Innocence Lost

Our Christmas decor is now up and we all feel festive. Outside it has been sunny and 65°. I’ve even been wearing shorts. Change (possibly snow) is coming this Friday though!

A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING. That really sums it up. It was a perfect day and the meal was delicious. We had so much we ate leftovers clean through to Sunday. It was a big Thanksgiving this year. We fed 21 people. Here’s the story with the guests...

My cousin, Sarah Letsinger, has recently moved from Florida to Lebanon, Tennessee. She now lives with her sister, Mildred Pryor. We invited Aunt Mildred and Aunt Sarah for starters. (Aunt? So how do you address cousins who are the age of your parents? In their case “aunt” is an affectionate title.) Knowing that some of their children would be traveling to visit them for the holiday we extended the invitation to whoever was coming this way. That brought Bill Letsinger (Aunt Sarah’s younger son) and Dewayne Barnes (Aunt Mildred’s grandson) to us as well. I had not seen Bill or Dewayne in about 20 years, and I had never met their wives, Jen and Melissa, or their children.

We had the best time together! It was so nice to renew relationships and meet new additions to the family. We couldn’t have enjoyed the afternoon more if we’d tried to plan it. I think the kids had a lot of fun too. With the exception of Aunt Mildred’s other grandson, Wesson, Jenna was the oldest child of the gang. We had bicycles and tricycles going every direction. It was just a fun day.

HOMECOMING. Friday Vicki and Pauline got up early to go to Camden. Six of Vicki’s high school friends got together and caught up with each other. Many of them she had not seen since her 10 year reunion in 1998. Life has taken lots of different twists and turns, but everyone seems to be in a good place now. And Vicki also said everyone looked mighty good to have doubled their age since graduation. Oh the things we all would go back and tell our 18 year old selves about life if we could. While Vicki was visiting, Pauline saw several of her friends as well. I think they both had a great time.

SURPRISE VISIT. I think I had mentioned a few months ago that the Yerglers had moved from New Jersey to Georgia. They spent their Thanksgiving in Michigan with the Yergler family but stopped by Aunt Mar’s for an hour or so on their way home Saturday night. It was nice to see them. Hopefully we can see more of each other now that they are only four hours away.

ALL THE LEAVES ARE GONE. As I alluded to above, we could not have asked for prettier weather this Thanksgiving break. I spent several hours Wednesday, Friday and Saturday getting the rest of the leaves off the yard. It could not have been more comfortable weather to work in. I have put all the leaves on the garden hoping to both kill weeds and act as mulch. I’ll be in trouble if I get a strong east wind before there’s a soaking rain to pack them down.

OUR SUPER HERO. Nate loves his super hero pajamas. Some nights he is Spiderman (which includes webbing under the arms). Other nights he is Super Man (complete with cape, which he calls a “tape”).

Friday morning Nate was Spiderman. The whole time I was cooking breakfast he kept coming in the kitchen and shooting his webs at me. It turns out I was his arch villain, the “Evil Big Guy.” In spite of our young hero’s best efforts I was still able to carry out my nefarious plot to make pancakes and sausage and he was glad enough to eat them when I was done cooking.

HALLELUJAH! Today I threw away the diaper pail. Nate has been wearing underwear during the day for months but he still needs a pull-up at night. While we can’t say he is 100% potty trained we’re close enough to get rid of that last part of babyhood. It is with mixed emotions that we say good-bye to this part of our lives. 

GROWING UP. If you are reading this newsletter to young children you might want to stop here--this is your spoiler warning.

Last night Ben asked Vicki point blank if there really is a Santa Claus. We usually dodge this by asking, “What do you think?” But something about the way Ben asked made Vicki realize this wasn’t a casual question. Ben accusingly said that one boy at Mom’s Day Out last year told him that the parents buy the presents and put them under the tree. Jenna was present when Ben asked. She admitted that other girls at school had been talking about this. Telling about one friend who asked if she believed Jenna said with big eyes, “Momma, I LIED and said no because I didn’t want her to think I was a little girl.”

After fishing a bit more Vicki suggested that Jenna step out of the room. When she and Ben were alone she realized Jenna was standing just out of view. Vicki asked, “Do you want to hear this?” A tentative “yes” came back in response. That’s when Vicki broke the news.

Ben took the whole thing in stride, reflecting on what he’d heard, accepting it as fact. Jenna, on the other hand, had a brief moment of denial saying, “No, it can’t be true. He’s real. Is it true?” A good look into Vicki’s eyes confirmed her fears.

Pondering this revelation for a while Ben asked, “So have you and Dad enjoyed all the milk and cookies we’ve been leaving out?” When Vicki admitted we had he smiled and said, “That was a good snack for you!”

