Driving Thoughts on Valentines Day

 Yesterday was Valentines morning.
I drove the snowy mountain roads
in my Queen of Hearts dress
from 1975.
Double knit fabric has a bit of stretch to it,
thankfully.
There were very few vehicles on the mountain,
not like the night before
when I-80 eastbound closed
and hundreds of trucks clogged the road.
THERE was where I sat for twenty minutes
before Gilda the Adventure Car decided to make a u-turn
and go home on the back roads.

And THERE is Johnston's Nursery
where son Paul worked summers in his herbicide-blue sneakers.
His black Subaru drove back and forth
and back and forth
from home to work
and work to home
never passing a gas station.
He drives a white Subaru now,
my mom's final car.
The black Subaru was demolished
when Paul's friend Noel,
the most upbeat, gregarious person we have ever met,
rolled it after dropping Paul at the Buffalo airport.
No one was injured,
praise God,
but a debate ensued
as to who would pay the insurance deductible.
Noel was responsibly insistent that he would pay,
but it was an ACCIDENT
and college kids have little extra cash.
A compromise was reached:
Noel would make a donation some time in the future
when he saw a need that was unmet.
Later
when Noel's job took him to the Philippines
he sponsored a party for the children of prostitutes,
kids who were poor
and looked down upon.

Our school Valentines Day party perhaps has some similar kids attending,
kids who are poor,
whose life situations could make us cry.
But during the party
there are hugs and thank yous as valentines are opened,
and smiles under icing mustaches
as cupcakes are devoured.
Perhaps love is more appreciated in small bites.

As winter wanes,
may you have safe travels,
may you have eyes that notice needs,
may you find reasons to hug
and say thank you,
and may you enjoy a bit of icing on your lip.

S.

Thoughts on a Twelve-below Day

Twelve below zero this morning.
The outside cats
are now loving the life
of enclosed porch cats
and compete for the privilege
of sleeping directly on the radiator.
The house is toasty warm
thanks to Den and his autumn wood-cutting.
It is hard for me to remember that it is cold outside.
The sink that Den left dripping
because running water helps prevent freezing--
I accidently turned it off after washing my hands.
Ooooooops.
Two hours later,
the pipe was frozen at the wellhead.
We now have an extension cord
running from the garage
to a light in the well
for warmth.

So far, winter has been fun in first grade in the valley.
(Interesting.
I live on "the mountain"
and I teach in "the valley"
and everyone around here knows exactly
where those seemingly unnamed places are.)
Last week I took my class out for recess
and there was a patch of ice on the pavement.
I remembered the Peanuts kids
revelling in childhood ice-sliding
and, after a semi-silly reminder
that ice is slippery
and a warning to be careful,
I turned my class loose.
There were squeals of delight
and huge, toothy,
or sometimes toothless,
smiles.
The next day at recess,
we went to the ballfield.
Amid the frozen elk tracks,
kids had fun hacking up snowman remnants with sticks,
yes, sticks,
and "skunking" each other
by drawing white stripes
down friends' backs
with balls of snow.
Yesterday
our janitor Doug said,
"Hey Shaffner,  
You're a science person.
Look at those bumps.
The wind blew snow into rolls."
I could have hugged him, I was so excited.
Snow rolls are an extremely rare phenomenon.
Fifty-six years of Pennsylvania winters
and I had never seen a snow roll
'til now.  
I settled for a thankful enthusiastic handshake
and immediately brought my class to the lobby doors
to see the snow rolls.
During lunch,

Claw, our math puppet, explores a snow roller.

I bundled up
and took
our math puppet's picture in a snow roll
so the kids could see the details up close
since the temperatures
had already started on their sub-zero journey.

At twelve below today,
school is cancelled.
Instead, I spent part of the morning making cut-out cookies
for our Groundhog Day assembly
coming later this week.
Punxsutawney is a neighboring town
but many kids will never make it there
to watch Punsxy Phil make his official prognostication
so we will pretend we are at Gobbler's Knob
and dance
and sing
and wear goofy hats
and pull a groundhog puppet out of a garbage can
and listen carefully to what he has to say.
Most people are hoping for no shadow--
spring is just around the corner--
but, hey,
winter is good, too. 

Remembering Walt Shaffner

Denny's dad Walt was the ninth child in a family of thirteen.
He was born in Orviston,
learned to walk in Howard
(our cat is now named Howard)
and ran from the Deer Park in Snowshoe
when his house caught fire.
All that was saved from the blaze
was a deer hoof hat rack,
his dad's 32 Remington,
and the Edison record player.

Walt didn't speak until he was five.
"Him want cookie!" his younger brother Fred would say.
When Walt did start talking,
he made friends all up and down Mill Road.
Life in Clearfield was about school,
at least until the eighth grade,
but mostly life was about baseball.
He became known as "Slick" Shaffner
and was offered a tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates
but couldn't afford the bus ticket to Pittsburgh.
He became a CCC boy instead
in Cross Forks
where he planted thousands of pines in the Pennsylvania mountains.

