Suppertime, Westbrook MN--1950

Dad would come home from work for supper at 6:00. We always knew when it was 6:00 because the whistle on the town water tower would blow. It also blew at noon and for fires, but the supper whistle was the one that really mattered.

    (I was tickled to find the actual water tower on Google.)
Mom wanted to have supper on the table when Dad came in the door, so the sibling responsible for setting it would have to have everything ready. Mom would be at the stove frying supper--and it was always fried food--usually fried in Crisco or Spry shortening, bacon grease or lard (never oil). We would have boiled potatoes one night and fried potatoes the next night with fried meat--hamburger or pork chops, liver, sausage or ham steak.

Vegetables choices alternated between canned corn, green beans and pork and beans. I never tasted broccoli until I was an adult. The only salad we had was chopped iceberg lettuce with sliced bananas and a dressing consisting of Miracle Whip mixed with a little sugar and milk. We loved it.

On those occasions when we were treated to dessert, it was either canned fruit (called sauce) or cooked pudding with milk. During peach season, however, we had peaches and cream every night because it was my dad's favorite.

(Apparently nobody serves simple peaches and cream any more. I had a hard time finding an illustration!)

When supper was done, it was time to do dishes. One night it would be my two brothers and the next, my sister Karen and I. This would sometimes result in arguments over whose turn it was and who left the crusty pan soaking in the oven.

Years later when my own four kids would fight over doing the dishes, I posted this poem by the kitchen sink for them. (Of course, it didn't do much good.)

Thank God for dirty dishes, 

For they have a tale to tell.

While other folks go hungry,

We're eating very well.

With home and health and happiness,

We shouldn't want to fuss

For by this stack of evidence,

God's been very good to us.

Madison's Mustard Museum

I recently took a trip to Madison Wisconsin to visit my sister.  She took me to the Mustard Museum and it was a lively place. The photo was taken in the lower level.

We also visited the new HyVee store that had opened there. (She was not as enthusiastic about it as I am.) Later we went out to the zoo since it was a nice day. I was looking forward to seeing the chimpanzees that I remembered from a trip some fifteen years ago. They were no longer in the primate house so I asked a Docent why. She said that they only had two surviving chimps and they don't do well in small groups. For their own benefit, the two were sent to the Denver Zoo which has a larger population. I hope they're happy there.

It's a muddy May Day

After a three-month hiatus, I'm slinking back. It's been a lousy winter and so far, it's a lousy, cold and rainy spring. There is still part of an unmelted snowbank over in the corner of the parking area.

On Tuesday, we went over to Mort's Deli in Golden Valley, a suburb of Minneapolis. It's on the other side of the Cities so I don't get there often. They have a unique menu so it's one of my favorite places to eat. We met my granddaughter, Samantha and her sister's boyfriend, Mark for lunch.

Mark works on the far western side of North Dakota at a "boomtown" oil drilling site. There are lots of guys who go out there for the high-paying jobs. He works twelve hours a day for two weeks and stays in a bunkhouse with some other guys. Then he has two weeks off and comes back to the Cities (on the eastern side of Minnesota) for the next two weeks. Since Samantha's sister is at work during the day and Samantha had the day off, they were hanging out together.

Anyway, back to the food. Mort's has lots of New York deli menu items like blintz's, knishes and matzo ball soup. I ordered the beef brisket sandwich with chopped chicken liver "schmear" on rye. Samantha ordered the Elvis Burger, apparently based on a favored sandwich of his. It was topped by a fried egg and peanut butter! She loved it.

                                       Samantha selfie
It's one of my pet peeves that you can drive from one end of the U.S. to the other and find the same restaurants every, single place you go! Most of those places are waaay down on my list of desirable places to dine. MacDonalds, Arbys, Subway, Perkins, Taco Bell, Burger King, KFC...

So here's to all the independent restaurants that provide a sense of adventure to eating out!

