25 or 6 to 4

Waiting for the break of day
Searching for something to say
-Chicago

This weekend I went to the 80th birthday party for my step-mom. One of the guests there was the mother of someone I went to a high school dance with. Not sure why she was one of the guests, but it was nice to see her again. She remembered me right away and said she still had the picture taken at the dance of me and her son. That was one of the more fun high school dances I went to. Everyone wondered why I (a senior) went with John (a sophomore) but we were good friends from band and just went as friends. No pressure, no drama, we just went to have fun. And we did. More dances should be like that.

My high school had two guy-ask-girl dances which were Homecoming and Prom, and two girl-ask-guy dances which were Sadie Hawkins and Semi (semi-formal). I went to most of the Sadie Hawkins dances and they were okay but kind of hokey. People dressed up as farmers and hill-billies. One year, getting ready, I slipped in the shower and split my head open. I had to get stitches and went to the dance with a large gauze bandage on my head. Everyone thought it was part of my costume and were surprised to see me still with the bandage the next Monday. For this dance, people made "corsages" out of fruits, vegetables, pine cones, and other such things. You had to hang onto your date all night or one of you got put in "jail" and you had to pay a kiss to get them out. Goofy stuff like that.

I watched the drama most of my friends went through with the other dances...asking people they desperately wanted to go with, then dating a week or two, deciding they hated the person and being annoyed they were stuck with someone they didn't like or else a ticket they paid for and no date. I didn't have the patience for that. I did go to my senior prom with a guy I dated a few months and it was fun. I had a good group of friends and we all sort of hung out together, but some of my closest friends were going through break-ups with their boyfriends as we neared the end of our senior year. Lots of drama and I was never much impressed with that. (Hmmmm, maybe that's where my Baby Girls get that attitude from. )

So when I look back at my high school dances, I really do look at the one I went to with John as one of the most fun. He wore a camel-colored corduroy suit (this was the 70s) and I wore a long blue dress. We laughed and talked and goofed off and just had fun....like we did in band all the time. I played alto sax; John played trumpet. We did stuff in pep band together and hung out together after the games. He was funny and nice. I hope life's been good to him. So why this song for this blog? Cuz in pep band, 25 or 6 to 4 was one of our favorite songs to play. The band played it with gusto and almost everyone knew it from memory. And on those rare occasions when I hear it these days, it makes me think of all those nights on the football field or in the gym playing for basketball games, sitting with the band in the bleachers, and all the fun we had together.

Tamarack, Part 1

Far from the city we sing a little ditty
'bout Tamarack, Camp Tamarack...

There's only a small, select group of people who know that song. It comes to mind every now and then and is the song we taught our campers when I worked at Camp Tamarack. I was thinking about Tamarack for some reason on my drive home from work today, and thinking I should write about my summers there, and when I came in the front door, there was my Baby Girl wearing an old plaid flannel shirt I had when I worked at Tamarack. Go figure! I can't believe I still have it--or that she wants to wear it. It's more than 30 years old.

I found out about Tamarack from a friend of mine who had worked there. She knew I was looking for a summer job and suggested I apply. It was a camp run out of St. Croix State Park through a partnership between the Minneapolis Public Schools and the YMCA. Kids signed up for a 12 day session (Monday to the 2nd Friday) for a given "class". It might be outdoor sports, nature photography, a foreign language, drama, or any other host of choices. The kids' days were a mix of class activities and camp activities. Sounded good to me so I applied and was hired. Only to really get hired, you had to go down to some sort of unemployment office or jobs corps office, look through their files, and pretend there was nothing of interest to you. The game was, they would shrug, write you off, throw your name in their files, and later the camp coordinators would go through the files and pull the names of the people they had sent down there. Only I must have gotten some over-zealous new person who just couldn't believe there was nothing in the files of interest to me and kept telling me to go back and look some more and kept trying to talk me into all sort of things. I had to feign dis-interest and it took me forever to get out of there.

Once at camp, we were assigned to Camp A, B, C, or D at Norway Point, or to St. John's Landing. Everyone wanted to be at Norway Point because it was bigger and there was more going on. I got assigned to St. John's Landing and preferred it. It was more secluded and prettier. A lot of really old pine trees that gave it a phenomenal smell that couldn't be matched. The trees were tall enough to sway in the wind. And it was on the river. Norway Point had the swimming lake, but St. John's had the river. I've always been partial to rivers. The camper cabins each had 4 bunk beds, so the counselors got assigned 6 or 7 campers. These were mostly junior high kids so there was the usual drama that went along with that age including who was "going with" whom which would last all of a half an hour before they broke up and started going with someone else. At one point I asked one of the girls what "going with" meant. No one could really tell me.

So the breakfast bell would wake us up. Down to the mess hall, then morning class. The classes were actually run by Minneapolis teachers hired for the summer or at least a session. The counselors assisted the teachers and supervised the kids. Then lunch. Then in the early afternoon there were camp-wide activities that mixed up the classes. It could be obstacles courses and races, scavenger hunts, orienteering, whatever--usual camp stuff. Then after dinner there was a second, shorter class time. It was all fun, outdoor, hands-on class activities for the kids. Then in the evening there would be a campfire, or night time game like Capture the Flag.

