The
Earth Abides
By Betty Taylor
Published by Shapato Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Betty Taylor
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Cover and interior art provided by LaVonne M. Hansen
Author Photo by Clayton Pyle
I dedicate this book to the memory of Anna Elizabeth Eckhoff Hembd, my paternal grandmother. She was born at sea, en route from Germany to America, on November 11, 1853. She and my grandfather raised their family on wooded Minnesota land about seventeen miles from LaCrosse, Wisconsin where they farmed and sold oak and birch wood in the late 1800s. A mother of nineteen, she instilled an enduring heritage of faith and love in her family, while finding time to write some poetry. Although she died twenty-two years before my birth, I sense a mystical connection to that remarkable woman, as do many of my siblings and cousins. This book is a generational recognition of my roots, with special admiration for Anna Elizabeth Hembd from her youngest granddaughter, Betty Anne Hembd Taylor.
LaVonne Hansen, award winning artist and retired bank teller, lives with her husband, Don, in Hartley, Iowa. LaVonne is noted in the surrounding area for delivering positive messages through her “chalk talks.” While speaking, she illustrates her thoughts through appealing chalk drawings on 24” x 40” sheets. For ten consecutive years LaVonne donated local historical sketches to be auctioned off at Hartley’s Threshing Days plus one more sketch for the quasquicentennial celebration. A few of her other achievements are illustrating calendars for a neighboring town and entering the art category at the Clay County Fair. Her pen-and-ink drawings appear in the memoir Climbing—One Pole at a Time by Irvin Goodon, as well as two other books by Shapato Publishing, Walking Beans Wasn’t Something You Did With Your Dog, and Knee High by the Fourth of July.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Putting one’s work together into a book is rather daunting. I would never have found the courage to take the risk, except for three interactions over a period of years. Twenty years may have passed since LaVonne Hansen first suggested that I put a collection of my poems together into a book, which she would illustrate for me. I smiled at the thought, but set it aside until LaVonne would bring it up again.
Then about a year ago Jean Tennant suggested that if I would put a collection of my poems together, Shapato Publishing would print it. LaVonne’s offer came to my mind, but I still was not serious about the idea.
After my story was accepted for Shapato Publishing’s first book, Walking Beans Wasn’t Something You Did With Your Dog, Jean, LaVonne and I participated in several book signings along with other writers with stories in the book.
One of those events was in my hometown library in Ocheyedan, Iowa. My sister, Marjorie Brockshus, was in the audience. I mentioned that I once thought I would write a book, but I had never done that, and was privileged to have worked with Jean and to have a story in her book.
Marge interjected, “Well, you’re not dead yet. There is still time.”
That was my third nudge. I set out to compile this collection of poems and essays, chosen from my past twenty-plus years of writing. In addition, you will find a poem by my grandmother and an essay by her son, my father.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the members of writing groups in Spencer, Hartley, and Spirit Lake, plus two different writers’ round robins. Members of those groups have provided me with valued comments, and I know my work has improved because of their help.
I’ve appreciated the editing advice from my good friend Susan Morphew, along with proofreading comments from Karen Schutt, Joe Hembd and Ellen Treimer.
It has been a privilege to have a frequent guest column in the Hartley Sentinel, providing me with an opportunity to make my work known in the area.
And then there is the group at MaeB’s: especially Margaret Dau, Barb Haack and Lois Christensen. Writing is a lonely endeavor without encouragement from friends.
LaVonne Hansen’s illustrations enhance the poems and stories, and I thank her for being so willing to discuss sketches with me and to see them through my eyes.
How can I say enough about Jean Tennant? I am only beginning to understand how inept my submission process has been. She is an excellent editor, coaches me on the computer, puts up with my tendency to change my mind, and has accepted and worked with a manuscript that no other editor would have bothered with.
And last, I thank my husband Orv for his comments, for seeing the humor in what I have written about our relationship, and for being a good sport about it. Without his encouragement and willingness to do a good share of the cooking and housework I would never have found the time to write.
Betty Taylor
Hartley, Iowa
FOREWORD
When Betty Taylor asked me to write the foreword to her new book, The Earth Abides, my first reaction was, “Sure, I can do that.” Then, as I received the pages of her manuscript for formatting, panic began to set in. As I’ve often told Betty, “I don’t know poetry.” How was I going to write a foreword for a book of poetry?
But what I found within these pages is a collection of poems and essays that spoke to me, the reader, in a way much deeper than I’d expected.
Even the poetry.
The strength of The Earth Abides lies in its character studies.
The essay “A Glitch in Time” is a humorous reminder that time marches on for all of us, and sometimes all we can do is laugh about it, while “The World According to Garth” celebrates the quirky characters we all meet at one time or another. These humorous slices-of-life nicely counterbalance the more serious “Remembering Joe Green,” which made my heart ache for the boy in one of the retired teacher’s long-ago classes, and “Circle of Friends” is a reminder of the strength of friendship and the fragility of life.
Then there’s “Light Amid Darkness,” which tells of the author’s struggles with bipolar disorder. Though we’d spoken of this before, Betty and I, seeing her words in print, the struggles she’d endured, the years of misdiagnoses, helped me better understand the shadowy world of mental illness. I’m astonished by her bravery, and wonder if I could be so forthcoming.
Of the poems, I found them to be endearing and poignant examples of tightly disciplined prose, many of them reflecting the author’s famous sense of humor. From “Universal Pleasure”—extolling the bliss of line-dried clothes—to “Glacial Deposits in Iowa Soil”—done in haiku sequence—there’s a richness of words to please any reader.
