not heaven

One day when I was up at the shack with Grandad for hunting season, it started snowing heavily in the afternoon. I went outside and took a photo of the shack as the big fat wet clumps of flakes started falling. It snowed a lot and it was a thick damp snow. I was sure that the snow would show up in the photo, but later when I developed the film and made a print, I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't too obvious how heavily it was snowing in the photo. There was still some snow on the ground at that point from a previous heavy snow which had mostly melted. The snow kept coming and was eventually pretty deep. In the kitchen I found a can of Borden's condensed milk, of an unknown vintage, and decided to make some snow ice cream. I got a big mixing bowl and added some snow and poured in some condensed milk. The snow was still kind of wet and it just became sort of lumpy and slushy when I stirred it. I added some more snow but it didn't help too much, so I added some more milk which also didn't help too much. I think it just wasn't cold enough to get a sort of ice creamy texture that I'd hoped for. Eventually, I cleared some space on top of the old ice box which had been moved out onto the porch by then and set the snow ice cream bowl there to freeze overnight. I went back into the warm shack and forgot about my bowl of snow ice cream and enjoyed a nice dinner, loaded up the wood stoves and fell asleep in my sleeping bag. In the morning I went out to see how the ice cream was doing. Oddly, with a low thick cloud cover, it seemed to have gotten warmer overnight rather than colder as I expected. The snow outside was even more damp and melting. My snow ice cream had completely melted and in the middle floated a little furry lump. Overnight a mouse must have smelled the enticing smell of condensed milk and somehow jumped from the top of one of the old paint cans or the bird seed pot into the mixing bowl to find itself in a slushy heaven of snow ice cream. I hope it got to enjoy its fill of condensed milk slush before it realised it the sides of the mixing bowl were too steep and slippery to get out and the slush didn't provide a solid enough springboard to jump from. Or, I suppose the intended ice cream might have already been just diluted condensed milk when the mouse got into the bowl, in which case it would have immediately been in trouble and met its sad fate after swimming and scrambling to try to get up the sides of the bowl, eventually succumbing to the cold in the wet or perhaps drowning when exhausted. I was a bit disappointed that my attempt at snow ice cream was a failure, if not due to the mouse then due to the unseasonably warm night. When I had taken the mouse out of the milky liquid, I set it down on the table on the porch. It had stiffened in the posture of the mouse equivalent of a dead man's float so it sat upright balanced on its stiff hind legs and tail. It seemed an odd and serendipitous natural taxidermy of the poor creature in a curious or perhaps aggressive stance and I thought I would memorialize the moment with a photograph which I present below.

 

 

by the dozen

I think it was late 1996 or early 1997 the last time I saw Grandad. He and Carolyn were travelling by car to or from somewhere on the East coast. Now the memory is somewhat vague. I found on old email dated 8 January 1997 with this summary, "meet mother and vernon at barretts seafood restaurant to have lunch with grandad and carolyn. nice to see him. he eats raw oysters and she crab soup and a whole dish of tartar sauce. has jumbo martini. i have the salmon. grandad still himself but hair seems impossibly white and he seems to be aging over the years. how old he must be, say eighty five years." I don't recall if he had two or three dozen oysters. I think I drove my old Mercedes 300D there but the memory fades in and out. We both needed a cane by then. I had an old Zeiss camera which shot an an uncommon film size. I don't recall now where I got the camera, maybe a yard sale? I don't recall where I got the film either. Maybe I had to get a different type, 126 perhaps, unwind it from its spool and re-wind it onto the old Zeiss roller in the dark. Maybe I did that in the bathroom with no windows and a towel blocking the light from coming in under the door. Later in that email I wrote, "o i attempted to take photographs. sent film to bruce for development." By April 1997 I must have received the film back and scanned it. The jpeg file is dated 13 April 1997. It was the last photo I ever took of Grandad. And Carolyn. Who was looking stylish as ever. I'm not even sure I took it. Maybe I got Ross to take it. I wonder where that camera is now. Probably sitting on a shelf somewhere. I wonder if it still works. Now I've just found another email which proves definitively that this last meal and photograph occurred maybe the day before, of, or after Christmas. In yet another email I wrote about this photo, "with grandad is often carolyn, wife of grandad, eager holder of cigarette after nonsmoking lunch." Although I don't remember it specifically, I can visualize her holding the cigarette discreetly while the photo was being taken, waiting until after the shutter clicked to light it.

