Last September our oldest daughter Michelle took a week of vacation time to help us began rehabbing an old playhouse my father built for our family.
Playhouses in our family have a long tradition: my dad built one for us children back before I even remember anything, pictured below: white siding and red trim. To me the playhouse was always just there: on our farm, a special attraction not every family had. Friends and cousins loved it. Cousins came frequently to visit my grandparents who lived with us in a traditional “doughty” house (an addition on the side of the farmhouse).
My Grandpa and Grandma Miller (Uriah and Barbara) on a swing in front of our old playhouse.
Then my family moved from northern Indiana to northern Florida in 1969 and had a huge auction selling almost everything we owned. Including our beloved playhouse. It brought lots of excitement, a few tears, and a nice little sum when the auctioneer put it on the block that day.
Not to worry. When Dad and Mom began to have grandchildren, they made sure each family with children got a Grandpa-built playhouse (or tree house in the case of my brother’s family who had two sons).
Some Indiana cousins, Larry, Bob and Jay with their childhood playhouse (plus Michelle).
Then my parents came to Virginia for a week September of 1982 when Michelle was just 18 months old.
My father, Vernon Miller, building our playhouse with help from Michelle and Stuart. Right, Dad, Michelle and Mom with the finished house.
Fast forward 30 years to 2012. The beautiful (now old) playhouse was in serious need of repair. Michelle wrote about her memories of playing in the playhouse here. And I did an initial Another Way newspaper column about the restoration project as we launched it, here.
Eagerly we began by removing the roof, knowing that we’d have to keep the interior protected. The plan was to almost totally rebuild the trim, siding and roof, while retaining if possible, the interior paneling, cupboards and original flooring. The 4 x 4 pressure treated foundation was also very solid, even after 30 years.
But the idea of covering the whole thing up with tarps and tie downs after every work session soon loomed large. We also had no electricity out near the playhouse for power tools. Hauling all of the tools and equipment in and out of the shed or garage just wasn’t going to cut it. The nearby shed didn’t have electricity. What if we moved the playhouse into our two car garage, and place it atop a large dolly he would construct, my husband schemed. I weighed the options. That sounded like a lot of work. But I did not relish the idea of covering the playhouse up after every work session. He promised I could continue to keep my van in the garage. He felt we could wedge the playhouse into the space between the cars when we weren’t working on it. So we moved the work inside with the help of our neighbor and his trusty tractor with a frontloader.
Work continued through the winter as we had time. It would take almost a full year. All of our daughters got in on the act: painting, prying, giving feedback and encouragement, admiring. Friends helped Stuart figure out how to proceed at key points with the siding, the j channel around the trim, the roof.
Friend Edgar helps Stuart get the siding started. Mother Melodie (and sometimes daughters, if home) do a lot of trim painting. Stuart adds some improvements, such as roof ventilation, to Grandpa’s original design.
Me posing inside the house, inside the garage during one point in the long rehab process.
Something else wonderful happened while rehabbing the playhouse. Both of our married daughters got pregnant. Grandchildren!!!! If you follow the blog, you know our excitement. A baby bump began to be visible as finishing touches on the playhouse went forward.
Last week the same wonderful neighbor and his tractor and frontloader came back into action to move the playhouse back out of the garage and to the backyard. Michelle’s brother-in-law, Brett, (middle, below) also gave invaluable help for the move.
It. Was. A. Great. Day.
We were both elated and extremely nervous about the moving process, after everyone’s hard work. But it went well, no disasters.
Stuart, Brett and Harold check finishing work.
Our marriage has now survived the rehabilitation of one sadly neglected little playhouse. We are incredibly grateful. With a tip of the hat to Dad and the note he left for us all, that Stuart joyfully discovered one day as he was working on the house. (Again, you can read all about that discovery here.)
Thanks, two dads.
***
2015 Update. The Third Way archives of Another Way columns are no longer available at Third Way. Here is the column I called “Channeling Dad” which I wrote as we worked on the playhouse, and Michelle’s recollections of playing in the playhouse, “The House that Grandpa Built.”
Another Way for week of November 23, 2012
Channeling Dad
Thirty years ago this fall (September 1982), my dad and mom visited us from Indiana for a week to build a playhouse for our budding family.
Dad was great at building things kids love. In his time, he made an elevated “treehouse” (without the tree for my brother’s sons), toy barns, toy dollhouses, and for my sister’s kids and my kids, a real kid-sized playhouse complete with sliding windows, kitchen cupboards, and a tiny ceramic sink. These creations were not always masterful in workmanship; he tended to sometimes use scraps of things he had on hand, or could pick up cheap at northern Indiana’s RV outlets or the well-known Shipshewana Auction and flea market. Later in life, this hobby became his labor of love—not only for his own grandchildren but any kid whose parents were enchanted by his simple homemade sign: “Homemade dollhouses and barns, ¼ mile.”
This past September, exactly 30 years later, we began the long overdue process of “saving the playhouse” from mold and gradual deterioration. Our oldest daughter, Michelle, took a week’s vacation and came home to get it going. She was the only child we had when Dad and Mom built the playhouse, 17 months old. Michelle had a writing project she was also working on during the day as we began the restoration process, so during evenings we got as far as we could before she had to return to her home.
