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family / memories / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on The things that stick us
15
Oct 14

The things that stick us

I’ve been wearing these for a while:

road

I’ve been wearing them for me, but hadn’t thought about what I would say if someone asked why I am wearing a pin. Why would anyone ask? Who would care?

I got pins for my mom and my cousin.

My lovely wife gets the idea, even if I’ve only just figured out why I got them.

My grandmother loved hummingbirds. And I am still not ready to think about this in the past tense.

My grandmother’s chair sits right beside the large picture window in her house. And outside, on the long porch, there are several hummingbird feeders. She could sit and watch them hover and fight all day long.

Her oldest friend laughed and told me how my grandmother was, every year, in a competition to get the first hummingbird visit. She delighted in calling and bragging about her hummingbird feeders because they brought the first birds and the biggest and the most colorful. And it was all, no doubt, owing to some secret ingredient (four times the recommended sugar, perhaps) that she put in the syrup.

So there was a hummingbird this and a hummingbird that at the funeral. I was looking for something to hang on to and got a pin for my mom and cousin and, ultimately, me. So I rotate through these four lapel pins. One day a student asked why I was wearing one and I struggled with that. The classroom isn’t the place for all that, after all. On Friday a coworker asked about it, and then that led to a conversation about her grandmother, which was nice.

Later that day, though, I figured all of this out.

It has been a few months — I can’t bear to count the days — but I miss her dearly and completely and in all things. These are the standard laments about time and things to be said and learned and easing the hurt of others close to her. Meanwhile the world moves and I feel stuck. It was days before this and weeks before that and now I’m at a couple of months of random emotional moments.

My mother-in-law said perhaps the most purposeful and explanatory thing on all of this, that the grandparent-grandchild bond is a strong and unique one. Every memory is a bird’s wing, every memory is a prompt and every prompt is a catch in the throat and a watery eye. There is always fluttering to do.

My personal framework is pretty basic: If I did this, would my mother approve? Would my grandmother? Maybe that’s silly, but it always served me well when I abided by it, the opinions of people that matter are important and formative and lasting.

Because of that, whether I was at her home, or living two or four or six hours away, my grandmother was always in my day, always helping or laughing or talking or fussing, always present.

Those little pins are a way of keeping her there.

cycling / family / food / history / iPhone / journalism / links / photo / things to read / Twitter / Wednesday — 1 Comment
13
Aug 14

A 60 year-old ad, a new sign, a race and food

Last night’s adventures in insomnia included this guy.

Jim

That’s my great-great grandfather, Jim. He was born in the winter of 1871, a year when the crops didn’t come in and the cotton caterpillars ravaged what was there. Jim married Sarah in 1904 and and they lived on a farm that her grandfather bought in 1854. They had 11 children. He died in 1953, his wife in 1970. So while I don’t know them, I did meet one of their kid’s, my great-grandfather. But I don’t remember him. My grandmother remembers her grandparents well, but I don’t know much more than what you find in this paragraph beyond where he’s buried. I do like that bicycle, though. So I found some old newspapers online and I’m looking for mentions, but turn up nothing.

I did find this, though:

In 1953 the church ads told you what the evening’s sermon was going to be about. This one wasn’t about Old Hickory Bourbon, or temperance. The topic was “A Methodist sermon by a Baptist preacher.” A different church had an ad in the next day’s paper, the preacher had promised to answer the question of a generation, “Should a woman wear a hat to church?”

The pressing stuff of their time.

I guess that branch of my family didn’t believe in obituaries, or care for the local paper. I don’t find a mention of him there. Otherwise, he must have been the quiet type. You don’t get in the paper until you do something wrong or something bad happens. Maybe that’s a good sign for the couple.

On my bike ride today, something of a casual ride around the greater neighborhood just to get in a few miles, I passed one of the better church signs I know. They’ve got personality here, as noted by most any previous message, one of the best in recent memory suggesting that you bring your sin and “drop it like it’s hot.”

This week’s note:

sign

It is a quiet little church, a lovely little place:

church

I also learned during this ride that I was on one of the local segments that the cycling apps chart as races. Without knowing it, I currently have the eighth fastest time on it for the year. I’ll have to try it again tomorrow to see if I can go any faster.

For dinner, we grilled pork chops and had beans which we discovered a few weeks ago:

dinner

I said to the lady that made them, a family friend, “You must give me your recipe or — ” which was the moment a look of embarrassment crossed her face. ” — or tell me what brand they are, because they are just about the best beans I’ve ever had.”

And they were. And they are. Also, they are from a can — Margaret Holmes. We discovered we didn’t necessarily need the lard — which is fine. The lady that made them, she’s a retired school teacher. She told me that her father, a man I knew a bit, was so old-fashioned the type that would not allow anything in his home that involved shortcuts. In this case that meant no canned foods. He made an exception for Margaret Holmes.

That’s an endorsement.

Things to read … because there’s probably something worth endorsing in here somewhere.

First, the journalism stuff:

How digital retailing could roil local media

Solving the Journalism Riddle — Somehow

Radio Disney Moving Off Air to Digital

If Disney is making that move …

Closer to home, 108 immigrant children relocated to Alabama in last 3 weeks:

Included among the children are those from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who have crossed into the U.S. as part of a massive wave of immigration that has set off a humanitarian crisis and political firestorm.

