Natural born leader

Christmas 1978. Remember? I do.

Andrew had a part in the Primary's Nativity presentation. He was a shepherd--with glasses. And clearly he was anxious to get to the manger, got there first.

When the others did not follow, he turned and impatiently motioned them, saying, "Come on!" No doubt in anyone's mind that night who was the head shepherd.

The Darrington Boys

At Christmastime, 2011. Charles Xavier, John Fitzwilliam, Edmund Andrew. They live in Pennsylvania, which is not exactly near here.

Charlie is a tall 6-year-old school boy. He is, I believe, a deep thinker. And he reads, like, on his own.

Johnny is a red head, holding his brothers' hands. He's four. I asked him once in a telephone conversation if his hair was still red. "Yes, Grandma Carol," he said with some disgust, "my hair will always be red."

Edmund is the blond, cute as can be, and he will be two in February. He sings around the house. Can't beat that, now, can you.

I think it's called inertia

Our back door has a lock on the knob and a dead bolt. The dead bolt hasn't worked for maybe 13 or more years. Wayne saw no urgency to fix it, I guess, since the lock on the knob worked. He would say he didn't know how to fix it.

Hmmm.

Lately the door shuts funny or doesn't shut. Like, I would come down in the morning and find it not latched. So I began to make sure that I shut it tight, and I looked at the dead bolt. I mean I really looked.

I thought I could see the problem. Fixing it would require removing the brass plate, hammering the dented part straight, and re-attatching the brass plate. That might do it, I thought, if the door hadn't shifted too much.

So the other morning, I followed those steps, and now the dead bolt works. And I am pretty proud of myself, you know.

I said, "Oh Wayne, you could have done that. Why didn't you?" I also said, "Oh, Carol. Forget it. The thing is fixed."

I told Jim, my home teacher, the dead bolt story, leaving out the parts about Wayne.

He said, "I can top that."

Jim: We've lived in our house 20 years. In one place, the roof comes together and forms a little valley that the water runs down when it rains. Under that spot is a metal box [it's permanent], and when it rains, the water drips onto that box. Drip, drip, drip, drip.

Still Jim: The other night we were in bed and my wife said, "What is that noise? Why can't we get rid of that noise?"

Jim is not an old guy, and he's capable, and so on. But he is deaf in one ear and is losing hearing in the other. The drip, drip, drip, drip, does not bother him; he can't hear it.

But the other night,
Jim: So I got out of bed, went outside, and put a big rock on top of the metal box. When I got back in bed, she asked, "What did you do? How did you fix that? That noise has driven me crazy for years, every time it rains."

Jim explained what he had done. They were both happy.

To me he said, "Twenty years, Carol. Twenty years."

It's that I have ears, I guess

What is it with me? Why do people want to pour out their hearts to me?

It happened again this morning.

She's from Germany, lived in California, father was with CHIP (Highway Patrol), very abusive to wife and her, his daughter. They left. Mother loves a man in uniform, married a retired Navy guy, who now has leukemia, which is why she is still here in Idaho--a place she's not particularly fond of--and not in Germany.

There's much more, and I could put it here. But you don't want to read it, may have stopped reading already.

Not that I mind altogether. Sometimes, though, life must go on. I mean, my life.

I have read that all anyone has to do is give a stranger an opening, and here will come the deluge.

What, exactly, is an opening?

With me it's that I have ears. Maybe I look at the person. That must be it. Before I know it, my ears are being filled with that person's life story. Not that they're not interesting.

This morning, trust me, I didn't ask, but I did listen.

What would be on your list?

I think of Wayne every day. You know that, right? But this is specific.

Today I heard "When the Saints Go Marching In" and thought of him. It was one of the songs he played on the recorder. Remember? Just another thing to add to the list.

Not that that list was comprehensive. Couldn't possibly be. Too many years, too much to include.

I mean, I didn't list his frequent response to me when I would ask him a deep and searching question. He would say, "Does a chicken have lips?" And I said nothing of what time a Chinaman (not politically correct, sorry) goes to the dentist. Or of his perennially cold feet or his snoring. I didn't mention his refusal to share food or to mix cereals or to allow the food on his plate to touch, as in the peas touching the meat or the rice getting close to the jello.

I didn't tell that he coached Richard's T-ball team or that he ran the St George marathon when he was 50 or anything much about him before my children knew him, like that he was Yell King his senior year in high school.

