When I was nine, the St. Louis Arch was completed. Not the whole she-bang (viewing room, elevator, greenway, museum) but the structure of The Arch. It took 2½ years from breaking ground until October 28, 1965, when the last piece was put in place.
Although my family was actually living in Jefferson City at the time of the completion, we were St. Louis folks through and through. The Arch was a big deal back then and we had been down to the site a couple of times during the build; it was exciting to see the two legs each inching up.
As a child it seemed impossible to me that they could build each leg separately and actually have them meet in the middle. The day that they put the last piece in place, joining up both legs, it was big news and as a family we watched it on television. Here’s a short version:
At the time there were a lot of folks who thought once they put the last piece in place, The Arch would just fall down. My father was not in that camp, asserting every time it came up in conversation that it would be an engineering marvel. I guess he’s right – it’s been standing 59 years now. Growing up mostly in St. Louis, I’ve actually been up in the Arch about a dozen times; it was always on the agenda when folks visited from out of town. Since it’s my “home-town” monument, I’m pretty proud that it’s still standing!
Any monument you think is particularly impressive? Or not?
I returned home from South Dakota last week to find our refrigerator filled with some odd foods. There was a huge coil of liverwurst, a new bag of cornmeal, and fluffy biscuits. These are all things I dislike. I asked Husband what was up.
It seems that while I was gone he had a sudden longing for the foods of his childhood, particularly the foods of his family from Eastern Ohio and West Virginia. Their foodways were quite Appalachian, with a great love of cornmeal mush. His Ohio forebears were also butchers and made lots of sausages, hence the liverwurst. He insists he got the liverwurst because he wanted to make sure he had an adequate red blood count. Sure, sweetie.
I don’t get particularly nostalgic over food, unless I consider my Aunt Norma’s chicken. That was always a treat, and I have learned to master it so it tastes just like hers. Daughter is nostalgic over my pasta sauce, which she thought for years was my own creation until she saw the recipe online realized it was by Marcella Hazan.
I don’t know if I should consider it a compliment that, if Husband couldn’t have my company, he found solace in cornmeal mush. Oh well, there are worse things, I suppose.
What foods, activities, or things do you get nostalgic for?
I made it home from South Dakota early yesterday afternoon. There were lots of newspapers waiting for me to go through. We subscribe to print editions of the Bismarck Tribune (6 days a week), the Dickinson Press (1 day a week), and the Rock County Star Herald (1 day a week). They are usually delivered on time. I was only gone 4 days , but that still left a lot of news to read.
I was tickled by an article in the Star Herald about Luverne’s recent High School Homecoming and the ABC Parade (Anything But A Car), which challenged students to drive on a parade route from the ice arena across town to the high school in unusual vehicles. Motorcycles were the most common, followed by tractors, lawn mowers. scooters, golf carts, a race car, a bulldozer, and a dump truck. How fun!
My first vehicle was a very old Nash Rambler my dad got very cheap from someone in 1973. I graduated to a Chevy Chevette when I got to college. I would probably have driven in an ABC Parade in one of my Dad’s U-Haul trucks. No CDL needed for that!
What did you drive to school in? What was your first vehicle? Ever been in a parade? What news outlets do you subscribe to?
The month before my junior year in high school, I spent an inordinate amount of time working on the outfit I would wear on the first day back. (Yes, I know that doesn’t seem much like me now, but in high school I was still worrying about this kind of thing.)
I had a new pair of high-waisted, washed out, bell-bottomed jeans along with a wide white belt that just barely fit through the jean’s belt loops. On top I had a brand new, bright white t-shirt, a nice one – not your average Hanes deal. Then the coup-de-grace… a crocheted top, consisting of various colored and patterned granny squares. (If you don’t know what a granny square is, check out the photo.) The whole ensemble was finished off with a pair of wedgies, fairly high-heeled (well, at least for me). I was the cat’s meow, if I do say so myself. Oh, almost forgot the big round watch with the white strap!
Imagine my surprise when last week, 50+ years later, I looked up while watering out front to see one of the local high schoolers come walking down the block, wearing my outfit!! Almost exactly the same – the high jeans, the high-heeled sandals and the sweater/vest made of crocheted granny squares over a white tee. The only thing she was missing was the big watch; she even had a white belt. I thought she looked really cute.
Crocheted granny squares becoming retro hadn’t hit my radar. 50 years seems a long time for something to become fashionable again. I won’t be running out any time soon to find any crocheted items for my wardrobe and although I did once know how to crochet, it’s not a craft I’m interested in reviving these days. Guess I’ll just have to content myself with the memory that once I was in fashion and that fashion has returned for a bit. Wonder if in another fifty years granny squares will make yet another comeback?
Describe an outfit of yours that you were really proud of!
We always had dogs when I was growing up. The main two that I remember were Princess the Wonder Dog and Irish Colleen but there were a few others when I was quite young and then my moms golden retrievers about the time I went off to college.