Thanksgiving for the immigrant Americans

Our American Thanksgiving Day is Thursday. It's probably much like Harvest Festivals in other parts of the world except we celebrate with many foods native to this country. The traditional dishes are turkey, squash, pumpkin (especially in pie), corn and cranberries along with potatoes and bread stuffing.

The holiday is based on the tale about the original European settlers suffering hardship and being provided with a big dinner by the Native American Indians in 1621. Why the Indians would have been so kind to the Puritan immigrants is a mystery. They celebrate Thanksgiving incorporating some native dishes like wild rice.

                       (Photo borrowed from Wikipedia)
As it turns out, we won't be getting together until Saturday this year. For the first time in many years, I'll have all four of my kids here, plus four grandkids and three great-grands. That's a total of sixteen people in my not-all-that-big unit.

 

       ( Thanksgiving 2010 in my small dining room. I'm not sure                 how many dogs we'll have this year.)

Another tradition that has been added over the years is the President officially pardoning a live turkey in a ceremony at the White House. A turkey farm in Badger, Minnesota has been rearing a separate "presidential flock" to provide the official turkey to go to Washington. The final three candidates are all toms that have been groomed to be "calm and unflappable" and able to sit still. The winner will be presented to President Obama and pardoned from being Thanksgiving dinner. The plan is that it will then live out its life in a zoo or sanctuary.

                            (Borrowed from google)

Living vicariously

My three lovely daughters took a 5-day trip out to the state of Washington recently. They went to visit an uncle and aunt and cousins they haven't seen since the 70's. They visited Yakima and did the tourist thing in Seattle. As always, Brenda provided me with lots of good pictures.

A few months ago, I posted about chewing gum blobs all over the sidewalks. Several folks commented that there was a wall in Seattle covered with chewed gum. Well, here's Bren's photo at that very spot!

Here they are enjoying their lunch at the top of the Space Needle. Left to right-Brenda, Cindy and Paula.

This is the Fremont Troll, a big tourist attraction under a freeway bridge.

And, here is a shot out the window of the Lutsen Resort up near Duluth last weekend. Sue and I stayed at Bren's house and watched the family's five dogs while they were up there.

Summer

My three great-granddaughters are here with me this week so we're on the go. It's lots of fun doing different things but also time-consuming.

We're off to have a picnic later today. We're also going to get out to the Minnesota Zoo and the Minneapolis Institute of Art this week. And then they have a list of kids movies they want to see. A trip to Snuffy's Malt Shop is a tradition whenever they are here too. And of course, swimming is high on their list of things to do.

Just another stupid Sunday

I'm really mad at myself today. I've been volunteering at a Specialty Clinic for Regions Hospital for five years. They had a Volunteer Recognition brunch today at noon at a very nice restaurant I could never afford. (A New Orleans Jazz Brunch, no less!) I had been looking forward to it for weeks and then spaced it out until 1:00. I've been torturing myself all day for being so stupid.

Sometimes I blame these lapses on having worked so many years in an office job that required constant multitasking. I find it hard to focus on one thing. I'm still mentally working on several things at any one time so I never make much progress. Of course, a lot of people my age call it "a senior moment" or Halfs-heimers"
or "Olds-heimers"--or even "a brain fart"! Whatever the cause, I'm terribly disappointed.

I've been having a turkey or two coming by for a handout every once in a while. They don't hang around. Jan who blogs at Revising Life informs me that a bunch of turkeys is called a gang or a rafter. I feel kinda silly for never looking it up myself.

I also got a comment about working with Wildlife Rehab from Susan who blogs at My Mother's Apron Strings. She says, "We took a Canadian Goose that lived on our pond to one in Connecticut--she had a dislocated wing (probably from a snapping turtle).  After two days, she escaped and walked twelve miles back to our pond. It took her two weeks but she wasn't about to be kept away from her new goslings!"
Isn't that an amazing story? It really warms my heart.