There is always more.

What I put down the other day I wrote because after nine years I wonder what we have forgotten about him. Memories do fade. I don't want them to, but they do. So it's good to write them down, give them that kind of life.

Know what I mean?

Wayne

He liked sports:

playing and watching; played soccer in South America and at BYU, played football in high school (kicker), basketball at the YMCA and in church ball, softball (church, pitcher); track--in high school and Jr college he was a high hurdler and pole vaulter; watching football on TV or in person, basketball, the same. Fun for us when we were young was going to a Dodgers game or a good track meet.

He knew sports statistics, period, whatever the sport.

He liked to cook:

didn't get to do it much--time and his wife got in the way of it. He did not like to clean up after cooking, and that's why his wife grumbled about his cooking. He made the pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, always trying it a different way. The only time anyone didn't like his pie was when his wife convinced him to make one with tofu.

He liked to eat:

his mother's apple pie, my mother's custard pie; bread pudding, tapioca pudding; jelly beans and gum drops, any kind of cookie (especially what I called "no taste" cookies); and he loved ginger snaps, which he would dip in his glass of milk;

tamale pie, Spanish rice, tuna casserole--said he would like one of those dishes every week, but he didn't get his way there, partly because his kids hated tuna casserole;

Chinese food at the Midway Lunch; potatoes and gravy, pizza, maybe sushi; split pea soup, my chili, pork chops with apple sauce, a fried egg sandwich. He wasn't really picky, except he would not eat certain things. Ever. (See below.)

He did not like:

the three As--artichoke, asparagus, avocado--artichoke he wouldn't bother with--it might choke Artie but it won't choke me, he would say; asparagus, I don't know, just not something he liked the look of, I guess; avocado, he hated the taste and especially the feel of it in his mouth; broccoli took years to find its way to his stomach; I never saw him eat spinach; not big on vegetables generally--keep it simple: corn, peas, beans;

and he did not like confrontation.

He liked:

a good joke, and he could tell one; being the center of attention (trust me on this), the time he played the lead in Caldwell Stake's play--they did Cheaper By the Dozen--was a favorite for him, and he was a natural;

to win, and who doesn't? And if he thought he would lose at a parlor game--like Trivial Pursuit-- he wouldn't play, just sit in the other room and call out answers, to the irritation of those who were playing. He especially hated losing to his wife;

to sing; sang in a quartet in Santa Monica, in Caldwell, in Boise; played saxophone in elementary school, played the recorder, sort of played the banjo he bought for himself, two hymns on the piano;

a good-looking tie;

to come home and sit in his chair; and apparently he liked wearing his down coat in the house, ours and anyone else's. I would have to tell him to take off his coat;

to read the paper, Reader's Digest, National Geographic; he had a lot of information in his head.

He was a good problem solver,

just give him a little time or overnight and he would have the answer.

He was not:

a hugger; outwardly demonstrative of his emotions.

He liked his kids,

held them when they were babies, went to their games and concerts, took them fishing and camping on occasion; took them around on their morning paper routes; he liked it when they came to him for counsel or advice; he was generous with his children, when he finally had money; a bit stingy with his wife.

He wanted to be:

a doctor, hence his lifelong interest in things medical; recognized as somebody, you know, for his accomplishments; a gentleman farmer, which answers why we moved to Idaho and why we had chickens, then goats, steers for the beef, a raspberry patch, fruit trees, and a big garden. Well, I had something to do with those things, too.

He was:

tall, good looking, a conservative dresser--he looked very good in a suit;

funny, corny, clever, sometimes lazy;

not perfect, but he was very good.

JCP

It's less than a week until the 13th, the date of Wayne's death. Nine years.

The mail still brings stuff addressed to him. That bothers me less and less. Most of it, I just toss. I sent death certificates to the important entities but certainly not to all places from whence I might one day get mail in his name.

But yesterday's upgraded gold card from JC Penney got to me. I know it shouldn't get to me, because, as I said, this kind of thing happens, but it did.

The account was in his name originally, like from many years ago in Caldwell, when JC Penney had a store in the Karcher Mall. But my name was on the account.

Obviously the account remains in his name. I have only recently, like this year, begun to use it again. Had a little trouble, too, because it had been so long, but finally got it all straightened out. I am on there. And I have ID to prove who I am. Which I had to show in the store to the person calling the big office.