I applaud the talents of an author who so skillfully articulates life’s ups and downs. The pages herein offered me a glimpse of writing so masterfully done that I had only to sit back and enjoy the ride, letting each page take me to places I felt privileged to visit.
Including the poetry.
Jean Tennant
Acknowledgments
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
Universal Pleasure
Pastor Milquetoast
Keep Your Chin Up
In the Company of Losers
Remembering the Waterbed
Love in the Woods
My Diet Group
Shape Up!!
Going into Overtime
Of Genealogy and Outhouses
The Bearded Lady
A Word to the Wise
The Bad Taste of Rubber
Weather Jester
Final Performance
Obsessed
A Glitch in Time
Restocking the Taylor Shop
Dream Vacation, 2001
The World According to Garth
Collections
Morning Glory
Shades of Tom Sawyer
Reorientation
The Land Between Two Rivers
“Owed” to Snow
Next Best Thing to a Pony
Images, Stained in Glass
Landmark Recollections
High Pockets
Circle of Friends
Remembering Joe Green
Light Amid Darkness
Journal Journey
Rivers of Life
Winter Solstice
Sisters’ Connections
Letting Go, Part One
Letting Go, Part Two
Letting Go, Part Three
The Woman at the Well
Lakeside Observations
A View from the Hospital Window
Monarch
The Parking Lot
Moonlight Madness
Sonnet to a Prairie Rose
Seventh Sister of the Pleiades
Downcast/Uplifted
Evening, East on I-90
Man and the Energies
Under a Winter Moon
GENERATIONS COME AND GENERATIONS GO,
BUT THE EARTH ABIDES FOREVER
Sehnsucht
Grandmother Anna Elizabeth
The Old Home
Grandma’s Living Legacy
Mother’s Oblations
Life and Death Connections
Stars in the Window
Ghosts of Christmases Past
Generations That Hold the Future
Exploring with Brandon
Road of Recollections
Glacial Deposits in Iowa Soil
The Amber Season
INTRODUCTION
There is a Time for Everything, and a Season
for Every Activity Under Heaven*
The words of The Teacher have haunting and intriguing perspectives about the times and seasons of life. Poets, philosophers, and songwriters often paraphrase his words as reminders of personal observations and experiences. I assume that most of us interject our private lives into the text.
Five years ago I completed my “threescore years and ten,” the amount of time allotted according to the Psalmist.** I like to think I am in the autumn of my life, but perhaps it is already winter and I have not yet recognized it.
For the most part my stories and poems are true, although, especially in the humor section, I admit to a bit of literary license to make the pieces more entertaining. Those who experienced the years with me may have memories and interpretations that differ from mine. Events may be shared, but the impact on each individual is unique. The mind seems to selectively store, ignore, minimize, or augment bits of conversations, observations, and experiences.
Each life is a mosaic of events and perceptions. The first two sections of this book are mostly humor. I suppose that is typical of my approach to life, as I often use humor to mask or soften those deeper emotions of fear, regret, grief, and rue. Along with The Teacher, I believe those emotions are common for each of us, combinations that make us what we are.
* Ecclesiastes 3:1
**Psalm 90:10
There is nothing in the universe
like fresh, clean, line-dried clothes
a comfort to the body
and a pleasure to the nose.
Pastor Milquetoast
His voice is barely audible
from “Dearly Beloved” to “Amen.”
He was wired for two hundred twenty
but plugged into a hundred and ten.
Keep Your Chin Up
I should have risen high in life
from standing on the pile
of the muck and mire I rose above
as I faced life with a smile.
But it is not a firm foundation
and I think I’m sinking in.
Someone ought to rescue me
it’s almost to my chin.
In the Company of Losers
I get a lot of old-people jokes in my email box lately. For some reason, they are beginning to seem more real than ludicrous. I have been told that, as senior citizens, we must laugh at ourselves or we won’t have anything to laugh about.
My husband, Orv, used to tell the story of a fellow he knew who drove his car downtown one morning. Forgetting that he had driven, he walked home. When he saw that his car was missing, he called the police to report the car stolen.
Also, an elderly couple from his hometown called the police one day. They reported a burglary. Two fur coats were missing from a closet. Police investigated with no satisfactory outcome. A few weeks later the wife found the coats in another closet. Again she called the police to announce that the burglars must have developed guilt feelings, because they brought the coats back but put them into the wrong closet.
These stories help Orv and me maintain our good humor, as we become more forgetful and things get lost around our house. Whichever one of us can’t find something is likely to announce that someone stole it—to which the other replies, “Don’t worry, they’ll probably bring it back.”
An item that often disappears is my can of Pam. When clearing my counter space, I might absent-mindedly pick up the aerosol can and chuck it under the sink with cleaning supplies. So far, I have not taken it to the washroom to use for hair spray—and I hope to avoid that one.
Orv takes it all quite magnanimously, as he loses his share of items also, but on occasion he shakes his head and mutters, “You sure have a time.”
At times while folding the laundry I’m short a sock or two. When Orv folds clothes, he’s more practical than I am. He just puts a couple of mismatched socks together. I save the odd ones for a few weeks before I give up and throw them away, just before the mates appear in my laundry basket. One friend of mine wondered if her husband might throw single socks from the window while driving down the road just to torment her.
We sometimes work together framing pictures or putting finishing touches on antiques. Hammers hide. Glue gets lost. Phillips screwdrivers are the only ones in the rack when we need one for slotted screws. But if we need a Phillips—well, you guessed it—only straight screwdrivers are available.
One day I was looking for the Whiteout to correct an error on an envelope. It was nowhere to be found. Later, while looking for Scotch tape, I found the Whiteout. Now I can’t find either one. Come to think of it, I believe I lost the envelope as well.