So the tedious restoration process continues; we were able to move it into our garage to work on it as weather cooled. My husband has been heard to mumble, “I think it would have been less time consuming to build it from scratch.” But most of the basic structure is in remarkably good shape. As we’ve torn apart, hammered and rebuilt, I had to think frequently, “The last person to touch this nail, or handle that board, was probably my dad.” Sentimental, yes. Dad’s been gone now over six years and we’ve all been recalling how in his later years, even getting a simple piece of trim measured just right and hammered onto a piece of wood became a laborious process in calculating, hammering, checking, finding it wasn’t right, tearing it apart, and trying again. That was very sad, and hard to watch.
My dear husband, who has learned most of what he knows about construction by trial and error, has spent many hours studying Dad’s construction of the playhouse and trying to figure out what was in Dad’s mind when he did something one way or another. “I’m just trying to get inside his head,” Stuart said, more than once.
Once Michelle left, Stuart and I continued to remove the vinyl siding. One night he called me out to the garage to see what he had found: a note scrawled by my dad that no one had seen for 30 years. It said: “Grampa Miller Built Playhouse for Michelle in September of 1982.” (Capitalization and spelling his.)
Tears almost came as I thought about him penciling his note in a hidden place: did he know or hope we would one day restore it? Did he ponder the future generations who would find it? Did he know it would settle an old argument, of who the playhouse belonged to among our kids? Not that it was ever an intense argument; they all loved it, but somehow Michelle, being a sentimental chip off her Grandpa’s block, was especially attached, as evidenced by her offer to come home for a week to help restore it to its former days of youthful glory.
We were all delighted by the find and I reminded our other two daughters that no one even knew if we could have more kids. So it wasn’t meant to slight them. No one knew the future. The playhouse was for whoever joined our family.
Our girls, their friends and cousins all spent many happy days and some nights (a few sleepovers with friends) in the little playhouse. More about that next week when my daughter writes a guest column about her memories of the playhouse. We hope the playhouse will serve many more children and happy times to come. Someday.
I have thought more about Dad than I have in years, wondering, as we always do, what our loved ones on the other side of the veil between mortal life and the life hereafter know or are aware of about loved ones on earth. But this we know: Dad, my husband, and others like them, who craft and give their love in these tangible ways, give us gifts that outlast a 30- or even 60-year-old playhouse; they give of themselves.
***
Another Way for week of November 30, 2012
The House That Grandpa Built, By Michelle Sinclair
It sat beneath a towering oak tree, the little white playhouse with jaunty red trim that was the centerpiece of our childhood kingdom. My two younger sisters and I never had video games, horseback riding lessons, or many of the popular toys that kids of the 1980’s dreamed about, but we spent so much time in our backyard we didn’t really miss them. That, and our playhouse was awesome.
On hot summer days, we slid the glass windows open and tied back the curtains to let a breeze circulate through the screens. We swept the linoleum floor with play brooms and “washed” my little metal tea set in imaginary water until someone (probably me) got the bright idea to put sand (from our nearby sandbox) in the ceramic sink. The window above the sink had no screen, which made it the perfect drive-thru window for our fast food operations. If the plastic food was a little sandy (like everything else in the playhouse), well, that was just extra salt.
Over the years, we added a play stove and two doll cribs, which made the interior rather crowded with three growing girls and whatever cat we could trap inside with us. Once, a litter of three kittens disappeared, and after nearly two days of worry, Dad happened to walk by the playhouse and see a little tortoiseshell paw poking from the narrow stove window. We had put the kittens in there while playing, and probably left for dinner, forgetting all about them. At least the kittens were none the worse for the wear. That spunky little owner of the tortoiseshell paw even became the matriarch of our family’s pets, but that day we learned a valuable lesson: kittens don’t belong in stoves.
Games of tag or keep away often ended with one of us darting into the playhouse, slamming the door shut and locking it while the chaser screamed in frustration outside. Then, big sister (moi) figured out you could shimmy the window glass up and reach inside to unlock the door, which lead to lots of screaming from inside the playhouse—and lectures from parents about only screaming when there’s an emergency.
Fall came, and with it, school, and the playhouse fell silent until the weekends, when friends packed it with even more imaginations and laughter. Oak leaves and acorns piled high around the footers. More dishes got washed in sand. Someone made “artwork” to tape to the bare paneled wall on one end, and we dented the top of the stove using it as a chair.
In the winter time, we broke icicles off the eaves, licking them like lollipops. We sledded for hours and then climbed inside the playhouse in an effort to warm up, but our breaths puffed dense and white indoors with no breeze to blow them away. The house might have looked like the real thing, but it had no warmth without children inside.
Friends came over in the spring, eager to play after so many months cooped up inside. We’d stand in the doorframe, hold onto the knob, and swing outside to shout ideas at each other without actually stepping onto the grass. Before long, I had to stoop to stand inside, but that didn’t keep me from playing. I just moved around on my knees.
We had mini-restoration projects over the years—fresh paint for the trim, a good scrub-down inside to get the years of sand out of the sink and countertops. When we were teenagers, my best friend Becky and I made all new curtains and spent the night on the playhouse floor with our sleeping bags stretched into the open cabinets. We strung up a florescent light powered by one of Dad’s trolling motor batteries, and ran our CD player on D-cells, singing along to music while Mom and Dad marveled that the old playhouse could still work its magic.
The playhouse doesn’t sit under an oak tree anymore—it has moved to my parents’ new backyard. The artwork and curtains are faded, the dishes a bit rusty and strewn across the cabinet floors. All that remains of the stove is an oxidized streak on the linoleum floor, but we hope to get most of that cleaned up, too. It’s time for the big renovation project, (see last’s week’s column about renovation: http://www.thirdway.com/aw), time to buff away the scars of thirty years of love and neglect so that a new generation can hang from the doorknob and shriek like little savages.