                                 (Borrowed image)

Here's a salute to all the wonderful men and women who rush in whenever there's a catastrophe. They are true heroes! (My granddaughter is married to a policeman and my grandson is married to an EMT.)

Show and Tell

I was inspired by Elaine and Meggie to post my collection of emerald-green glass. I don't wear jewelry and I'm not attracted to jewels except for emeralds. I love the gorgeous green. I've been collecting green glass objects for many years. Most of these items came from second-hand stores and cost two or three dollars. The one in the middle with the "ruffles" cost the most at $28. I found it in an antique shop and it was so beautiful that I couldn't resist.

                              ( This is in my office)
I also collect cougars, cedar waxwings and Garfields. Most of my large Garfield collection is packed away and some of my better cougar and cedar waxwing pieces too.

On the top shelf on the left side are two teapots that I picked up for my granddaughter when she was collecting them. But she grew up and decided not to collect them anymore, so there they sit.

Building a collection piece-by-piece can be a lot of fun until you reach the saturation point. It seems that when friends and family learn you collect something, they will start adding to it as well (note granddaughter teapots) and pretty soon your passion starts to wane.

                                 (This is in my bedroom)
Here is my vacation souvenir collection. In the midst of it are the two silhouette pictures that my mom had hanging on the dining room wall when I was a kid. They aren't rare and I see that a similar pair sells for only ten dollars on ebay. I'm pleased to have them on my wall anyway.

I am struck by the realization that these photos make me look like a real pack rat! Hmmm...

Josh, the neighbor kid

We had a little neighbor kid named Josh back in the seventies. He was an average boy with Dennis the Menace blond hair. His mom left for work in the afternoon before his dad got home, so we would take care of him for a few hours every day.

Bren's boyfriend Steve was over at our house one afternoon soon after we got our first TV with a remote control. Steve was sitting on the couch with the remote hidden next to him where Josh couldn't see it. He soon had little Josh tricked into believing that he was magically changing the channels on the TV by walking past it or making "zapping" gestures. Josh soaked up our admiration at his abilities. He was having great fun; magic powers are pretty heady stuff for a 5-year-old.

A while later, Steve was teasing Josh. The little boy turned to him and said, "You better stop that or I'll zap you and you'll be dead!" We were blown away at how we had created this little monster. We quickly showed him the remote and how it worked and explained it was just a joke.

As they say, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Since Josh was "babysat" by whoever was around when he came over, we pooled the money earned and bought a new stereo system to replace the old HiFi. Those were the days of LP records so it only had a turntable. My dad built me a big record cabinet because we had a very large collection by the late 70's.

I finally sold all those LP's to Cheapo Records for $20 in 2005 since nobody in the family wanted them. Most systems no longer had turntables and it was difficult to find needles for them.

In my lifetime, the recorded music format has gone from 78's to LP's (with an overlap of 45's) then on to 8-tracks (big mistake) to cassettes to CD's and now...MP3's and ?

About my grand-dogs

                                    I love goofy dog poses.
We stopped at my middle daughter's home out in the 'burbs to pick up my big stock pot for making matzoh ball soup. We were greeted at the door by all six of the family dogs. It always makes me laugh at their overwhelming exuberance as they jostle for position in the entryway.

The family never set out to have that many animals but things happen. Steve, my son-in-law wanted a lab for duck hunting. He got a female black lab named Reggie from the friend of a relative, but she turned out to be gun-shy. So, he got another big blond lab named Duke for hunting.

The two daughters decided they wanted some small dogs for their own and got a pair of chihuahua crosses and named them Yoda and Dobbie. Daughter Sam was working part-time at a vet clinic and fell in love with an elderly dachshund named Freddie that was abandoned there. She brought the little fella home where he became number 5. (Here's to dachshunds with waggly tails)

                                          Family dog pile                   
Just recently, their grandma died  (The beauty of the "surge"). Before her death, my daughter had promised that they would take her dog Ruby after she died. So, poor sheltered Ruby was thrust into this riotous throng. It was a big adjustment for the beagle-cross who was the sole, housebound pet in a quiet home. She was very shy and obese as well.  However, after a few days, Ruby decided that she wanted to join the pack. She now chases rabbits outside and romps with her new canine friends. She has already lost four pounds.