Orv is a creature of habit and always reads the newspaper with his breakfast. One morning while adding a couple of last-minute items for the garbage pick-up, I noticed that the paper had arrived. I thought I would do him a favor and bring it in while he was downstairs walking on his treadmill. When I went back into the house, I picked up the phone to make an early morning call. About ten minutes later he came upstairs and went out to get the paper. It wasn’t there.
“Did you pick up the paper this morning?” he asked.
“Yes, didn’t I put in on the kitchen table?”
It was nowhere to be found. Orv is not a patient person, but somehow he took that much better than I deserved.
“Did you look in the refrigerator?” he quipped.
I knew I hadn’t put it there, but checked anyway. “Someone must have stolen it,” I said lamely.
“Don’t worry,” he added, as he picked up the Newsweek magazine that came the day before. “They’ll bring it back.”
We went on about the morning, but from time to time throughout the day, I continued to hunt for that paper.
As evening approached, I needed to make another phone call. When I opened the drawer that holds the phone books, I found the morning paper. I guess the burglars did bring it back after all.
Remembering the Waterbed
Recently we faced decisions about buying a new bed. We could choose from a sleep number, a memory-foam top, firm mattress, pillow top—but you have seen the ads, you know that trying to make those decisions can go on and on.
I recall when firm beds were the order of the day for bad backs. Many years ago we bought one—king size. It almost filled the room. After sleeping on it for a week, I said, “Think of all the money this cost. We could have had the same level of comfort by tossing a blanket on the floor.” We adjusted to it, but by the next time we went bed shopping, the recommendation was to buy one a bit less firm.
Of all the beds we ever owned, the waterbed was the most memorable. We loved the comfort and the constant temperature. In spite of its good points, it presented a bit of frustration. There was a slight difficulty in rolling over, which we adjusted to, but we never adjusted to dealing with the leaks. The routine was hook up a hose, shove it down the laundry chute, drain it into the basement shower, locate and patch the offending spot, refill the bed, set its thermostat, and hope it would be warm enough by bed time. We must have followed that routine a half dozen times or more during the years we owned it. Our friends had waterbeds with bladders that never leaked. I don’t know why ours did. Maybe it had kidney stones.
One Saturday morning it seemed my toe was damp. I ignored the telltale signs and decided it was my imagination. Sunday the truth could not be denied. My whole foot was wet.
The previous year, while patching a leak, we vowed that we would never patch another. Still I searched for the offending spot, thinking that if it would be on top I might mend it just one more time. I weighed the advantages. It was always warm, it was always supportive, and contrary to one friend's fears, it did not cause us to drift apart.
The leak was not on top. With great effort I lifted the bladder in several places and found more water underneath, along with a faint smell of mildew. But I did not find the leak. I dried it as well as I could but Monday morning the bed was damp again.
“This is the last time,” I sighed, “We’re going to buy a new bed, the kind that never leaks.”
Orv agreed and told me I could write a check on his account, but he would not help with the shopping. I thought that was fair enough. I know he hates to shop, so with check in hand I headed for the furniture store. The variety was not as great as it is today. I found green ones, blue ones, and pink ones. Some were four inches thick and some were eight, with varying levels of hard-ness. Some had handles for maneuvering and some did not. There were those on sale with rebates and those not on sale with no rebates. After careful study I chose an eight-inch mattress and box spring, to be delivered that very afternoon. I went home, attached the hose, shoved it down the clothes chute, and drained the leaky waterbed into the basement shower one last time.
That night we slept on our new mattress. We knew it would take some time to adjust, but the initial comparison was not on the side of the new bed. Orv had three comments: “It’s easier to roll over, it’s cold, and it feels like it has about 50 gallons too much water in it.”
Love in the Woods
She was a sensuous maple tree
and he a sturdy oak.
Their limbs touched and they connected
long before they spoke.
They brushed against each other
from April to July.
He asked her pointed questions
she answered him with sighs.
“Squirrels planted me,” quoth he.
“I was a nut in former days.”
“My seeds were parachutes,” she blushed.
“I had free un-rooted ways.”
Birds and insects took up residence
children climbed their trunks and limbs.
He loved her with deep ardor
she felt the same for him.
In the fall she wore a crimson dress
he had rustic, rusty leaves.
He thought she was quite fetching
swaying in the breeze.
It was winter that undressed them
left them bare and stark.
He found her quite attractive
stripped down to the bark.
Snow dressed her then in winter white
fitting for a bride
and he was such a handsome groom
standing by her side.
They never left each other
though lesser loves would fail.
They weathered every storm of life—
blizzards, rains, and hail.
Little seedlings grew around them
to fill their lives with laughter
so as it was in fairy tales
they were happy ever after.
My Diet Group
We hope to solve our problems
in our meeting room.
Our taste buds aren’t just budding,
they’ve long been in full bloom.
Shape Up!!
Exercise, exercise
build up your stamina
stay out of the kitchen
don’t eat that pie.
It’s not nutritious, its
gastrointestinal
designed just to hasten
your time to die.
Going into Overtime
You may have heard of the book entitled, Women are from Venus—Men are from Mars. Once, when we still thought it was a planet, I told my husband he must be from Pluto because he’s so far out. Rather than being insulted, he smiled, nodded, and seemed sort of proud of that.
Orv played baseball in high school. One of the highlights of his life came during his sophomore year. The year was 1939. The high school had about sixty students and the team had only ten uniforms, yet they qualified for the state tournament. They lost only one game that season, the final game of that tournament. Later Orv played baseball while in the Army. He was on his way to becoming part of the invasion of Japan when the atomic bombs were dropped. Instead of fighting a war, he served a tour of duty as part of the Occupation Forces. By accepting guard duty at night, he was free to be on the baseball team in the daytime. Following his discharge Orv played as an outfielder and relief pitcher in town team baseball for ten exciting seasons.