It was much more casual having a dog back then. No special bowls, just some dry kibble a couple of times a day. No dog beds in multiple rooms of the house. No walking dogs; when it was time for their business, you opened the door and let them out (fence or not fence). No brush of teeth. No flea and tick treatment, no heartworm pills. No crates even.
It’s a whole `nother world now. At our house, Guinevere is technically YA’s dog, so we pretty much play by her rules. So yes, we have a crate, fenced yard, multiple leashes, all the vet treatments, teeth brushing, regular baths and nail clippings. And beds (at least 3 of them). Guinevere gets dry dog food mixed with a large spoonful of wet food twice a day. Several kinds of dog treats. Water upstairs and down. A massive number of toys. Clothes and hats (which she detests).
But the funniest (at least to me) is pet music when we leave the house. YA has decided that just chilling in her crate when we are both out of the house is stressful for Guinevere if she doesn’t have music in the background. Since the crate is in the breakfast room, before we leave the house, YA calls out “Alexa, play classical for pets”. Apparently we are not alone in this because every three or four times, Alexa asks if we want to subscribe to the Music for Pets channel/playlist and pay good money for it. When we decline, then Alexa goes ahead with assorted classical music for pets. Personally I wouldn’t say that Guinevere likes or dislikes the classical – doesn’t seem to make her more relaxed – I think she’s already calm in her kennel. And since she is YA’s dog, I play along.
Every now and then if I’m leaving after YA and know I’m getting home before she does, I ask Alexa to play salsa music, or Peter Mayer or Enya – whatever comes into my head as I’m leaving. Guinevere does not appear to be traumatized by this.
I try to imagine going back in time to my childhood and then having somebody from the present tell me how spoiled my dog is these days, including having to have music on when we leave the house. I’m sure I would have fallen down on the floor laughing.
What kinds of things do you like when you’re being pampered?
When we moved to our neighborhood in 1988, it felt as though we had moved to and outpost of the Czech Republic. The Karskys, the Knopiks, the Kovash family, and the Dvoraks all lived next door or across the street. They were all somehow related to one another. Mrs. Karsky described us as “a nice young couple with a young son” to the other neighbors, information she had got from our real estate agent. Everyone was excited when we moved in, as most of the people on the block were older and/or retired. There were no children on the block.
36 years later, we are the older people on the block happy to see new and younger faces in the neighborhood. Only the Knopiks remain as the Czech contingent. There are lots of young children, especially on our side of the street. A couple of houses south of us lives a hard working family from Zimbabwe. They have a teenager who walks back and forth past our house most days during the school year to get to the Catholic High School, as well as several younger daughters and a young son who are friends with the Hispanic family on the corner. The other day I was driving past those houses when I saw the three Hispanic little girls, their brother, and all the Zimbabwe children sitting in a row on the curb. They had exhausted themselves in the enormous jumper house that the Hispanic dad had inflated for them all to bounce around in.
We share surplus garden vegetables with the neighbors, and everyone gets along. It is so nice to see the neighborhood continue to be a haven for young families and for the more mature, longer term residents.
What was your neighborhood like to grow up in? Any “bad apples” or nice grandparent-types as neighbors? Who were your best childhood friends?
One of my friends, Jennifer, occasionally writes fan-fic. I had never heard of fan-fic before she started writing it. It’s just what it sounds like – “fiction written by a fan of, and featuring characters from, a particular TV series, movie, etc.” There is actually an incredibly large fan-fic community – websites, writing groups, conventions and even awards.
Most fan-fic writers focus on just one or two particular shows/movies. Jennifer, who is a great reader of history and fantasy, writes from Lancer, a western that ran for two seasons in the late 60s. She doesn’t have an answer as to why she chose Lancer – she says she can’t really remember what initially sparked her interest.
The “maybe I should watch the show that my friend has written for all these years” bug got into my brain. We haven’t talked about Lancer for a few years and for some reason, my brain got Lancer mixed up with High Chapparal, another western from the same time period. When I asked her if she had a DVD or video of High Chapparal, I was surprised when she said no. But I didn’t ask and ended up finding the High Chapparal DVDs through interlibrary loan.
As I was watching the very first episode, I texted her with some snarky comment about the wife/mother not lasting the first season and the following conversation was when we realized I was barking up the wrong western tree. She laughed and said now she knew why I was asking about High Chaparral and I laughed now that I knew why she didn’t have a DVD or video of it!
I didn’t make it past Episode 4. It was too stark and violent to my taste; I’m sure the makers were trying to make it “realistic” but I didn’t care for it at all. And (SPOILER ALERT) the wife/mother didn’t even make it to the end of the first episode! And Lancer didn’t do it for me either – a bit too much late 60s attitude applied to the 1870s. After three episodes I decided that it wouldn’t damage my friendship with Jennifer if I didn’t watch another. At least I now know enough about the background and the characters that if she ever asks me to read any of her fan-fic, I will have some clue to start with!
Are there any western tv shows or movies that you like?