My daughter is a little embarrassed at the number of dogs they have, but she takes it in stride. I'm just happy to get lots of doggie loving when I go over there!

A major holiday approaches

We never actually celebrate Christmas on the 25th. With several nurses and a policeman in the family plus in-law obligations to reconcile, it just doesn't work out. It hasn't dampened our fun however.

This year, we'll meet halfway between the two farthest points in the town where my youngest daughter lives. She has reserved the fully-equipped community room in the Assisted Living Facility where she works. This year we are having a non-traditional menu and going Mexican. We're having tacos, enchiladas, refried beans, rice and lots of accoutrements. I'm calling it our Mexicano Navidad.

I've got all my calendars bought so now I have to wrap them. When we get together for Christmas, the adults no longer trade gifts as it got to be too expensive. We each bring a $15 gift and then play a dice game. After all the gifts have been won, we continue playing so the gifts won are up for grabs. Anyone can take away your gift and give you theirs. A popular gift may change hands many times, so it gets to be lots of fun.

      All the cooking and shopping does tire a person out!

Another sad duty of the hoarder

It's December first and I changed my wall calendars to their last page today for yet another year. I have begun shopping for calendars. I've been giving everyone in the family a calendar for Christmas every year for a long time. It's my thing and I really enjoy it.

I love calendar art and so I can't bear to throw old calendars away. As a result, I have a big accumulation of them on my closet shelf. Today, I noticed that the weight of those stacks of calendars was causing the shelf to sag pretty low in the middle. I took down a hefty pile of them and decided some of them have to go.

Sorting through them has been a difficult thing to do. Every one had to be paged through to make sure there weren't any notations of momentous importance, such as a dental appointment in 1996. I also have to make sure there aren't any pictures that I want to save. This made for some brutal decisions, but I finally reduced that pile to less than half.

So now I have the pile of rejects sitting aside ready to be disposed of  humanely. I feel guilty about it because there is some really wonderful photography and artwork in those calendars. Most of them are printed on high-quality paper. They don't deserve such an ignominious fate as to go into the recycling like a mere stack of old newspapers!

Of cats and dogs

Yesterday, before Thanksgiving dinner, my son arrived with a dog that he's pet sitting for a friend. When the big dog came into the house, Sunny (my cat with the cocked head) was sitting in the living room. Sunny hunkered down with hackles raised, his eyes glowing in fear. The elderly dog sauntered right past Sunny completely uninterested and sat down. Sunny looked stunned for a moment then took off running and dived under a bed.

My granddaughter and her family were also here. Her husband, Ty is a policeman and along with his black lab pal Kino, they are the town's K-9 unit. He and the dog went through all the strict training for the K-9 service. Kino lives with the family but they didn't bring him along.

              See Kino sneaking into the picture on the right side.

When we got on the topic of dogs chasing cats, Ty said that part of Kino's police training was aversion to cats. He said the first time Kino went after a cat, he got a big jolt from his shock collar and never did it again. (It sounds cruel but I suppose they need to rigidly reinforce it in the dog's mind.)

That reminded me of the picture that's been floating around online for years that shows the cat marching past a row of German Shepherds.


                              I love the tension in the shot.

The beauty of the "Surge"

There is a phenomenon among the dying called a "surge". Apparently, sometimes the brain will suddenly become active and the patient will revive for a brief period before they expire. 

Last week, my daughter's mother-in-law died. She was my three grandkid's other grandma. Her health had suddenly declined to the point of no return and she was taken to hospice care where she remained in a semi-responsive state.

All the family members and relatives came to see her and visit over the final days but she seemed only vaguely aware of them. On the last evening of her life, many of the family came to say their farewells. After the older folks had gone, only her five grandchildren remained--all of them in their early twenties.