JCP has been told, by me, that I am now the only card holder because of his death, and they have not seen his signature on any check, and no online bill pay shows his name. Only mine. But I understand these things. They need a death certificate.

But it's nine years, and I'm not going to do it.

I was surprised at my sadness over seeing that card. No one can predict these things.

Quilt Update

• I have seen that the muslin Grandma used is from several sources. One piece has some printing on it, very faint, but it's there. Maybe I'll find others like that. I believe white muslin is what Grandma tacked onto the walls of the chicken coop, pulled it tight and secured it. That's after she scrubbed and scrubbed and white washed the whole place.
  

• I went out today and bought my own thread, afraid I would use all of Charlotte's.

• A quilt wants to be used. That's what it is made for. So when I have finished tying, I will want to use it.

• Actually, I will want to give it to one of my children. Eventually. Would any one of them want it? Appreciate its worth? We all take so much for granted, you know.
  

About . . .

. . . this quilt. Grandma tied it with two colors of embroidery floss--white and pink. White here, pink there. I can see no pattern and can only guess why she did that. Perhaps she did have a pattern, but in the wear and repair, the pattern is lost. Perhaps she simply used what she had.

Embroidery was something she did well. And piecing, as in this quilt.

. . . my grandma. Work was part of her vocabulary, in capital letters. I'm not sure if play was. I never saw her at play. I take that back. On one of our visits to Salt Lake to see Grandpa and Grandma, I saw them playing cards with Mama and Daddy. I don't remember her playing with us kids. Or, I mean, with me.

I knew she could work. She's the one who made a livable home out of a chicken coop. She is the one who did that. Imagine what she had to do to accomplish such a thing.

And I have mentioned her baking powder biscuits elsewhere, in other writings about her. Those biscuits. Any of my siblings might become rhapsodic remembering them. They were the best.

I've been tying. So she is on my mind.

From Grandma to Charlotte to me

My grandmother Nelson made this quilt about--actually, I don't know how long ago, but it's likely as old as I am. I thought the other day I'd ask my mother, but then I remembered she has been gone for 32 years. Funny.

Anyway, my mother gave the quilt to me a long time ago. I used it. I also put it inside two sheets for protection as I continued to use it.

It was wearing out, tearing, pulling apart, the batting bunching.

Charlotte moved here about eight years ago. She's a quilter, and how. I took my grandma's quilt over and asked if she could do some work on it.

She did. She cut off the binding, put new batting here and there, cut away the muslin that had worn through and put new muslin where needed, stitched up most of the torn places, and bound it up again.

I left it there for years. I mean years. Intending whenever I thought of it, which wasn't daily, to go get it. Charlotte and I talked about putting it up on her frames and getting people to come over and work on it. That never happened, and I'm glad. Why comes later.

Finally, Monday of this week I went over. She did not ask any pay, but she had spent some money on materials and so asked for $12. I remembered a couple of years ago she said $16, so that's what I paid. I thought I ought to give her something for storing it, too, but she refused.

Thanks to Charlotte for what she did for me. It was a lot.

Now I'm working on it, finding the places that need to be retied, using Charlotte's heavy thread, leaving the old ties where they are if they're still tied and strong. Because Grandma put them there.

I like doing this part, although I know it will take a long time, but that's okay. And this is why I'm glad we never got around to having other people come work on it. It's my job to do. Charlotte wants to come and help me. I don't want her to, but I haven't said that to her yet.

I had told Charlotte I didn't love my Grandma enough. It's true. I knew she had not liked or approved of my dad; I learned she had been hard on my aunt. I thought her hard, but I was only a child and didn't see her often. You know?

But my mother loved her very much.

And here is what's happening. I'm learning about Grandma as I tie this quilt, trying to figure out if she had a pattern for tying or not. Seeing how she put those pieces of cloth together with the muslin in between--a resourceful person, frugal, and with a sense of color and design. I do not know what garments she cut up or had scraps from, but I am pretty well sure she did not go out and buy new fabric for this quilt. Even the muslin may have come from flour sacks. Not sure.

I am learning to love my grandmother better. High time, I know. But not too late.

This quilt will never be a prize winner. It's old and faded and looks like it has had a lot of wear. It has. But it will be mine and still useful and something from my Grandma.