Flowers, and more flowers

Tomorrow I will be traveling with a group from Enterprise to the Atlanta Flower show at the World Congress Center. I have been to flower shows in other large cities, including the big one in Charlotte, NC. I am always amazed at how they can fill large buildings with so many beautiful flower designs and exhibits. I can hardly wait to go.

You see, I am a flower junkie. Even fake flowers are pretty to me. This started at a very early age. My grandmother had beautiful cabbage roses and they smelled so good. And the sweet smelling sweet shrub that she would allow us to pick and tie one of the little maroon colored blooms in the corner of a handkerchief that we could put in our pocket and take out occasionally to rub across our nose and smell the sweet smelling sweet shrub.

One of my favorite times of the year when I was young was to go to the woods to search for wild violets in the early spring. There were many little white violets near the creeks, but our goal was to find large, taller purple violets. We would pick a handful to bring home to our mother who put them in a tea cup filled with water.

When we retired in 1996 and moved to the farm where I grew up, I started looking for violets. In 2002, we cleared some land near a stream where I remembered seeing large purple violets, and the next spring I came upon this big bed of those beautiful little flowers. Immediately I took photos to send to my sisters to let them know what I had discovered.

Pizza Pie

Do you remember the first time you ate pizza? You might if you are over 60. Most people think pizza has always been around. Not so! I remember in the early 1950's hearing Dean Martin singing: "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore". That song set America singing and eating pizzas. I had never heard of "pizza pie" and I thought he was saying "piece of pie" and I didn't know what "amore" meant. I liked the song and the lively tune. Then one day I discovered what he was saying and I laughed.

I remember the first time I ever had pizza. Some friends invited us to have dinner at an Italian restaurant in Wurzburg, Germany one evening in 1954. They suggested we try the pizza pie and I wasn't sure I would like it. I had planned on ordering Italian spaghetti. One bite of the delicious cheese and tomato mixture on hard bread was all I needed to get hooked on pizza.

We came back to the US in the summer of 1955 and soon we started seeing pizza on menus of restaurants in Kansas where we lived for awhile. I think maybe soldiers stationed in Europe, especially in areas near Italy, loved pizza and brought the idea back to the US. When our boys were small, we made pizza from Chef Boyardee kits. We would mix the crust and knead it out on the round pizza pan and add the sauce from the box. I always added extra cheese and sometimes cooked hamburger meat or sausage. When they were older, growing up in Paris, TX, there were pizza restaurants and I stopped making the box kind.

Now we are living in a small town without a pizza restaurant and I have resorted to buying frozen pizzas, and again adding extra ingredients. Our favorite is Tombstone pizza.

And everytime I start to take a bite, I can hear Dean Martin singing that song "When the moon hits your eye, etc." and I chuckle.

Aunt Bob

My mother had 4 sisters and 2 brothers and a half-brother. She was one of the oldest. Her older sister was named Mary Barbara Smith, and we called her "Aunt Bob". Here is a photo of the older children. Standing next to my mother Ruth, in the back row is Aunt Bob (on the right). The boy in the middle is William Joseph (Joe Bill, who died May 2007 at age 90), on his right is Ida who just turned 89 and the baby is Nellie Faye who died in 1985. Younger children were Amos (Pete) who lives in Elba and the youngest was a girl, Martha Ann (Polly) who died in 1992.


Now back to Aunt Bob (Barbara). She is probably the one we all remember best because we saw her more often.


At an early age, she started staying with our Papa Smith's sister, Daisey Winston who was an invalid following a stroke.


My earliest memories was of Aunt Bob was when we would visit her at Aunt Daisey's house and observe how she cared for Aunt Daisey.


I couldn't understand anything Aunt Daisey said, but Aunt Bob knew exactly what she wanted. They lived in a big house with a porch across the front where Dorsey Trailers now has a paved parking lot. Aunt Bob and Aunt Daisey spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch every morning and afternoon. There was a vine creeping up to the roof that provided shade from the sun. I remember that it was called a coral vine and had pretty pink blooms. I have a vine just like it and it brings back memories. Aunt Bob lived with Aunt Daisey for many years, until Aunt Daisey died in the 1950's.


By this time Aunt Bob was in her early 40's. She moved into a house nearby that Aunt Daisey's sons gave her, and her parents (my grandparents) lived there with her. She decided to become a nurse and entered nursing school in Dothan to be come a practical nurse. She graduated from nursing school and went to work in a Dr's office in Elba.


