drove this point home to us last weekend was our son’s wedding. As the mother of the groom, how could I possibly botch it? This role is a no-brainer: shampoo your hair and show up fully clothed.
At the rehearsal, these roles were clarified. My job was to walk in, light a candle, sit down, and take out my bubble gum. “Remember that you will be on video,” the director warned. I promised to swear off the Hubba Bubba.
Unfortunately, I got off on the wrong foot the day of the wedding. Not due to emotion but due to exhaustion. It had seemed like a good idea to invite all the out-of-town guests over for supper after the wedding. This meant I had had to pull an all-nighter before the wedding, and as the hour of the wedding approached, I was still in the kitchen.
About that time, Mama and my sister dropped by the house. “Kathryn Mae!” Mama said in her most motherly voice. “Kathryn Mae! Why aren’t you dressed? You are going to be late. And why are you cooking? Nobody will be the least bit hungry after the reception. You are wasting your time cooking.”
After 50-odd years, this was the last straw. I still I can’t believe what happened next. For I looked at Mama and, through very clinched teeth, said: “Well, Mama, just don’t eat any thing then.”
My sister said not to worry; she would take Mama to the wedding and would apologize on my behalf. Of course, as it turned out, Mama ate more than anyone else and packed herself enough doggie bags to last until the next wedding.
But Mama was right. So I stopped cooking and began to dress for the wedding. But where was my dress? It wasn’t where I thought it would be. For a moment, it looked like I would have to wear the dress I’ve been laying back for my funeral. (This is not morbid; it’s self-preservation. Imagine what the men in my life would yank out of the closet were I to bite the dust…..)
Eventually, I found the mother-of-the groom dress, at the back of the closet behind the winter coat.
In the nick of time, I arrived at the wedding. The photographer took a few family pictures and the music started. When our time came, the director asked if the farmer and I needed to go over our entrance. “We’re grownups; we can handle it,” we assured him.
In the meantime, our son Miles had seated Mama on the row behind me, by mistake. “Go move Mama,” I said. “We are speaking again. It will be OK for her to sit with me.”
Miles moved Mama. Then the farmer escorted me to my seat. I turned to smile at Mama when someone touched me on the shoulder. What did the farmer want?
“Get up. Right now.” he said. “We forgot to light the unity candle.”
There was nothing to do but get up and face the music.
The director was right; it’s all captured on video. Along with the knowing smiles and smirks from our middle-aged friends -- who understand.
Imagine my surprise after we got married and discovered that my new husband was locationally challenged. For years, therefore, I wrote a blue streak about the problems 89% of the Hamrick men have with keeping up with their stuff.
Ditto for their sons. At our house, they could misplace stuff you wouldn’t believe -- from their socks, to their keys, to their billfolds, to themselves, to their way out of a paper bag. I’d be dripping in diamonds by now if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the dreaded question that begins, “Honey or Mama, have you seen my ________? I’m sure I put them in the closet but they are not here. Reckon where they are?”
This tendency to misplace stuff probably explains one of the first complete sentences our firstborn son ever uttered: “Mama. The monkey got ‘em.” That was his pat answer when I asked for an explanation as to why his stuff was disappearing.
The worst lost-and-found experiences, however, inevitably involved the farmer. Like the February day I was 8 months pregnant, snowbound at the bottom of the hill in our farmhouse, and the bank called to say we were overdrawn. When I asked by how much, the cashier explained, “By $ 17,000.”
The farmer, of course, was not at home. He had decided that a bad snow day was a good day to take the truck to Shelby to pick up our new washing machine. Cell phones had not been invited. I tried not to go into labor.
Eventually the farmer slugged through the snow with the washer in tow. When I mentioned that we were financially challenged and that the bank was fixing to repossess what it could, he tried to put the monkey on my back. “Honey, have you seen my soybean check? I’m sure I put it in the bank, but obviously it’s not there. Reckon where you put it?”
Cleveland County men reading this column will not be one whit surprised at the outcome: the farmer found the $ 17,000 check in the stuff on the dash of his pickup truck. And he wondered why in the world the bank and I had overreacted.
Going forward, I assumed several new roles: Chairman of the lost and found department and Queen of the checkbooks.