These days it is not unusual for him to spend evenings glued to the TV set during the baseball season. He shows greater interest in the ball games than in talking to me. That annoyed me in the early years of our marriage. Wherever we went, he seemed to find a ball game on the car radio, and would become engrossed even if the broadcast came from a distance and the static was horrible.
I’m a person who likes to visit, but when I hear Orv’s dry comment, “My ears are getting tired,” I know it’s time for me to find something else to do, look for someone else to visit with, or to just be quiet.
With passing years we found ways to cope with his preoccupation with baseball and my lack of interest in the sport. He keeps the volume low on the TV set, while I might read or work crossword puzzles. At various times when I had more energy, I sewed, caned chair seats, or framed pictures. During my teaching career, I checked papers. Now I enjoy conversations with friends and family by telephone and e-mail, or read books and scan newspapers on line. I vaguely hear him cheer or complain loudly about plays, players or coaches, as if someone were really listening to him.
A few years ago we scheduled an October trip to a favorite spot in Ontario. The leaves were breathtaking in shades of reds, browns and gold, the weather was great, and everything was just right—except the World Series was on. To me, the logical thing was to turn the news on in the morning to see who had won the previous game, but Orv did not follow my logic. We were in a lovely condo with a kitchen, which gave us the privilege of cooking and washing dishes. There I was, without my computer or my hobbies, and there he was, glued to the TV set every evening. I vowed I would not travel with him again during the World Series.
Little did we know that the following year, instead of being on vacation, we would be in St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, during the Play-Offs. Orv was about to have surgery for a rather large tumor located between the dura mater and the upper skull.
After a long day, filled with delays and frustrations, I waited anxiously as they wheeled him out of intensive care. They had removed a piece of the skull about three by four inches, replaced it with a product called Norean, and sewed the scalp back in place. I met him in the hall and we exchanged comments of relief over the fact that the tumor had been benign. As they put him in his bed, he looked up at the clock to see that is was after eight o’clock in the evening.
His next words were, “I missed the doggone ball game.”
Other women seem to enjoy sports. Sometimes I listen in amazement while they discuss games with him. Even his seven-year-old great niece knows a lot about the players and teams. We had a neighbor woman who at age ninety-two could discuss sports with him intelligently, in spite of being legally blind. So why can’t I enjoy them? I made feeble attempts through the years to care, but finally concluded that it was never going to happen. After many years we’ve learned to accept each other as we are, alike in many ways but extremely different in others.
Still, I am always relieved when the baseball season is over. But the reader must not conclude that we have a lot of togetherness when it ends. Football starts before baseball ends, and basketball is in full swing before the Play-Offs are over.
Not too long ago, I was lying on the couch re-reading Women Who Run with the Wolves. As I finished the chapter about the meaning of the Bluebeard myth, I looked up to notice that he was watching reruns of a boxing match. Mohammed Ali was dancing around George Foreman.
“I thought he had Parkinson’s,” I quipped. “How come he’s boxing again?”
Orv didn’t say a word, but gave me a look. I knew just what he was thinking. His ears were getting tired.
Of Genealogy and Outhouses
Our extended family is unique in more ways than one. About three years ago a cousin made an interesting suggestion. “Why don’t we start a family email correspondence? When we receive an email, we can hit ‘reply all’ and get into an immediate discussion with everyone.”
The idea was met with enthusiasm and when word of our correspondence got around, our numbers began to grow. Cousin Russ has a good sense of humor and a fascination with words, so when our numbers swelled to twelve, he informed us that we had become a dodecagon. We have since more than doubled the number of twelve, but since Russ hasn’t come up with a new name, I just call it “the cousins’ email.”
We exchange open discussions about a variety of things. Many in the group have a gift for rhyme so we might all pitch in with inane rhyming birthday or get-well greetings. If illnesses are severe we exchange prayers and sympathetic thoughts. We express concern for those dealing with an overabundance of snow or too much rain and wonder how everyone is coping in these times of economic crisis. Political discussions get a bit sticky at times, so we try to be careful with them.
Our cousin, Don, is the genealogist of the group. He re-searched our family name, Hembd, and found it was once Von Hembd in Germany. He located a related branch by the name of Hemptine who once owned a castle in Belgium. That news was too good to let pass, so we invented royal names for ourselves. For a while I went by Queen Bess, the name of a silverware pattern I once purchased with Betty Crocker coupons. Later, since we all like to write rhyme—and to honor my town of Hartley, Iowa—I changed my signature to “Betty the Bard of Hartley.”
Email-loving participants live east as far as Illinois, west to New Mexico and Washington State, south to Texas, and for a time, a distant cousin I have yet to meet, sent messages while she was serving with the military in Iraq.
My nephew, Joe, lives alternately in Sioux City, Iowa or at Benson’s Landing on the Missouri River near Vermillion, South Dakota. Joe calls himself Chief Joseph of the Sioux or Chief Joseph on the Mighty Missouri, depending on where he is at a given moment. He has a modern home with good plumbing on his river-front property, but it occurred to him that, for the sake of convenience and perhaps charm, the place should also have an outhouse. Recently he posed a simple question on the cousin’s email. “How deep should an outhouse hole be?” Needless to say, he did not get simple answers.
Don, the family genealogist from Kent, Washington chimed in first with the following:
Hi Joe:
How do I approach the outhouse subject? I suppose as far as city government is concerned, no permit would be issued for digging it, so the architect (That would be the digger) most likely can call his own shots. Back when we were kids the hole was dug until the digger got tired, then they called it OK.