Then she decided to get married to someone she had known all her life, Roy McDowell. He was in WWII in the Pacific and when the war was over he came home and started working for the Ala Highway Department. We all thought it was neat that Aunt Bob had a boy friend. Neither had ever been married. So in their early 50's they decided to get married and the wedding was held at Aunt Daisey's son Roger's new brick home. In the meantime, her father had died from a heart attack and her mother was living with her. After Aunt Bob got married, her mother (my Mama Smith) went to live in the new Elba nursing home and she loved it there. She had friends around all the time. She lived to be 91.


Back to Aunt Bob. Uncle Roy died in 1975 with leukemia, a few years after their marriage. Aunt Bob had become friends with his sister MaryMcDowell Newton and the two of them became very close friends and where you saw one, you saw the other.

Aunt Bob loved to do handwork. She could crochet and knit and made all of her nieces sweaters and doll clothes. She made dresses for me and my sisters. I'll never forget the dresses she made for me to take to college. She helped me make my formal for the prom one year and for that I was so happy. We lived in the country and rode the bus to school. Sometimes I would walk to Aunt Bob's house after school and spend the night, especially when there was something taking place in town that I wanted to attend. My friends would come by and pick me up.


After we all grew up and moved away from Elba, we would always go to see Aunt Bob when we came back home to visit.


Aunt Bob checked herself into the Elba nursing home one hot day in August in the early 1990's when her air conditioner stopped working. She just packed her suitcase, called a taxi and never came back. She called to tell me her new address and new phone number.  She asked if I would come to Elba (from Albany, GA) and clean out her refrigerator!  Of course I did, and cleaned her house.  I thought she would be coming back soon, but she never did.  The house was flooded in March 1998.  


Several years later, Aunt Bob began to have heart problems and in October 1998, her heart just stopped beating one Sat. afternoon. I was with her at the hospital and left to go to a Grimes family cousins' dinner, to see everybody and told her I'd be back later. She died while I was gone, with my sister-in-law Carol in the room with her. She just closed her eyes and went to sleep, without a sound.


Aunt Bob was buried beside her husband in Evergreen Cemetery in Elba.  

Hog Killing Weather

When I got up this morning, I looked outside and the ground was white with frost and the temperature was in the low 20's. I murmured to myself, "it's hog killing weather". How many times I've heard my granddaddy say that on cold winter mornings. I'm so thankful we don't have to kill our own hogs to get our meat for the winter!


I remember those hog killings as if they were yesterday even though they were 60+ years ago. Hog killings at our place usually took place around Thanksgiving or soon after. I don't know how they predicted weather to know when there would be a cold, dry day for this event. Neighbors would start gathering to help with this all-day event very early in the morning. One spring one of our sows had baby pigs and there was a cold snap and one little pig almost froze; in fact his tail did freeze, and fell off! Daddy brought the piglet home and we put him in a pen at the edge of the yard and fed him, and of course petted him and he became a playmate. That is until he (Charlie) grew up and started uprooting mama Wilson's flower beds. We had to leave him in the pen after that.


During the summer he grew up and became very large. In the fall I heard talk that he might be selected for the hog killing and I was so sad.
Found this photo on Google On the appointed day, I stayed home from school (pretending to be sick) to see if they were going to kill Charlie. And they did! Shot him right between the eyes, and proceeded with the hog killing ritual. I don't think I ate any pork all winter that year. Hog killing was necessary to have food during the winter. You can go to these websites and read all about how it took place.
http://www.geocities.com/thurlane/hogkilling.html http://www.rootsweb.com/~tnweakle/Hog_Killing.htm


We had a smoke house which was a small wooden building without a floor. There was a fire pit in the center of the building and hickory wood was used to keep the fire going at all times when there was meat hanging from poles suspended from the ceiling. The meat was "smoked" to cure it. My favorite part of the hog was thick bacon, fried crisp and sausage links. Mama Wilson would make whipped cream for us to eat with our sausage and I remember how good that was. I don't think I would like that combination now. I didn't like scrambled eggs and brains or hogshead, or some of the organ meats.