Walt signed on to help build Harbison Walker's third brickyard
and stayed to ultimately run a lift truck.
He married nurse Golda and became a family man.
Walt taught his sons
Paul (Bozo)
and Denny (Fozdick)
how to play catch,
rake stone,
plant trees,
cut brush,
build bonfires,
cut wood,
graft trees,
pick apples,
raise calves, 
mow backyards and graveyards,
shear trees,
ride on running boards,
drive Gravely tractors
and pickup trucks,
shoot a 22,
shovel coal,
raise turkeys,
kill snakes,
sleep on the ground,
cook bacon and eggs,
tear down buildings,
straighten nails,
recycle copper pipe,
build tree stands,
skin deer,
and shower by flashlight
when you didn't want anyone to know you were home.

He taught his boys about gift-giving:
"If you don't know what to get her,
get her something you like."

Walt also taught Paul and Denny to take a risk.
In 1956, he took out a second mortgage
to buy one hundred acres of
overgrown farm on the Rockton Mountain
and worked to build a second home on the old barn foundation.
It is that financial risk
that has allowed us to raise our family here on the mountain.

When Walt wasn't working,
he would tell scary stories of the Side Hill Gouge
and visit abandoned "Julius houses"
on Sunday drives in the Rambler.
Those drives often ended at Miller Dairy
where Whitehouse was a favorite.
Ice cream was also a treat during the Ed Sullivan Show,
but Walt could be persuaded to eat saltines with milk and sugar.
Vacations were mostly to visit family in "York State"
but after Paul was killed,
vacation destinations expanded.
Washington, DC,
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel,
and Baltimore's fish market
were stops enroute to the traditional summer vacation spot,
the Islander Motel
on 42nd Street
in Ocean City, MD.

When Walt became a grandpa,
his name became "Pap"
and he took his grandsons
Paul and Luke
for rides in his truck.
We could hear that truck start up
from a quarter mile away.
"Pap's coming!"
"Wanna go for a ride around the horn?" he'd say
and the boys would hop in.
He'd let them steer
and laughed when they drove into the ditch.
They'd get a drink at the spring
and return dirtier than they left.
Always.

Walt always had a positive attitude
through many operations--
"Do you want to see where they rolled my guts out on the table?"
and as diabetes took his legs
and his vision
he would sit on the porch
and listen to the Pirate games
while chipmunks crawled onto his lap to eat peanuts.
He died young at eighty-five.
That was fifteen years ago.
Had he lived,
Walt would have been one hundred years old today.

We miss you, Pap.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Every year on MLK Day,
I  think of Chad, who is now twentysomething.
When he was in first grade,
I told my class,
"This month we celebrate the birthday of a man named Mr.  King.
He helped people to get along peacefully.
Many people loved him.
He is now dead,
but people all over America celebrate his birthday today."

Chad got a puzzled look and raised his hand.
"But Mrs. Shaffner,
Elvis's birthday is January eighth...."

I've discovered Pinterest

It's been quite awhile since I've blogged!
This summer during our time in Montana,
my cousin's wife Tangie started me on Pinterest.
Stage one of Pinterest
is spend LOTS of time scrolling down and down and down....
I do it while Den is watching a movie so I can call it "multitasking."
Stage two of Pinterest
is wanting to share your own ideas.
Since clicking on ideas often leads to a website or blog,
this blog is where I will put my ideas.

It seems quite odd to be talking about Christmas in August.
but to get the ideas out in time to be used,
I guess this is the way it's done.
Besides, "Oh come, let us adore Him!"
and "Let Earth receive her King!"
are great thoughts any time of year.

I am a dedicated, weekly Goodwill shopper.
When I find interesting
Christmas pins for under a dollar,
I buy them
and pin them on an old hat,

and when Advent season comes,
I start wearing the hat.
Along with the eye rolls
I get some interested or
amused looks from people
and sometimes they lead to conversations.
I then offer them
a pin of their choice.
If they choose one,
I ask their name
and wish them a Merry Christmas.
I write their name on a list in my car
and as I drive around in December,
I pray for my "pin people."
(Note: not recommended for
wearing to the United Nations.
The metal detector there doesn't like it.)




Den and I also decorate the vehicles for Christmas.
Den's jeep
and my ancient Volvo Gilda
both wear wreaths on their front grills,

and Gilda also wears a jaunty sprig of holly
on her back windshield wiper.
The holly works especially well,
as the wiper is broken,
along with the tape deck,
the trim on the door,
the back speaker cover,
the latch that secures the back seat,
the front seat heaters....
Thankfully she still passes inspection.








Another decoration that Gilda wears all year long is her quotes.
Since her paint and the metal under the paint
are the same color,
her cancer isn't immediately evident,
but she is just tacky enough
that writing favorite quotes--
scriptures,
the Irish blessing,
Robert Frost,
Jim Elliot,
C.S. Lewis,
Groucho Marx--
above and below her windows
seems like a creative rather than a destructive idea.
Sharpie marker works well.




Various species of greenery from the mountain
become Christmas wreaths for the driveway
and the garage
and the barn,
and extra branches are pushed into the leftover soil in the window boxes
or tied in bunches for the front door
or the pass through.
They're not really Christmas decorations,
they're winter decorations,
and they stay up 'til Valentines Day,
at which time we start looking expectantly for bluebirds and robins
and plant our seeds for summer on the south porch windowsills.