A more important subject is, “How far should the toilet seat be off the floor?” Here again it is probably left to the discretion of the architect but one should keep in mind that, when sitting on the seat, the feet should be able to reach the floor. My friend in Alaska built an outhouse on his five acres in Soldotna and he didn't have a ruler with him. So he measured from the knees to the feet and used that distance to represent the toilet seat height. What he failed to factor in was, he is six feet, six inches tall. So when I went to use the facility, I almost needed a stepladder to get up to the seat. I guess what I'm trying to say is you are pretty much on your own.
Sir Don of Kent
Since I am among the senior members of the group, I presumed it would behoove me to offer a few sage comments befitting one who grew up using an outhouse:
Dear Joe,
I don't know about the depth of the hole—but I do remember Dad digging a new one once. I believe the most important thing is to quit digging before the hole becomes too deep to climb back out. Also Dad put powdered lime on the contents from time to time, causing them to shrink a bit so a given hole would last longer.
Our Aunt Freda always went a step farther than anyone else. She saved the round cut outs for the seats, put handles on them so they could cover the holes not in use, then painted the bench, lids and general insides of the toilet. Still in spite of her best efforts, her outhouse had the same distinctive odor as anyone else’s.
If you want an authentic touch to your outhouse—forget the toilet paper. I have an outdated Penney’s catalog you can have. Sears, Roebuck or Montgomery Wards were the preferred catalogs of our outhouse days, but I don’t have one of those, so Penney's will have to do. And it’s too bad you can’t buy a lug or two of peaches wrapped individually in soft paper these days. Those papers were a relief from catalog paper with a touch that would rival Charmin.
For the final, just-right effect, saw a cutout above the door—one that looks like a quarter moon. Our outhouse on the farm did not have one, and I always thought it should. Also consider this word of caution. Don't sit out there with the door closed on Halloween, in case someone tips the outhouse over, because you will have one heck of a time getting out.
Betty the Bard of Hartley
Overwhelmed with gratitude for the good advice, Joe replied:
Dear Relatives,
Thanks for the feedback. After the first foot of roots and soil, we hit sugar sand and continued to dig that out until the last three or four feet, which turned out to be clay. I was worried that if we dug deeper we would either hit water or Mr. Chan. The seat is a porcelain fixture with no trap, just a cylinder with a base as wide as the top. It is designed for attaching a standard toilet seat. The outhouse next to our old cabin is a two-seater. I can’t grasp the concept of a two-seater, as I can never recall saying to family or friend, “I am headed for the toilet, come and join me . . . it’s a two-seater!” Perhaps back when it was built, it was already common practice for women to go to the public toilets in pairs! Anyway, we will get by just fine with a one-at-a-timer. I was going to make mine 4’ x 3,’ but added an extra foot to accommodate a bin for cobs . . . just in case.
Chief Joseph on the Missouri,
home of the homemade and
home-filled outhouses.
Joe’s cousin, Roger, of Spirit Lake, Iowa had no advice, but added these explanatory bits of information:
Joe,
My wife, Rita, was born south of Ocheyedan, and didn’t have modern plumbing until she moved into town in March of 1969. I, on the other hand, was born on the north side of Ocheyedan, five-plus years before Rita. I am a member of a litter of six siblings, born in less than eight years. I don’t remember not having modern plumbing. We had a “three-holer” as a backup when the women of the house took too long in our one indoor toilet. (As a side note, my mother has the best-looking peonies you have ever seen on the spot where that old three-holer once stood). Anyhow, the reason for more than one hole, according to my knowledgeable wife, is so each person can have a seat that fits his or her backside (small, medium, large).
Well, that's enough toilet talk—it’s time for supper.
Sir Roger of the Lakes,
home to lots of modern plumbing
After a few more exchanges about a gal named Loo and a guy named John, Joe reported that his project was finished. He sent pictures and invited us to come for the viewing. The invitation included an opportunity for down-river tubing, a bit of fishing, a cookout and evening bonfire. I can just imagine what yarns we could spin around that fire.
The Bearded Lady
Jenny the Bearded Lady
was the feature of the show.
She never had a sweetheart
but she had a lot of dough.
Then Jack the Loafer had a thought.
I’ll wed Jenny though she’s weird.
We could live off Jenny’s earnings
get rich off Jenny’s beard.
So he set out to woo and win her
to make her think that it was love.
She resisted him at first
but Cupid gave her heart a shove.
Then Jenny was embarrassed
about her bearded chin—
longed to be prettier for Jack
to be more feminine.
She shaved because she loved him
but too late poor Jenny learned
when your sweetheart is a loafer
A Jenny shaved is a Jenny spurned.
A Word to the Wise
Before we learned about self-esteem, damaging the psyche or being politically correct, we had words to live by, words we memorized and took to heart. Any situation could and did remind us of Bible verses; rhyming poems, which denoted truth and purity; or contemplative mottoes about God, country, Mom and apple pie. Parents, teachers and friends quoted valued phrases, designed to build character, teach discernment and enlighten future generations. Prudent advice was contained in such phrases as:
If it’s not one thing, it’s another
Haste makes waste
Pride goes before the fall
Practice makes perfect
Make the best of it
It could be worse
and on and on and on.
My parents sought to discourage my constant chatter by reminding me that silence is golden or children should be seen and not heard.
Dad valued Bible passages in general and at times was known to dwell on the one that says, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” He gave voice to that passage quite a lot, but since I was the youngest of seven children, he was too tired to act on it much. Still he often speculated that my behavior might improve if he followed through more often.