My mother-in-law was my role model. It was her God-given role to keep up with PaPa and his calendar and his bank statements. When she died, too early at age 71, PaPa described his grief to me in this way, “Kathryn, I’ve lost my ‘Card Catalogue.’ By that time, his words did not strike me as dysfunctional. I knew exactly what PaPa meant.
Over the years, I was good at organizing stuff and could take you right to the baling twine and/or the extra pair of shoestrings. Unfortunately, I was also good at saying that if they were only more organized, like me, men wouldn’t waste so much time hunting for stuff.
Then I turned 50. All of a sudden, I’ve noticed I’m spending 78 % of my time hunting things, and the other 22% shopping to replace what I couldn’t find.
And the bank is not very sympathetic to my plight. Indeed, if I don’t soon find the safety deposit box key, the bank is going to have to blast the lock right off. And if I don’t find my passport, I’ll spend the rest of my days in Cleveland County.
And the Hamrick men? So far, they haven’t said, “I told you so.” They are still looking for the hedge clippers.
The good Lord willing, the creek don’t rise, and one of us doesn’t run off with somebody else, the farmer and I will celebrate our 31st anniversary Wednesday (June 27.) I realize that 31 years is not front-page news. The farmer and I are in that limbo land between the silver (25th) and the ruby (40th).
But anniversaries, even the odd-numbered ones, are a good time to reflect – and at our age, make homemade ice cream.
We could get out the wedding photo album and reminisce together, but I would have to search the house over to remember where I put the album. Besides, I hardly have a hankering to see myself in miniskirts and the farmer in polyester.
Actually the condition of our wedding album gives a good clue as to what has happened since 1970. That album has literally been dragged from here to yonder. For a while, the wedding album took center stage: it was on the coffee table. Then we had boy babies, got rid of the coffee table, and hid our valuables. During those years the wedding album was placed out of reach, on the top shelf.
But that did not deter the boys, who climbed everything in the house and then climbed out the windows and onto the house itself. No matter where I put our wedding album for safekeeping, the boys found it.
I never understood why our wedding pictures fascinated them. Maybe they just liked to look at their youthful parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents – or their old cars. They would ask, almost hurt, why they were not in the pictures. Considering our first son was born nine months later, it’s frightening how close they came.
Thirty-one years and four children later, the wedding album is no longer lily white. It has a lot of small, smudged fingerprints throughout, with hints of Cleveland County red clay mixed in. The album’s spine, like our backs, has gone out with age and use.
The pictures have endured a lot of heat and it shows. For the first 20 years, our wedding album didn’t have air conditioning. Therefore, some pictures are stuck. Some are splotched. Some are faded. But, as far as I know, we haven’t lost any of the photos themselves. Like their subjects, the photos are survivors.
The pictures, of course, show a bride and groom frozen in time. The farmer looks at the album and says he’s amazed that he looks today just like he did then. I look at the album and wonder if the man across the table is the man in the album.
That’s just one of our differences. If we don’t even agree on old wedding pictures, you can imagine the stuff we’ve had to work through in order to make it to year 31.
Looking back on the ground we’ve plowed, I wonder what sustains a marriage. My in-laws advised us that a good marriage takes “work.” My parents added that it takes “faith.” And the farmer and I have come to see that surviving marriage takes “a sense of humor.”
And “love?” It’s the force that keeps us working, believing, and laughing together. Love is also the fruit.
Though the wedding pictures deteriorate, the love grows into a blessing far more wonderful than the starry-eyed couple could ever have anticipated.
If I were a father, I would get bent out of shape on Father’s Day. The preferential treatment that mothers get on their day would tear me out of the frame.
I hate to burst your bubble, but there ARE glaring differences in the way Americans celebrate Mother’s and Father’s Day. If men ever wake up and smell the coffee, there could be trouble.
Starting at church.
Take our Baptist church, for example. Many families (i.e., those with daughters who think of such things) place roses in the church on Mother’s Day. What is the flower of choice on Father’s day? Nothing against carnations, but everyone knows that they don’t carry the same clout as roses.
At other churches, mothers receive corsages to wear on Mother’s Day. And what about fathers? Where are their orchids, or something comparable?
If a father gets anything to wear to church, it will be a necktie. Mark my word -- one day the men will rise up, rebel, and burn their neckties.