Every new session, the counselors got assigned to a new group of kids and a new class. I don't remember much about the earlier courses I got assigned to, but the coveted courses were the quests...the canoe quest and the bike quest. These were trips that campers prepared for and then actually left the camp. A week long canoe trip down the St. Croix River or a bicycling trip to Madeline Island. I worked hard and lobbied hard for the bike quest. The very last of 5 sessions, I got assigned to it! It meant biking 150 miles through MN and northern WI...and back again, in little over a week's time. And that one event had so many implications for so many things to come in my life...

Only the Good Die Young

No, this isn't as morbid as it sounds. It's about playing the saxophone. When I was in elementary school, I played the violin in 4th and 5th grade. A neighbor across the street gave me (or rather, gave my parents) his violin when he retired. My parents signed me up for small group lessons at my elementary school. I didn't like them. I kept trying to tell my teacher and my mom I didn't like them. I wasn't getting very far. For better or worse, my dad occasionally reminds me (even to this day) that once I tried to play Happy Birthday for someone on the violin and it was unrecognizable. That probably didn't help encourage me at the time. Finally, one day I left my violin, in its case, on the chair in the music room with a note taped to it saying "I quit". They called my mother. The upshot was, I no longer had to take the weekly lessons.

When I got into junior high, I signed up for band. Everyone had to take music and I knew I wasn't fit for choir. The first day of band, the teacher went through the class roster asking everyone what instrument he or she wanted to play. I wanted to play the flute. I was actually looking forward to playing the flute. When he finally got to me (my last name was near the end of the alphabet) and I told him I would play the flute, he said, "No. We have enough flutes. We need saxophones. I'll put you down for alto saxophone." I was devastated, but I was too timid to argue with him. So I played saxophone for the next two years. When it became optional to take band in 9th grade, I dropped out.

When I started high school in 10th grade I opted out of band again. Then I went to my first high school football game. I saw a marching band perform for the first time. I was mesmerized. It looked like the coolest, funnest thing I'd seen in a long time. I went to the band teacher and asked him what I had to do to join band. It was some significant work catching up to my classmates after almost a year and a half of not playing. But I worked at it and I got there. And I absolutely loved marching band and pep band. I loved the music we played, I loved the band teacher (everyone called him Papa Joe), and I loved the camaraderie of my fellow band members and all the fun things we did during and after the games. We played for all the football games, basketball games, and hockey games. We got in free to most of the events, and we had excellent sports teams that kept us going to the state tournaments. Being in band made high school some of the best years of my life--and I did learn to love the saxophone. There are a few songs here and there that have excellent sax instrumentals in them. Billy Joel is a musician who has strong sax in his music. If you listen to his song Only the Good Die Young, about 2:30 minutes into this 4 minute song, there is a phenomenal sax solo. Every time I hear it, I go back to my marching band days.

I did eventually learn to play the flute. My sister took up the flute and I was delighted to discover the fingerings for sax and flute are almost identical. When she no longer wanted her flute, I bought it from her. I still have it and every few years, I take it out and play, just because. My other sister played the trumpet for several years and my brother played drums. I suppose at some point we could have all played together, but we never did. I also learned how to play guitar and loved that too. I can tap out a bit here and there on the piano, but mostly only things written in treble clef. My girls all took piano lessons though. My oldest daughter played flute in the school band. My middle daughter preferred vocal music and never took band, although she took up the bass guitar on her own time when she was in high school. My youngest daughter played the saxophone. Music is a part of our household. My husband listens primarily to classical music. I listen to country. My girls are all over the map.

I had the privilege of working with a music teacher who was one of the four finalists for the National Teacher of the Year one year. He spoke strongly about how important the arts are in schools. They're often the first to go when budgets are tight, and yet they have a significant role in students' developmental thinking. I've joined the Facebook group, "I Bet I Can Find 1,000,000 People Who Think Music Education Is Important." It's why I love that the curriculum at my school ties music education in so strongly to the rest of the curriculum. Not only is it important for its own sake, but there is a correlation between music education and math ability. It also teaches students to think differently, creatively. It teaches them about other cultures too. And I've seen some students who struggled in all other areas, but came into their own during music class. That, in and of itself, is worth its weight in gold.

I still have my violin. To this day I can't stand listening to violin concertos. They're squeaky, they rasp, and they get on my nerves. But I love listening to the fiddle in country music. It's lively and down to earth. One of these days, when I have nothing else taking up my time, I'd love to learn how to fiddle.

Please Remember Me

Part of you will live in me
Way down deep inside my heart
--Tim McGraw

My love, my passion, is my genealogy. I could do it all day long, for days on end. In fact, when my school is on break and I need to completely shut down, I do lose myself in my genealogy for days on end. It's a hobby I share with my cousin. I have a computer program that lets me organize everyone and all their data. I can even load photographs if I have them.

I know who is connected to whom, and I work on filling in as much detail as I can on each person--more than just their birth date and death date. I've collected church records, census records, newspaper articles, obituaries, and anything else I can find online. Local histories often have information that helps bring my ancestors to life.

Over the years I have collected (often by default) many of the family records and documents. My great-great-grandfather became a doctor during the Civil War. I put his medical certificates in antique frames and have them on display in my living room. I have cross-stitch samplers my great-grandmother made. I have autograph books from another ancestor. There is a set of daguerreotypes from one line of the family that I treasure. Most importantly, however, are all documents I have.