the cast iron skillet

Some of the best fried chicken I ever had was at Grandad and Carolyn's house. It was home cooked, but not by Grandad or Carolyn. It was made by their cleaning lady. I think it must have been the summer we took the train to Chicago where Carolyn picked us up. I have this vague memory of having to go the wrong way to Martinsburg to catch the train, then later passing by the way we had just come. Another indistinct memory of the trip is of factories, smoke and flames as we passed Gary, Indiana on the approach to Chicago. It was roads, bridges and steel structures, with a sooty darkness and a chemical smell that seeped into the train. It was like things we'd seen in movies, but real. It was an exciting journey for two young boys alone. But back to Racine. When the cleaning lady came, we were away, perhaps running some errands, and I'm pretty sure, picking up some kringle on the way home. She was nearly done for the day when we returned. She was just straightening up in the kitchen, and there was a cast iron skillet of the most perfect looking fried chicken sitting on the stove and a delectable smell of good cooking in the air. She seemed almost apologetic that she was still there when we arrived. To me then, she was an older woman, but now, looking back, perhaps she was in her forties or fifties. She was black, and had kitchen gloves on, an apron and a dress with flowers on it, nothing out of place, very well put together and proper. Along with her immaculate neatness, she had the look of a very warm and caring person, but she had a certain coldness towards us as she quickly finished up. I don't recall if Carolyn then took her home, or someone arrived to pick her up, but I have the impression she didn't have a car at the house. I noticed how clean and tidy everything in the house was. It wasn't ever dirty or unorganized, but there was an aura of professional cleanliness hovering over the house. Everything had a clean smell and there was no speck of dust or smudge anywhere. Before long, even though the sheen of clean was like a forcefield which encouraged the use of coasters and napkins, my brother and I soon smudged and smeared things back to normal. We had the fried chicken for dinner, warmed up, with something on the side I don't remember. Kentucky Fried Chicken up until then had been the pinnacle of my fried chicken experience, but this fried chicken was on another level. Even after being warmed up, it was perfectly crispy on the outside and succulent, tender and juicy on the inside. The Colonel's blend of secret herbs and spices had nothing on whatever magic formula this woman had used. It was a subtle blend that seemed to bring out the flavor of the chicken. We enjoyed it very much and I think everyone at the table would have eaten another piece, but we'd finished all of it. During our extended summer visit, we hoped to have the chicken again but it never came to pass. I think the day the cleaning lady came again, we were out doing something or other and didn't see her and the cast iron skillet was sadly not left on the stove when we got back home. Thinking back on it now, there seemed to be some uncomfortableness around the cleaning lady, as if we weren't supposed to have encountered her. I had no idea why that could have been back then. My mother had hired a cleaning lady at home for a time, perhaps more as a favor to an acquaintance who needed the work, and it seemed a normal thing to us. We thought it was pretty cool at home to have slightly fewer cleaning chores for that period, and anything that would help ensure we weren't burdened with cleaning chores during our summer vacation was a-okay in our book.

the bomb

"You know, we ought to tell the Russians to go ahead and drop the bomb on New York. Do us all a favor and kill a few million liberals," said Grandad one evening at dinner. He laughed, and others laughed for the same or different reasons. He was very conservative. I remember talking to him in early 1991 just after the end of the Gulf War and he mentioned they were having a victory party. I had ridden about 10 hours in a van full of students to Washington DC to march against that war. It was strange to hear about a victory party for this war which I thought was unjust and politically motivated. It just didn't make sense to me to celebrate such a thing. I remember now people spoke of the redemption of the military with this victory after the loss in Vietnam, and wondered if this really meant that much to the conservative mind. I thought back to visiting in the summer and being there on the fourth of July for fireworks, cookouts and parades. I wondered if the victory party would have flags, fireworks and cocktails. It seemed so removed from this remote war that was waged on TV. Recently I remembered this and I wondered how Grandad would have thought of the current administration. I wondered if he would have been a "never Trumper" of the old guard, or if he would have embraced the bellicose America first attitude of President Trump. Previously, I came to the conclusion that being a judge and taking the law seriously, he might have taken a dim view of how the Trump administration did what it wanted even when it might not be within the law. But when I remembered his "drop the bomb" joke, I wonder if he wouldn't have supported the "let's show the liberals" tactics of Trump. I wondered if he would have supported efforts to stop counting votes, or to discount mail-in ballots, or to just sue for anything in any state which is close to get a case before the Supreme Court with its conservative majority. It's easy to make a joke about killing a few million liberals in a stable society where such a thing would never happen.