And consider how differently the two parents are fed on their respective days. Mother will be invited to the restaurant of her choice. Unless she is a young mother, in which case she will demand to be taken straight to McDonald’s. Forget what the T-shirt says. Moms learn early that if the kids aren’t happy, neither is Mom.
And what about Dad? A young dad will get grilled wieners, which he will grill. Older dads will fare better, because the older mom will invite the family over and cook up his favorite meal: beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pound cake.
Of course, in America, food and flowers are not the bottom line. Money is.
On whose day do you think Americans spend more money – Mother’s or Father’s? I don’t know how they do it up North, but it’s my observation that down South, Mother wins. Hands down. So far, merchants haven’t figured a way to get us to wrap our arms around Father’s Day and get out our charge cards.
Instead, consider the functional gifts we give our dads. What emotional content does a green garden hose carry? Or white crew socks? Or a pair of khaki shorts?
And think of how the Father’s Day gift is presented. Will there be a mini-speech and tears? Hardly. Will the gift be neatly boxed and wrapped, or carefully placed in a glossy gift bag with tissue paper adding an aura of surprise?
Get real. At our house, the boys will lug in the garden hose, drop it on the kitchen floor and announce: “Here it is.” No well-chosen words on fatherhood. No boo hooing. No obsessing over the glories of fatherhood.
And what is the father’s response to the gift? The honoree’s words are as emotionally intense as those of the givers. After a long pause, he’ll eventually come out with it: “Uh huh. A hose. Well, good.”
Today is Father’s Day. In case the boys forget altogether, I bought socks.
It’s a good thing that fathers don’t expect recognition. To their credit, they simply accept the responsibility, and in unseen but profound ways they mold us, their sons and daughters. And we are all the stronger because of the influence of good fathers.
You may have read the bumper sticker claiming, “Life begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies.” Well, both events took place at our house last year. And I would paraphrase the sticker thusly: “Life will go on when the kids leave home and the dog dies.”
I’ve written about the Empty Nest Syndrome. What I haven’t tackled is the Empty Doghouse Syndrome.
There are some pluses to this syndrome. (1) Flea season is a nonevent for us. (2) I don’t make emergency trips to the grocery store to buy canned dog food by the case. (3) Nor do I have to worry about the farmer and his dog being arrested for breaking the leash laws.
On the negative side of the ledger, there’s no one to bark out an announcement that we have company. Nor does anyone leap for joy when we come home. And, what is proving to be the biggest challenge of all, there is no one to eat the leftovers.
Don’t tell Mama, but I am throwing out food on a daily basis. Blame it all on Weight Watchers, a support group that taught me that my daily allotment did not include enough points to clean out the refrigerator. They said it was OK not to eat the tub of chicken salad that was on the verge of spoiling.
However, I may get into my Mama’s heaven by salvaging as many leftovers as I can. Sometimes it’s via soup; other times I camouflage them, put them before the farmer, and lead him to believe they are not leftovers. This may also be unethical. For women, what to do with leftovers is indeed a gray area with theological overtones. When we fed our scraps to the dog, even Mama thought we were kosher.
But here we are with the Empty Nest and the Empty Doghouse, and I have had to take up throwing leftovers in the trashcan.
This worked well for a month. Then just about the time we began sprucing up the place in order to sell it, a raccoon took up with us. The farmer says it was the Jenkins sausage that did it. All I know is that we are greeted each morning with post-raccoon trash.
“Evidently the raccoon likes your cooking,” the farmer says.
Maybe I’ll send my recipes to Southern Living, with a word of explanation and a picture of a fat Southern raccoon.
But of course, there is more to the story than that. Last weekend, while Miles and I were watching Saturday Night Live, we heard the crashing of trashcans just outside the back door. Miles jumped from the couch and piled furniture against the door.
Miles said, “Mama, just our luck, the raccoon will push the door open and come after us.”
The farmer said it went against his grain for us to barricade ourselves in our house on account of a raccoon. He said God had blessed us with a world-class coon-huntin’ son who would know just what to do.
I can’t speak for other women, but this has made a believer out of me. And what I believe is that eating out will solve the problems unleashed when the kids left home and the dog died.
