My Fair Haired Boy

"Oh my fair-haired boy, no more I'll see you walk the meadows green;

Or hear your song run through the fields like yon mountain stream.

Your ship waits on the western shore to bear you o'er from me;

But wait I will till Heaven's door-my fair-haired boy to see." (From a song set in the 19th century during the Irish famine telling the sorrow of parting.)

Preston was my fair-haired boy though he was born with coal-black hair. Among the black was a spot of silver the size of a half-dollar. When his hair grew back after he lost his baby hair, it was the most amazing golden blonde. (I can't find the picture I want showing this. On the right above he is learning to walk at age one with the help of Kari & Doug. On the left he is standing behind me on the porch at Tuck Corner when he was seven.)

I was reminded of Preston's hair while watching the Ellen Degeneres show last week. She has a segment where she shows embarrassing pictures from childhood alongside what the people look like now. One of the pictures was of a man when he was two or three years old. He had three older brothers and his mom wanted a girl when he was born. She let his hair grow long, put him in a dress and had his picture taken.

I am guilty of doing something similar - although not for that reason. I did it for $$$ and because of being a 'stage mom'.

I was working at Thomas Wolffe & Assoc. Advertising Agency when Preston was a baby. Tom was filming a tv spot for the Iowa Bankers Assoc. They wanted to represent a young family with a baby just learning to walk. They wanted a little girl but hadn't found the right toddler.

In addition to being golden, Preston's hair was also curly. It was so pretty. I just couldn't bear having it cut. He was a little over a year old and just beginning to take his first steps. Perfect for the tv ad, but, alas, a boy. Hold on. I still had his older sister's clothes.

Yes, in my little boy's first tv commercial he is wearing a red velvet dress which perfectly highlights his lustrous blonde curls. If we had a clip of that commercial, we could see him toddling toward his 'parents' - taking his, oops, her first steps.

Fortunately Preston was too young to remember any of this. The only pictures I had were slides and since we didn't have a projector, he never saw them. i.e. I didn't damage him for life. (I hope!)

My fair haired boy has grown up to be a son any mother would be proud of. He has always had a tender heart. When he was little any news stories of people suffering affected him deeply. (There is a German word for this: Weltschmerz-- sadness over the evils of the world.) He may try to hide it, but a mother knows the true heart of her children.
Preston always loved being outdoors. I suspect that even though he is not a hunter - an outdoorsman - he still feels most connected when he is in a field or the woods or walking along the shore.
My baby is helping raise five of his own. His first born is graduating high school this year. As Ki goes out into the world, I know Preston will be remembering his own first year of college - the excitement and the fears. He wasn't able to go right through college in four years, but he set a good example by going back years later to get his associate degree and then his bachelor's. That couldn't have been easy. I don't think I ever told him how proud I am of him for doing that.

Oh, my fair-haired boy, how glad I am to see you walk the meadows green.....

Still The One

"You're still the one that makes me laugh --
Still the one -- that's my better half; We're still having fun -- And you're still the one. You're still the one that makes me strong -- Still that one that I want to take along -- We're still having fun, And you're still the one..."

Happy St. Valentine's Day Everyone.

Bud gave me the lovely roses a week ago and they are still gorgeous. This morning he gave me the card - even after we said, "No Cards!" Lovely sentiments outside and inside the card, but the most meaningful are in his handwriting: "You're still the one."

So now I'm waiting until he gets home to see the snow heart. The message that goes with it: "Be Mine. Nothing more. Nothing Less." It was the best I could do on such short notice - that and the bag of chocolate hearts candy I gave him last night.

Wednesday will mark the 25th anniversary of our being together. In November we will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. He's already promised my choice of a cruise or a trip to Cancun. (How lucky can one woman be?) In the meantime, we are finally going to get out of this snow and cold for awhile with a trip to the SW.

"I looked at your face everyday
But I never saw it 'til I went away
When winter came, I just wanted to go
Deep in the desert, I longed for the snow..."

Changing, our love is going gold,

Even though we grow old, it is new --

You're still the one" (Orleans)

I don't think we will be longing for the snow when we get to the desert next week. I think we will be enjoying the sun and warm weather and being together on yet another of our road trips.

Reasons Why

These were two of the reasons why I didn't blog yesterday. We spent the day in West Des Moines. Anytime we venture into the city we try to make the trip count. Now that we have a new baby in the family, seeing him always goes to the top of the list.

Rodney will be three months old Monday. Now that he has all his surgeries behind him (no pun intended), he is thriving. And such a sweet little guy he is. Even though you will note that in this picture he is giving grandma the bird!

Which segues into one of the other highlights of the trip - buying "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" by Alan Bradley. (That's a picture of a dead bird on the cover.) Kari highly recommended this book to me and after reading her review of it on www.bookishdark.com I could hardly wait to get my own copy.