What I did like were the crisp crackling's left in the big black washpot when the fat was melted into lard for cooking. Mother would make cracklin' cornbread. Some of the fat left over was used to make lye soap. They seemed to always find a use for everything. They even cooked the pig's tail and feet.

My First Permanent

When I was in the 5th grade I begged my mother to let me get a permanent wave and cut my red pigtails off. I wanted short curly hair for a change. I didn't like having my hair combed and braided every morning before going to school. I think she relented and let me get a permanent so she would be relieved of having to comb and braid my hair.


I found this photo on Google
and it looks just like the
machine in the beauty shop where I got my first permanent.
The instrument of torture stood tall in the corner of the shop. There were wires or electric cables hanging from the top of the pole and metal clamps on the end of each of the long cords. After having my hair shampooed, the beauty operator put an awful smelling liquid on each strand of my hair and wrapped it in foil strips, rolling it up and putting the clamp over the roll. I just knew I would be electrocuted when she turned on the switch. I still remember holding on to the arms of the chair when I heard a sizzling noise which was the steam evaporating when the heat was applied to my hair. The odor of the solution almost made me faint. But I just knew I was going to be beautiful when it was all over. I watched the ladies underneath the tall hooded dryers as they smoked and read True Romance magazines. I was out of my "environment" and felt so grown up. I was alone during this experience. My Aunt Barbara took me to the beauty shop and told the beautician that she would return for me later. I was very apprehensive that something would happen to me but I tried to be brave. When the timer went off, she began to remove the clamps, unroll the foil papers and led me back to the shampoo bowl to wash the foul smelling lotion from my hair. I was afraid she was also washing away the curls I wanted so badly.


But not so! I looked in the mirror and I could not believe what I saw. To my horror all I saw were dark red curls that looked like snakes crawling all over my head. I almost cried when she used a comb to pull through the tangles. She then rolled my hair into little spit curls and held them in place with a metal bobby pins, which burned my head when I had to sit under one of the funny looking dryers and left to toast. I remember how my ears and eyes burned, and was concerned about the odor and wondered if it would go away any time soon.


When the dryer buzzed, she came and led me to a table with a mirror. She removed the bobby pins and started to comb my hair. My head felt as big as a basketball! I had never seen so many curls on one head. I had wanted curls but not this many. She looked me over and smiled at her
"creation". I tried to smile but all I could think of was would anybody recognize me!


I remember my daddy coming to town to pick me up at my aunt's house, and he tried so hard not to laugh. He had begged me not to get my pretty red curly hair cut and permed. We went home and the next day when I got up I tried to comb my hair and it was so tangled and matted I had to get mother to help. We worked and worked to get it looking decent so I could go to church, but to no avail. She let me miss church that day and we worked some more with my hair, trying to straighten it a little. The machine literally burned my soft curly hair and it looked like dried corn silks, and was so frizzy. It was weeks before my hair was long enough to get all the damaged hair cut. I never asked for another permanent. I have only had 3 or 4 more perms in my lifetime, all making my hair frizzy. Mostly I wear my hair cut short and naturally curly. I only go to the beauty shop to get haircuts these days. No more perms for me.

Joining the Wellness Center

All of this workout equipment was new to us. I bet we are going to be sore tomorrow. We tried out a lot of things and the cross training (like cross country skiing but sitting down instead of standing) was the one that stretched our legs and worked out our arms.

Headlines in newspaper: Fitness Counts More than Fatness for Living Longer. I read this and decided that I will probably never be the thin person I would like to be but I can become more fit. Actually at my age, if I lost a lot of weight, I would have so many wrinkles. I'm not at the obese level - yet.

So last week Jim and I joined a 10-week program called Scale Back Alabama, http://www.scalebackalabama.com/ (it's all free). This is the first week. We attend classes every Monday at noon at Opp Mizelle Hospital. The classes are taught by the hospital dietician. We participated last year and I lost 10 pounds and have kept it off. Now I want to lose 10 more.

We brought earphones from our portable CD players and used them to plug into the TV monitors mounted on some of the machines.

But most important, we signed up for 3 months of fitness training and exercise at the hospital's wellness center and plan to work out 3 days a week for an hour. Today was our first day. We went early to be measured, and all the other things they do when you start out (body fat measurement, etc). Then we checked out the machines we would be using

. Neat place! The wellness center is in temporary quarters right now while the new center is being built, which will have a big heated swimming pool across one end of the new building.

