"I Always Knew You Were A Quitter"

Bud and I are both longtime Cribbage players. He learned to play down at the store in Brooks when still a child. The old duffers taught him well. His skill coupled with his luck have won him a lot of games. I did not learn to play until my late teens. Family members and others who know us know we play a two out of three tourney every day. Granddaughter, Katrina, gave us a very nice new board for xmas similar to the one above.
I will often cede the game to Bud when he is way ahead of me. He is always telling me I shouldn't give up, that even when I am way behind it is still possible to win. He says, "You could catch up with one hand." That seldom happens. A perfect cribbage hand is 29 points. Bud had a 28 point hand a couple weeks ago. He also says, "Looks like you're in the catbird seat" and "But you've got first count" often.

In our first game today Bud was only three points from going out. I was back around 11 holes. I was going to give him the game. I had first count but he is so good at pegging I knew he would peg out and win before I had a chance to count my hand. He said, "Ah, don't you want to play it?" For a change I went ahead and played the hand instead of quitting. Amazingly he only pegged two. I pegged a few and had 10 points in my hand, so I won the game! He didn't even get to say, "See, I told you." I said, "Wow, you were right!" before he had the chance.

Bud's gentle words of encouragement not to quit were 180 degrees different than those I heard from a teacher fifty years ago. John Lenz taught Latin, English and Speech at Corning High School for many years. He was also the drama and speech contest coach. I never had him for a teacher but for some reason I decided to learn a dramatic speech for contest my junior year.

I decided on the Lady Macbeth monologue 'Out damn spot' and began memorizing it. Because I wasn't in a speech class, I had to either go in early or stay after school for help from Mr. Lenz. After several sessions during which I felt he wasn't interested in giving me direction and because staying after school meant extra trips to town for my Mom or Dad, I decided to give up on the idea of going to speech contest.

The only words I remember Lenz saying when I went in to tell him were, "I always knew you were a quitter." If he even tried to talk me into staying on, I don't remember it. I just remember being very upset. (I'm sure I went to the girl's bathroom and cried.)

There have been many, many instances over my lifetime when I haven't quit; when I've kept on keeping on; doing what needed to be done. Yet those words of being a quitter are the ones that have stayed with me.

I suspect Lenz 's statement was his way of trying to make me mad and determined to keep working on my speech. Instead they scarred me for life and gave me a lasting dislike of him. How different might it have been if he had been as encouraging as Bud?

Time For An Intervention?

All my life I dreamed of having a big old house to fix up. I loved Victorian houses. (Still do.) Through the years I have lived in some good sized homes. The house on Tuck Corner comes to mind. The problem was always not having the money needed for remodeling.

Another problem was that all the houses I lived in were rentals. The closest I came to owning a lovely old home was in '84. There was an acreage (10 acres) with a barn, machine shed, hog house and a huge house for sale in Taylor Co. I talked to my banker and he said they would loan me the money to buy it. I called the owner, offered $10,000 and he accepted. WOW!! I was so happy. Yes, the house needed work, but it would be mine and I could live there and work on it as long as it took.

The next day I went into the bank to sign the loan papers. The banker told me he had gone out to look at the property and that it needed too much work done for a woman alone to do. He wouldn't loan me the money. I had to call the owner back and call off the deal. (Too bad it didn't occur to me to go to another lender.) I am a firm believer in everything working out the way it is supposed to, i.e. I wasn't meant to have that house, but I still get mad thinking about that banker. And I still wonder what if I had moved there.......

What is it about the theme of fixing up an old house that is so appealing? It is used over and over in books and movies - a woman moves into an old house, starts cleaning and fixing it up, as she works on the house her life is transformed in some way. Is that the appeal? The idea of changing one's life? Or is it the idea of achieving some degree of perfection?

My dream of owning a big house was having enough rooms for all I imagined I needed: formal living room, dining room, den, bedrooms, bathrooms, library, kitchen, laundry room, still room, etc, etc, etc. Along with the big house I would have a huge yard and garden. Of course they would be perfect, too.

Maybe that is why I love watching HGTV. Each half hour I can see another space redone. Or I can watch someone choose between three homes, or see three outdoor spaces which have been landscaped and learn which owner got the most 'bang for their bucks'.