Whenever we go to Des Moines, Bud invariably comments: "Well that was a successful trip." Which usually translates to: "We spent a lot of money." He did get a new toy at Best Buy and I did come home with some things in a Kohl's bag.

Finally the third reason for going yesterday was our appointment with the CPA to have our taxes done. It looks like we are not going to have another big tax bill and that next year things will be so normal that I can go back to doing our own returns as I have for years. Good. Not that I don't like seeing Brian again, just that I don't like paying for someone to do what I've always done for myself.

It was a longer than usual day for us old folks. We arrived home a little after five. I didn't even have to worry about dinner thanks to Brad and a large lunch at Perkins. But I did agonize about blogging. I haven't missed a day since January 1 and a New Year's Resolution. I did not realize how freeing a day missed would be.

There have been days when I came up empty with blog ideas. (You could probably tell.) There have been days when I didn't feel like blogging. (You could probably tell.) And there have been days when I just didn't want to blog but felt like I had to. (I could tell.) Missing a day finally gave myself permission to: miss a day.

If I really did need a reason why, having grandma time with little Rodney was the best reason imaginable.

Playing Alone

I just finished reading an article "Teaching Your Children To Play Alone." It was full of ways for a parent to induce children to do something by themselves so the parent could have some "alone time".
I wonder if that is the same thing Mom was doing when she used to say, "Go outside and run around the house and let the stink blow off."
I don't think her problem was getting us to play by ourselves; I think it was getting us to help her with the work.
The article listed ideas for different ages. Of course we didn't have a lot of toys when I was a kid. One of the things I remember doing at a young age was stringing empty thread spools on a shoe string. That was when thread came on wooden spools. Another variation when we were a little older was stringing buttons. Mom or one of the grandmas would give us her button jar and a threaded needle. We would string buttons until the jar was empty - sometimes unstringing them and starting over.
Playing dress up was another fun activity. I have Mom's picture of Betty and me and our four Roberts cousins all dressed up. Aunt Evelyn must have taken a picture of us too because Glenna asked me not long ago where my Mom got all the hats, as Mom wasn't much of a hat wearer.
I remember using our allowance at the dime store to buy paper umbrellas, paper fans and birthstone rings. I think the fans were five cents and the umbrellas and rings were ten cents each. Of course the paper accessories soon got torn and the rings got lost, but they added to the dressing up.
Do kids still make mud pies? Betty and I could spend hours baking our mud pies and decorating them with leaves or flowers. Coffee can lids made good pans because they were shallow and the pies baked fast. We also used jar lids for smaller, but deeper pies. Hay making time was a good time to make mud pies. The dirt in the barnyard was as fine as sifted flour where the hay sledges were pulled up under the hay mow for unloading.
Even though I had a little sister and sometimes an older brother to play with, there were still times when I strayed off into my own little world. It might be out to the barn to play with the kittens or just putzing around the farm making up stories in my mind. And maybe that was the key to learning to play alone - we were allowed to.

"The Old Gray Mare....

She ain't what she used to be." Substitute 'little silver car' for 'old gray mare'. It was an interesting morning.
It has been at least two weeks since I drove my car. It sets outside in the neighbor's carport so we always take the garaged car. (Bud's Honda) I had an appointment this morning so before Bud left to go to Corning to see his Mom, I went over to make sure my car started. It did. I set the emergency brake to leave it running for a while to warm up.
When Bud left, I moved my car into the garage until time for me to leave. I had a heckuva time getting it out of the carport. I thought it was just spinning on the snow and ice even though I never have had a problem with it going in the snow. But there have been other times when it hasn't been driven for awhile that it takes a try or two to get it to reverse.
By the time I was halfway uptown I knew I had a brake dragging. But I made it to my appointment and I made it back home. The problem occurred when I pulled crossways on the street to back into the carport. I couldn't go forward or reverse. A neighbor tried to help push the car. Even that didn't work.
Luckily Bud got home before I had given up and called a tow truck. I told him the rear brakes were locked. He thought the emergency brake probably froze on when I set it, so tried to disconnect the cable. Then he realized only one rear tire wasn't moving. He got a hammer, took off the hubcap and banged on the brake drum a few times. That was all it took. I backed into the car port and he put the hubcap back on.
It's nice to be married to someone who can fix anything. He says, "All you need is a hammer and duct tape". I really need to get a different car though, even if duct tape does match the color of mine.

Kate and Rufe's Kids

My great grandparents, Lydia Katherine (Kate) Mauderly and Rufus (none) Ridnour were the parents of four children. The sober looking one in the middle above was my grandfather, Joseph Rufus Ridnour. He was born June 11, 1896.

