Don't Tell Mom

I saw this meme on Facebook and had to steal it. I hate doing that; almost all of the pictures in my blog posts are ones that I've snapped at some point or another. But here we are. I give full credit to whoever came up with this one.

Sure, my sister Pat and I had our share of "don't tell Mom" stories. The time Pat shot herself in the foot with an arrow or the time I got a nosebleed playing "How high up the basement stairs are you willing to jump from to the cement floor below?"

But the times that I remember most are when I was minding my own business on many a summer afternoon, and Dad came in the house and grabbed me. He'd drag me into the bathroom, saying, "Don't tell Mom." Then he'd hold up his hand, wrapped with black electrician's tape securing a wad of paper towel to a finger, blood beginning to ooze through.  

I'd unwrap the wound and shove whatever was bleeding under a faucet running cold water. The sink quickly turned pink with the mix of water and blood.

Even though Mom worked at a doctor's office, she didn't stock the linen closet nearly as well as I did mine in my adult life. No Coban wraps, gauze rolls, or even decent medical tape. The only tape in any first aid kit back then was thick and unyielding, rolled on a metal ring in a metal case, which required Herculean strength to pop off. I could scrounge up a stiff piece of Telfa, but the antibiotic ointment was always expired. (But I must admit, my antibiotic ointment in my house now is always expired too.)

Whatever I managed to wrap him with, Dad was always satisfied and would sneak back out to his wood-working shop to see if he could cause any more damage.

Go figure that I ended up working in the medical field.

Virginia I

Journal of Our Journeys 

Chapter 8 - Virginia I

My mom's mom, born in 1893, was the oldest of nine children. One of her brothers died at only eight months old, but several others lived relatively long lives. One great-uncle beat out all of them, dying only two months shy of his 105th birthday. He and his wife had been married for over 75 years when she passed away at 94. And though they lived 1,200 miles away in a small papermill town in Virginia, we visited several times during my childhood.

          Mom and Dad had been there with my other siblings, Tom and Judy, before. I have a black and white photograph of Tom and Judy on the veranda at Monticello, and another one with them, Mom, and a relative in someone's backyard, dated 1954. As I write this, I have just visited Judy in the assisted living home where she now resides, and she showed me that same picture. I don't know how we each ended up with a copy of it, but that's all right. Better to have too many photos than none.

          It was a long ride in the camper to get to Virginia, driving through a few national parks and stopping at various campgrounds along the way. But once we pulled into their yard, we set up camp right in their driveway. I never questioned why we couldn't sleep in their house, but as a kid raised in the sixties, I didn't question much.

          The homes of most of our relatives out East were long and low to the ground, sprawling estates to my six-year-old eyes. One great-aunt and great-uncle had a formal flower garden by the back door, a carport instead of a garage, a formal living room, and a formal dining room, besides a family room. There was even a shed in the backyard where Uncle had a woodworking shop. That must be why he and Dad got along so well; Dad had a similar shop in our garage.

          But anyway, at that point in my life, I'd never been in a house with rooms that weren't used daily. Another great-uncle and his wife even had a fascinating room called a den. I don't remember much about it, except that it was down a couple of steps, the walls were paneled, the floor was covered in sculptured avocado-colored carpet, and taxidermed animal heads were hanging on the walls. Okay, not so different from rooms in many homes of the time, but it was still new to me.

          One of my mom's cousins and her husband rivaled that. They had a room above the garage for his train sets. And this was a grown man!  He would stand in the middle of the room holding the controls and, with the push of a button, command trains to travel around the room's perimeter.

          The best thing about their house was that they had kids who were close to the ages of Pat and me. This meant that instead of spending our vacation days inside with the female adults, as they shared tea and stories, we could be outside where our young cousins dared us to curl up inside a tractor tire so they could roll us across the yard. Okay, Pat accepted the dare; I was too chicken to try it.

          At night, we caught fireflies in a pint jar in the backyard and then released them in their bedroom. With the lights on, the drab insects disappeared into the room's furnishings. When we threw the room into darkness with the flip of a switch, the fireflies would appear as if by magic, bringing a glow to the room.