redemption upon maturation

When considering what to do after high school, I applied to and had been accepted at several institutions of higher learning, but my preferred school would have cost more than $15,000 per year to attend. They generously offered me $250/year in financial assistance. That left a significant deficit (perhaps near $30,000 in today's dollars). Somehow I didn't qualify for any federal grants or loans, so I ended up accepting the offer of another school which had actively recruited me. They offered a scholarship which paid for the bulk of my expenses which left me with a much more manageable deficit. But I was still short on the amount I needed for room and board. When I told them about this shortfall and explained I was considering attending a different school nearer home, the school told me about a special loan they had which would cover the difference. Naively, I assumed my educational financial worries were over and I would get the loan again for subsequent years, but after the first year, they said it was just for first year students. This was something they'd failed to mention when I was deciding where to go to school. I felt a bit manipulated and had the sudden need for additional moneys for room and board the second year, which I had to pay in advance. I asked Grandad for a loan and had to specify terms to pay it back. I think I said I'd pay it back within five years of graduating. That summer, through nepotism, I got a reasonably well paid job in the office of a construction company. Due to circumstances beyond the scope of this reminiscence I did not have to pay rent during the summer and was able minimize other spending. I ended up being able to save a bit more than I had expected. Then when I returned to school, I got a part-time job in the computer lab as a student support assistant. It was minimum wage, which was very minimum ($3.35/hour?), but it also took up time which might have otherwise been spent engaging in activities which incurred additional expenses. During that school year, I had saved enough to pay off my loan to Grandad. I told him I would be paying him back early next time I saw him. I think it was summer when I saw him. I don't recall if it was at his house, or somewhere else we met. I also don't recall if I had cash or a check. But I remember taking a slightly orangey brown kraft Manila envelope which had somehow gotten a few small black grease marks on the right side out of the glove compartment in my car and handing it to him. He thanked me and expressed gratification and admiration at my industry and thrift to be able to pay it back seven years early. Then he handed me back a thick envelope. He said this is a reward for paying it back early. It was an envelope full of U.S. Savings Bonds of the equivalent value of the repayment I had just made. He told me to save them and redeem them when they had matured. I kept them for a while but ended up liquidating them before they had matured due to circumstances beyond the scope of this reminiscence.

great? first once?

I remember Grandand & Carolyn came to visit me while I was in school in Indiana. They brought a relative who I thought was a great aunt somehow, who I had either never met, or had not seen in years. Or maybe she had driven there to meet us, I'm not sure. I just looked at a chart explaining relations and now I think she is my first cousin once removed. Grandad always liked to have a good meal and he seemed to know about where to go for that even when they were travelling. That doesn't seem too much out of the ordinary now because one can do an internet search and look at various ratings sites, but I wonder how he did it back in 1988. I happen to know it was 1988 and April 24th, 1988 in fact, because it's noted on the back of some photos my cousin once removed sent to me a few weeks later. But how did Grandad know that one of the best places to eat near my school was Turkey Run Inn when he lived hundreds of miles away. Not only was there no world wide web to check then, but Grandad once proclaimed, proudly I would say, when he learned I was familiar with computers and had a job in the computer lab at school, that, he "wouldn't know a computer from a bale of hay." He said it was a nice place so I tried to dress so I looked somewhat "presentable" in my favorite threadbare blue wool sweater, thrift shop khakis and brown leather shoes I had happily received as a gift from my girlfriend when it turned out they fit me even better than they'd fit her. It had probably been too long since my last haircut and I may have been accused of looking like a "portable brush heap," but it was good enough for the semi-fancy Turkey Run Inn. I think the dinner we had was indeed good and I may even have had some wine, which would have been illegal at the time. I have various memories of taking a walk along Turkey Run and Sugar Creek, walking over a covered bridge, posing for some photos, walking too far to find the parked car, riding back to school, and receiving an invitation to visit my cousin once removed in a neighboring city.