Their grandma suddenly woke up, threw back the covers and wanted to get out of bed! The kids summoned a nurse who got her up and into a chair. For the next twenty minutes, she regaled them with jokes and wisecracks that had them all convulsed with laughter.

Afterward, she went back to bed and the five cousins left. Their grandma died at 3:00 in the morning.

But, what a marvelous gift she gave them! She left them with those wonderful memories of that final night they had all shared together. They weren't saddled with sad memories of the sick old woman who they had known in her later years. She was the lively, personable grandma they could hold in their hearts as someone who loved them.

Wouldn't it be great if we all had that option?

My North Dakota grandson

On my sidebar, I state that all my kids and grandkids live in Minnesota. There is one notable exception, however. My grandson, Aaron managed to slip across the border and marry a sweet, small town gal from North Dakota named Jaime.

For their second anniversary, they took the long trip from the far side of ND to the Twin Cities for a vacation. Included in their itinerary was a nostalgic trip with grandma to Snuffy's Malt Shop. When Aaron was a kid, I used to take him and his two younger brothers there--actually, I took all my grandkids there whenever I had the chance!

Since Jaime has never been to the Twin Cities before, they're doing a lot of tourist stuff like the Mall of America, "Beauty and the Beast" production at the Orpheum Theater, a Smashing Pumpkins concert, Bubba Gump restaurant, general sight-seeing.

I told Aaron that I had a picture of him as a toddler standing next to my dad in his chair shortly before he died in 1986. Dad suffered from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and spent his days sitting in that chair. Little Aaron had rested his hand on the arm of the chair next to Dad's. Dad reached over and patted Aaron's hand three times. The little boy responded by patting Dad's hand three times. My Dad, as we say, got a big bang out of that.

Aaron then told me how he mostly remembered Dad's pool table in the basement and the big tapestry on the wall with the dogs playing pool. He really loved to look at it.

I was delighted to tell him that after the estate sale years ago, nobody wanted the tapestry so we just rolled it up and I stored it on my closet shelf.  We pulled it down and unrolled it for him. He is really tickled to have it since it's kind of an heirloom and he has the perfect place for it. I was so happy to give it to him!

(Great art, it's not!)

I'm going to have to keep looking for the picture of the sweet little boy who made a sick grandpa smile.

I love grocery stores

I have known people who hate shopping for groceries but I love grocery stores. I have been in dozens of local markets of various ethnicity, size and specialty. It is always interesting.

We have a large Hmong population here in St Paul. They helped the US forces during the Vietnam War and were brought here after being displaced to Laotian refugee camps after the war. In a visit to one of the many Hmong food stores, I found frozen giant bullfrogs. There was an amazing variety of strange and exotic foods that I could only speculate on edibility or use of. 

Whenever I travel, I make a point of going into a local store to check out the different kinds of foods they offer. In 2005, my sister, Karen and I went to Iceland on vacation. We went into a grocery store in Reykjavik. I was looking for Icelandic candy to bring back for co-workers and friends. I was surprised to find most candies contained either cereal or cookie bits, but none with nuts. There was very little chocolate and nuts were non-existent--I suppose because they're expensive to import.

When I was in England some years ago, the grocery store I went into carried a large variety of fish. It was far more than a Minnesota market would carry. The amount of beef was very small and it was incredibly expensive, but that may have been soon after the Mad Cow crisis (1997).

I loved the variety of Cadbury chocolate bars especially the chocolate-covered shortbread cookies. I also discovered that what we call a Snicker candy bar was called a Mars bar. Our version of the Mars bar is different. I went on Google to research it and discovered that the Mars bar actually originated in England. There are now English and American versions of it and also Canadian and Australian!

My daughter Brenda went to a "Eurospring Quarter" at Oxford back in 1980. She fell in love with Lion candy bars and said she ate one every day. They are very hard to find in the US but I discovered that Brit's Pub over in Minneapolis sells them for $2 each. We can also order them online. 