I have over a dozen 3-ring notebooks that hold indentures (contracts) that pre-date the American Revolution. There are maps and deeds and wills. I have a zillion IOUs that provide a window into the business dealings of my ancestors in the early 1800s. I have letters written during the Civil War. I have love letters and poems and diaries. I have sketches and photographs. There are angry letters, divorce decrees, and torn-up wills. There are death certificates and birth announcements. Wedding invitations and report cards. Scrap books and baby books.

Years ago, I contacted some historical societies and universities in New York (where most of the history in these documents is noted) asking if they were interested in photographing or scanning or somehow preserving them for others. While I have a personal interest in these documents, it seems a shame that the local history available in these documents is closed up in a notebook on my closet shelf. Every place I talked to expressed an interest but said there was no budget for such replication. Years later, my cousin and I are partnering to get these items identified and scanned ourselves. Actually she is doing most of the work; I am just mailing them off to her periodically.

We both still plug away at our research. Trying to fill in the holes in our genealogy and solve the mysteries on the things that don't make sense. Every once in a while one of us has an aha! moment, or a break-through, or a hunch that pays off. And we go through our family documents periodically for clues. What didn't make sense a few years ago might have new meaning now that we have more information. It's my love of history combined with my love of a good mystery--and it's addicting because it never ends.

Another thing I do for my research from time to time is visit cemeteries. There is a wealth of information on headstones. My girls grew up spending a fair amount of time walking around cemeteries with me. They're beautiful places. One of the most beautiful I've ever been in is Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington DC where my great-grandparents are buried. I was saddened to find out they have no head stone. Some day I'd like to get them one so they are remembered.

I think of all my ancestors as being a part of me, and with me always. And remembered.

Mr. Bojangles

I knew a man, Bojangles, and he'd dance for you...
--Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

I always wanted a cat growing up and for the longest time we didn't have one. My dad said he was allergic to them. Then, somewhere along the line he figured out it was mostly Siamese cats he was allergic to. We got a small, grey, long hair cat we named Pepper. I was so thrilled to finally have a cat! She had a really sweet temperament. I remember one summer day bringing her in from outside and she was staggering around the house in kind of an odd way. I picked her up, wondering why, only to see that she was missing an eye. It wasn't really bleeding, but the socket was empty. Gross! My dad figured she'd probably run into a stick somewhere and put her eye out. He took her to the vet and had her put to sleep. I was really bummed.

We always had a dog growing up. My mom hated having animals in the house and barely tolerated them. I remember a big black dog we had when I was really young. I think think the dog's name was Max, but I'm not sure. I do remember it would nip at our heels when we were on the swing set and I didn't like that. Then we had a Brittney Spaniel named Penny. We had her for a long time. She was a great dog...protected us, played with us, and had more than one litter of puppies. I remember my dad letting my sister and I stay up late one summer night when she was having her puppies. She was in the garage and he'd made a bed for her in the kids' swimming pool. After Penny, came Nicky--another spaniel. I didn't like him much because he chewed everything, including a quilt I'd made for my folks. Then we took in a puppy that looked to be a collie-shepard mix. She was gorgeous and extremely loving. She ran away once and we got her back about 6 weeks later. The family that found her and took care of her realized she must have been hit by a car. She had a broken leg that never healed quite right and she always had a limp after that. Then came Waldo--another spaniel. My dad liked hunting dogs. My mom lived for the day she wouldn't have dogs in the house.

Once I was out on my own, I got a cat. I love cats. This was an orange tabby I named Beast. He was a great cat that traveled in the car with us all the way to Georgia and back. He had to be put to sleep when he was about six years old because of kidney problems. Then came Grue. Grue was an all-black cat. His eyes and nose and pads were black. There was no part of him that wasn't black. There was a great video game we were absorbed in at the time that used the phrase "It's pitch black, you're about to be eaten by a grue." That's how he got his name. We mated Grue with the cat of a friend of ours. Not too long after that, he got hit by a car and killed. We were so bummed. He was really a sweet, sweet cat.

So we took two of Grue's kittens. Brother and sister. We named them Spooky and PC. Spooky was all black and long-haired and silky soft. She was really gentle. PC, short for popcorn (he growled in a really odd way every time he got near popcorn) was a nut case. He'd yowl all the time over nothing. Really, all the time. He came home with notes stuck on him from the neighbors who were exasperated with his yowling. We finally had to give him up. But we had Spooky for a long time. She got sick once though, very sick. She'd gotten dehydrated and a neighbor found her under a pine tree so sick she was near death. We rushed her to the vet and it was obvious after talking to the vet she needed to be put to sleep--her kidneys were shutting down and her heart was failing. There was organ damage and she wasn't going to make it. I called Greg to tell him I was going to have her put to sleep and he told me no. "It's Theresa's birthday today. You can't have her associate her birthday with the day you put the cat down. Keep her alive for 24 hours and we'll put her to sleep tomorrow." The vet thought I was nuts, but that's what we did. Then the next day Greg said, "You can't put her to sleep now. Not if she made it through the night. See what they can do." It was several hundred dollars we didn't have, but she was with us for another six years. One day she just disappeared. To this day we don't know what happened to her.