Grandpa had a younger brother, Freddie who died as a child. I know he is buried in the Nodaway Cemetery, but his little headstone only has his name - no birth and death dates. But judging by the ages of my great aunts, I believe Freddie was the second son born, after Grandpa Joe.

Florence Mae, on the left, was born July 3, 1899. Lottie, right, was the baby, born in 1901.

There is no date on this picture, but I would guess the ages around 16, 13 and 11. I am enthralled by the girls' hairdos and bows. I'm also noticing their lockets and wondering if any of their descendants still have them? And all three look well-dressed. They are very attractive young people. What were they thinking as their likenesses were captured?

I knew my aunt Florence better than Aunt Lottie. She was married to Thomas Haley. They had nine children. Aunt Florence and Uncle Tom and Grandpa Joe and Grandma Delphia were closer than Grandpa & Grandma were with Aunt Lottie and Uncle Guy. Which meant my Mom and her sisters were closer to their Haley cousins. It might have been because the two families lived nearer to one another, but I think it was more than that.

Aunt Lottie married Guy Inman. I don't know how or why he came to Iowa. His family lived in Oklahoma. He was one-quarter Cherokee. That always fascinated me when I was young. I remember Aunt Lottie got rather reclusive in later years. We would see her in town occasionally. But Uncle Guy was very outgoing. We would meet him on the street in town and he would always stop and talk. I wish I had a picture of him. He had those dark eyes and high cheekbones. I always liked him. There was something about him which escapes me now - whistling? a pipe? a cigar? riddles? His hat?- some little thing that marked him as Uncle Guy to a young child.

Aunt Lottie and Uncle Guy had five children. Macy died when she was six years old in August, 1939. Their son, Ray, died at age 18 in April, 1940. I think Macy had appendicitis and Ray was kicked by a mule. To lose two children in less than nine months is unimaginable. I grew up knowing only their three other children: Leona, Lola and Cleo. Cleo is several years older than I am. I remember when she finished 8th grade she did not want to go to highschool. For some reason (probably fear), I did not want to go to highschool when I graduated 8th grade. I told Mom I wanted to be like Cleo. Thankfully she didn't listen.

There are only four children still living of the 17 born to these three: Aunt Florence's daughters, Darlene Haley Palmer and Doris Haley Pashek and Aunt Lottie's two girls, Leona Inman Kirkman Veatch and Cleo Inman McCuen. I can't even guess how many hundreds of descendants there are now.

Grandpa Joe and Grandma Delphia only had three girls, Evelyn Roberts, Ruth Lynam and Lois Mitchell. Aunt Evelyn and Aunt Lois each had six children; Mom had four; sixteen granchildren. How many of us carry on these Mauderly/Ridnour traits? The brown eyes? The shape of a nose or mouth? Mom used to say her youngest, my brother, Les, looked like her Dad. I don't see it so much in this picture as I do in some when Grandpa Joe was older.

I got the brown eyes. I was lucky.

The Virgin Islands

To say I am a bit jealous of my son Doug and my brother Les is more than an understatement. Both of them will be in the Virgin Islands a week from now.

Doug & Shelly are flying into St. Thomas where they have reserved a sailboat to spend four days sailing. Les & bride, Susan, will be on a honeymoon cruise. One of their stops is on St. Thomas.

It was 42 years ago this month that I spent 10 days sailing in those same blue waters. The Annaberg sugar mill ruins on St. John (pictured above) was one spot I remember liking. Caneel Bay was where we anchored to explore the 2/3's national park island of St. John.

Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands was another stop. There I remember lunch on the patio of little bar and drinking my first Heineken beer (and approipriating a Heineken ashtray to bring home as a souvenir).

My favourite British Virgin Isle was Virgin Gorda where I explored The Baths. It was so cool to wade into the pools surrounded by giant boulders, to swim across areas too deep to wade, to wend my way further along the watery paths. Yellow is not my best color, but I still remember the yellow swimsuit I wore that day. (As with some of my other trips, I would like to go back to see how well the memories hold up to present reality.)

Christiansted, St. Croix was an evening stop. After a marvelous dinner of fresh seafood and conversing with a Danish tourist, I remember visiting a very old church where the only lighting was candles; impressive.

What I remember most about Charlotte Amelie, St. Thomas was the shopping (duty free), the steel drums, and a picnic at Mountain Top. It was where I first had Mateus Rose' wine which was to become a favourite of mine. On the beaches of St. Thomas was also where I had the absolute best Pina Coladas ever.

Oh, yeah. After today's continued snow, wind and cold, I am very jealous of my son and brother and their spouses. But I am also extremely happy for them - to get away to those incredible blue waters for a few days will be heavenly.