I think they are both okay with the news, but I believe Jenna took it a it harder than Ben. After asking about the cookies Ben proceeded to tell Vicki about all the things he wanted for Christmas.

Of course, this changes the whole Christmas wishing process. Before, Jenna would try to go easy on us asking us for smaller gifts and Santa for the more expensive ones because she knew we didn’t have enough money for everything she wanted. It has sort of taken her by surprise that we’ve been paying for Christmas all these years.

Ben now knows with whom to lodge his complaints. He told Vicki he really didn’t like the pinball machine he got last year and then proceeded to tell her exactly what he wanted this time around. She stopped him before he could reel off all his toy specifications.

Now Ben was warned not to tell Nate or his classmates. But at breakfast this morning Nate looked up from his Pop-Tart and asked, “Santa’s not real?” Vicki glared in Ben’s direction as he tried to feint his innocence.

Joe

A Reminder To Be Thankful

Thanksgiving is upon us and we’ve had a few things happen to remind us what we’re thankful for.

THANKFUL FOR A NIGHT OWL. At the time of writing this we aren’t sure how serious this might have become. I am an early riser and Vicki is a night owl. Between the two of us there aren’t many hours in the day when at least one of us is awake. It was the wee hours of Sunday morning when Vicki was getting ready for bed (she had fallen asleep on the couch). It was a little after 2:00 am when the power went off and back on, really a rare thing for the circuit our house is on. A few minutes later Vicki started smelling smoke. She woke me up and we spent the next 30-45 minutes inspecting the house inside and out. I had immediately turned off the heat to help us localize the odor. After about 20 minutes of looking around we noticed the smell was fainter. We turned the heat back on and the smell came back strong as ever. To be cautious I went outside and killed the furnace at the service disconnect. Within an hour there was no trace of any smell.

The problem smelled worse than it actually was. The inside walls of the furnace are lined with insulation. Some of this had come loose and was touching the heat exchange tubing. While the insulation is flame retardant, it sure smells bad when it is being scorched. Of course, I didn’t know this as I sat up for an hour after our little scare. A lot of things run through your mind about blessings in life and the people you love in a situation like that.

ANOTHER CLOSE CALL. Krisle Elementary lies halfway between our house and Springfield. Mom and Aunt Mar were on their way to town yesterday. As they were driving past Krisle a truck topped the hill ahead. Then a second truck (a pickup) appeared in their lane passing the first truck. At first Mom thinks “He sees me and will give up passing the other truck.” This driver chooses to continue passing even though it is obvious he can’t make it without causing an accident. As Mom heads for the ditch she notices that this guy has changed his plan and is heading for her ditch as well.

The ditch at this spot is very shallow. When everything is over Mom finds that the car rolled smoothly to a stop in the side yard of the school’s campus. Both trucks managed to stay on the road and neither of them stopped to see if Mom and Aunt Mar were okay (a lady in a car behind the trucks did though). They were very glad to have gotten through it without a scratch to themselves or the car. We all think the Lord was watching over them at that moment. There aren’t that many places along the highway to Springfield that offer a smooth shoulder and ditch like that. The timing was impeccable.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE. We had our annual community Thanksgiving service Sunday night. This year it was at Hopewell Baptist Church (there are five churches that participate). We had a joint worship service and then went to their fellowship hall to eat. This all started as light refreshments several years ago. It is now a notch short of a full meal. I ate too much. Janyth Henry, a lady from our church, was commenting on how Hopewell has raised the bar for us as it’s our turn to host the service next year. I told her we could all join Hopewell for a few weeks next November. All joking aside, it’s always fun to see people you don’t normally attend church with. One of Ben’s classmates was really happy to see him at her church.

This is out of chronological order but another fun holiday activity was the Cross Plains Heritage Commission’s pot luck dinner Thursday night. Vicki, Mom and I had a good time and I must say that Ken Thomson, our vice president, comes up with the neatest things to discuss. This time he talked about the socially acceptable ways to use tobacco in the 1800s. He brought several things to show which included snuff boxes, cigar wrappers and cigarette pipes. By the way, we are getting our web site started for the Heritage Commission and will be adding content as much as time allows. We already have several interesting articles posted.

ONE BUSY VOLUNTEER. Vicki has been really busy volunteering at school lately. Between Book Fair, the canned food drive and the Thanksgiving meal I think she was up there every day last week and several days the week before that.

DO I MEASURE UP? I enjoy hearing old stories like the ones I ran the last few weeks. They make the past come alive. It’s like adding color to those old black and white photos of your family. Without these stories, those pictures have about as much meaning to me as the ones you see in Cracker Barrel.