That’s because a playhouse isn’t just a building; it’s a safety spot in tag, a backdrop for catching fireflies, a jail, a cat pen, a restaurant and bank. It’s a house. It’s a marvelous framework for young imaginations that need only a little nudge to run circles around the most advanced video game on the market. The smartest toys are open-ended, and the best ones are given with love.
Our playhouse is both. Thanks, Grandpa.
Finding Harmony Recipe of the Week
We’ve had glorious weather this week in Virginia:
the night air brings a bit of a nip
the first tinges of red and gold tip the trees
my thoughts turn to warm fall soups.
If you have any butternut squash lying around or available at your farmer’s market, today’s recipe was brand new for me when I first made it two years ago. It was a stretch because I had never messed with a butternut squash, figuring it was as hard to peel as a pumpkin, a chore which I hated. But the Internet came to the rescue when I found a tutorial, giving step-by-step instructions on how to peel the butternut squash, which I’ve kind of duplicated below with my own photos and steps.
But first a story from my oldest daughter at her first job away from home clerking for our local Food Lion when she first encountered butternut squash.
Michelle retells the story in her own words:
An older woman came through the line with a new funny looking vegetable and I knew I had to type a code into the computer for it. So I picked it up and asked her what it was (so I could look up the code). She seemed a bit surprised that I didn’t recognize it, but said “Buttuh-nut Squosh” with the rounded vowels of a good British accent. I couldn’t make out what she said so asked “what?” and she very kindly (and amused I’m sure) repeated it. I’m usually pretty good with English accents, but I had never in my life heard of butternut squash, so the sound wasn’t immediately recognizable. I sort of sounded out the syllables into “American” and flipped through my code book until I could match it to Butternut Squash. And then of course I proceeded to see the word and the vegetable everywhere, as these things go.
The recipe for the soup comes from the kitchen of Rebecca Thatcher Murcia, a writer who supplied recipes for the radio program I used to help produce, Shaping Families. She describes its source like this: “A friend gets a recipe out of a book, makes some changes and sends it to you. You make more changes, and it becomes ‘your’ recipe. So it comes [as many of the best recipes do] from the hands of friends.”
First, here’s my own tutorial of peeling the squash (the blue band just means I donated blood that day, and when I was a few pounds heavier, I have to add):
First, cut the stem from the base, then proceed to peel each side by holding the stem upright and with a large knife, slice down to the cutting board.
Keep going.
Cut/peel the sides of the bowl too, and then scoop out the seeds.
Slice the neck of the squash into 1/2 to 3/4 inch rounds, then dice to cubes.
Cha ching! Nice cubes, to cook down into soup.
Butternut Squash Soup
Ingredients:
1 butternut squash, cut in chunks
1 large onion, cut into chunks
several cloves of garlic (to taste)
1/2 (or more) of a sweet pepper
4 cups water or broth
2-3 Tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon allspice
2 teaspoons curry powder
½ teaspoon basil
Sauté squash, onions, garlic and sweet pepper in olive oil about ten minutes or until the onions look pretty well cooked. Add water or broth, tomato paste and spices. Add salt and pepper to taste. Boil until veggies are soft. Puree. Return to low heat. Add milk or cream until soup is the consistency you like. May add more salt if needed. Parsley and cream make attractive and tasty toppings.
See the index of more Shaping Families recipes here.
Also find many many tasty recipes and Mennonite cookbooks here.
Were you ever embarrassed by what you didn’t know about foods, or what your mom or dad failed to teach you, or things you never learned to like? I’d love to hear your stories.
When news started pouring out and newscasters and the blogosphere started spewing about chemical weapons being used in Syria and what would Obama do now, I was struck by the Old Testament stories I was currently reading on my way once again through the Bible. (I go real slow, I’ve been on this read for about two years.)
In Kings II, chapter 5 we read about Naaman, commander of the Syrian army, highly respected and esteemed by the king of Syria, who came down with leprosy.
Hold it, I thought, is this the one and the same Syria as today. Bingo. In approximately the same position on the biblical maps as on Google Maps.
Actually the books of Kings I and II are filled with stories of wars and attacks and counter attacks involving Syria, and of course the Israel of the time.
Elisha the prophet is consulted (a little girl’s idea) about Naaman’s leprosy and he sort of brushes off the malady with a flippancy undue the dreaded disease, and also ignoring Naaman’s station in life. Elisha sent his trusty servant to deliver the message: “Dude, just go wash in the Jordan River and you’ll be fine.”
If you’re reading this I suspect you well know the rest of the story, that Naaman thinks he’s too good for a dip in the dirty Jordan and why couldn’t Elisha have the decency to come out and pray with him for pity’s sake. In the end, Naaman does what Elisha suggests and he’s nicely healed. Elisha goes on to make axheads float (chap. 6, v. 6-7) predict the end of an economic downturn (chap. 7, v. 1) and foretell catastrophic climate change (a long famine, chap 8 v. 1) among many other supercool deeds and predictions that earn him the rep of a Class A prophet. (The poor widow for whom Elisha arranged a running supply of household oil (first oil well?), the rich woman of Shunem who built the little room on top of her house so he’d always have a bed and breakfast.)
Send that man forward to the 21st century. What would Elisha say to the leaders of Syria and Israel and the U.S.?