Indulge me

I hate to be one of those insufferable grandmas that are always flaunting pictures of the grandkids, but today is Back-to-School and they're just as cute as can be.

Here are my three great-granddaughters leaving for school this morning. It's supposed to get over 90 F again today so they get to wear shorts.

My youngest grandchild, Allen is starting his last year of high school today as well. I suppose I should say something profound here but I'll just quote Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off,

"Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it."

Peach Season

We have our Johnson family reunion coming up this Saturday in a little town west of here. It's on my mother's side of the family. Sadly, all of the aunts and uncles are gone so it's just cousins and second cousins getting together. We always have a good time, but some of the older cousins aren't getting around much anymore either. 

I called my cousin Paul to see if he would make it and he said that not only would he come but he's bringing peach pies! That brought back memories of peach season from my childhood.

Peaches used to come in big baskets that were repurposed as laundry baskets to haul the wet laundry out to the clothesline. Sometimes, mom would just buy a "lug" of peaches in a flat wooden crate.

In any case, that meant it was time to can peaches for the coming winter. As the oldest child, I was given the task of bringing up all the dusty canning jars from the basement. Even worse was having to scrub them in hot water on what was invariably a miserable hot day. The kitchen would be steamy and sticky from blanching and peeling the peaches before cutting them in half and packing them tightly in the jars.

I swore that I would never can peaches when I grew up!

My dad was really fond of peaches and cream so we had that for dessert every night after supper during  peach season. I was in charge of peeling and dicing the peaches into six dishes to serve with half-and-half and sugar. There is no fancy dessert that can surpass a fresh, juicy peach--unless it's peach pie!

The silence of departed children

Yesterday, I took the kids back to their homes--well half-way, anyhow. I met my daughter (Allen's mom and the girl's grandma) at a Dairy Queen off the interstate and transferred them back to her. After having lunch, we said our goodbyes.

I admit I headed back home with mixed feelings. It's always such fun doing things with them and interacting with them. I get them just one week a year and each year they're a little older and their personalities are more developed. Kristie loves to cook and set the table. Kylah loves art and computer games and Karley, the youngest is a regular chatty Kathy. And, of course, they all love shopping and movies.

Every morning they slept late so I would get up and take my newspaper, coffee and the cats out on the patio. Karley, age 7, would wake up first, get dressed and pop out to join me. I got a bang out of the way she would talk non-stop. Karley had a hard time learning to talk but she is making up for lost time now. One morning, she told me she had gone into the room where her teenage Uncle Allen was sleeping. She told me, "I was watching him sleep and he is just adorable!"

I laughed out loud!

Allen is so cool and every inch the doting uncle. He is always watching out for them and guiding them, but is never cross or critical. They are so very lucky to have him in their life.

It was really amusing to hear Kristie and Kylah lecture each other over some supposed rudeness with, "That is inappropriate!"

On the plus side: no more macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, sloppy joes, tacos or chicken strips! Also, no more Disney kid's channel.

I sent them home with some baby hen-and-chicks to grow. They each got a drawing pad and a journal to write in. I found a treasure trove of stampers at the Unique Thrift store for a fraction of their cost and they they had a lot fun with them. Allen assembled a model Star Trek vessel and he got a copy of "The Hobbit" to read before the new movie comes out. He was an avid Harry Potter fan.

Anyway, good bye kids for another year. It was loads of fun and hard work, but I'm looking forward to doing it again next year!

                               Is it safe to come out now?

Sightseeing

The kids and I went over to Minneapolis yesterday and visited the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It was really hot but fortunately, there were shady places to sit around the grounds. If you're ever in the Twin Cities, it's a fabulous place to go on a budget--it's free.

                                They loved this giant glass fish!

                              This giant jackrabbit was also a hit!

                           This fanciful horse was my favorite.

Cherry on a Spoon: the signature piece at the Sculpture Garden.