I was talking to a cousin on the phone last week about Amanda Ayres. We talked about many of the things he remembered her telling him as a boy and about how hard life was in the years after the Civil War when she was growing up. He said he asked her how they found the will to survive all those hardships. She corrected him saying, “We didn’t have hardships. They were challenges.” I had never heard this before.

Amanda is in a family picture that hangs on the wall in our study. She is looking over my shoulder as I type. I’ll never look at her image the same way again and I hope to live up to her outlook on life.

Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving,

Joe

Smoky Nights, Frosty Mornings

We woke up to a really heavy frost this morning--so heavy it almost looked like a skiff of snow. We’ve also had an unnatural, patchy fog around the community as many farmers are firing their tobacco one last time to put the final finish on it before taking it down to strip it.

KINDERGARTEN HOMEWORK. In preparation for Thanksgiving Ben’s class was given a cutout of a turkey and told to decorate it and write a story about it. Ben and Vicki worked on his turkey, gluing cereal and candy on it to make it look pretty. Then Ben dictated the following story about his turkey to Vicki:

“Once there was a turkey walking in the woods. He was going to a party but he didn’t know if the boys and girls would know he was a cereal and candy turkey. Then he thought he would dress up like a ‘real’ turkey. When he got to the party the boys and girls thought he was a fake turkey. It was present time and he didn’t have a present so he showed them his cereal and candy and they laughed and laughed. The End.”

HOMEWORK DEMON. Speaking of homework I need to mention my daughter. I am beginning to think she lives for homework. All kidding aside, it is very important to her that it is done right. Occasionally she’ll ask me to check her work. It is amazing how hard third grade homework can be when your child doesn’t have an example from class to give you the context of the problem or question. This really frustrates Jenna. I must say that Vicki really shines in this area as she is always there to help Jenna or Ben when they need it.

HERBERT FOLLOWUP. I got this email from Lori after she read about Herbert last week. I thought I’d pass it along. She writes: “Herbert is still alive and well! After 21 years of marriage I’ve finally quit jumping when I find him around the house. He went trick or treating with Mac this year. With 3 boys I would say Herbert’s going to be busy for a long, long time.”

ANOTHER ANCESTOR STORY. The Mr. John stories I ran last month made me think of another old story I’ve heard over the years. This story concerns Amanda Ayres (1859-1951), my great grandmother on Dad’s side of the family. As I understand it Amanda was one of five girls. The sad part of the story is that her father wasn’t around much and the family really struggled to survive. The economic situation during the Civil War didn’t help matters. To illustrate this point, at one time they had very little food. The had a hog but Amanda’s mother, Martha, didn’t want to kill it (either it needed to raise a litter of piglets or it wasn’t cold enough to put up the meat--an important consideration in the days before refrigeration). So to put some food on the table Martha cut off the sow’s ears and fried them up.

The story goes that one day the girls were playing out in the yard when several men rode up on horseback. They asked the girls to get their mother. When Martha came to the door of the house they asked her to fix them breakfast. Looking the men over she decided it was better to comply even though she probably couldn’t afford to spare the food. After the meal was over and the men were getting up to leave she decided to venture a question: “I’d like to know who I just served breakfast to?” One of the men replied, “You have just fed Frank and Jesse James and their men.” After the men left it is said that a silver dollar was found under each plate.

Naturally, we’re not 100% sure of all of the details of this story, it happening some 150 years ago. But we do know that the James Gang did operate in the area about that time. One cave about three miles from my house is named the Jesse James Cave because it is said he used it as a hideout. And whenever we’ve met distant cousins that descended from one of Amanda’s sisters and compared notes we’ve found they’ve all been told the same tales. At any rate, it’s an interesting piece of family folklore.

Joe

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POST PUBLISHING COMMENT. I talked to David Lee Thompson a couple of days after mailing this. He said he had always heard that the “Sow’‘s Ears” story happened during the Civil War. The occupying Union soldiers had stolen just about everything of value and eaten up all the food. All they had for food was corn meal and a hog hidden in the woods. When Martha decided to go to the woods and kill the hog she found it’d had a litter of pigs. She must have made a stew with this as Amanda had told David that fed them for a week. Of course, they had plenty of meat once the pigs grew a bit. David stressed to me that Aunt Helen didn’t believe this particular story was true as she doesn’t recall hearing it from Amanda. Uncle Paul does remember this story.

