A Thankful ABC

While cleaning out the costume closet last weekend,

I found my Pilgrim skirt.

"I'll wear that on Wednesday for Thanksgiving," I thought,

and put it in a good place.

This morning, 

unable to remember where that "good place" was,

I wore plan B,

my dad's leather Indian shirt 

complete with bones, teeth, antlers, 

hair (both horsehair and my mom's hair),

and lots and lots of fringe.

Today while kids walked under those fringed sleeves,

I asked what they were thankful for:

"Parents."

"My family."

"My mom."

All nice-but-bland answers

'til I got to one wild-haired boy...

"Banana cream pie!! We're having it tomorrow!"

In my classroom,

we worked on Thankful ABC lists.

B was for bologna,

G was for God,

and also for "Gesus" 

(makes sense if you think only of the letter name)

T was for "Teecher,"

X for X-box.

Den and I are working on our own list:

Antioxidants in dark chocolate

Bedtime reading

Chocolate milk

Desks, clean

Eggs, deviled (next on the job list)

Friends who pray

Grandbabies

Hot showers

Iditarod show on the Discovery Channel

Jobs finished

K

Lap cats

Moose Tracks ice cream

Nightly news (most of the time)

Owl sounds

Pilgrims (ten-greats-ago grandfather was Peter Browne, 

who actually not a Pilgrim,

 but was on the Mayflower)

Quilts (actually, down comforters)

Retirement is on the way!

Snowblowers

Trips just about anywhere

Uncle Jack conversations

Vacation days

Windows

X

Yancey books

Zappia's bread, warm, with butter

Happy Thanksgiving.

May this day find you truly thankful.

What is on your list this year?

100

My grandmother, Maud May Waugaman Rensel, 

was born in Sykesville, PA on November 17, 1908,

the fourth of six children.

I think of her often.

I think of her intricate, jungle-like gardens.

"Look, Susie, it looks like God used a purple paintbrush on a white iris."

She taught me that carrots are best eaten when standing in the garden,

a little dirt makes them taste even better.

Grandma made me costumes each year.

I won "most creative" in her gypsy costume in first grade.

She made a huge wardrobe for my Barbies;

only as an adult did I appreciate the tiny armholes and tinier buttons.

Grandma had great Christmas stuff,

and I could play with it anytime.

She'd make cutout cookies all year round.

(Poinsettias don't have to have red icing, you know.

And Kayro syrup makes icing extra shiny.)

Rainy summer afternoons,

we'd find our way to the attic

for the Christmas decorations 

that were stored near Uncle Jack's early taxidermy animals...

pasteboard houses, bottle brush trees, glass angel choirs.

She bought them in downtown Pittsburgh

when she rode the bus to her eye appointments.

She never drove.  Ever.

Grandma taught Sunday School

and Vacation Bible School.

Whenever I read Genesis 1

I picture her little planets for each day of creation.

"And it was good."

I remember her strong alto voice.

She had taken voice lessons in her youth...

great lung capacity, also good for burping.

No teenaged boy could outdo her.

She could rattle windows.

Sunday dinners were amazing.

Homemade rolls. 

Mashed potatoes and gravy.

Ham.

Homemade noodles with little pieces of celery.

Stuffed celery.

Candied sweet potatoes.

Corn from her garden.

Harvard beets.

Fried beets.

(I love beets.)

Raisin-filled cookies.

Apricot-filled cookies.

And pie! Cherry. Sour cherry.

With brown sugar streusel topping.

Maud was married the year Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic.

She and Bernie eloped,

drove across the border to Salamanca, New York.

They survived the depression

with the help of a barber shop.

"Your hair grows even when you are poor."

She helped Grandpa Bernie build their camp.

Strong.

"Maud the Mule," she'd say.

She raised three boys 

with a sense of humor and great tolerance.

Who else would allow boys to bring rattlesnakes

into their backyard in town?

"Don't you dare lose any."

When Bernie died after a preventative Swine Flu shot,

Maud moved to Florida to live with her sister during the winters.

She who rarely travelled went to Europe,

to Oberammergau, Germany

to see the passion play.

She wrote us postcards,

and later, long letters

in her loopy handwriting.

They always included a joke or two. 

Always.

In her last years,

she lost her memories of most things,

but could belt out hymns to the very end.

Tonight, Paul, Katrina, and Anna came for supper.     

On the table were Maud's white china dishes, 

her figures of kids from around the world,

her tiny plastic Mother Goose statues

(more eye appointment finds).

Happy 100th birthday, Grandma.

I love you.

Susie

I don't know.... Alaska.

At the end of each first grade day, 

we learn another line in the song "The Fifty States That Rhyme."

We discuss what we might visit and do in each new state, 

then review what we've learned:

Did you know that you can search for diamonds in Arkansas?

That eating cheese curds makes a squeaking sound? 

Did you know 

that the stack of states from Louisiana to Minnesota 

looks like an elf?

That Montana looks like a man looking over a cliff? 

(Actually, I'm pretty sure the man is Richard Nixon.)

Did you know that parts of Alaska are dark even in the daytime?

We talk about Alaska a lot,

as it was my most recent vacation.  

Teacher prerogative.

Yesterday Joel asked me what the capital of Alaska is.

I replied, "Juneau."

Joel said, "No."

I said, "No?"

He looked puzzled. "No, I DON'T know...

 that's why I asked you."

True story.

S.

An Election Week Marriage

This week a friend got married again.

Her previous husband was taken by the war,

and though another serviceman had proposed,

she married a different man that she hadn't known long.

He seems wonderful in many ways--

calm, enthusiastic, smart, with many friends.

Some of his friends and their ideas make me uneasy,

and I wish she'd have known him a little better,

but she was financially unstable, 

and I think she was more than a little infatuated.

For better or worse,

I wish them the best,

and pray God will bless them both.

Let's Try This Again

When our computer had a glitch back in July,

I never suspected that it would be almost four months 

before we'd blog again.

In the interim,

school started, 

and first graders again greet me with enthusiastic stories:

"My house is full of peacock feathers!"

"I threw up last night and my dog ate it!" 

Alexa was looking at a horse book

and was horrified when Elijah said,

"I know that horse!  That's Black Booty!"

September 11th, we received the news that 

our daughter-in-law Katrina was being induced.

We planned for substitutes,

then were off to State College to meet

Anna Brion Shaffner.

We are now grandparents.

The small snuffling sounds 

and triple breaths

are reminders that life goes on.

On Tuesday, November 4th,

Den will turn fifty-five,

and millions of people will go to the polls to vote.

What about the animals?

Sheep want Obaaaaaaaaama,

goats prefer Ollama.

Horses like McMane, 

ducks like McRain,

puppies for Omama,

bigger dogs for McDane-- he's Great.

Then there's...

Dentists for McPain.

Tarzan and Boy for McJane.

Punctuation geeks for Ocomma.

Narcoleptics for Pajama.

Theater majors for Odrama.

Sugar producers for McCane.

The monkeys in the school courtyard

were enthusiastic about 

O'Cain and McBama.

I'm just ready for it to all be over.

Happy fifty-fifth birthday, Den.

I love you.

s.