I have no idea but I do know he would speak truth and that he had access to one superpower that we too possess: the power to pray and to pray often, even when we cannot imagine a solution. I also know that too often we fall into the same weaknesses of going astray by worshiping other gods.
I was reluctant to write on this feeling inadequate but for someone purporting to find harmony in all of life, I was struck by the ancient stories of Elisha and relating to this context.
Wiser political pundits than I (which I don’t claim to be at all) have pointed out the irony of a Nobel Peace Prize winner so seemingly devoid of ideas that a military attack—when the most recent conflicts haven’t even totally ended—is the best idea we can come up with? Some modern Elisha’s like Sheldon C. Good speak out and have written this, urging longterm solutions and holding our leaders accountable. Mennonite Central Committee suggests contacting legislators with lists here. One Mennonerd blogger has suggested at least praying every noon. I’m signing on.
***
For more of my checkered family history regarding peace/pacifism across three generations see here.
(Image Provided by Classroom Clipart)
What is your tried and true method of dealing with poison ivy and its cousins? I have just found a very cheap and almost ubiquitous remedy that eases the itch right now and you can find it anytime you walk in a store, at checkout counters, heck, even on the pulpit at church.
I’ll spare you pictures of my current rash and allow webmd to provide the real facts and pictures of the main three poisons, ivy, oak and sumac, if you are not well acquainted. (And if you really want pictures of bad cases, here is a page, and yes, I’ve looked some of these at various times in my life.)
Over the years I have had my share of poison oak and ivy, usually getting it at least once a year, sometimes twice or more, no matter how careful I am. Right now I have something itchy that is probably poison ivy but it started as a very light case and spread. Checking out the pictures of poison sumac just now, I may have had contact with that as I’m not as tuned to looking for that.
Everyone who gets any of the poison rashes is an expert: what to look for, how to avoid infection if you come in contact, how to treat it, what creams to use and so on.
My first ever case came the summer I was 13 and my family traveled out west. By the time I got home I was breaking out with a mass of horrible hard blisters and an oozing orange gunk. I think it got so bad because I scratched it so much, never having encountered it before and I was the first of my siblings to get it. Another time it spread so much and so deep that it got in my blood stream with hard lumps at my groin. But I think the scariest case was on my face when I didn’t realize I had come in contact. Once poison spreads to your eye region, you better get to a doctor, fast.
I have appreciated when physicians have given me a shot to help control symptoms (I’ve never found a doctor willing to give me shots to prevent me from getting it, although I’ve heard people say they’ve gotten such shots); it seems like the “after-contact” shot given as treatment for a really bad case has provided some protection for a while after—like I have gone a year or two without getting it, but maybe it was just because I didn’t come in contact with the dreaded three.
Every home where I’ve lived as an adult has had poison ivy growing on the property, and while we spray it with Clorox and stronger stuff, my analysis is, you don’t really get rid of it, you can only try to control it.
The best way of course is to avoid contact. The second best solution if you suspect you have come in contact with it is to wash within 2-6 hours with a mechanic’s gritty scrub such as GoJo to remove the oil from your skin in case you’ve come in contact. I have used GoJo anywhere I think I came in contact with it, including on my face.
In my long journey with various poisons, I now end up with it only if don’t know I’ve come in contact with it. In the beginning the methods of itch control and “cure” has included everything from your basic pink calamine lotion (ugly and not very effective) to bathing in baking soda (messy and not very effective) to Ivy Dry liquid or cream (messy and not very effective) to over-the-counter-cortisone type cream, to prescribed creams like Betamethasone, the last two being the most effective for me.
The treatments that I like best, if despite all this I still end up with it, are simple and cheap. I will now share the amazing find, passed on from one of my husband’s work colleagues and he can’t even remember who it was: Just try an antibacterial cleanser on it. It almost immediately eases any itch and seems to dry out the rash very quickly. If you have open sores, it will sting a bit. But it’s cheap. And yes, my pastor keeps it on the pulpit for washing hands quickly before she handles the communion bread.
This may not seem like a “Finding Harmony” post but when you’ve got poison, you ain’t got much harmony so finding ways to control and combat it sounds like harmony to me.
You read about this treatment here first. Let me know if it works for you.
If you want more help in identifying the various leaves when you are hiking or elsewhere, try the T-shirt!
Today begins a new feature at Finding Harmony Blog—a weekly Friday recipe. I have duly noted that blogs offering quality recipes get higher views and shares. We are all so busy that it’s nice to get something useful out of a blog so I hope this becomes a reliable place for regular recipes from a mix of traditions—in keeping with my theme of finding harmony among all things …
The traditions might be …
Mennonite, Presbyterian, Southern, Northern, Lunar (just kidding).
Whether you’re a locavore, omnivore, carnivore or carnival-ore (just guess)
Whatever your thing: my motto is just get ‘er on the table. Keep eating together.
This also kicks off a countdown to (no I won’t put one of those frightening counters on my blog counting the minutes and seconds—they give me a panicky fright) encouraging folks to celebrate and keep family dinner because of all the good things eating together fosters. (That I go on about yadda yadda in my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner.) I’m lining up some other writers and bloggers for a week of special blog posts giving fresh ideas on how others enliven their food preparation, meals and fellowship around food: a food swapper, a supper clubber, a self-confessed group of nerds who come together to eat and play board games and more.
I’m also kicking up my commitment to this blog a notch and while I’ll continue to write on a variety of topics—inspirational (I hope), faith-related, family reminisces, local color stories, book reviews, and soon, Grandma stories (hoping!) and more—every Friday I’ll try to have a new recipe to share and illustrate.