We also had a grey and white tabby named Puffer. She got the name because she was an air-head as a kitten. Really ditzy. But loving towards the kids. When she was a couple years old, I was driving my daughter to an overnight birthday party and I saw Puffer laying dead in the street. My daughter hadn't seen the cat and I turned the car around, went home long enough to tell my husband to go retrieve the cat. This daughter was particularly close to Puffer and we debated on what to do. We knew we had to bury her...it was August and she'd already been laying in the hot sun for hours. But we knew my daughter would want to say goodbye. We ended up bagging the cat (double bagging, actually) and putting her in the freezer overnight. The next afternoon we had to thaw her before my daughter got home. It was all rather macabre.

Then came Ruthie. In looking for Spooky when she disappeared, the folks at the county animal shelter were so good to us, we decided to adopt from them. We picked out a brown and black striped tabby and named her Ruth. I'd always wanted to name one of my daughters Ruth but my husband wouldn't go for it. Ruth means "companion"... a good name for a pet. Ruthie was with us a long time. She was a pretty stereo-typical cat. Liked to catch critters outside. Liked to sleep when she was inside. Not real people friendly, but she'd curl up with the kids. We had Ruthie for about 10 years and she started getting sick. Her kidneys were failing. The vet was concerned that it may have been due to some sort of poison. We had the choice of putting her down, or helping her out with IV fluids. Since my daughter was away at college, we went the route of fluids until she could come home and say goodbye to the cat. She actually got to see her twice. We finally put Ruthie down on St. Patrick's day a few years ago and buried her by the bird feeder in the back yard.

I feel like we haven't had the best of luck with our cats. And I think part of it is that they're outdoor cats where they can get into poison or hit by cars. So I promised to make my next cat an indoor cat. For my birthday a year ago, my daughter went with me to pick out a kitten. We ended up taking the runt of the litter. I already had a name picked out for him -- Mr. Bojangles. We call him Mr. Bo for short. I've never seen a cat with such personality. He follows us everywhere we go in the house. He meows to be picked up. He comes when we call him. He jumps up to be picked up when we say "up". He will play with his toys for hours. He loves playing with wadded up balls of paper -- crumble balls we call them. He's got a goofy pom-pom spider toy with pipe cleaner legs he absolutely loves and carries all over the house like a mouse. If he hears you go in the bathroom, he'll race you in there because he likes to drink water out of the faucet. And I love holding his toys up in the air to make Mr. Bojangles "dance". He is a happy kitty and he makes me smile....

The House That Built Me, Pt 2

When I wrote about home, my cousin commented... It's because home is where ever they [your parents] are.

I can't begin to explain the strong sense of family we have. I always felt a certain sense of pride that one of my parents' "best friends" were my aunt and uncle. We did a lot with my cousins--on both sides of my family. And even my cousins who lived out of state were never far from our thoughts. When they came to visit, I remember long nights on my grandmother's screen porch with my Uncle Orlando telling stories, my Aunt Sarah laughing, the warm summer night, and all us cousins being allowed to stay up late. And we hung around the adults.... That was significant, I think. It wasn't like the grown-ups were having their own conversations and we kids were shooed off to another part of the house. We were fascinated with the adult conversation and the stories and the laughter. We were asked about our lives and what we were doing and our opinions. We kids were important in the family. What a wonderful, loving way to grow up! I absolutely adored all my aunts and it meant a lot to me to name my first-born after my aunt Sarah. I love that my sisters now play such an important role in my daughters' lives.

Grandma's porch... It was all of about 10x12'. It was built on a thick cement slab which meant it was cool in the summer. It was screened on three sides and opened to her dining room on the 4th side. We'd gather out there for family dinners, all squeezed around a fold-out table. Or sit on various chairs after dark under the light of a few lamps in the summer heat, telling family stories and laughing together. Or making ice cream on hot afternoons, taking turns turning the hand-crank ice cream maker. Fresh peach ice cream was my favorite. We'd chip away at an ice block in Grandma's laundry tub in the basement, bring the ice chips up to the porch, crank the ice cream, and get to lick the dasher when it was all done. Grandma Helen also had a wonderful tree in her back yard that was fun to climb and had a home-made swing in it...a wood plank strung with thick rope. Once in a while we'd set up her croquet set, but I know her back yard wasn't that big. Later on, I have some wonderful pictures my sister took of my girls when they were about 2 and 4, smelling all the flowers Grandma had planted around the perimeter of her back yard. They're darling pictures.

Grandma had a back bedroom that was full of all sorts of "treasures" from her world travels. Music boxes in particular. When Grandma Helen died, we each got one of her music boxes. Mine is one of an old fashioned Santa with a sack of toys and the woodland animals gathered round. It doesn't play, but it's a quaint piece of folk art. My Sarah drew a wonderful picture of it that I used for a Christmas card one year. In addition to Grandma's music boxes she had a gazelle skin from one of her trips to Africa, various small instruments, hats, jewelry, coins, and other artifacts from her travels. It was a fun room to look through.

Upstairs she had an old steamer trunk full of clothes that we would dress up in. We cousins would spend entire evenings creating "plays" around whatever costumes we'd assembled and then go present the plays for the adults. My dad and both his sisters had been involved in theater in one form or another, so we cousins had grown up around community theater. We had great fun creating our characters and stories.