“A penny saved is a penny earned” was a favored proverb for those who struggled to recover from the Great Depression, pay off mortgages, and save up for the next depression, which was surely approaching. Yes, the handwriting was on the wall! Some-times my mother would nod her head and sagely remark, “There will come a time” I was never sure what that meant, but I could see that it was grave, so opted not to ask.
I believe Mom made up axioms to suit her own purposes. She was known to say, “Waste not want not” but often added, “If we waste what the Lord has given us, sooner of later, he will take if from us.”
So she darned socks, cut buttons from worn-out clothes and saved them in a button jar, patched overalls, and sometimes patched the patches on those overalls with fabric gleaned from the good parts of jeans to be thrown away.
Before the days of plastic bags, dry goods purchases were wrapped and tied. Every household had a ball of string saved from those packages. The brown wrapping paper could be used for drawing, to apply to backs of pictures or to line dresser draw-ers. Once my sister and I made brown-paper kites and decorated them with crayons. The project kept us out of trouble for a time, but the end result didn’t look all that great and the kites were too heavy to fly. Wrapping paper from birthday and Christmas gifts was also treated carefully, set aside, and recycled for another time.
My mother had zillions of ways to save and I bought in to most of them, but I drew the line when she tried to teach me the value of paring apples with paper-thin peelings. Mom good-naturedly accused me of chopping the apples square when I peeled them. We had our own orchard, and I knew the apples wouldn’t fall far from the trees, but I also knew they would indeed fall. Then we would have to gather them and throw them over the fence for the hogs. I remained unconvinced that my less than careful paring constituted a wasteful act.
Today with the rising cost of fruit, I can see that being able to leave paper-thin parings would be a good thing. I compensate for that unlearned skill by baking whole, unpeeled apples with a little butter and brown sugar. Apple pie is no better and baked apples are a lot less work.
During the war years when many things were rationed, a popular slogan was, “Fix it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” My parents loved that one. Dad straightened and reused nails and mended all sorts of things with baling wire. He milked his cows, picked corn, and loaded manure by hand. Mom sewed our clothes and saved the remnants to make patchwork quilts while touting the virtues of making do. She used to comment that “Some women can spend more by the teaspoonful than their husbands can bring in by the shovelful.”
Words of wisdom did not stop with economics. Mom warned me to be careful about choosing friends by saying, “One bad apple can spoil the whole barrel,” or “Birds of a feather flock together.”
When I objected to what others had done and thought a little revenge might be in order, she had another approach. She would admonish me by saying, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you—not as they did unto you,” or “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” and “Don’t make mountains out of mole hills.”
Then there was my German immigrant grandfather. He had some words of wisdom that never caught on with the general public. When he observed overly objectionable behavior, he would say, “Some people, ven they go crrrazy, they get in the het first.”
Dad was known to moralize, but his sense of humor allowed him to add his own twist to proverbs with comments like, “The early bird catches the worm—but if the worm hadn’t been out so early, he wouldn’t have been caught,” or “Where there is a Will, there is a Wilhelmina,” that “Love is blind, but the neighbors ain’t,” or “Beauty may be skin deep, but girls really go for that skin!”
Truth resides in the axioms and proverbs, but not necessarily the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They can over-simplify and present a rather narrow view of life. Today, writers are encouraged to be careful with idioms and avoid them like the plague. As I am resurrecting a few of them, I am reminded that old sayings in some distant past were new and original. I once heard of a person who read Shakespeare for the first time. She commented, “I don’t see why everyone thinks he was such a great writer. His work is just full of clichés.”
The Bad Taste of Rubber
Telephones have definitely changed through the years. What would Alexander Graham Bell think of the phone’s evolution since the day he called, “Watson, come here, I want you”?
For that matter, what would my father think? He used to tell stories about how inhibited people were when phones first appeared in homes and general stores. He witnessed one old German fellow who came into the store to call his wife with news that their son had arrived on the train after being gone for a long time.
When the operator connected him, he hollered, “Yon iss on the vay home.” Then he hung up with no further ado and went about his business.
Old telephones with extended mouthpieces, cranks, bells, receivers on the side, generators on the inside, and a place for batteries, are collectible now. When the dial system evolved, hundreds of the old phones were happily trashed. The ones that survived that purging have become rather valuable. Variations are priced at two to three hundred dollars and more. Even the dial phones that followed are relics. The one in my basement fascinates young people, who are surprised that it actually works.
There was no phone in our house in my early years. My parents had survived doctor bills and the Depression era. Virtues like getting by, scrimping and saving, were almost as sacred as attending worship services on a regular basis. It was exciting when the Kellogg phone finally came to hang on our dining room wall. It seemed a great luxury and source of fascination. We could call the six neighbors on our party line by using a series of short and long rings for each house. If we wished to call the operator, we used just one ring. She could connect us with those on lines other than our own. Dad showed us how to turn the crank to make it ring.
“You can use the phone when necessary,” he cautioned, “but don’t talk too long, and there will be no rubbering in this household. It’s bad manners.”
Rubbering was a term used to describe listening to someone else’s call. Dad’s firmness made me feel that God would most likely give me a siege of the boils if I committed such an invasion of privacy.
The neighbors did not all have the same thoughts. Catching up on what was happening up and down our gravel road was commonplace. Most phone conversations were rather general, and personal matters were discussed face to face. Teen-age boys were likely go to a house to ask for dates rather than call on the phone, and the idea of a girl calling a boy was considered as tasteless as rubbering.
Our phone number was 8F3-5, indicating that we were on line eight and could be summoned by three short rings and one long one. Numbers one through four indicated the shorts, and five indicated a long. Turning the crank on our own phone activated rings in every home on the party line.