Here’s an easy summer salad that is great for using up the bounty from gardens about now or your veggie refrigerator drawer or your CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box:
Simple Summer Garden Medley*
Wash and dice equal amounts of : (add or delete according to your supply on hand or tastes)
Zucchini
Yellow squash
Tomato
Cucumber
Green pepper
Red pepper
Add chopped onion to taste. Stir in 1-2 cans rinsed black beans and/or 1 quart corn. (If adding fresh corn, be sure to cook and cool it—great for using up those extra ears of corn you make for a meal but everyone is too stuffed to eat.) Add 1-2 cups Italian dressing and stir. (For just a small batch, try ½ cup quantity of each vegetable and ½ cup dressing.) Chill two hours or longer. Can be made a day ahead. Guaranteed to disappear at your next potluck or family reunion! It can even sit out at a picnic for a couple hours without too much worry of ruination.
Good way to use up the 1-2 leftover cooked ears from corn on the cob.
* Kid friendly to make and eat. As soon as your kids can safely handle simple knives, set them up with a cutting board and knife and let them chop away, under supervision of course. My kids always loved foods they helped to make. Also makes a great salad for kids starting to eat solid food on the BLW or F (Baby Led Weaning or Feeding) plan. Yes, Grandma-to-be is getting up to speed on current issues in child rearing and will have a book review soon!
(Two demerits on me for not knowing where I got this recipe; it’s in my recipe box without attribution but probably came from an email or staff newsletter that I printed and copied and trimmed off all the source notes. There are many similar out there and I doubt anyone can claim originality but if you gave me this recipe, particularly with the note “Guaranteed to disappear at your next family reunion” which was part of the original let me know and I’ll send you … something.)
Many recipes similar to this in Simply in Season cookbook. This is a newsy page with more info on Simply in Season, soon going for another reprint.
“You’ve got a new cat,” I say upon seeing a beautiful black and white mixed feline—almost like he/she was dressed in a tuxedo.
“Yeah … Beatinst thing I ever did see,” our former neighbor, Charles exclaims. His eyelids thicken and he swallows hard. “When Molly died this’un came over and curled up on the grave I made for Molly, then came in and slept with me on the bed,” he said slowly, pausing when the lump in his throat overcame his speech. We had moved about six miles away seven years ago but still try to check in with Charles as often as we can.
“Molly died?” we both asked, saddened and ashamed that we had totally missed this important passing for Charles. For months we had discussed who would be more bereft if the other died first: If Charles (in his upper 80s) died first, he had made it known to us that he wanted Molly put to sleep and buried in his casket with him. If Molly died first, we knew Charles’ heart would again be broken.
So Molly died at the foot of Charles’ bed on Father’s day. Certainly Charles had been a “father” to Molly and Molly a much-loved child for Charles. “I bought her a casket, made a grave and a stone out there along the drive,” he motioned with his head. The dear man was nearly blind, now on oxygen 24 hours a day. “Gets kind of monotonous” he said of the tank, “but things could be a lot worse.”
Molly’s gravestone
That Charles can say that is truly a tribute to his steadfast faith. A lifelong Baptist, Charles has had more “lives” than Molly, surviving various heart ailments and near death episodes.
His wife died about ten years earlier, and their companionship had faded away with her increasing Alzheimer’s, but he had cared for her until she succumbed to heart issues. His most steadfast phone caller now is his 60-something step son with mental disabilities, who lived in a group home. A nearby neighbor and family are faithful helpers who stop in a lot.
So Molly had seen him through all this and more. Many a time when we’d go to visit, Molly would be curled up beside him on his bed, arm chair foot rest, or outdoor glider, and Charles would caress Molly’s head endlessly.
But now Molly was gone. I asked what the new cat’s name was. “I just call him ‘Tommy,” he said with a laugh. Tommy had moved in as a temporary resident at the neighbor’s house, but the cat stayed when the man moved on. The new cat came down and made friends with Charles, and tried to make friends with Molly.
“He used to come in and try to play but Molly would bat him,” Charles explained. I could see the scenario in my mind. But with the marvelous sense that animals have, after Molly died the cat must have sensed there was a newly open slot in Charles’ heart.
We were happy that Tommy moved in when the time was right. And marveled that Someone was watching out for Charles’ needs, who we pray for almost every day, especially since my husband’s work schedule currently doesn’t allow us to visit nearly as often as we should or want.
Isaiah says, “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (65:24). The writer of Philippians says “My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (4:19).
That night I thanked God for Tommy, and I know Charles does too. R.I.P. Molly.
***
More on Charles & wife: Earlier I wrote about Charles’ wife Letha and her cookbook collection he passed on to me. And in my Another Way newspaper column I wrote a tribute to Letha here.
I’m having a blast these days, preparing talks on my Mennonite heritage and cooking for two days of a Road Scholar week at Amigo Centre in September.
Courtesy of Amigo Centre
For a number of years, Amigo Centre (my camp when I was growing up!) near Sturgis, Michigan, has organized a week of lectures, field trips and activities for anyone (well, basically retired folks, through Road Scholar, a program of Elderhostel) interested in learning more about Mennonites and Amish heritage and faith. They’ve tapped various scholars from nearby Goshen College just across the line in Indiana (and from Hesston College, Kan.) to talk about the beginnings of the Anabaptist stream of faith in 1525–an outgrowth of the Protestant Reformation in Europe–which led to Mennonites, Amish, Old Order, Church of the Brethren and Baptists (although that’s another story).