          Mom's other cousin raised horses - trotters, actually - and lived in a restored plantation house. Riding up the long driveway was like entering a different era. I always pictured Scarlett O'Hara walking out the front door, her wide hoop skirt sashaying. The interior of the house seemed to go on and on and on, the formal dining room leading to the formal living room leading to the family room, antiques everywhere. She even had a housekeeper.

          One year, when we were there, they had just finished building a new barn. This building had so many amenities – a full kitchen, full bathroom, office, padded stalls for the horses. Nothing like barns I’d been in back home.

          The animal life at this farm was quite varied. In addition to the beautiful sleek mares and their gangly foals, there were several riding horses along with a small herd of round furry burros. A pair of Great Danes was offset by a pair of Welsh corgis, with their German shepherd-type heads and short, stubby legs.

          Everywhere, exotic-looking peacocks roamed. In their occasional absence, their long, iridescent feathers or their droppings reminded me that they were still around. The birds would constantly emit their loud cries, scaring those of us who had never lived with these creatures before.

          The homes of the Virginia relatives were awesome when I was just a naïve kid, but there were so many more wonders to witness throughout our great land.

(The first picture is Pat and me on someone's porch in Virginia in 1968. You can barely make us out on the far right side. The picture just above is one the peacocks on the "Farm", when Hubby and I were there in 2019. A place full of memories.)

Plant the Seed

He went straight to the synagogues and began to preach that Jesus was the Son of God.

All who heard him were amazed and asked, “Isn't he the one who in Jerusalem was killing those who worship that man Jesus? And didn't he come here for the very purpose of arresting those people and taking them back to the chief priests?”

But Saul's preaching became even more powerful, and his proofs that Jesus was the Messiah were so convincing that the Jews who lived in Damascus could not answer him. (Acts 9:20-22, Good News Translation)

Last Sunday I wrote about how Saul, who had been persecuting the early Christians, was called by God to spread the word of salvation through Jesus Christ. It was an amazing conversion, and Saul (soon to be known as Paul) took off on his mission. He shared the story of Jesus with anyone who would listen in city after city.

In the church at Antioch there were some prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul. While they were serving the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul, to do the work to which I have called them.”

They fasted and prayed, placed their hands on them, and sent them off. (Acts 13:1-3, GNT)

Hard to believe but just twenty years ago this weekend, I heard about a mission trip to Kenya, and one year later that trip to Africa changed my life. And hopefully changed the lives of at least a few of the Kenyans I met. But it was nothing – I mean NOTHING – like what Paul experienced during the remainder of his lifetime.

I can’t share with you here all the places Paul traveled to, all the people he met, all the time he spent in prison. All the people he saved.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Just one person at a time. Show them the love of Jesus Christ. Plant the seed. Watch it grow. 

(The first picture is a group of school kids we encountered in one of the slums. The picture above is of one of our team members, Amanda, planting a tree with her Compassion child. I didn't imagine at the time that seven years later, I would be doing the same thing with my Compassion child in Kenya.) 

Home - My Brother, part 3

        I wasn't going to write any more about my brother – my mother would kill me for sharing all this personal stuff. But as I mentioned here once before, if anything I say can give hope to someone going through the same nightmare, then it's worth the risk.

          So, the big day to move my brother into assisted living was July 1. For two weeks, I mentioned it every time I spoke with him on the phone, and he kept asking why he had to move out of his house for a couple of weeks and why it was going to take so long to fix his water. But we just kept telling him our little fib about it – that to clean up the iron in his well water, it would take the plumber that long, and he wouldn't have any water that whole time, and it would even cause poisonous gases to come out his water faucets.

On the last day of June, he called multiple times, and I think it was starting to sink in. The morning of July 1, he called at least four times asking about it again. I told him I'd pick him up at 1:00 and that he could pack a bag with his electric razor, a change of clothes, and anything else he might want to have over the next two weeks while he was there. He was agreeable to that.

Then, when I got to his house at 1:00, he had made a 180 turn. He didn't know why I was there, and when I told him, he said he wasn't going to go. I kept telling him it would only be for a few weeks and reminded him that they would feed him three meals a day and he could watch TV all day on the big screen TV right outside his room. I also asked him if he remembered talking to me earlier and if he had packed anything to take with him. But he just gave me a blank look.