Grandma prided herself on her cooking. All of us have a cookbook of her recipes that I helped her type up and organize. One of the most prized recipes of all is her Christmas Caramels. I make them every December and my siblings fight over them. When I create my large plate of Christmas cookies, the caramels always go first. I usually prepare small bags of just caramels for them to take home. And every year, when I put the first one in my mouth, I close my eyes and I remember.... I'm a kid again, standing in my grandmother's house with her Christmas decorations up, with family there, and I am home again.

Morning Has Broken

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing, fresh from the Word
--Cat Stevens

I've always liked this song. It was sung at my mom's funeral. I was telling someone at work today about my mom. I was telling her how much I text with my kids--and that we chat on line too. She was commenting on all the technologies we have at our fingertips today. I told her that my mom was born deaf and learned to be an excellent lip-reader. It would have been neat if she'd lived long enough to be able to chat online with people.

When we were growing up, we kids learned how to act as "interpreters" for her when people called on the telephone. We'd answer the phone for her and as they talked to us, we'd silently lip-read their message to my mom as they spoke to us--almost simultaneously. And then my mom would respond to us and we'd repeat her words back to whomever had called.

I remember one time my sister and I played a joke on my mom (who had a great sense of humor) some time around Mother's Day. My sister and I had our own phone line upstairs. One day I got on the upstairs phone and called my parents' phone downstairs. My sister answered the phone for my mom and then excitedly called my mom to the phone telling her that a local radio station was calling. She told her they were asking about the oddest gift she ever gave anyone, knowing that my mom would probably start telling about how she always gives her kids socks or underwear as a joke in among the other Christmas presents. Only in relaying this, my sister couldn't keep a straight face. My mom figured us out and chased us off.

My mom wasn't completely deaf. She could hear sounds but couldn't identify them. I remember being in the car with her one nice summer day. She was driving and I had the radio on. My arm was hanging out the window and I started hitting the side of the car to the beat of the song. She nearly slammed on the brakes asking, "What's that noise?" It took me a while to realize she was hearing me thump the side of the car. Her hearing loss was largely in the higher pitches and we kids instinctively figured out that if we dropped our voices very, very low, it was easier to get her attention.

She said when she was little, the family doctor told my grandmother to enroll my mother in the local school for the mentally retarded. My grandmother refused, saying there was nothing wrong with her daughter's intelligence. She insisted on enrolling her in the local public school where my mother saw a speech therapist and was taught to lip-read. She graduated from high school and went on to the University of Minnesota where she graduated with a degree in Home Economics. She worked for years at the Selwyn Jewelry Company, a wholesale company in downtown Minneapolis. She also taught bridge classes to people for years through community ed. She never let her disability get in the way. Once I moved out of the house, I sometimes wished I could have called her on the phone more often, but I never really thought about it much. There was too much more to her to let hr deafness define her. During the last few weeks of my mom's life, my sister video taped an interview with her. I put it away for several years after my mom died. When I finally watched it, I was really astounded at her speech. After not hearing it for several years, it was apparent how pronounced her differences in speech were.

I notice, however, when I work with students, I am much more attuned to speech patterns and kids who need to be referred to the speech therapist. Probably because of my mom. I've worked with kids on all points of the continuum--those who needed assistance with simple single letter pronunciation to those who had significant hearing loss. The little guy with the severe hearing loss used to croon Kenny Chesney and Uncle Cracker songs to me all the time. I absolutely loved having him in my math class! At the end of the year he gave me two crystals. I'm not sure why. I still have them in my office. A blue one and a white one.

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven...

Sweet Surrender

Lost and alone on some forgotten highway
Traveled by many remembered by few
Lookin' for something that I can believe in
Lookin' for something that I'd like to do with my life
--John Denver

Last night we told our Baby Girl she could go study abroad in Morocco. Extremely hard for me to do. She wants to get better at her Arabic. It will help her pursue her career goals. She will go live with a family, learn more about their culture, get college credits, and have an experience of a lifetime. All good things. But I worry about her safety. I will miss her. Terribly. It was hard enough to have her half way across the country, much less half way around the world. But at the same time I understand.

I was determined about my career goals. I always have been. I've known ever since I can remember I wanted to go into education. I come from a family of educators...An uncle who taught college Spanish, another uncle who was a school librarian, an aunt who was an art teacher, a cousin who teaches special ed, another who teaches high school English, another who is a school media specialist. Even my dad once contemplated becoming a Social Studies teacher. I was heavily influenced by all the educators in my family. Most of my jobs related to the field of education or working with kids...nanny, camp counselor, group home supervisor, community education teacher. So I understand my Baby Girl's drive to do things that will help her get where she wants to be professionally.

I also understand her desire to travel and learn about other places and the culture of the people who live there. When I was 15 I went to Austria with my German class. I saved my babysitting money for 3 years to be able to go on that trip. It was a 10 day trip and although we were in Munich for a day or so, most of it was spent in Austria. The places I remember most were the Schonbrunn Palace and the Munich Olympic grounds. My cousin was in the US Army and stationed in Munich at the time. I was given permission to leave the group one evening to see him and his wife.

