We were here

My daughter’s high school friends had a small reunion a few weeks ago in San Francisco. She has learned that many of her classmates live in the Bay Area and thought it would be fun for them to reconnect in their new home town. One of the girls has a large home on the south end of town, close to a small park, and she offered it for the gathering.

I was fortunate to get to go along.  Mainly my purpose was to navigate and to help with the two children. It was a joyful afternoon event, spent with good friends, reminiscing about old times mixed with stories of current lives. I sat on the periphery, listening, just as I had done when Jennifer would spend time with these wonderful girls in high school.

I wandered out on the balcony, this was the view:

This was the view on the inside:

Twenty years ago, my daughter and her friends were high school freshmen. Now they are young career women with their small children. We were there, but now, we are here. Lives have changed.

Remembering my father on a hot day in June

Although Sunday was Father’s Day, daddy has been gone for 43 years so I have no one to send a card to, or to say “thank you for all you did,” but I have been thinking a lot about his life. Terry and I have been had many an opportunity, driving across Hwy 152 towards the bay area, to talk about farming and how hard it can be. All those fields, all that work, all the memories I have of how hard Daddy toiled in his fields.

This year there are more cotton fields to check as we drive by, and I do that, consistently, just as my dad would do when he was out on one of his occasional drives. Daddy wanted to know how other farmers were doing, and he compared his cotton crop to everyone else’s, and his was usually better. I’ve always said that Daddy knew each cotton plant in his fields. He spent that much time out there: watering, weeding, fertilizing, checking, always checking. He could get nearly three bales to an acre from his hard work.

One year, not long before my father died, an aerial pilot took a photo of our farm and tried to get Daddy to buy a large, colored print. Although I have the small black and white version, Daddy refused to buy a larger one because there were “skips” in the rows, where the seed had not sprouted with a healthy cotton plant. My dad saw it as failure. I understand that now. For you see, I too have his controlling, perfectionist tendencies. When teaching, I wanted all my students to be successes, and if any didn’t make it, then it was my failure.

Today, the first day of summer, will be hot. My dad would be out, on his tractor, most likely, cultivating his beloved rows of cotton on a day such as this. Even when ill with leukemia, my dad never stopped, never complained, but just kept going. After working all day in the field, he would come in for supper and afterwards pick peaches from the trees he had planted out back. My mother would spend the next day canning those while I languished in the hot house until the jars had cooled and the swamp cooler could be turned on. I remember complaining, bitterly at the time, that it was not fair that I had to be so hot. Now, on this hot day, I think of my dad, on a tractor, in the sun, making his way up and down those furrows, as I sit in my air conditioned home. Although I have a strong work ethic, I have never worked as hard as my parents did.

Clearing the House

Revere Ware Cake Carrier

Originally uploaded by dkzody

Due to our downsizing, I need to get rid of lots of STUFF. Stuff that has accumulated during the 29 years we have lived in this house, and also stuff that has been with me most of my life. This cake carrier falls in that last category.

My mother got this Revere Ware cake carrier with Green Stamps about 50 years ago. She used it to store cakes, pies, cookies, bread, whatever baked good was on hand. And, there was always a baked good on hand. My mother baked every day. Occasionally she would use it to carry a dish to a potluck supper at church. Most of the time, though, it sat on top of the refrigerator or on the cabinet on the back porch.

Somewhere along the way my mother quit baking and taking dishes to potluck suppers and she didn’t need the cake carrier. I took it and used it much as she had except I didn’t bake every day. Lots of potlucks, and lots of entertaining. The carrier came in handy. About 10 years ago, after I realized I didn’t do much of either any more due to my horrendous teaching schedule, I put the carrier in our storage unit. It has sat there all this time, waiting.

Today I delivered it to a Facebook friend who claimed it when I put it up on my wall like I have done many items which need to find new homes.

“It’s in very good condition,” she remarked as I handed it to her.

Driving away, and while running errands, I thought about that comment. Yes, it is in good condition. Everything my mother had, she took very good care of it. That habit was passed on to me. We didn’t have a lot when I was growing up so all of our possessions were cared for and made to last a long time, like 50 years for a cake carrier.

In giving away so many of my possessions, I have realized how very blessed I am. I grew up in a poor home with uneducated parents. We didn’t travel to exotic places but rather to visit friends and family. We didn’t eat in restaurants unless it was a cafeteria or a diner and we were caught in town during meal time. We didn’t have much in the way of clothes. My dad farmed all week so he had one outfit that was for town and church. My mother had only a few dresses. I had one pair of shoes for school and they had to last all year. We lived in a house that my dad built.

Now I have more STUFF than I know what to do with and a house that contains it. My husband and I have talked about living more simply with fewer things. Having grown up that way, I think I can do it.