blur and jumble

As I mentioned, memories begin to blur and jumble together as time goes by. It keeps happening, blurring, jumbling, going by. But some things are slightly more permanently fixed in memory with the aid of photographs. But sometimes there is a mismatch with some remembered seeming fact and the photograph. And when one writes, one can play fast and loose with the so called facts and bend and mold them to the fit the memory, or to better fit a story, or to fit a better story. I admit I've done that at times, but I do prefer to remember things accurately, or if not remember them accurately, ask people who might, or maybe do some research and cross referencing and come up with some reasonable approximation of what happened, or what seemed to happen. Recently I met cousin Mike for a coffee. He was attending a conference relatively close to where I live and I happened to find out he would be here for a few days so we arranged to meet. It was a far too short, but really pleasant visit (though on my way to the coffee place an unexpected rain soaked and an expected chill shivered me, but that's another story). I was thinking it might have been 40 years since the last time we'd met. But as we were talking about old memories, it became clear that it was less time than that.

Summer at the Shack

Family fun in the North Woods

I remembered, vaguely, of course, visiting the cabin in the summer when we were very young, staying in the tent outside the cabin instead of inside the cabin, to avoid the mosquitos, mice, snakes, bats, etc. And I am not even completely certain these are first hand memories. They could just be memories of stories, and memories shaped and formed by looking at photos such as these two. Somehow, perhaps ten years ago, I identified them "1972ish" but I'm not sure how I came to that conclusion. My dad remembers well the make, model and year of cars he had, and that's the 1968 gold AMC Ambassador sedan, so that might have been part of the evidence. Or it might have been that I looked to be two and a half to three and half years old, if that is me, way in the back wearing dark trousers and a light blue shirt. One thing I remembered, or at least think I remember, or can vaguely visualize, is sitting in the back seat of a large car of the seventies, driving down the dusty gravel road, maybe it was the gold Ambassador, with someone who had a fish hook embedded in their scalp sitting in the front passenger seat, holding something against their head to staunch the flow of blood. Someone else hadn't been paying attention and cast their line without looking behind and ended up catching a human. I can't remember who the victim was, but have the impression it was an older boy, perhaps even a teenager. Cousin Mike remembered the trip (better than me, as he's older) and he remembered swinging a tent pole around and hitting my brother in the head (he still has the scar). I had forgotten about that part, but it reminded me that the fish hook in the head was the second injury of that trip, and perhaps the second trip into town to see a doctor or get medical supplies. I knew that wasn't the last time I'd seen cousin Mike though, because I remembered meeting at Grandad's house in Racine, as seen in the photo on this page, which must have been mid seventies. One thing I remember about that trip was sitting in the upstairs bedroom in Racine at night with a strong wind blowing in off the lake, whooshing through the trees, making the roof creak, while one of our cousins told a ghost story. For a time, I was thinking that must have been the last time we'd seen each other, but I remembered my dad, my brother and I taking a trip to Texas in my dad's old Fiat to visit for Christmas. That must have been in the eighties. Actually, it might have been earlier, because one of my memories of the trip is playing with a Merlin electronic game (by Parker Brothers). I think we got it for our cousins as a present, but my dad allowed us to carefully open the box and play with it during the 3 day trip to Texas. It probably prevented many arguments and fights. It also probably caused a few because, "It's my turn now!" And, "Two more minutes, I almost won!" If memory serves, we then repackaged it for giving as a gift. It made quite an impression on us. The intensity of playing for hours in a car on a trip with the little lights and beeps. We loved it and wanted to get one. Maybe we got a used one some time later, but by then it had lost a lot of its magic. The internet says it was introduced in 1978 and was popular "throughout the 80s" so it would have been in that time period. But it was definitely before my dad had the 1979 Datsun B210. I wonder if he got it used or new. I remember it being in good condition. It was blue. But I digress. My conclusion was that it might have been a mere 35 years or so since last we'd seen each other, not 40. But while we talked, cousin Mike mentioned something about seeing Grandad at a family reunion in Michigan, and said it in a way which made it seem like he didn't remember that I was there, in the same way that I hadn't remembered that he was there, and I was going to say, "Yeah, I was there," but then the conversation turned. That reunion was around 1992, so it was a mere quarter of a century since we'd seen each other, not four decades at all.

Grandad at family reunion in Michigan