David also gave me some more details on the James brothers’ visit. He said this happened after the war when the food situation had improved some, and history records that the two of them (no gang at this time) robbed the bank in Russellville, Kentucky, in 1868. As Amanda recalled to David, two men came up the road on horseback and she ran in to get her mother. It was about 10:00 in the morning. When the men got to the house they said they were traveling through and asked if they would cook them some breakfast. Amanda remembers they wore long coats. In their conversation Martha asked the men who they were. She must not have been up on current events or this was before they become legendary because the names didn’t mean anything to Martha at the time. David said they did find silver dollars under their plates when clearing the table.

David went to to say that the time after the Civil War (the Reconstruction) was hard on everyone. John Swann, Amanda’s future father-in-law, had a large farm. After the soldiers stole all his livestock, harnesses, etc. he could no longer pay the property taxes on his farm and lost most of his land. David said Amanda was a really tough woman. One time she cut and shocked about seven acres of corn by herself (Uncle Paul tried to help her but he was too little to be of much help). David remembered asking Amanda how they lived through all their hardships. She corrected him saying they were challenges.

It’s Already November!

Most of the trees have lost their color and are in various stages of nakedness. It is a time when there is lots of activity in the fields as farmers disk the ground and sow their wheat as well as combine their soybeans. It is not uncommon to to be driving at night and see headlights in places where you don’t normally see them as these men work late to get the job done.

FREEZING. There have been many mornings the last couple of weeks Jenna will look at the thermometer and say something like, “It’s 45°, it’s freezing outside.” Being one to keep things stirred up I’ll argue the technical point saying, “Oh no it’s not. Water freezes at 32° so it’s 13° above freezing.” She had me Friday morning when it was 28°.

These temperatures don’t bother me, but let it get to 80° and I’m starting to feel really hot. So is Vicki. Jim and Dianna have teased us about this over the years. When we talked this weekend they asked how cold it was here and when I mentioned Friday morning’s temperature Dianna thought that was really cold. I noticed she didn’t have a good comeback when I told her that if I couldn’t complain about 80° being hot then she had no right to complain about 28° being cold. I guess it’s all what you’re acclimated to.

HALLOWEEN. We actually had very pleasant weather Tuesday for Trick or Treating. Our boys were cowboys (Nate rode in his own horse) and Jenna was a cowgirl. Between them they packed four cap pistols and a water gun. The high sheriff had confiscated all ammunition before we hit the trail. Even with these precautions there were a few casualties along the way, much to the delight of our cowpokes.

We usually walk down Main Street in Cross Plains and then hit several neighbors out in the country. This year we reversed course. By the time we got to Cross Plains most of the trick or treating was over and at least one house had run out of candy having served over 300 kids. Because of this the pile of loot was a bit smaller, but the quality was top notch. We all had a great time.

REMEMBERING HERBERT. Halloween always makes me think of Herbert. Herbert is a mask that belongs to Kenny. I think Kenny bought Herbert in the Haunted Mansion gift shop at Disney World when he was on his senior trip. Herbert is a really ugly, bald headed man with bulging eyes and several deep scars running along his face. When you put Herbert on he covers your entire head allowing you to to tuck the neck of the mask below your shirt collar. Kenny had way too much fun with Herbert and while this story actually happened on some random Sunday morning in the spring I always think of it at Halloween.

Back in the late 1970s there was a dumpster at the intersection of Woodrow Wilson Road (known then as Walton Road) and Highway 25, a very pleasant sight for the Freelands to see out their front door I’m sure. This particular Sunday, Kenny got up and borrowed one of his grandmother’s dresses. Aunt Ruby was a large woman, so he had to stuff the dress with several pillows to fill it out. He slipped Herbert over his head, grabbed a broom and headed out the door (I can’t remember if a wig was part of the outfit or not). I didn’t hear about this until I was at church and several people were commenting on the strange person sweeping around the dumpster. He kept this up until Mrs. Sherrie Wiggins ran off the road as she passed by on her way to Sunday school. It’s funny, there haven’t been any Herbert sightings now that Kenny has kids.

LEAVING HIS MARK. If you visit East Robertson Elementary you will find that many of the concrete blocks near the library entrance have been painted by kids. The kids are chosen to paint a block by a drawing as a Character Counts reward. Jenna got to paint one a couple of years ago. Ben’s turn came Friday. He chose to put a helicopter on his block and Vicki said it turned out really nicely. I can’t wait to see it.

BACK TO FILM. Vicki and I got a digital camera for ourselves for Christmas in 2003. It died while we were in Virginia a few weeks ago so we’ve had to pull out our old 35 mm camera. We have been planning on replacing the camera as its shutter speed is permanently set at 1/30 of a second, not good for catching kids in motion. Even so, it is a convenience to be able to see your snapshots immediately and delete the bad ones right away. While our old camera takes good pictures, going back to film has been a big adjustment. Hopefully we’ll find a deal on a camera soon.

Joe