I went to CA when I was in college. I went through Devil's Tower, WY; Estes Park, CO; Reno, NV; and on to Yosemite Valley, CA. My folks knew I was going to California but they didn't know about the hitch-hiking part til I got back. I've traveled around the Great Lakes with my folks; been to Mazatlan, Mexico; British Columbia, Canada; upstate NY; the Four Corners, USA; McKinley National Park in Alaska; the Deep South; cycled from MN to Michigan; and driven through almost every state in between. About the only state I haven't been to is Hawaii. A few years ago my Baby Girl and I took a trip to Ireland and Scotland. There were places in these two countries that had deep spiritual meaning for us and we understand that about each other. And although her reasons for going to Morocco are different, and are hard for me, I still understand.

Friends With You

Friends, I will remember you
Think of you, pray for you
And when another day is through
I'll still be friends with you...
-- John Denver

I had lunch with two teacher friends of mine. They've been friends for about 30 years and are such good friends that sometimes people think they're married, or at least Barb says so. I got taken into their friendship and I'm not sure how, but I treasure that friendship for a lot of reasons. Even though Barb's retired and I don't work with John any more, the three of us still try to get together once a month or so. Barb's good about making sure we get together.

People who don't know John think he's rather gruff. Some kids are afraid of him. One colleague nick-named him "The Colonel". He's blunt. He doesn't put up with nonsense from kids. He's a stickler for rules. He's vocal about the way things ought to be done. He's also one of the kindest people I've ever known.

I got to know John as a colleague through our mutual love of Social Studies and history. His classroom is so filled with antique artifacts there is no counter space. Things even hang from the ceiling. He and I did "bus duty" together every afternoon for years. At the end of the day all the teachers brought their kids down to the gym where they lined up according to bus number--and John supervised. I was outside with the walkie-talkie radioing in the bus numbers as they pulled into the lot. John would send the kids out to me and I would see that they were safely loaded. Heaven forbid any of the kids would misbehave for either me or John! Maybe that's another reason why we got to be such good friends...we had the same expectations for our students.

My students knew that these were the rules and don't mess with them. I held them to high standards but I worked hard to help them meet those high standards. There were firm consequences for misbehaving and I let kids suffer the consequences of their misbehavior. I didn't waste time in warnings or long explanations that I knew kids would just tune out anyway. But I also loved them to death and they knew it. They knew if they were struggling I'd go to bat for them 200%. If someone else wronged them, I'd stick up for them and help them sort it out. And in all situations, I talked to them and treated them like adults. I think that's what they liked most about me--that I didn't talk down to them like so many adults do. Years later I still have students who keep in touch with me. John is the same way with his kids.

One day, about 10 years ago, I suffered a gran mal seizure. I'd never had one before and it ended with my husband calling 911 and a transport to the hospital. I found out that when you have a first-time seizure in MN you lose your driver's license for 6 months. That was as upsetting to me as the seizure. I was referred for further testing to make sure it wasn't a brain tumor. More upset.

When I returned to work the next week, John came down to my room early in the morning, before the students arrived. He told me he had heard what happened. I was still rather upset and just nodded. But I will never forget what he said next... "I just want you to know we're all family here. And if you ever need anything from your family, you just let us know."

There are certain friendships that are free of obligations, free of time constraints, and full of reassurances that they're there for you, no questions asked. Barb and John are like that and I love them both for it. I'm honored that I'm the third person in their long-time friendship.

John Deere Green

I got a card in the mail today from my Aunt Mary. I have three aunts still living, only two who live in town. This was the aunt I had lunch with on my 50th birthday. She didn't realize it was my 50th when she agreed to have lunch with me, and sent me a card thanking me for taking her to lunch and saying how honored she was I chose to spend my birthday with her. I wanted to. She's a wonderful person. She's strong-willed, she raised five boys, she's full of common sense, and she laughs a lot. I love spending time with her.

In addition to her home in the cities, she owns 40 acres in the country an hour or so away. It's her second home. It has a modest three bedroom home with a deck and porch, a huge lawn, and an in-ground swimming pool. She used to always let my parents spend a week there every summer and when my girls were growing up, my parents would invite me to come up, probably so they could spend some time with their granddaughters. When my mom passed away, I think I "inherited" their week. My aunt has been offering my family a week up there every summer since. Everyone simply calls it "The Farm".

It was only this last year that I learned about her history with the Farm. She said that her dad bought the place from two old bachelor farmer brothers who could no longer keep up the place and were moving into a retirement home. He even visited them from time to time. Aunt Mary grew up in the city, but when an epidemic was going through town, her father moved them to the Farm for a summer. He would drive out every weekend and spend time with them, then on Sunday night bring home all the dirty laundry. He'd come back the following Friday with the clean clothes.

I remember the old Farm house. It had a sloping floor and a hand pump for water. We'd go up there every winter with my cousins to cut down our Christmas trees. The water and heat would be turned off and I remember how we'd tease my brother. Mice would crawl into the toilet bowl looking for water and drown because they couldn't get back out. We'd tell my brother it was his job to chip them out of the ice and he'd get upset. I also remember the time we had sandwiches and soda pop packed for our lunch. When we were done, my cousin Mark sprinkled and sprayed the orange and grape and cherry pop all over the snow, trying to make it look like vomit. He got yelled at for that. Mark was always doing goofy things like that.