When we work out on Friday, I will take some pictures of us on the machines and post here so you can see the action! We were happy that we weren't the only seniors working out - they all were our age or older, working out in the middle of the day. I guess younger people were all at work!

Trees, trees and more trees

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Guess you know by now that I love trees. When we moved into our present home there was nothing but bermuda grass in the yard - not one tree! So in 2004 we started planting trees.


First we planted 4 Leyland cypress trees. One was not a good specimen and we bought it for only $3. We planted this tree at the back corner of the house, thinking someday it might provide a shade from the hot afternoon sun. Pictured here is the small tree and another photo as it looks today.

When we moved from the farm, I brought a potted plant and a small oak was coming up in it. I stuck it in the flower bed and didn't expect it to live. Four years later look at the size of it now!

In the summer of 2004, I bought 3 Natchez Crepe Myrtles and a friend gave me one. I planted them in the hard clay soil and it didn't rain all summer. They have grown so fast and I prune them at least once during the summer.

Our Texas Granddaughters

Elizabeth (Lizzie) and Allison (Ally) Gilmer are our oldest granddaughters. They live in Austin, TX. Lizzie goes to Univ. of TX and Ally attends North Texas Univ. in Denton, TX.


 There's 4 years difference in their ages. This year Lizzie will be 24 and in March, Allie will be 20.


Liz always loved this pink shirt with the face of a cat with big eyes. She once told me that she thought she was "part cat".

Christmas in Clemmons, NC

Liz and Ally  at our farm in AL

Sharing

Texas bluebonnets

Little Women

One of my favorite books when I was growing up was Little Women. Watching our 5 granddaughters grow up reminds me of the antics of the sisters in Little Women. We have 2 married sons. Bill has 3 girls and Ronnie has 2. Today I am posting pictures of Bill's 3 girls to show much they have grown in 11 years. The first photo of Katie, Nerissa, Bill and Caroline was made only one month after the death of the girls' mother, Barbara in November 1996. My sister Carolyn, who was living in Indianapolis, made the Christmas vests for them and spent a week with them in SC to help out. Then Bill and the girls came to Alabama to spend Christmas with us on the farm.

Easter

The next photo was taken at Easter a few years later when Nerissa was about 12, Katie 10, and Caroline 6.
Nerissa was wearing braces and wore her hair pulled back in a pony tail, and this was before she started wearing contacts.


Then last December I received this latest photo of Bill and the girls. They are now 18, 16, and 12. Nerissa is a freshman at Clemson Univ in SC, Katie is a Jr in high school and Caroline is in the 6th grade.

Bill took the girls to England for Christmas holidays to visit their mother's relatives. They had not been since 2000 so I'm sure the relatives were very surprised at how much they had grown in 8 years. Nerissa went alone one summer about 2 years ago.


As I get older (in my 70's now), time flies! And Christmas seems to come more often. I hardly get things put away when it's time to get them back out again. And I know that the girls will be grown before I know it.


Tomorrow I will post photos of our other two granddaughters, Elizabeth (Liz) and Allison (Ally) who live in Texas. They are both in college and it just seems like yesterday they were babies, and then later coming to spend time with us in the summers. We don't get to spend as much time with them as we would like, but when we do it is "quality time" and we keep in touch with email and cell phones. Nobody writes letters anymore. I have saved many of their drawings, letters, and cards from past years.

Pe-cans or Pe-cons?

In this part of the country we say pe-cons. In GA they call them pe-cans. I prefer pe-cons.


Today we took a 5-gallon can of pecans to the farmers coop bldg. to have them cracked with a mechanical pecan cracker. What a great invention!! It's a far improvement from when we used to use a brick or hammer to crack them. Not only that, but they almost come out as two halves instead of broken pieces. Our neighbor let me pick up some pecans in their yard since we don't have a pecan tree of our own.

My parents and grandparents always had pecan trees in their yard and when we were young, it was a dreaded chore to have to pick up pecans every winter. And picking them up wasn't nearly as bad as having to pick them out. My mouth would break out from eating too many pecans.


We would keep some to eat and then bag the other pecans and take them to town and sell them and use the money to buy Christmas presents.


I guess that next to peanuts, pecans are my favorite nut. I love using them when baking cookies or making candies. But most of all, I like to sprinkle salt and spices on them and roast them in the oven. My mother made divinity candy and put pecans in it as well as chocolate fudge. And those delicious pecan pies were a favorite at holiday time.