Husband and I were contemplating the possibility that we would have a bumper crop of eggplants, and sat down together in the living room to search the New York Times Food app and other on-line sites for eggplant recipes in the event our fears came true. Husband commented that it was such a nice thing to be able to sit down with one’s partner of many years and do something as simple and as satisfying as hunt for recipes, and that this was a wonderful example of senior romance. He then told me that he ran across a You Tube video of a song by Holly Williams, and that it reminded him of my parents. He played the video for me. It was quite sweet. She wrote it about her grandparents.
This brought to mind the Nanci Griffith number that I have always loved:
Both my sets of grandparents were married for more than 50 years, and were pretty devoted, but also pretty crabby with each other at times. I remember taking care of my paternal grandfather while my grandmother was having gall bladder surgery, I was about 17, and he needed care as he had a stroke and was paralyzed on his left side and had his left leg amputated due to diabetes. He was always pretty stoic, but told me out of the blue while I was helping him get his prosthesis on that “She’s a pretty good grandma, you know”, which was his way of telling me that he was worried about her and he wanted her to come home.
Who are the most devoted older couples you know?Other examples of sweet senior romance in songs or stories?
After all the days of rain, YA and I couldn’t wait to get out into the yard and get dirty. I decided that it had been too long since I cleaned up the edges of the yard and boulevard along our front sidewalk. This is a two-part job. First I run my edger along where I think the sidewalk should be ending. Second I sit on the sidewalk and pull up the bits that are overgrown.
So there I was sitting on the sidewalk when a neighbor from up the street, along with her son, stopped to chat. Since they had their dog, who is on the small size, I stayed on the sidewalk to pet the dog while we talked. Blake (son) and I talked about llama day, which had happened at the library the week before. Blake had been to the farm where the llamas come from and knew one of the llamas that was at the library.
We also talked about school finally being over for the summer and I asked him if he had any plans. He’s 10 so his short “just camps” answer didn’t surprise me; I followed up with “what kind of camps this year”. He mentioned a science camp and a viking camp. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know all the kinds of camps there are, but a viking camp seemed different. I asked if it was a football camp or some kind of history camp. He laughed and said “BIKING”. If I’d had any liquid, I probably would have snorted it up on the spot.
When I was a kid you just hung around the neighborhood for the summer and bothered your mother. Maybe if you knew someone who knew someone you might end up at a vacation bible study camp for a few days. If kids were doing organized anything, I never knew about it. So even though Blake will be biking for one of his camps this summer, I love the thought of viking camp. Not even remotely sure what we would do at viking camp, but I’m positive I would love the outfits!
How did you spend your summers as a kid? Any camp you WISH you could have gone to?
Sometimes, the day doesn’t go as planned, does it.
Our power went off Monday morning at about 6:30AM. I was leaving to take the rented post hole digger back when I met a truck from the power company on the other side of a down tree over the road. That guy cut up the tree while I went back home for the tractor, and I pushed the tree off the road. He and I talked about how to check the electric line. (Our house is the only house on the mile long electric line from the North road to the South road, and it’s through the pasture and across a creek, and up a steep hill). They found a tree down on the steep hill that took out the line, but they were able to get to a flat spot and cut the line and isolate it so they could feed us from the North end. One of the guys commented that this must be an old line from the first few years of the electric co-ops. (The Rural Electrification Administration, REA, was started by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935) My dad would talk about using horses to pull the electric lines and poles through the pasture in about 1940, and how they laid there until WWII was over.
Getting to the North end was a little more difficult for the guys. It was muddy, and still raining, and the first truck got stuck, and they had to get a ‘track style’ bucket truck in to make the connection and pull the first truck back out. Meanwhile, I got the generator out—hadn’t used that in 10 years, so it was a good time to make sure it still worked. As I was pumping up the tires with a cordless air pump, the power came back on. Of course. But I ran it for an hour anyway. Still works! It was 1:30PM. I teased the electric guys –they didn’t know what they were getting into when they stopped at that downed tree at 7AM.
I got my post holes all dug. Surprisingly, only hit rock in 3 of the 12 holes. Then down to the pole barn and dug some holes there to add support posts to three posts that are nearly rotted off at the ground. It has rained most of the week. I haven’t got much done on the fence because I need to pack the dirt back around the posts, and it doesn’t pack when it’s mud or clay. My summer padawan has helped pull the first wire and tear out the old fence. Maybe next week, when it’s not raining so much, we’ll get back to installation.
We’ve gotten enough rain, for now, almost 6” for June, not counting whatever we get Friday evening here. Growing Degree Units are just over 1000, about 180 above normal. The crops mostly look pretty good. The oats have some color change on the different soils, the corn is almost canopied, and the soybeans are coming along. There are some wet spots in some fields, but thankfully, that lake isn’t in my field.
Got the 4-wheeler running with the new carburetor.
Ducklings arrived Friday morning.
WOULD YOU RATHER GO WITHOUT RUNNING WATER OR ELECTRICITY?
Trail Baboon 