He finally gave up on that argument and switched to wanting to buy a new vehicle. We'd been telling him over the previous week that they couldn't fix his truck and he couldn't get it back, so he'd been saying he was going to buy a new one and that I had taken him to the dealership the other day and he had put a down payment down on a truck and he wanted me to take him to pick it up.

My brain searched all over my head for a story. But I finally told him that we'd need to get him settled in his new room first, and then we'd worry about picking up his new truck.

I got him in my car and talked again about how nice this place was as we drove to it.

I walked him into the building and to his room. He said, "oh, I remember coming here before."

We had bought him a throw for his bed, which had a big whitetail buck on it because he used to feed the deer. They were half-tame, almost eating out of his hand. He laughed when he saw that on his bed and thought it was great.

I spoke with a few staff members and asked if I could run to get more of his things and if they could keep an eye on him. I parked him in front of the TV in the lobby, and he was fine when I left.

I met Hubby at his house so we could load up his dresser, an end table, and the rest of his clothes. We looked for his razor, too, but couldn't find it. When we got back to the place, he was still watching TV, happy as a clam.

I could NOT believe it! Who was this man, and what had he done with my brother?

He called me a few times that evening, asking where he was and why, and I told him the same story. He'd say, "Oh, yeah," but then he'd still call back five minutes later.

Then he started calling me at one o'clock the next morning. When I asked if he was okay, he answered, "Yes, I just called to talk." After the fourth time, I finally told him it was the middle of the night, and I had to get some sleep, that he should put his phone away and go back to bed, and it would be morning before he knew it. I turned off my phone, and in the morning, I felt guilty because he had called three more times. I'm sure he was scared, even though he wouldn't say that.

He still calls a few times a day, but mostly to tell me that he's been watching TV all day or that he just got done eating a meal, but when I ask him, he doesn't remember what he ate, just says that it was good.

But he seems sooo happy. I still CANNOT believe it. Thank You, God, what did I ever do to deserve this huge blessing in my life?

Through all this, the only time I got teary-eyed was the day after we checked him in there, and Hubby and I were trying to clean up stuff at his house. In his back room, I found a brown paper bag with some underwear, a pair of shorts, a handkerchief, and his razor. He had packed a bag for himself that morning and had forgotten all about it. I don't know why that made me feel like crying - just that dementia is such a horrible thing.

Yesterday, when I went in to see him, I sat down on the couch next to him where he was watching Jeopardy. He was so pleased to see me, and we had the best visit we have had in a year. I told him about the different people I had talked to who wanted me to say "hi" to him. And he seemed to remember these people when I reminded him who they were (two cousins and someone he went to school with).

He pointed to the sign on the door to his room, which had his name on it. He said the maintenance man wanted to remove his name, but he told the guy he was staying for two months, so he should leave his name on the door.

Two months! We'd been telling him two to three weeks. I don't know where this extended time came from. But he also didn't ask me today when he would be going home. Well, maybe he doesn't have to ask anymore because I think he is home. And maybe he knows that, too.

          I realize that he will probably still have bad days, that I might get phone calls in the middle of the night or he might argue with me about something stupid. But I still thank God for the good days that he has had so far.

Chili, Hot Chocolate, and Fish

Journey of our Journeys

Chapter 7 - Chili, Hot Chocolate, and Fish

Smelt fishing each spring was an annual event for our family, rather like Christmas and the Fourth of July. If you have ever lived in the Northwoods, you will know that that does not make us strange at all; it means we fit right in.

There was no question that Dad would pack us all in the camper one Friday afternoon as soon as he got home from work, and we'd head to Ashland. We never knew exactly when until Dad heard from someone that the smelt were running. But it was sometime in April or early May, depending on the length and severity of the winter, I suppose.

We usually stayed at a little city park in Ashland, Wisconsin, along Lake Superior. We'd always get there after dark on Friday, so Pat and I would wake up amazed on Saturday morning to find ourselves parked next to the greatest of the Great Lakes.

One year, we camped in a different park in a setting of green grass, pine trees, and a pond. Instead of being greeted by the majesty of the Great Lake in the morning, we found a swan lazily paddling laps in the tiny lake. Not that it mattered to us; my sister and I were kids who found everything amazing.