When my aunt inherited the place, she eventually decided to tear down the old farm house and had a new house built. And a pool put in. A great aunt paid for the three-season porch in the back. I love when I'm up there and sitting on the deck drinking my coffee in the morning watching all the birds on the many bird feeders my aunt has. Or tanning by the pool in the afternoon. And sitting on the screen porch in the evening playing board games in the cool summer breeze. Besides being a wonderfully relaxing place, it's a place I associate with my mom. When I'd join my folks up there, it was a time for me to spend days with her, talking and relaxing without schedules or demands of any kind. To this day, when I'm there, I feel close to my mom.

We have lots of family stories about the Farm. Like the time a few years ago when my brother and my cousin Mark threw me in the pool, lawn chair and all--and Aunt Mary yelled at Mark for that too. Or when my Baby Girl was little and in love with the song John Deere Green and anything to do with tractors...

They were farm kids way down in Dixie
They met in high school in the sixties
Everyone knew it was love from the start
One July in the midnight hour
He climbed up on the water tower
Stood on the rail and painted a 10ft heart
In John Deere green

...and my uncle would take her for a ride on their John Deere lawn tractor. We have pictures of that. Another great story is the spider story but I'll refrain from embarrassing my oldest daughter with that one. I've even gone deer hunting with my dad at the Farm.

I know the Farm is a special place for my girls too. When I tell them we have been offered a week in the summer, even though they're in college, have jobs, and other commitments, they do their best to clear their schedules so they can spend time up there. That says a lot. I love that my aunt has given me all those memories, and created such a sense of family for my girls.

The House That Built Me

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
-Miranda Lambert

My Baby Girl told me she was trying to explain to someone her "sense of home". It isn't just the place you go to sleep at night. That can be anywhere. Home is the place where your memories reside. Home is the place you turn to when you need strength and healing. Home can be more than one place.

I had some homes early on that I don't remember. We lived in St. Paul and Denver when I was very young. The first place I remember was Bloomington, MN. When I was in 4th grade, we moved to Minneapolis. I lived with another family for a summer as their nanny. I lived in a state park for two summers working at a camp. I lived with my grandmother for a year. I lived in various suburbs in the Twin Cities. After my parents' house burned down, there was no more family house. The place I grew up didn't exist any more. But home was always where my mother was...

I would go for months, full steam ahead, 500%. And when I fizzled out, I just needed a day with my mom to recharge. Just spend time with her and talk and laugh, and heal all the parts of me that were worn and tired. And laugh some more. She had the most wonderful sense of humor.

That was part of what was so hard for me when she died. How would I recharge myself now? Where was home? I had my own house. My own children. But my "sense of home" was a place my mom had created. I miss it terribly and I know my siblings do too. And I know what my Baby Girl means when she talks about her sense of home. I was driving home from work a few weeks ago and heard a new song on the radio called "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert. It touched me deeply and made me cry. I sent it to my sister and she said it reminded her of mom. When my Baby Girl heard it, she said that she wants to make a scrapbook of "home" so when she travels throughout her career, she will always have some of home with her. I love it that she comes home just to be with me. She will just sit with me to recharge herself. I understand that...

I know they say you can't go home again
I just had to come back one last time...

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it's like I'm someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could walk around I swear I'll leave
Won't take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

FIre And Rain

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
-James Taylor

Yesterday I wrote about the rain. There was also a fire. It was March of 1985 and I was pregnant with my first child. The phone rang just before 6am and it was my brother calling to tell me "the house burned down. Well, not burned all the way down but it's really bad and you need to come over."

I'm trying to come to, and trying to grasp what he just told me, and trying to figure out what to do. The only thing I could think of at the moment was to call my aunt. My parents and grandma were out of the country, visiting my sister. Before they had left, my aunt had called and joked that if I needed a surrogate mother, don't hesitate to call her. If there was ever a time to call, this was it.

My aunt agreed to meet us at my folk's house and my husband and I headed out. The only problem was, there was a good foot or more of snow that had fallen the night before and roads hadn't been plowed. What should have been a 20-30 minute drive ended up taking us almost 2 hours even though we were traveling on city streets in highways. When we turned the last corner onto my parent's street, I was not prepared for what I saw...

Their house, built in the 1940s had floor to ceiling windows in the living room and a tuck-under garage. The garage door had been chopped through with an axe and lay in a heap in the snow. And all the windows were smashed out with black soot coloring the white exterior of the house. Broken glass was everywhere. The fire department had immediately broken the windows to let the smoke out so they could more safely enter the premises. My aunt arrived with face masks and insisted I wear one. She was adamant. I was pregnant and who knew what kind of toxins were in that house now?

As we picked our way through the house, there was just as much glass inside as out. Walls were black and large pieces of plaster hung down from the ceiling. The tile in the bathroom had melted and curled and that room seemed particularly burned. The firefighters had chopped holes in the wall, I think to verify that nothing was burning inside the frame. Debris was everywhere. The basement was almost gutted with one wall entirely gone.

My brother said he'd been up late studying--until about 2am. When the smoke alarm woke him at about 5am, he thought it was his alarm going off and it took a bit for it to register for him it was the smoke alarm. He called 911 and they asked a lot of questions. He finally hung up on them, needing to get out of the house, grabbed the dog, and ran barefoot through the snow to the neighbors house where he called me.