Short Anabaptist history/theology: Most of my readers know that Anabaptist means re-baptizer because of the belief that adults are best equipped to take the step of baptism as a symbol of rebirth in Christ, rather than participate in what was basically a state/government ritual of the time: automatic baptism of any infant, which put an individual on the roll to be a due/tax paying citizens of a ruler’s domain. Refusal to have a child baptized, or performing a second baptism as an adult was viewed as rebellion or insubordination of the kingdom, punishable by death. Thus the martyrdom of many early Anabaptists, which also fueled the movement. Learn more here. (Infant baptism today is a different step of faith taken by parents as a symbol of God’s grace extending to us before we can even recognize it and parents’ and congregational commitment to raise the child to the place they can make their own confirmation of baptismal vows taken by parents. But that too, is another story.)
In any event, Mennonites and Amish seem to fascinate some folks: witness the popularity of Amish reality shows, as low brow and distasteful as they are; Anabaptism theology is experiencing a resurgence of scholarship and study; and Amish romance novels are hot, while they’re not (not technically steamy, as Valerie Weaver-Zercher writes in The Thrill of the Chaste, reviewed here earlier).
But I’m particularly excited not just because of the opportunity to lecture for a day and a half about Mennonite and Amish food traditions but because we will get to learn how to make real Amish noodles with a real Amish cook (take that, you Amish reality TV shows). Since I wrote about my two experiments making Amish noodles here and here, I have observed that one of the more common search terms here at my blog is “homemade Amish noodles.” Who knew?
My first attempt at homemade Amish noodles.
There are other people out there looking for recipes and methods and tutorials! So, coming sometime in October, you will get right here, an Amish cook’s recipe, method and tutorial. As a group, the participants will get to make homemade noodles to dry and take home, along with a small noodle drying rack. And me too! (Complete program description here.)
I’m not sure who is more excited: me or Mandy Yoder, the Program Director at Amigo Centre who has been planning this event for close to a year. She contacted me last September after a book signing for my book, Whatever Happened to Dinner (with nearly 100 recipes) at the huge Das Dutchman Essen Haus restaurant and conference complex in Middlebury (Middlebury is where I went to elementary school). And of course one of the specialties of the house at the Essen Haus (Pennsylvania Dutch for basically “eating house,”) is Amish homemade noodles. Beef and noodles. On mashed potatoes. Yum. A special shout out to my sister Pert, a special fan of the noodles.
At Das Dutchman Essen Haus Middlebury Ind., Sept. 2012, meeting faithful Another Way reader, David, age 88.
Mandy and I are also working with Carol Honderich, who was in school with my sister Pert, and who I enjoyed working with at Mennonite Mission Network (based in Elkhart, Ind.—so we were long distance colleagues but got to know each other better at retreats, meetings and conferences) who is also leading a Road Scholar program that week at Amigo Centre called Amish-Mennonite Sampler Quilt: A Quilter’s Legacy in Blocks. Carol leads Amigo Centre’s annual Spiritual Quilt Retreat and offers private instruction for individuals, quilt retreats, and presentations for groups and has a quilting specialty website called Patterns of Faith. We’ll be teaming up for a Thursday night special evening that week talking about our own experiences “Growing up Mennonite: Pigtails and Ponytails,” with participants working on a comforter together to give to relief—to needy persons. We thought that was a good way for the Road Scholar participants to truly experience a little of the Mennonite ethos—to help make a beautiful quilt/comforter to share with someone else.
More pigtails and ponytails: me far right as assistant counselor at another Mennonite Camp, Lakewood Retreat, Fla.
I will also be pleased to share these experiences through this blog. If you don’t already receive my posts in your email, sign up if interested so you don’t miss it. Beginning THIS FRIDAY Aug. 30, I’m beginning a new “Finding Harmony Recipe” weekly blog feature with a new recipe every week, especially geared to helping families keep family dinner time. More about that in September.
And check out the fascinating opportunities available through Road Scholar, where instead of just taking a touristy tour you can LEARN something behind the scenes and meet people if you are at the stage of life (and wallet) when you can enjoy such things. Mandy hopes to be able to offer a similar program again next year at Amigo Centre.
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A final shout out to a new memoir of Shirley Hershey Showalter’s days of growing up Mennonite called Blush: Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World (Herald Press). Shirley is former president of Goshen College. On prepublication 30% discount, $11 until Oct. 22, 2013.
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Growing up _______. How do you fill in the blank? You don’t have to wait to write a book or give a talk to enjoy putting things into a form your children and grandchildren can enjoy. My mother has loved writing in a book my sister gave her with memory jogs and prompts to write about, like “What was your favorite song when a teenager” or “Your favorite movie,” to which she scoffs, “What movies?” Such as this.
On Alcatraz Island, San Francisco
Back in the day, I vaguely remember going to Audubon slide lectures and Travelogues with my family because we weren’t allowed to go to movies and had no TV and this was Real Entertainment and Educational, my parents said.
I have three more areas from our travels this past summer so I’ll do them like a travelogue for my own records/journal but they will only be interesting if you’ve been there or are going there or are my family. You are welcome to quit reading now if none of these fit you. Or just skim the photos, I really like some of them.
I’ve skipped around from our travels and if you’re now lost or heaven help us, INTERESTED in any of the other posts and itinerary: (with links to prior posts, if there was such)
July 6 Phoenix, Ariz.