The poet said it best, though I can’t remember exactly how he/she said it. So here’s a paraphrase: “There is nothing so rare and wonderful as a day in June. Then, if ever, come perfect days…”
At my age, I’m not 100% sure which American poet waxed eloquent about June, nor do I want to get out of the chair to double check. However, the poet who voiced this sentiment must have lived in the South.
For Southerners, June is the month in which our investment in flowers pays off. Come August, most of us have wearied of watering, watering and watering. We’ve long since quit pinching blooms off. In fact, there may no blooms at all if we did not mount an attack on the Japanese beetles.
But ah, June, a month of great optimism when yards are green, flowers are in bloom, and plants sell like hot cakes at the garden store and the local gas station.
I am not a county extension agent; however, June is also the do or die month for blackberries. If you want a decent blackberry cobbler on July 1, pray for rain now. These are formative days for blackberries.
I don’t know about your house, but in addition to praying, we are getting our 3 lb. blackberry picking cans ready now. And we’re stocking up on that wonderful chigger repellant marketed as Skin So Soft by Avon.
When it comes to blackberry picking, however, I have a bone to pick with the artist who gave us that familiar print called “The Berry Pickers.” You, your neighbor, and/or your mother-in-law have this print. It shows happy women and children sashaying out along the lane in their long skirts and color-coordinated lace blouses to pick berries. Every hair, and they have long hair, is in place. There are no weeds, copperheads, or power poles to get in the way. No one is sweating or itching.
This print is lovely to look at but should carry a warning in a prominent place that states, “Any resemblance between these berry pickers and actual berry pickers is unintended and purely coincidental.”
Early June is a time for other delusions. A few folks, including one at our house, are still suckers for gardens. The first thing Miles did when he came home from NC State was to check his grades on the Internet. The second thing was to get out the cultivator and work up our garden. He has planted rows of beans, tomatoes, and squash.
And I reckon he heard so many lectures at college that he has taken up lecturing – his parents. He actually had the nerve to comment that I wasn’t getting my hands dirty any more. He implied that we were getting above our raising by not picking and canning green beans.
How could Miles know that he had struck a nerve? For lots of us, not gardening creates a major guilt trip, especially in June. After years of gardening and canning, every time I buy a can of Delmonte green beans in the grocery store, I look over my shoulder to make sure no one is looking. I quickly hide the green beans under the store-bought tossed salad. And I send up a word of explanation to my grandma in heaven, and while I’m at it, I promise the Lord I’ll do better. Next year.
Ah, June -- a month for optimism, for anticipation. It’s a month for enjoying outside work. And it’s a month for believing that every seed you plant will do great things. I reckon we need at least one month a year like that.
I bumped into our pastor the other night at the magazine rack in the grocery store. Rest assured that I was not leafing through Cosmopolitan or the National Enquirer. We are building a house. It no longer matters to me which movie stars are involved in a love triangle or are having liposuction. What does matter to me is choosing the right work triangle in the kitchen. And I’ve lost enough weight since the day we broke ground that liposuction no longer tempts me.
The pastor must have sensed that I was stressed out. When he asked how the house was coming along, I answered, “Preacher, it’s a wonderful blessing. However, your being a man and all, I’m not sure you can understand. Building a house is a lot like having a baby. Once you get yourself into it, you can’t suddenly say, ‘Ouch! Can I change my mind?’ No, you just have to push on.”
If there’s a Scripture that applies, the pastor didn’t mention it. He said something about needing to get milk before the store closed.
Now that we are deep in the throes of house building, the farmer and I understand some things that otherwise we would have gone through life without knowing and experiencing.
I’m not going to label it a conspiracy, but I’m discovering that just as it is taboo to talk about the pain of childbirth, it is also taboo to talk about the its counterpart, building a house.
And there is no Lamaze class for middle-aged folks who suddenly decide to have a house. For sure we now have a bond with others who have gone through the process. They look at us knowingly, grin, and ask, “How are the two of you getting along these days, what with the house underway and wall?”
“We’re doing as well as might be expected,” is the cliché I fall back on. And then my mind reverts to the major challenges that we still haven’t amicably resolved. Such as how to build the house around the farmer’s Tall Man recliner and his 275-pound, 38x38x38 metal TV. And we have different opinions on, of all things, the bathroom sink. I want to order one from Mexico; the farmer thinks the ones in Shelby are just fine.