During WWII my mother would make a cloth bag like a pillow case and fill it with pecans to send to her sister in Washington, DC. She would sew across the open edge of the bag and then write Aunt Faye's name and address on the bag. Then we would take these to the post office and mail them to my aunt who was so excited to get Alabama pecans. Then my mother did the same thing for me when I lived away from Alabama. Now I am carrying on that tradition and I package pecans and peanuts to give to family members at Christmas. Anybody can go to the grocery store and buy packaged pecans and peanuts but they are very expensive and sometimes are not fresh. They just aren't the same as those we gather, crack and shell ourselves.
There's a big problem with pecan trees if you use them for shade trees. They have those fuzzy green blooms in the spring that look like worms that fall on the ground and are a mess. Then about the time the pecans start to fall on the ground, a ton of leaves start falling also. You have to keep the leaves swept up so you can see the nuts on the ground. It's a good thing that I like pecans or I'd never go to all that trouble!

Favorite Recipes of Mine

Someday - I will put my time-worn, many handwritten recipes in a cookbook. I have many of them in my computer already and when I need one, I go to my computer, click on "Recipes" and look down the alphabetized list until I find the one I want. But not all of my favorites have been typed and saved in my computer. But I will also keep those old, hand written recipes in a special place. Some are scribbled on the back of envelopes, note paper, and whatever was available to write on. Today I was looking for a recipe from a friend from Albany, GA. It was for " Chicken Spectular" and a great casserole. I had surgery on my knee while living in Albany and Mrs. Emily Buce cooked this great casserole and brought it to us for dinner one night.

Another favorite recipe I plan to make this week is called Sausage Bread. My Aunt Mattie Lena gave me this recipe several years ago and it became a favorite right away. She was visiting us in NC and made this delicious recipe for Jim when I was away on a trip. He asked her to teach me how to make it. She was the best cook around. I think Jim probably gained 10 lbs. the week she came to stay with him and James.

I came across another recipe today that was from a friend in Texas (who died at a young age). Today her husband was buried in Paris, Texas. What memories that recipe brought back as I looked at her handwriting.
Yes, I will type my recipes and print them out but I will not discard all the handwritten copies, so that I can take them out of the box and hold them and remember where they came from.

A few years ago I encouraged the ladies at New Ebenezer Baptist Church near Elba, AL to write down recipes and I typed them and we made a cookbook for family members. This is my favorite cookbook and I use it often.
They didn't want to sell these as a fund raising project; they just wanted to make the cookbook to leave behind. Some of those ladies are no longer with us but we have their recipes to remember them by. I contributed my Mama Wilson's lane cake, my aunt's sausage bread, and many others - including some of my own. I am not a true southern cook - I have never mastered the art of making biscuits and making divinity candy. Nor do I fry foods very often or make cakes. I'm a salad maker and deli meat person. I love to use my food processor to chop, shred, slice, etc. Speeds up preparation time for me. The kitchen is not my favorite place to be. I'm an "ourdoors" person.

My 4-H Club experiences (1944-1949)

Yesterday I was watching an old movie about kids going to a camp and it brought back so many memories of 4-H camp the summer after I was in the 7th grade. More about my camping experience below. I remember all the fun and learning opportunities of 4-H when we attended monthly meetings at school. We elected officers who had to preside at the meetings. At each meeting there were planned programs and led by students. I remember how we learned to make cottage cheese and I thought it was awful. I had never eaten cottage cheese and wanted no part of that! Another time 2 friends and I shaved left over bars of soap over a period of time and put the shavings in a jar. Then when it was our time to do a demonstration on how to clean a rug, we poured hot water in the soap jar, and made suds; then cleaned one of Miss Jean's beautiful wool rugs. We kept record books of things we did at home and I could never remember to write things down.