With the snow and cold weather, watching someone choose a vacation home in Mexico or Panama or on St. John isn't a bad way to spend some time. But I'm watching too much HGTV.

I'm not even reading! I need an intervention!

See Dec 16, 2009 for today's post.

Down Under

We watched a Nat Geo program about Australia and the Dream Time of the Aborigines. Not only interesting, but gorgeous scenery.
Australia has been one of my dream time destinations for many, many years. I've read a lot of novels set in Australia and watched movies and tv shows about the country. I find it totally fascinating.
It is summer there now; would be a good time to visit as we are freezing in sub-zero temps, they are in the 70's-80's.
Considering the number of Scottish and Irish settlers in Australia, I wonder if I would find any distant cousins.
I've read all Colleen McCullogh's books and most of Thomas Keneally's. One of my New Year's resolutions was to read one non-novel for every five novels I read in 2010. Reading something about Australia will be at the top of the list. And it looks like my local library has several to choose from.

Oh Brother Where Art Thou?

How much of a role in our lives does birth order play? My Mom was a middle child. I am a middle child. My daughter is a middle child.

Mom was sandwiched between two sisters; no brothers for her. Kari and I both have older and younger brothers.

Are the roles we took on as sibling children carried over to adulthood? While we were growing up I always looked to my older brother for guidance. And while he never did have to protect me from any real harm, I still felt 'protected' by him. During the few years of our first marriages Ron and Marianne and Kenny and I were all part of the same social group. We were friends as well as relatives.

That changed when they moved to Colorado. They divorced and so did we. I still remember Ron's suppportive phone call the night after I had been to court. It meant a lot. He remarried in April and I remarried in May. We sorta' started over together. Then he and Ruth moved back to Iowa, we had children close in age. Eventually I moved back to southwest Iowa (divorced again) and once again had relatives who were my friends as well.

My relationship with younger brother Les was much different. I was ten years old when he was born. He was closer in age to my son than he was to me. Eight year old Uncle Les was Dougie's playmate. That may have something to do with why I felt/feel more 'motherly' toward him. (That feeling has only increased in the six years since our Mom died.)

I and my trusty old boat of a station wagon (packed full) moved little bro and his friend to college in Warrensburg, MO in '72. If he had told me then he was never coming back to Iowa I probably wouldn't have taken him. I assumed he would be gone four years and then come back home. Instead, he married a girl from Independence and stayed in Warrensburg, eventually working for the university he graduated from.

When Les phoned me three years ago to tell me his almost 30-yr. marriage was ending even though he did not want it to, I immediately went into protective mothering mode. The only thing I hoped for was the wisdom to say the right words - whatever they were - that he needed to hear at that time.

Our family dynamics have changed hugely in the past six years: Mom died; six weeks later, Ruthie died. Ron and I became very close again which I really appreciated. Now, both my brothers have new spouses and I have two new sisters-in-law. We have sold the family farm which was the last piece holding us all together. It doesn't feel like there is enough time left for me to really know my brothers and their wives again. They are busy with their children and grandchildren as I am with mine.

Perhaps this is all as it is meant to be. Long gone are the days of our parents and their siblings when you married once, lived in the same locale and raised your families together along with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Kari's brotherly experiences differ from mine. She was 7 years younger than Doug and only two years older than Preston. Doug is her half brother while Preston is a full brother. I don't know if Doug protected her, but I know he did torment her. (Poor teddy bear, Grace.) I would say she was closer to Preston as a playmate and as a friend. But now she is separated from both brothers not only by distance but lifestyle. (No kids and grandkids for her.) Does she think of her brothers as I do mine? Loving them, but not knowing them? Remembering the years of growing up together, sharing in the loss of parents and the joy of nieces and nephews?

I may not know where my brothers are in their lives, but I know where they are in my heart.

New Grandpa on the Block

Today I saw my son Doug and his new grandson Rodney together for the first time. Doug was 47 before he claimed status as a grandfather, ten years older than I was when I became a grandmother for the first time. I could tell he is pretty happy with grandfatherhood.