The data does not include information on where the children were placed or whether they are residing with family members or foster care. The children will remain with the sponsors until a judge orders they be deported; until they turn 18 and are transferred back to DHS; or they are given permission to stay by immigrantion courts.

Finally, Ferguson:

family / friends / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off on Not the normal Monday
4
Aug 14

Not the normal Monday

An update to yesterday’s garage door mystery, from the prankee, himself. To set this up, he got into his car and backed out of the garage, but the garage door was closed. His wife saw him outside later kicking and beating on the door. Probably she saw him trying to put it back on the rails. That happened last week. And on Sunday:

I went for a run today for the first time in a while, it seems. I did four miles on the old road, down the hill, up the other side, around the curve and down and back up and down and turning around and repeating the whole thing. It looks like this:

road

The rain was from Saturday. Today it was positively summer, almost August in Alabama, even.

I met the local postal carrier. She’d written a lovely little note on my grandmother’s online obituary. That’s the way it is here, or that’s the way my grandmother lived, that so many people that she did business with have stopped to visit or attended the visitation or have written things. We had a nice chat right through here:

road

The postal carrier was emotional about it all too, so there I stood, sweating in mid-run, trying to keep my composure and thanking her for writing and telling her how perfect the timing of it had been. My grandmother made gifts for her, mittens for the winter and so on. She, meanwhile, had brought treats for the dog every day. I told her the truth: every time I visited, my grandmother mentioned the mail lady. She thought a lot of her, and the kindness was mutual.

It is like that a lot here.

I believe the preacher said something about that during the memorial service, to know her for even 10 minutes meant you would always know her, and always remember her.

I have had the good fortune of having several heart-to-hearts today. I visited the grocery store. My grandfather asked me if the garage door was opened or closed behind me. I looked, for a long time, through the rearview mirror. There’s no garage there, but it was a fine joke. (He’s such a strong guy, by the way, and though none of this is easy, he’s showing all of the great qualities that make him such an admirable man.)

I saw several members of the family and friends. I wrote thank you cards. I found that I wanted to write them, which is to say I wanted to have them written, but I didn’t want to go through the process of finding the things to say. I’ve added new numbers to my phone. I still have a few calls to return. Some of those will land on Tuesday.

Until then, keep an eye on those sneaky doors.

family / photo / weekend — 1 Comment
3
Aug 14

And, now, for a funny story

My great-aunt and great-uncle are a pair of Southern archetypes. She is a the sweet kind of lady who raised two daughters, worked in an auction house and at the courthouse and took care of a neat little house with an inside dog and a pool out back. She has a syrupy accent that is difficult to reproduce. He is a gentleman farmer. He’d sailed into Pearl Harbor not too long after the nation figured out what Pearl Harbor was. He used to let us “ice skate” on his frozen pond, but you’d always get a second opinion from someone else. “Is that pond really frozen through?” He’s a rascal, the good kind, and is forced to be a good sport because of all the ribbing he does of others. To know them is to love them.

Recently, my great-uncle walked out to his garage, went inside, sat in his car, cranked it, put it in reverse and backed out.

Without opening the garage door.

My aunt says she glanced out the window to see him kicking the garage door, bang, bang, bang, BANG. He could have been trying to undo the damage or just kicking the things that need to be kicked after you crash into your garage. She thought he was having a fit.

So the full story goes on and it is bigger than life and cleaner than the countryside they live in and it is perfectly funny.

Today, after church, we drove over to visit them for a few minutes. No one was home. That little dog was barking inside, but all of the cars were gone. I made the joke about how, as I turned around in their driveway, I could back into the garage again or, if I went the other way, back into the garage that is attached to the house.

Instead, we remembered there was a roll of duct tape in the trunk. And, what do you know, there is duct tape all over the garage, too.

garage

I said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had some giant bandaids … ”

There was no need. As we looked closer, someone had taken a handful of adhesive bandages, probably from the kind of first aid kit that you stow in the trunk of your car, and attached them to the artwork.

But, really, to set off the effort, there should be a message on the tape. And, sure enough, as we looked closer we saw a little note. It looked like it had been painted on with a tiny little brush.

As we left we passed my great-aunt who was returning home from church herself. We only missed her by about 90 seconds or so. We got home to a voicemail about what someone had done to his garage, how it gotten that way while he was at church and they were just sure my mother might have done it.

Only she had not.

Well. It could have been anyone. His son-in-law denied it. He’s a very nice guy, but he just looks like the type. Any of his family could have done it. They’d like nothing more than to get one over on one of their own. Really, it could have been anyone that had heard the story from my great-aunt, and the whole thing was so humorous, how could you blame her for telling everyone about his driving habits?

He’s a good sport and takes it in stride. Their daughter sent us this picture:

garage

We surely needed the laugh. I told you my grandmother delighted in practical jokes. She’d approve of this one, too, we think.

But she might have used more duct tape.

family / music — Comments Off on Bonnie and Clem
2
Aug 14

Bonnie and Clem

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

Ephesians 4:2

And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

Colossians 3:14

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