The telephone operator knew much of what was going on in the community and served the purpose of the 9-1-1 of that era. If a tragedy struck, she would give a general ring, which was one long continuous ring. Everyone would rush to the phones to hear what had happened and to learn where help was needed. We could also give a general ring on our own party line.
Not all of the neighbors had phones. One day two children from the next farm came running breathlessly down the road. “We need Mr. Hembd to come over,” they gasped, “Alan fell in the well.”
For one of the few times in his life, I saw Dad look insecure. I could see that he hated to load the ladder and get into the car. While I had my first experience at spontaneous prayer, my mother cranked out a general ring to announce the problem to the neighbors, and then she called the local doctor.
Alan’s parents had dug a small well using a posthole auger, extending the handle until they reached water. The toddler of the family had slipped into it. Since the well was narrow he was not totally immersed, but was stuck part way down, up to his waist in water and just out of reach. The ladder was useless.
While my mother was looking worried, his mother was lying on the ground with a cane hooked under Alan’s little arm, which had lifted over his head as he fell. Dad recounted later that the men decided to dig a ditch deep enough for someone to lie down, grasp the boy’s hand, and pull him free. The digging caused dirt to fall onto his upturned face, and they had to quit. Someone suggested putting a bucket over the hole, but the darkness frightened the crying child.
Soon Dr. Thayer arrived. He was not the stereotypical country doctor. He was often seen in off-white pants, wing-tip shoes, shirt, tie and a blazer. He stood out among the farmers in their Osh-Kosh-B’Gosh bibbed overalls and blue chambray shirts. When he saw the distraught mother, he paid no attention to his clothes, but knelt on the ground beside her to offer comfort and reassurance.
Dad suggested they start at the backside of the needed ditch, dig away from the hole, and pull the last bit of dirt away with their hands. He and two others quickly dug the ditch. Alan’s father lay in it, grasped the little hand and pulled his son to safety. He was cold from being partly submerged and dirty from soil falling on his face, but he was alive and much relieved. The doctor checked him over, found him to be sound, prescribed that he be bathed, coddled, and put to bed to be warmed and recover from the shock.
But Alan didn’t take to the coddling very well. He soon threw off his covers and announced, “I want something to eat.”
Probably the parents and the neighbors took longer to recover from the shock than Alan did. The well was covered and life went on as usual.
When Germany agreed to unconditional surrender to end the war in Europe, a general ring brought the message and the good news. My oldest brother came home from World War II after being gone for four and a half years. He was rather good-looking and a bit sought after.
It didn’t take long before he met the woman he would soon marry, but other women did not give up easily. Listening in to calls made by ringing three shorts and a long on line eight, became quite interesting. One night the phone rang about five times while we were enjoying our evening meal. The nerve of the women who called him annoyed my mother. The clicks on the line from rubbering neighbors annoyed my father.
Bob was just plain annoyed. He grabbed his cap, stomped toward the door, turned to Mom and groused, “Just say I’m not home.”
Three shorts and a long was a source of neighborhood curiosity again a few years later. My sister had recently moved to Nebraska for her first teaching job. It was not long before she called to say that she was making wedding plans. As the calls became more frequent, the neighbors became more interested and couldn’t resist picking up the phones to rubber. Too many lifted receivers weakened the signals and it became harder and harder for my parents and sister to hear each other. I watched Dad’s growing frustration during one such conversation.
Finally he announced, “Maybe if all you rubber-necks would hang up, I could have a conversation with my daughter.”
He heard a click, click, click, click, up and down the line, and the conversation resumed. No one argued much with Dad face-to-face, and it seemed they did not cross him on the party line either.
In 1956, when most of the country had switched to dial, I lived near May City, Iowa, a small community that still had a party line. Visitors found my relic of a telephone to be quite a source of amusement. As many of the people in the area were of German descent, my good friend, Doris, looked at my phone and quipped, “Does the operator speak English?”
Minnie did indeed speak English and was at times a great source of information. Once some out-of-town friends were in the area and decided to pay us an impromptu visit. They called the operator from a local gas station and gave our number so they could call us for directions to the house.
When Minnie heard the number they were calling, she commented, “Oh they aren’t home today, but I can hook you up with the people they are visiting.”
We never found out how she knew where we were, but she certainly provided a service that modern phones don’t offer.
Our telephone system has advanced far beyond the humble beginnings of Bell’s invention. Today we carry our phones around with us. At one time, the cell phone inhibited me as much as early telephones inhibited the old German fellow Dad used to chuckle about. Now I enjoy reaching my children, grandchildren, and friends at any time. There is no denying the value of cell phones for summoning help in times of crisis. In our global world, calling 9-1-1 far outranks the general ring.
Even though I’ve learned to take pictures on the little gadget, I don’t believe that skill enhances my life very much. And as for learning to text and tweet, well, that’s totally out of the question—so far.
With the passing of the party line one could assume that rubbering, an activity my father considered to be in bad taste, is gone forever. Well, maybe it’s a thing of the past, or maybe in our times of advanced technology, it just operates under a new name—wire-tapping.
I do believe Alexander Graham Bell and Dad would be amazed.
Weather Jester
Spring was only teasing
with its breath so clean and sweet.
It gave us all the fever
to plant and make things neat.
We put away snow shovels
got garden tools together
set out our seeds and seedlings
in early March spring weather.
But morning light surprised us
as the winds began to blow
and garden tools were covered
with three inches of fresh snow.
Final Performance
She acted like she knew it all
when she was in school.
She acted like she loved him
then made him out to be a fool.
When she couldn’t have her way
she acted like she cried.
So we buried her quite quickly
when she acted like she died.
Obsessed
I can’t stop buying antiques.