During the darkness of night, Dad and his cronies from the paper mill where they all worked would wade out into Lake Superior. Wearing chest-high waders, they would trudge with their nets into the freezing water, then pull the nets back in full of hundreds of three- to six-inch fish, many of their undersides bulging yellow with eggs.

Or at least that's what I pictured happening. Since this all happened after dusk and it was invariably cold out, Mom was reluctant to release us from the camper. Someone usually lit a bonfire, though, and occasionally, Mom would let us out to bask in its heat.

The most vivid smelt-fishing incident involved chili and hot chocolate. Pat and I were sitting at the table in the camper, sipping hot chocolate with Kenny Venzke, the son of one of our neighbors. Mom was at the stove heating a big kettle of chili so the men could warm their insides when they had finished freezing their outsides.

The camper was parked in its usual spot, far from shore, when suddenly it started moving. Well, we were all stuck inside. Remember the "no further than the edge of the back of the dinette when the truck is moving" rule? Even Mom was not immune to it. One look through the camper's small window into the cab of the truck told her that Dad was at the helm. We weren't being kidnapped or rolling out of control down some hill.

Mom was understandably vexed, but she would ride it out and see what Dad had in mind.

Then, he drove over a set of railroad tracks. These were not ordinary railroad tracks that might be on a downtown city street. These were hideous tracks, compact car-eating tracks. If ATVs had been invented at the time, their drivers would have loved the challenge of these tracks.

Though we kids tightly clutched our cups of cocoa, we could do nothing to prevent their contents from making a quick exit and spilling all over the table. Of course, that was nothing compared to what happened to the chili.

Tomatoes, ground beef, sauce sloshed all over the stove, the back wall, the ceiling, Mom. You name it, there was chili everywhere.

When the truck came to a complete stop a short while later, Dad trotted around to the back door to sheepishly apologize. He had decided to drive down to the beach to be closer to the action. He didn't know that the railroad tracks were that rough.

Watching Dad's innocent face through the open door of the camper, we waited with bated breath to hear what Mom would say in her fury.

I don't remember what she said, maybe nothing. Or perhaps it was one of those things so awful that our subconscious buries the memory so we won't be haunted by it for the rest of our lives.

Whatever she said or did next, over the following year, she found more tomato sauce to wipe up every time we went camping.

(The picture is of Lake Superior at Ashland, taken when we were at a cabin up north in 2020. Not sure how close this was to where we camped coz things have changed so much up there in the past fifty-plus years.)

What Have You Been Called To Do?

Do you remember where I left off last Sunday? Saul, who had been persecuting the followers of Jesus, had been struck blind on his way to Damascus.

Today, we’ll first meet Ananias, whom God had chosen to heal Saul’s blindness.

There was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. He had a vision, in which the Lord said to him, “Ananias!”

“Here I am, Lord,” he answered.

The Lord said to him, “Get ready and go to Straight Street, and at the house of Judas ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying, and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come in and place his hands on him so that he might see again.”

Ananias answered, “Lord, many people have told me about this man and about all the terrible things he has done to your people in Jerusalem. And he has come to Damascus with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who worship you.”

The Lord said to him, “Go, because I have chosen him to serve me, to make my name known to Gentiles and kings and to the people of Israel. And I myself will show him all that he must suffer for my sake.” (Acts 9:10-16, Good News Translation)

Boy, I sure wish God would be that direct when He wants me to do something. Or maybe not.

It’s easy to ignore the little nudges you might feel when you’re wondering what to do in a certain situation. But when God calls your name and says, “Go” – well, we still tend to ignore Him or make excuses, don’t we? All I can do is pray for His strength to do His will.

But what happens next with Saul?

So Ananias went, entered the house where Saul was, and placed his hands on him. “Brother Saul,” he said, “the Lord has sent me—Jesus himself, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here. He sent me so that you might see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” At once something like fish scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he was able to see again. He stood up and was baptized; and after he had eaten, his strength came back. (Acts 9:17-19, GNT)

And that was only the beginning for this man Saul, who would be known as the apostle Paul and go on to preach the Gospel to hundreds of people and write thirteen books of the Bible.

When we think about what God called Ananias to do, his assignment was much less than Paul’s. God called Paul to totally turn his life around, accept Jesus as his one true Savior, and share his testimony everywhere he went.

What has God called you to do?