I managed to reach my dad overseas, and told him there was a house fire. It wasn't bad enough that they needed to cut their trip short, but I wanted him to know about it. My dad took it in stride, and that was that. They next day he called back. "You wouldn't have called me in England if it wasn't bad. Tell me what really happened." I told him it was pretty bad.

We ended up calling an insurance adjuster, a company that came in and boarded up the house (we had already confronted one possible looter who tried to walk in the back door). They also walked through with a video camera and took pictures of everything--and they started inventorying everything, right down to the contents of the bedroom dresser drawers. We had to help them with that part...identifying the remains of a lot of things. They determined that some bad wiring in the attic had caused the fire, had fallen down along some pipes to the basement, and then come back up the clothes chute to the bathroom. So all three levels of the house had been affected.

When my folks arrived home, my aunt took my grandma back to her house and left me to take my folks home. I remember my brother coming down the front steps as we arrived at the house and my mom throwing her arms around him in a long hug. It was only then that it hit me we could have lost him. It was hard walking through the house with my folks and watching them take in the damage.

My folks were advised to level the house and rebuild. They moved in with my grandma, a block and a half away, for the months that it took to rebuild. And then the refurnishing. A lot of memories were lost with the house though. One day my dad was at my house, opened a kitchen drawer, and just stood staring at it. Finally he commented, "We don't even have a junk drawer anymore." So the family heirlooms and treasures I do have...the photographs, the soot covered baby books, the smoke colored documents, are all the more valuable for having survived the fire.

Twenty-five years later, I took an oil painting that my great-grandfather had painted, and that had hung in that house, to an art dealer for an appraisal. The art dealer's first comment was, "This painting has been restored, hasn't it?" I told him yes, it had been through a house fire and was cleaned and restored, and how did he know? He explained the technicalities of his art and how he knew. But the fact that that painting survived the fire and now hangs in my home is priceless to me.

Early Morning Rain

We were awakened in the early hours this morning with the season's first thunderstorm. And driving to work I saw an extraordinary flash of lightning streak across the sky horizontally as far as I could see, branching out in all directions. I have always enjoyed thunderstorms, and sooner or later at family gatherings, the 1972 flood at Cushing comes up.

My dad and his two sisters owned 80 acres of woods in Cushing, MN. We spent almost every weekend camping there while I was growing up. We started with tents, eventually built a 10x10' storage shed on the property, and later built a geodesic dome for our cabin. But the flood happened before the dome was built. My parents were staying in one tent, and we four kids were in another tent with my grandmother. I always thought it was cool that my grandma went camping with us--I didn't know anyone else whose grandma camped.

It started raining that evening and just didn't let up. We finally went to bed but didn't sleep much with the heavy rain and thunder. And the tent was starting to leak. Somewhere in the middle of the night I remember waking up and seeing a tennis shoe floating in a low spot inside the tent. At one point my sister said she needed to go to the bathroom. My grandma had her take a rain coat, and my sister stepped out of the tent. Only she never came back. After some time of waiting, we started calling for her but we couldn't hear anything over the rain and we certainly couldn't see her anywhere--not even during the flashes of lightning. The rain was coming down so hard and fast, it was almost impossible to see more than a foot ahead. My grandma finally let me step outside to look for her. It was only once I was outside that I realized there was a light coming from the storage shed.

It turned out my parents' tent had collapsed under the weight of the rain and so they took refuge in the shed and had lit the lantern in there. My sister had seen the light and gone into the shed as well. The water was overflowing the gutters on the shed and cascading down the inside of the walls. My parents had moved things away from the shed walls and made make-shift beds on lawn chairs. I decided to join them, went back to the tent long enough to tell my grandma, and then back to the shed where I slept on a table. At least I was dry.

The next day we packed it all in to head home. Only we couldn't get home. Roads were washed out and we found out we'd had 14" of rain in 24 hours. We ended up driving in the opposite direction to the church camp where my aunt, uncle, and cousins were working for the summer. They took us in, dried us out, and made more make-shift beds to accommodate everyone. The kids all thought it was a great adventure and I do remember my grandma making a lot of jokes about the situation. She was like that with us kids. We finally did get home, but I remember it taking a long time and seeing entire fields under water. To this day though, I absolutely love the rain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP_MDIYhPH0

Happy Birthday!

Today is my 50th birthday. I remember asking my mom how it felt to be half a century old. She wasn't impressed with the question. Last night my friend, Mary, gave me a card that said "Half way to a century - impressive!" That's karma I guess. There's a song written by Phil Vassar and released by Tim McGraw called "My Next Thirty Years." I could just as easily substitute fifty for thirty...

I think I'll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era, the turning of a page
Now it's time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next fifty years.

So how did I decide to spend my 50th birthday? With people who mean the most to me. All three of my girls came home yesterday and I cooked my favorite dinner. Mary and her family joined us for cake and ice cream. Today I will spend time with two of my aunts. I love them both and don't see them often enough. I can't think of a better way to spend my day--to laugh with people I love.

16th Avenue

The inspiration for this blog came after reading through my cousin Tania's blog. Keeping in touch with family has always been important for the mix of Thomases, Steffers, Reyes-Cairos, Boes, and everyone else who makes up our extended family. So this will reach out to family, my Baby Girls in particular, about the things that are important to me and the music that inspires me. And there is no song that means more to me than "16th Avenue." Enjoy the Ride!