Thank goodness there is a decorating style called “eclectic.” As I understand it, this style allows you to put all sorts of stuff together, if it has meaning to you. In other words, I get to keep the farmer.
Looking back on it, the one brilliant decision we have made is to hire a contractor. Frankly speaking, I don’t know how contractors keep their sanity. So many decisions to be made and then torn out. So many personalities, some of them a few bricks shy of a load.
The farmer and I had about 5 minutes of lunacy ourselves when we pondered building the house on our own – together. The farmer reminded me that he had built a shed onto our trailer in 1970.
Thanks goodness he came to the conclusion that, as he put it, “a lot of water has gone over the bridge since 1970.” After 31 years of marriage, enough water to be building an ark instead.
The farmer and I will soon celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary. And for 30 years and 9 months, we have lived within a mile and a half of the Boiling Springs stoplight.
This means I’ve had 30 years and 9 months of eating my words. For I grew up in NC’s small railroad town, Spencer. And every time a cotton-picking train whistle blew, I vowed never to live in a small town again. Instead, I bragged to my parents, I would live in Winston-Salem, New York City, or Madrid.
As it turns out, I did not marry a banker, talk show host or bullfighter. Along the way to becoming a big city girl, I bumped into the farmer. We did own a billy goat at one time, which is as close as I’ve come to realizing my girlhood fantasies.
Looking back on it, I’m appalled at my ignorance. Among the advantages of living in a small town are fewer fumes and more opportunity.
Personally speaking, if the farmer and I lived in Los Angeles, do you think the LA Times would print my homespun column about pickups and clotheslines?
Think honestly about your situation. If you lived in Detroit or Charlotte, would you have the same opportunities for community involvement and leadership? Could you grow green beans in the backyard? Would you find everything you truly need at the store around the corner?
Which brings me to Lestoil. A month ago I wrote about the glories of this old-timey, heavy, pine-scented floor cleaner that, properly used, also removes grease and spaghetti spots from your clothes.
That column told of the local sisterhood whose supplies are exhausted. After checking the chains in Cleveland County and western North Carolina and Upper South Carolina, after calling Clorox Inc., and after checking the Internet, it appeared that the nearest places we could find the degreaser were through a connection in Kentucky and by direct purchase in Puerto Rico.
Thank goodness the call came before I had purchased plane tickets to San Juan. The call was from a friend, who began, “Kathryn, I know where you can get Lestoil. Are you sitting down?”
Then she added, “Look out your window. See that local store at the end of your street? G. T. McSwain’s hardware store here in Boiling Springs sells Lestoil. They say they carry it because painters use it to clean their brushes….” How could we have overlooked the obvious? Months of searching, inquiring, agonizing, and what we needed was around the corner.
I felt like kicking myself, but what good would that do? Instead, I laughed at my ignorance. Next, though the hour was late, I called the unofficial chairperson of the local Lestoil sisterhood, who also lives within sight of G. T.’s. First thing the next morning, she bought his last bottle and pled our case to the proprietor.
After hearing of our interest in this product, I am proud to report that G. T. McSwain’s has more Lestoil on order. This is not the response, by the way, that we got from a single out-of-town chain.
If you live in a small town long enough, I reckon you begin to take the advantages for granted. And just may miss the obvious, that the grass is truly greener on our side of the fence.
With the 4 children out of the house, the farmer and I woke up one morning and realized that we were crowded. In retrospect, counseling would have been cheaper than moving.
In addition to the house itself, there are other purchases. Like the morning the farmer and I woke up and admitted that our kitchen chairs were falling apart after 4 boys, a husband and a lifetime.
“Not to worry,” my decorator (i.e., sister-in-law) said. “I know just the right out-of-town place that sells stylish, indestructible chairs. Clean out Cline’s pick-up and let’s go.”
Then she retreated to her air-conditioned den. I sailed over to the barn. Where to start on the old Ford? Fortunately there was a pitchfork buried on the back of the truck. That would loosen up the mud and mulch that was 7 inches deep – and sprouting. Eventually it would take a stick of firewood to loosen what was in the corners.
“Ah,” you are saying, “but that would be damaging to the paint job!” And you would be right, but you would be very naïve.