In the spring we always went to the county 4-H rally. One year all the clubs from schools in the county gathered at Elba football field for our rally. It was so exciting. There were a lot of relays, ball games, etc. Then we ate our lunch (I think we all brought our own lunch) and then lined up to march downtown to the Elba theater to see the new movie, "Song of the South". I don't think I ever saw a movie that I enjoyed as much as that one. It was in color and the music was beautiful. I loved the Uncle Remus (see photo) tales and mother gave me an Uncle Remus book for Christmas the next year. There were other rallies but this one I remember the best. I remember skipping all the way back to the school bus after the movie.  Check out this great movie, over 60 years old, at http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/index.html

The summer after I finished 7th grade, a group of my friends from Curtis school and I decided to go to 4-H camp at Lake Tholocco (now a part of Ft Rucker) for 3 days in July. We were given a list of things to bring to camp and I laugh everything I think about this. We slept in an old empty house with some Army cots set up throughout the house. Our meals were cooked outdoors under the big trees and we ate outside. The boys stayed in tents outside. We all lived on farms so we were given a list of food to bring with us: Example - 6 ears of corn, 6 eggs, flour, cornmeal, etc. etc. And a sack of peas or butterbeans. The campers furnished all the food for damp. Don't know about the meat but probably some of the boys furnished that by killing chickens, etc. The highlight of camp was evening vespers after an afternoon swimming in a large pool, and cooling off from the heat, then eating dinner and then going to the large room by the pool and singing songs as we watch the sun set. This was my first camping trip and I really didn't want to go again; too hot, too many insects, not enough sleep, etc.


When I was in the 8th grade, we had lessons on sewing and were encouraged to make a garment. My grandmother Wilson had been teaching me to sew and she said she would help me with this project. I'm the world's greatest procrastinator and put off making my dress until almost time to turn in my project. My Mama Wilson helped me cut out my dress but I didn't have enough fabric in the chicken feed sack fabric so she showed me how to lengthen the skirt with solid fabric inserts. I sewed the dress on a treadle machine (no electric machines back then). Making buttonholes by hand was the hardest part, but I did it. We washed the dress and it rained the day before the contest so I had to dry the dress in front of the fireplace fire. I waited and waited for it to dry so I could starch it and iron it to wear the next day. I wish I had a picture of that dress. I took it on a hanger to school the next day and we attended the competition at the court house in Elba. My face fell when the lst place winner, an older 4-H member from another school walked out in her 2 piece suit, made of beautiful fabric and she had on high heels and makeup. I was not intimidated at all. I was so proud of my dress. Later I learned from the girl's friends that her mother actually made the dress and she went to Montgomery to buy the fabric and it was very expensive. So in my heart I was the winner. I had learned to sew!


The next summer I was selected to be a delegate at the state 4-H camp at Auburn University,  and after that trip I knew I wanted to go to college, and I wanted to go to Auburn. It was a whole new world for me to be on a college campus.


Footnote: I did not go to Auburn but went to Troy State instead, for 1 year, and then got married. Several years later I graduated from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M at Commerce) and got my degree in Home Economics in 1976 when I was 42 years old.

Living in the Frozen North

The past few days have been very, very cold - by Alabama standards that is. You appreciate the mild winters here if you've ever lived in really cold climates. You will have a few cold days here and then it will warm up again. I think the coldest place we ever lived was in Wayzata, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis on Lake Minnetonka. We moved there in May 1977 and bought a house on a hill overlooking marshes and small lakes, and near Lake Minnetonka and Gray's Bay. The first snow fell in October and I don't think we saw the ground again until the next April, when tulips popped up in the snow. What a sight!


I had not experienced ice fishing and all the equipment needed until one Sunday when we were on our way to church, crossing Gray's Bay. It was a bright sunny day and as we looked across the frozen lake, we saw cars and trucks dragging little portable buildings (which looked like outhouses) out onto the lake. As soon as we arrived at church, I asked about these strange buildings and was told that they keep them on the frozen lake from Dec. to about Feb. They use an auger to drill a hole in the ice inside the little fishing houses and fish all winter.

Fish houses on Lake Minnetonka

Fish houses are like giant playhouses. People decorate them with rugs on the floor. While many houses look like shacks, some fish houses are almost like real houses, complete with armchairs, television, VCR, microwave oven, kitchen stove, and even a bathroom. Those made with wooden boards or metal and look like cabins. Those made with canvas and aluminum poles look like tents. To heat either kind of house, anglers use small stoves. Fish houses have skis or special plates on the bottom so they can be slid across ice. The owner ties a heavy rope to the house and tows it with a truck or all-terrain vehicle. The houses usually stay in the same spot all winter.