Doug has been enamored of boats for several years. (His dream is to retire onto a sail boat.) When he learned he was going to be a Grandpa he began building the above cradle. I hope it is one of those pieces which gets passed down through the generations. It seems pretty special to me.

My younger brother Les became a grandpa for the first time in 2009 also. He was 55 when Maya was born. Older brother Ron was a first time grandfather at age 61. Nicholas is eight now. I may have been a very young grandmother but I'm glad it happened that way because now I can enjoy the next generation as a great grandmother.

Doug reminds me of his Grandpa Botkin - he likes to tease the little kids just as Chuck did. And he is already putting Rodney to sleep by rubbing his back which is the way Doug's Grandma Lynam put him to sleep. There are traits and traditions we pass down as well as cradles.

Chapter and Verse

The first time I heard my grandchildren talk about 'chapter' books, I had to take an educated guess at what kind of books they were talking about.

When I learned to read, we read at levels, grades or age. My grandchildren's chapter books fit into my age 9-12.

Not long ago a reading friend asked me what I read as a youngster. I told her about attending a one-room country school where our reading choices were limited; not having access to the town public library because I was a country kid whose parent's could not afford the library card fee nor had money for luxuries like books.

"I read and loved fairy tales," I told her. "The other book we had at school which I loved and read over and over was 'Mystery at High Hedges'." I told her how my Mom had gotten that book for me when the school closed and the contents were auctioned off and how I had realized when reading it again years later how poorly it was written. Such was my memory. I was surprised to find a preview of Edith Bishop Sherman's 'Mystery at High Hedges' online. After reading several pages, I have decided it wasn't so badly written after all. (Sadly, I do not still have my copy of the book.)

Beverly Cleary's 'Ramona' books did not come out until I was an adult even though she became a published author in 1950 while I was in first grade. My first and only 'Ramona' book was given to me as a Christmas present by my dear sister-in-law, Ruthie. I was probably in my late 30's, early 40's. It was "Ramona the Brave". I loved it. Daughter Kari was a reader of the Ramona series and later moved to Ms. Cleary's and Ramona's area - Portland, OR.

I was much more familiar with Helen Hunt Jackson's book, 'Ramona'. While I was in grade school, our library books came from the county superintendent's office. My teacher's niece (and fellow school mate), Marylin Yearington [years later my sister-in-law when we married brothers Kenny & Jim Botkin], saw the Jackson book and decided I should read it. I was in 7th or 8th grade at the time. I tried to read it, but just couldn't get into it. It was either over my head or uninteresting to me. Not only did I read it in later years, I climbed Seven Falls in Colorado Springs to visit Helen Hunt Jackson's memorial and her inspiration point.

Jackson's book was the basis of a movie and a song. Mom used to sing a ditty about "Ramona in her kimona" when I was growing up. I did not know until I heard Al Martino's 'Ramona' that it is a beautiful song. (When I was going to Dr. Overton for my pre-natal appointments before Kari was born, he always came into the exam room singing "Ramona da dum de da dum..." [obviously didn't know the words].)

The first verses I learned were the nursery rhymes read to me by my Mother and the old adages of my Grandmother's; "Little Jack Horner sat in a corner....." "Red sky at night, sailor's delight"...... Later there were Bible verses learned at Vacation Bible School.

It was one of the VBS experiences I credit for my lifelong hatred of anyone trying to finish something I have started. I have always been slow - not in the sense of mentality - in the way I do things. One early year at VBS we were supposed to be writing Bible verses on little pieces of paper then rolling them up to put in a honeycombed square. I was way behind. It came time for recess. I went outside to play with the others. When I came back in, the teacher and helper had finished my honeycomb for me to catch me up. I wanted to throw it in their faces and go home, but I couldn't. Sixty years later, I still hate it if I start to do something and someone else tries to finish it - even if I haven't touched the project for days or weeks.

The verses which have been my saving grace over the years have been verses of poetry. The 'poetry book' I started in highschool is in remnants now. It was a white spiral notebook into which I copied poems I liked. I used a straight pen with a nib and oxblood ink. Oh, so romantic.

Poetry was my tranquilizer. Whenever I was nervous, upset, on edge, mad, sad, all I had to do was read some poetry......

"We are ever and always slaves of these: the suns that scortch, the winds that freeze......