Auctions call me
garage sales beckon
eBay beguiles
and shops consume vacation time.
Collected treasures crowd us
from the family room
and cars from the garage.
May I spend my declining years
in a cane seated wheel chair
and ride to my final resting place
in a curtained, horse-drawn hearse.
A Glitch in Time
The day was hot. July in Iowa is always hot, but the July of 2001 was worse than ever. My husband and I were venturing on an eighty-mile, antiquing trip. We had sold a china cabinet, with an agreement to deliver, and planned to stop at various shops to see what bargains we might be able to buy for resale. Our conversations went from our destination and places we would patronize, to an increasing excitement about our upcoming fall road trip to Newfoundland.
Once Orv commented, “I’m going to get new tires on the van before we travel this fall.”
He usually makes it a point to have good tires, and seldom needs to change one for us, but frequently we have stopped to help motorists in trouble. I often watched him quickly and efficiently change tires, especially for women or elderly people.
We arrived at the buyer’s home about two minutes before the promised time. If I had been driving we might have been late, but as with his tires, Orv is careful with his time. Laboriously we unloaded the china cabinet. When I made the deal with a promise to deliver, I did not anticipate carrying the item to the basement. I’d had brain surgery the previous summer, and though I had regained my strength, my balance was a bit uncertain. I leaned heavily on the railings to steady myself as we negotiated the stairs and put the piece in place. I was a bit disgruntled, but the buyer was pleased, and we were on our way.
A pleasant sprinkle cut the summer heat and we studied the western sky, hoping that rain was refreshing our area. We made a few stops at familiar shops. We purchased a Red Riding Hood cookie jar, a parlor table, a coffee grinder, and several other items. A vendor in one of the antique malls invited us to look at garage sale items she had set out for the following weekend. There we purchased two quilts, a bean pot, and a parlor table. We left her garage in the midst of a downpour. Satisfied that we had spent enough money and most of my energy, we turned toward home.
I tossed my cane in the back of the van, relieved that we had not filled the van too full for me to recline. After a few moments, I loaded one of our books on tape. We had just begun to listen to Tom Brokaw’s voice reading The Greatest Generation when we heard an unwelcome flopping sound. The van swayed just a bit and Orv pulled the car off the road. We had a flat tire.
As owners of our third Dodge Caravan, we knew the spare hung under the back part of the chassis, but that was all we knew about changing its tires that July afternoon. After checking around, Orv found a compartment on the back left side of the van. It held a jack, unlike any he had ever used. After some jabs at trial and error he figured out how to raise the van. He got under the car and set out to loosen the spare. One car after another sped by as I heard him mutter things under his breath about the eternal perdition of the van, the tire, and the jack. The thought crossed my mind that had I been alone, someone would have stopped and changed the tire for me.
I retrieved the instruction book from the glove compartment. As I leaned heavily on my cane, I read instructions and looked at diagrams. We soon learned that raising the vehicle was not necessary to release the spare. We simply needed to use the jack handle to turn a nut hidden under the carpet. That simple procedure lowered the tire to the ground. The release was easy. At last he freed the tire and took it to the front driver’s side. Cars continued to speed by.
He moved the jack, but couldn’t find a proper place to put it under the car. Once more I stood there, leaning on my cane, reading the instruction book while Orv, still muttering, hunted for the spot that looked like the one on the diagram. I silently reflected on the many times I’d seen him efficiently change tires for people, in the days when jacks and spare tires were the same for most vehicles.
A pick-up stopped. A thirty-something, broad-shouldered farmer with a kind face got out and walked toward us. “I called my wife on my cell phone and told her I'd be late,” he said. “I told her I was stopping to help some people having trouble along the road.”
Orv stood up. With the jack in one hand, he reached out to shake hands with the other. The young man took the jack and lay down beside the car. Efficiently he put it in place without the help of diagrams. Relieved and embarrassed, we stood by the road and watched him.
“Be careful,” he cautioned. “Don’t get hit by a car.”
In moments he removed the flat. The metal mesh of the radial tire had come through in many places.
“Be careful with this,” he said. “It could really cut your hands.”
Orv put the spare in place and the young man put the flat in the back of the van. He showed me the mesh again, and told me to remind my husband not to cut his hand. At that moment, I came to terms with what I had been suspecting for some time. I am in the middle of one of life’s many transitions. The man did not stop to help me because I am a woman. He stopped because we looked like two rather helpless senior citizens.
I wanted to tell him that we had delivered a china closet earlier in the day; one that my husband had refinished and that together we had rebuilt the back, the bottom and the legs. I wanted to say that in spite of my unsteadiness the two of us had carried it into someone's basement and eventually we would have figured out how to change that tire. I wanted to tell him we know enough not to be hit by a car, and that we both know what steel-belted radials are. But his face was so full of decency and concern that I knew any indignation was not directed toward him, but toward ourselves.
We thanked him graciously and offered payment for his trouble. He did not accept anything, just as Orv had never accepted payment for the many times he had helped others.
I asked for his name and address, so I could send him a note expressing our deep gratitude. I wanted him to know we were not past the age of good manners. As soon as he left, I quickly scribbled his name on a piece of paper so I wouldn’t forget. Unfortunately I lost the paper and did forget who he was after all.
The next time we get a vehicle I think we’ll study the instruct-ion book. If we can possibly remember what it says, we’ll be better prepared for trouble. I hate looking like two old people who don’t know how to change a tire.
Restocking the Taylor Shop
Orv and I planned a three-day buying trip to replenish the shelves in our antique shop. We visited Okoboji, Estherville, West Des Moines, Boonesville, Denison, Walnut, Orange City, and Rock Valley.