In the process of cleaning the truck bed, I found 2 pairs of coveralls, 1 glove, an empty antifreeze can, a phone card, bungee cords, and several sets of plastic handles the farmer was saving for a rainy day. Frankly, I was relieved not to uncover a dead animal.
The inside of the truck was a separate but simpler project. To clean the inside, you stuff everything under the seat and shake the caked-on red clay off the floor mats. By the time the truck was clean, I was filthy. My sister-in-law gave me a package of hand wipes, and off we went to shop for furniture for the new house.
The place she took us to was a tad fancy. I was glad I had quit sweating and had learned to change gears by the time we got there.
Then we began the search for the perfect, stylish, indestructible kitchen chairs that would accommodate our family of pick-up driving males weighing over 200 pounds and measuring more than 6 feet tall.
The saleslady took us very seriously when we discreetly mentioned that we had come to town in our truck. You would have to be asleep at the wheel not to recognize that as a buying signal.
Eventually we spotted the 8 chairs. They were perfect. They were also white. I wished I had used a broom to clean the truck instead of a stick of firewood.
I also began having anxiety symptoms. The truth was fixing to come out. I don’t know what it feels like to come out of the closet, but I was dreading the moment when they figured out we weren’t the ladies we appeared to be.
We paid for the chairs. They asked where The Truck was parked. “You can’t miss it,” I stammered. “Look for the 1988 Ford with the bumper sticker that says ‘Guns don’t kill people; postal workers do.'”
Then I went to the bathroom. Eventually I had to come out and face the music.
It turns out my fears were totally unfounded. The owner of the store came up to me and said, very knowingly, “Lady, I just want to say one thing. You have a real truck.”
He actually was in awe of us. Appearances do count, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.
Well-meaning friends warned the farmer that building a new house is the ultimate test of a marriage. “Not us,” I smiled sweetly at the farmer.
Our marriage has survived 4 sons, a personal farming crisis, 12 wrecks, 34 visits to the emergency room, and a bus trip to Tijuana. Surviving is something we do best. Surely our love would only grow deeper and stronger as we shared one of the most meaningful challenges of life – building a home.
Such were my delusions before we broke ground and selected the right spot – which was the first day and the first disagreement.
The next argument may have been over the brick. I don’t know about your husband, but mine thinks that selecting brick is something you do during 10 minutes over your lunch hour.
“What is the big deal about picking out brick?” the farmer wanted to know, as I devoted weekends to driving through subdivisions in both Carolinas and parts of Tennessee, looking at new houses. He didn’t mind my burning up 12 tanks of gas, but he explained that he was the logical spouse to pick out our brick.
“In my entire life,” he bragged, “I have not devoted so much as one second to thinking about brick. Nor do I ever intend to think about brick again as long as I live. I can pick the brick out for us in an instant. Trust me, I’m your man.”
If I had had a cement block, possibly I would have thrown it in his direction. “These are exactly the reasons I’m searching the world, or at least Cleveland County, to find the right brick color for us.”
It would have been rubbing salt in the wounds to have paraphrased the magnet on our refrigerator: “Bricks: a moment on your brain; a lifetime on your house.” Please don’t mention to the farmer that picking out shingles is an option. For once in my life, it suits me fine if the farmer thinks that shingles, like fried chicken, just happen.
Possibly 10-14% of the women reading this column cannot fathom today’s column. I have heard of flesh-and-blood husbands who actually enjoy discussing window treatments, bathroom fixtures, and wallpaper. These couples should have been there the day the farmer caught me sneaking in a wallpaper sample.
He nearly went ballistic. “Wallpaper in our new house? Have you lost your mind?”
For a brief moment I thought an explanation would work, so I added, “Oh, not just any wall paper. It’s an old-timey blackberry vine print from 1903, and it will look great in the bathroom.”
Imagining this concept was way too much for the farmer. “The last thing I want every morning is to look over the shower door and see blackberry vines on the wall. Wallpaper has roses on it. You are going to turn our house into a zoo.”
Which made me think of the alternate wallpaper choice I was sitting on: a wonderful modern giraffe print.
Though our bathroom won’t be featured in House Beautiful, I can envision it: the farmer with his long neck, craning over the shower door, giraffes gazing back at him.
Come to think of it, why not match the wallpaper up to the farmer? It might just tie the whole project, and our marriage, together.