Warmth One Winter

 

Journey of our Journeys

Chapter 6 - Warmth One Winter

 Shortly after my parents married in 1945, my dad got a job at the Owens-Illinois paper mill. At the time, it was by far the best place to work in our town. The pay was good, and the work was steady, even if it was noisy and smelly.

          Dad worked in the maintenance department, so he wasn’t stuck with the swing shift like many others. Instead, he clocked in from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. He did have to take call, though, so he would go into work in the middle of the night or on weekends if a piece of machinery needed emergency care.  

          This also meant that if needed, he would travel across the country to one of the other mills owned by Owens-Illinois.

          Years before I was a twinkle in his eye, my father worked for an extended period of time at the Valdosta, Georgia, mill. Mom, Tom, and Judy went with him, living in company housing and dealing with the joys of submitting their northern-born bodies to the hot, humid, bug- and snake-infested south.

          Near the end of October 1967, Dad and some of the guys from his crew were needed at the mill in Orange, Texas. What a paper mill was doing there, along the Gulf of Mexico, was a mystery to me – and still is. Isn’t Texas a state known for ranches and wide-open spaces? Where do the trees that are needed to make paper come from?

          In any event, Dad took the camper to Texas with Tom Allory, Red Wurl, and a few others. When they got to Portage, Wisconsin, Dad took a wrong turn. Instead of crossing the Wisconsin River at the new Highway 51 bridge, he took the Merrimac ferry. Although there are 1,200 miles of dry land between home and Orange, we would always mention how Dad took the ferry there.

          At some point during his absence, Mom packed up Pat, me, a lady named Mrs. Lane, and two young men in the military and drove to Texas for a few weeks. For some reason, we left at four o’clock in the morning. It was pitch black outside and freezing cold that November.

          We arrived in Texas the next day to a warmth we never dreamed of in November. We were amazed that we could go outside without jackets or scarves. The motel where we stayed had an outdoor pool, which was still in use. Of course, Mom wouldn’t let us use it, but no decent mother of the time would let their children go swimming outdoors in November, no matter what the weather or where you were.

          Our jaunt to the Gulf of Mexico was rather chilly, more seasonable for us, with a stiff breeze coming off the ocean. Mom made us wear our jackets and scarves. Our plaid cotton scarves, with fringes, were almost extensions of ourselves, to be worn at all times unless the weather was extreme. Extreme cold was what we had left behind in Wisconsin that November, requiring a home-knit cap pulled down around our ears. Extreme heat was the month of July, those four weeks during the Wisconsin summer when the temperature consistently stayed above 45 degrees.

          Two of the souvenirs we brought home were silky scarves with a picture of the Lone Star State printed on them. Pat’s had blue trim, mine red. Mine is still at the bottom of one of my dresser drawers, threadbare and wrinkled, but still bearing the Texas logo.

          The other item I remember Mom purchasing was a play cowboy whip for my 16-year-old cousin. I cannot fathom why she thought that was an appropriate gift. As soon as she gave it to him, he chased Pat and me around my aunt’s yard with it.

          Free souvenirs are sometimes the best. Dozens of seashells found their way into the camper only after Mom had inspected them to ensure no animals were lurking inside.

          “You know that animals do live inside those shells, don’t you?”

          “Yes, Mom,” we obediently answered and immediately thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if one of those animals made it all the way home before crawling out when we took the shell to school for show-and-tell?”

          We really wanted to take the jellyfish to school. We found one washed up on the beach, its long transparent tentacles trailing into the ocean. It was positively unearthly.

          “Get away from that thing,” Mom shouted before we could get within ten yards. “That thing is poisonous.”

          “But Mom, it’s dead.”

          “It doesn’t matter. It is still poisonous and can still sting you.”

          So much for extraordinary wildlife.

          Dad packed us up in early December, and we headed home together in the camper, stopping at the Astrodome on the way. It was the eighth wonder of the world at the time, a mechanical feat of engineering ingenuity. Opened in April 1965, it was still new when we visited it two years later. And for many years, it was one of a kind—a structure to rival the pyramids of Giza. Even the Astroturf was awe-inspiring. Over the last twenty years or so, the space had become archaic and fell into disrepair. 

          The only thing good about returning home to the frozen tundra was that I got to show off all sorts of neat stuff to my kindergarten class.