July 7 Grand Canyon National Park
July 8 Navajo Reservation and Zion National Park, Utah
July 9 Hoover Dam, Nevada/Ariz. and Las Vegas
July 10 Bakersfield, Calif.
July 11 Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Calif.
July 12-13 San Francisco
My only pretty-pathetic picture of the landmark Saguaro cactus
Grand Canyon. On the way to Grand Canyon from Phoenix, we drove by Sedona which I’ve heard a lot about and would have loved to make a side trip. But now I know why everyone says it is so pretty, with much greener scenery and many shades of red soils in the hills near Verde Valley. My biggest regret is I didn’t insist on stopping to photograph the many Saguaro cacti we saw through this whole area—thinking oh we’ll surely see them many more times so I’ll wait, but once we got out of Arizona we didn’t see any in all the other desert and wilderness areas we drove through, which seemed like a lot. Now I know why the Saguaro is so proudly on Arizona license plates.
Above are a few favorite shots soaking in the Grand Canyon most of Sunday afternoon until evening, made much more enjoyable by using a free environmentally-friendly shuttle bus system from our motel to the Canyon, all along the southern rim at various stops, and a few short hikes between lookouts. Highlights were seeing a California condor and its nest (bottom two pictures here); an elk; muledeer; and a desert piney lizard (again, so said the ranger). And hats off to the National Park system offering a LIFETIME pass for just $10 to any National Park once you reach the ripe age of 62, for which my brother-in-law qualified. You pay $10 one time and the pass covers you and anyone with you the rest of your life. So score! We spent nothing on park entrance fees or shuttle buses in the four parks we were in.
Navajo Nation. Leaving Grand Canyon to head to Utah’s Zion Park should have been a couple hour drive. We ended up detouring about 1½ hours for road construction and when you detour in the desert, there’s not another crossroad a mile down the road. No, 50 miles down the road comes the next highway.
I didn’t quite realize when and where we entered Navajo lands or Nation, except for seeing makeshift roadside stops for tourists with locals selling jewelry, pottery, blankets and the like. When my family went out west in 1964 we spent a day and evening on what was then called the Navajo reservation visiting a Mennonite mission there.
I didn’t take a lot of pictures, which is maybe good because it is always sad and perhaps invasive to take pictures of poverty. But the land and the homes were so very humble and hot looking: shells of long abandoned trailers and forlorn mobile homes or shanties with lots of stuff outside baking in the sun where people currently lived. There were great expanses of just nothing—land, a few scrub bushes or trees, outcroppings of rock, distant plateaus.
Fast forward to the end of our trip, San Francisco.
San Francisco. After many days of 100-115 degree heat everywhere, in San Francisco we donned jackets, yes, and layers of clothes and still were chilly on the bus tours we took to get acquainted with the city’s various parts.
I was thrilled to have almost two full days there: my mother confirmed that when my family visited in 1964, we only went across the Golden Gate Bridge and that was about it—farmer Dad didn’t much like cities. In 2003 I attended a Mennonite Health Assembly there and several of us did side trips to Alcatraz and the wharf district, but this was my first time seeing the financial district and all of the many lovely neighborhoods with their unique and interesting architecture and of course the famous Haight and Asbury streets of the “peace and love, man” era of the city’s history. We enjoyed blue skies and clear waters but I was hugely disappointed to learn that the much-loved and hilarious-to-watch sea lions were off making their own kind of love and peace, sea lion style (mating season). On Alcatraz, we lucked into a ranger tour and got to go in some abandoned tunnels and hear even more of the inside story of the famous prison, once a military prison, and eventual home to Al Capone and the Birdman of Alcatraz, and many others, including families of guards who also lived on the island.
Scenes from Alcatraz Island, Haight-Asbury district, one of many lovely parks, and Stuart and I with Golden Gate Bridge in the distant background. It was rainy and cloudy by the time we got to Golden Gate that evening with not very good pictures.
Summer’s almost over and so is our long anticipated western adventure. I’m very grateful to my dear husband for planning this trip with me and to his brother for joining us. When my family went out west in 1964 Dad figured we averaged spending $20 a day for our family of six. Twenty bucks for six over six weeks. Of course, then we Mennonited-our-way staying with friends, acquaintances and anyone who would let us camp in their yard, but stopped once a week for a motel break and pretty much saw whatever we wanted to see (even Disneyland) while having most of our meals in the camper. This trip was not cheap but we too ate a lot of cold meat sandwiches in our motel rooms (even in Vegas, see earlier entry) or McDonald’s salads to keep costs down.
But it is always good to go home again.
And to get there, safe and sound.
I knew that somewhere on our western trip this summer we (I) would need to do laundry. We packed light enough to have only one suitcase (carry on size) per person so that we wouldn’t have to check any luggage (or pay the fees), so in traveling eight days, I packed for four basic days and planned to scrub up about half way through.
I also knew that I would somehow enjoy it. Traveling with two men—my husband and his brother, a bachelor—I didn’t have a lot of alone time. As something of an introvert, I was beginning to crave some space by myself. One of my favorite bloggers, Jennifer Murch, (Mama’s Minutia) talked about doing laundry for their family of six on a recent joyous but emotional visit to a village where they lived 13 years ago in Guatemala. She wrote “I welcome the solitude, a brief reprieve in the storm of emotions.”