Our Christmas tree ornaments
help us relive the past years.
Each year we choose ornaments
that have a flat surface
on which we write significant events of the year,
one for each child
and one for Den and me to keep.
As the boys decorated the tree,
they relived their childhoods.

Paul's ornaments now hang on his own tree,
and Luke's provide a way to share his past with friends.



 We use old toys from our family's childhoods to decorate the shelf above the woodstove.

I collect moose(s?!)

that are really Hallmark reindeer--
less than a dollar at Goodwill
or yard sales
or Deseret Industries
when I can find them.
I name them for someone
significant
at the time
(Jack is for Uncle Jack
who was there on our DI trip)
and write their names
on their butt tags.
At Christmas
they sit on the stairs
with other old toys.
Granddaughter Anna
has fun deciding
which moose
will play with which toy.













The boys' mouse house
 also gets decorated
at Christmastime.
(It's NOT a dollhouse;
it belonged to the boys
who used army guys
and mice,
not dolls,
and stacked the furniture
against the doors
and windows
to keep out the bad guys.)
The stockings are
hung by the chimney
with care,
and not a creature is stirring,
not even a mouse.






Scrabble tiles
are another great Goodwill find.
I use them on trays in my classroom
for spelling practice
and in the hall outside my classroom
for passing students
to do an unscramble-the-word activity.
I put an object,
often something from nature,
on the round table outside my door
and mix the scrabble tiles
that spell the name of the item.













I started using Scrabble tiles
in the upstairs bathroom
to write messages to family
or guests
after seeing Groundhog Ben's
cool breakfast room
with Scrabble tiles on the top of his wainscoting.



















I also use Scrabble tiles
to decorate the table at family gatherings.
This is our Easter table,

with Scrabble tiles
and flowers
and my grandma Maud's ceramic people.
I miss my grandma,
and emulate her in my own grandmothering.
What would Maud do?




My dining room table used to belong to Maud.

Before that, it was the Davenport family's laundry table.
and before that--
hmmm.
I don't know.
Mental note to call Davenports!
 I saw an article in Reader's Digest years ago
that told of a college prof
(sorry, forgot who you are)
who had dinner guests sign
the underside of his dining table.
We've tried to do that
and keep a sharpie in the dining room

for that specific purpose
but at least half the people
have left without signing
because we've forgotten to ask them.
Perhaps that's a mixed blessing
as we've run out of room for names
on the main table
and now alternate the table leaves used.






I'm sure there are more Pinterest ideas around here,
but I'm also currently working on writing a song
for a Penn State competition.
Seven or eight winners will be critiqued by Paul Stookey
(for the two people who don't know who that is,
think "Peter, Paul, and Mary")
and one winner will sing in a concert with him in September.
I'm a great loser,
but I'm hoping to be an enthusiastic winner.
I'll let you know how that turns out.

Blessings,
Sue
 

Groundhogs and Cowboys....

Greetings from almost-Punxsutawney!

It's almost Groundhog Day.

This year PETA has proposed that Phil be replaced by a robot.

I'm still laughing.

The very premise of GHD is silliness....

This week in first grade,

cowboys are big.

Kids abandon sneakers at playtime

to clomp around in my four pairs of cowboy boots

with bandanas and vests and hats and stick horses.

Things are a bit different 

from when I played cowboy years ago, though.

"I'll be the cowboy.

You be the mom,

you be the dad,

you be the sister,

and you be the ex-wife."

We learned the "Doe, a Deer" song,

then watched a clip from The Sound of Music.

Such inspiration!

They sing it constantly,

lining up for lunch,

dismissal,

silent reading (!),

at playtime.

One of the best things in life 

is hearing kids spontaneously sing.

This week I'll show them the clip from the

train station in Antwerp, Belgium:

two hundred people dancing as Julie Andrews sings.

(Google it!  Youtube. Very cool.)

I predict they'll be dancing in the cafeteria next.

S.

  

Random thoughts

1. This past Friday,

 I was perusing Peter Speirs' book Christmas with my first graders.

There was an illustration of Santa ringing a bell for donations.

I said, "Sometimes people dress up in Santa suits at Christmastime."

Zach said, "Elves do that."

"Zachary, I don't think they are elves.  This man is tall."

Zach replied with certainty, 

"One elf stands on another elf's shoulders...

they do that, you know."

2.  Neither one-year-olds nor 52-year-olds find somersaults effortless.

3.  What do you do when you find an ancestor's grave?

Talk to them?  What do you say?

4.  My mom is in an Alzheimers unit.

She has trouble carrying on a conversation of more than a half minute,

and difficulty answering simple questions.

She often doesn't recognize loved ones.

(Actually, she treats everyone as a loved one,

whether she knew them or not.)

...but she can sing!

Many songs.

Many verses.

In harmony.

Interesting what the mind retains.

5. In November,

Denny had the opportunity to be in an elk herd at night.

A little disconcerting, 

and very cool.

There is more to that story,

but I'll let him tell it.