You might recallthe movie "Grumpy Old Men", with Walter Matthau sitting on an easy chair in his fishing hut, a six-pack chilling in the ice hole. Our neighbor, the big Swede named John Lindgren, invited us to his ice house. I was afraid to ride in his big pick-up across the ice to his house so I never went inside his fish house.

The bank in the village of Wayzata where we lived had a place where you could guess what day the ice would start "breaking" on the lake and this was called "ice out". The person closest to the date and time of day won the jackpot. Kinda like when we guess when the temperature will reach 100 degrees.

We never went ice fishing the two winters we lived there but did learn to cross country ski and that was a lot of fun. The parks and golf courses became ski trails in the winter. You just bundled up and went outside in the winter and had fun! After all, it never rained for several months and the snow was dry and packed. April and May it started melting and that was a mess!

My voting record

What happened on this day in 1959 (48 years ago) during Eisenhower's administration?
 (see end of article for answer)    I voted for the first time in 1956, during Eisenhower's 2nd term. You had to be 21 to vote then and I was almost 22. We were living in Kansas and toured his birthplace home in Dennison, TX in the summer of 1956. I remember Mamie's bangs (or "fringe" as they call bangs in England).

The next time we voted we were living in our first home on Country Lane in Atlanta, GA (near Decatur). It was cold and snowing election day 1960. We waited in line outside the school building and I remember how cold my feet were. We laughed when we got home and discovered that we had canceled each others vote, voting for different candidates! I was happy that my candidate won.


In subsequent years we voted in elections for LB Johnson, Richard Nixon in 2 elections, (succeeded by Gerald Ford). Then we voted for Jimmy Carter twice but he lost the second time to Ronald Reagan. We voted for Reagan the next election, followed by George Bush. Then we voted for Bill Clinton 2 times and twice for George W. Bush.

James votes

So we have voted in 13 presidential elections. Today Jim and I reminisced about each of these and where we were living, etc. We take voting very serious and have taught our children to do the same. Our son James listens to the candidates and decides who he wants to vote for and he gets up early on voting day to go cast his vote (with assistance from me or his dad). And when his candidate wins he is so excited. He has really been following the candidates the past few weeks and plans to watch the caucus reports from Iowa tonight. He keeps telling us that he is voting for Hillary! We haven't made up our minds yet.
      Answer to question at top of page: Alaska was admitted as a state on Jan. 3, 1956 by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower

Happy New Year to all in 2008

New Year Promises (Resolutions) 2008 -This year I am going to make “promises for the new year ” instead of resolutions. I got this idea from our church monthly bulletin.


I don’t like to make lists but prefer to do things spontaneously or when the mood strikes. As a result I always have unfinished projects which drives Jim crazy. So I think that if I make some promises I will do better. And I don’t have to “cross them off” when finished.


There were 8 promises in our church bulletin to help us get started. I liked all of them but am including only 5 here:
1) Promise to make all my friends feel that there is something special about them. This will be easy for me since my friends are already special . I look for their good qualities and overlook things about them I don’t like. I have lots of friends, all ages and various backgrounds.


2) Promise to wear a cheerful expression at all times and give every person I meet a smile. I have practiced this for a long time and it’s fun to smile at “grumpy” people and let them wonder why you are so happy! Soon they will be smiling back at you.


3) Promise to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own. To me this is a lot like ‘it is more blessed to give than receive’; let them have the credit.


4) Promise to look at the sunny side of everything, and make my optimism come true   Jim calls me the “eternal optimist”. I always look on the bright side.


5) And this is a really big one for me to accomplish -     Promise to be too large for worry, to noble for anger, too strong to fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble in my life. I try not to worry too much. Jim has dubbed me “Scarlet” because he says my motto is “I’ll think about that tomorrow!” I can handle anger ok and am not fearful, just careful. But I do have a problem with letting trouble cloud my thoughts. Especially when it’s something I can’t do anything about, i.e., the health problems of our son James.


Sure there are things I want to accomplish in 2008, and will work toward accomplishing them. But if I don’t succeed, I’ll try again another year. I never give up. I just keep trying, and trying, and trying.


My goals for the New Year also include taking care of myself through better nutrition, better physical fitness, and getting plenty of rest.


Last year at the annual Chamber of Commerce banquet, I was given the “Spirit of Elba:” award. I accepted that honor with pleasure as it exemplifies my nature – to make our little town a better place for everybody to live.