When I was 12, our family traveled and camped for six weeks out west and once a week, whether at a campground laundry or commercial business in a town, doing laundry was something of an adventure for us kids. We loved using the change machine, putting the right number of coins in the washers, buying the little boxes of soap, pushing the laundry carts around, and even drying and folding things into neat stacks—with a chance to start over in having our clothing nicely organized (not easy in a tiny camper and six people).
When laundry is your biggest chore of the week, it is a respite from the “work” of sightseeing, traveling, finding your next meal, finding the next highway or motel.
In this case we were in Bakersfield, California, and when I asked at the desk of the Doubletree Inn (a shout out to a Mennonite pastor, Brenda Isaacs, now at Bakersfield Church of the Brethren congregation who recommended it when I asked her on Facebook), the desk clerk quickly paged through a supply of printed directions from Google and handed me a sheet with turn-by-turn directions to the nearest laundry. (And oh yes, a second shout out for the fresh warm cookies given at Doubletree check in!)
At the laundry I was intrigued that some machines near the back had a large sign “Oilfields” over them and I surmised that was where you were supposed to do your laundry if you worked in the nearby oil fields.
While the machines did their work, I penned some postcards home, wrote in my journal, and watched with some intrigue a quartet of women who appeared to also be on either vacation or attending a conference, who were doing their laundry together and seemed to be enjoying it, too.
I had to think of one of my favorite writers, Anne Morrow Lindbergh and her reflections in Gift from the Sea:
“We are all, in the last analysis, alone. And this basic state of solitude is not something we have any choice about. It is, as the poet Rilke says, “not something that one can take or leave. We are solitary. …
“How one hates to think of oneself as alone. How one avoids it. It seems to imply rejection or unpopularity. …We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends and movies should fail, there is still the radio or the television to fill up the void. Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even day-dreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.” [From Gift from the Sea]
Laundry is a time to enjoy being alone with our thoughts and the “quotidian” of daily life.
Can we celebrate that we have clothing, machines (or a nearby laundry), or a well or river–and the health to do the chore?
Jennifer writes a once-a-week photo essay she calls the “Quotidian” and includes this definition of quotidian: “daily, usual or customary; everyday; ordinary; commonplace.” And if you need a reminder of how easy most of us in North America have it regarding laundry, see Jennifer’s post from earlier this year after arriving in Guatemala for a 9 month term of service with MCC.
What chore is really not a chore for you? Where do you listen to your inner music?
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If you wonder where my husband and brother went, I was only too happy to let them escape to the nearest Costco and Home Depot without me!!
It is family reunion time. I whipped up a fast and easy Arnold Felcher cake to take to my husband’s family reunion this past Sunday. If you don’t stick your nose up in the air at doctored-up cake mix recipes, and have a potluck or reunion coming up, this is always a crowd pleaser and showy when made in three layers, light and fluffy.
I like the back story behind this cake almost as much as the delicacy. Every time I take it somewhere someone wants to know what’s in it and why it is called Arnold Felcher cake.
Arnold was a beloved radio announcer in our community on WSVA, Harrisonburg, beginning about 1962. Before that he helped launch WBVP (Beavertown, Ohio) and came up with the nickname for its call letters. He was a true personality making frequent community appearances, and Shenandoah Valley residents enjoyed waking up to his lively and sometimes outlandish (radio announcer, after all) banter with co-anchor Wip Robinson. I’m a little too young to know the legendary stories they sometimes concocted, but the duo were popular enough to publish at least one cookbook, Wip and Arnold’s Seconds Please Recipes and one volume of household hints, Wip and Arnold’s Household Hints: Like Having a Handyman Around.
The valley loved Arnold even though historically it has been a predominately Christian region and Arnold was a practicing Jew. Truly there were not a lot of synagogues in this rural valley although Harrisonburg has Beth El Congregation. Those were also the days when likely it was sometimes difficult to be different in a place like this—just as it is today for other ethnicities.
Food and friendliness can go a long way in reaching across whatever ethnic and religious differences separate good people today. David Shenk, a devout Christian who has written/co-authored a trio of books encouraging friendship and understanding between Muslims and Christians told a seminar group this summer that the way to have peaceful and harmonious dealings in our towns and valleys is the long standing simple act of asking a neighbor or associate to have a cup of coffee or tea with you.
Whip up and share a cake like this and you never know what kind of friendship will start. It has a faint citrusy taste owing to the pineapple and mandarin oranges, and you can pretend you are eating fruit instead of fattening cake. It doesn’t need ice cream BUT if you save a huge spot in your tummy, it is over-the-top-creamy-good.
I was pleased to learn you can find the exact recipe on at least one website and many variations for it (and alternate names like “Pig Cake” at Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond’s popular recipe blog). Ree Drummond has complete blow by blow pictures so I won’t repeat those here. It was also featured a couple years ago as the Shaping Families radio program recipe of the week.
Arnold Felcher Cake
1 box yellow cake mix (do not add water or other items the box calls for, just use the items below.)
11 ounce can mandarin oranges, undrained
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
8 ounce container whipped topping
20 ounce can crushed pineapple, drained (do not use juice in cake)
1 large box instant vanilla pudding
Directions:
Mix together cake mix, oranges, eggs, and oil.
Pour into three greased 9-inch cake pans. Bake at 350° for 15-18 minutes. Remove from pans and cool.
Mix together whipped topping, pineapple, and dry pudding. Spread between each layer and over top and sides.
Refrigerate until served.
Makes 16 servings.
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Do you have any Wip and Arnold stories to share? Have you ate, or made this cake or a variation?
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