MY ENGLISH GARDEN

We raised our family in Lincoln, Nebraska, in a beautiful, circa 1900 two story home, complete with a gable of windows jutting out over the large front porch where the swing welcomed long hours of quiet relaxation. Our home resided on an avenue where large oaks and maples graced our view and separated us from our neighbors across a wide expanse.  They provided the most spectacular visions after heavy wet snows and freezing ice storms that coated the limbs and sparkled in the morning sun. It was at this house that my gardening juices began to flow, and I would spend hours of the day planting and experimenting, planning and digging, and trying to duplicate the wonderful memories I had of growing up with the heritage of perennials and vegetable gardening. What I know about flowers and edibles I've learned by trial and error, but mostly amazing success. There were a few who were able and willing to teach me, but I read what I could and learned what I could from personal experience, which, I think, is always the best way to learn.

The adventure began when my husband's mother was thinning out her Bridal Wreath Spirea, and I was thrilled to receive enough to line most of the lot line on one side of our house. Then two of my children came home one Arbor Day, Nebraska, remember, with Russian Olive trees to plant. I had no idea what a Russian Olive tree was, but soon learned to call it a favorite. Its delightful spring perfume is almost overpowering! The vegetable garden came next, and along with the Black Walnut tree and raspberries that were already there, we began our years of fresh produce and lovely flowers.

I did finally tire of the work that accompanies the vegetable gardening and decided one day to change the area that I had grown tomatoes and potatoes in to what I thought of as an English garden. I think there is nothing lovelier. You can have the crisp lines of manicured lawns and landscaped order, but I prefer the cacophony of color and disarray, and I call it quaint and refreshing. I began in the center with a large planting of red canna. I had never really liked canna, but I thought the tall center would be a good start. Then I began to try everything I could get my hands on, just to find what I wanted to keep and what I didn't. My favorites over the years were nasturtium, poppies, bachelor buttons, iris, lantana, foxglove, daisies of all colors and sizes, cone flowers, garden phlox, cleome, hollyhocks and peonies. During the summer I scattered annuals here and there to intensify the color and vary the heights.

Along the side of the house where one of the Russian Olives had been planted and along the row of spirea, I lovingly created a "retreat". There I had roses and iris along with a bench and some decorative items for interest. Whenever we hit a garage sale I watched for the water pumps and old tools and a sundial, and of course, bird houses.

Rhubarb

After our family grew up and went on their way we decided to leave the huge old place to younger folks who were more inclined to lots of yard work, and found our lives confined in the splendor of a brick home, (ah! no more painting!), with a smaller, manicured front lawn (hmm), and a steeply pitched back yard that had very limited possibilities for an old gal like me to think about. At the top of this pitched yard, behind the garage, was a small area big enough to plant some rhubarb and a tomato or two. I was happy.

Today I am limited to mostly container gardening. I even plant my tomatoes and lettuce in containers. My advancing age and limiting health problems have successfully sidelined me from the playing fields of wildflowers and hours of fun in the sun, or even the shade, for that matter. I have pots scattered here and there that are close enough to the house for easy tending. I have a rhubarb plant stuck off in the corner for periodic breakfast and pie fruit. And, best of all, I have a neighbor right across the street who has created the most beautiful English Garden right in her front yard. What joy! I have this gorgeous garden perfectly situated for my inspection every day, albeit from across the street, and I don't have to lift a finger. No green thumb to worry about any longer. The green thumb is on her hand, and all the hard work is on her back, and all the time, I'm smiling. Sometimes getting older ain't so bad.

Clothes Lines

Someone sent me this list of facts about hanging clothes when we were young. Some of it I deleted because it didn't really apply, and then I added some things. Washing clothes was a weekly chore, always on Mondays, and procrastinating to another day just was not done. This was a "must" on Mondays. And, this is the way it was for everyone. All the clothes lines on our block and the blocks around us were full of clean clothes on Monday mornings. 

1. You had to wash the clothes lines before hanging any clothes by walking the entire length of each line with a damp cloth around the lines. Most of the time my mother insisted that it be done twice, just to be sure they were clean enough. 

2. You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang "whites" with "whites," and hang them first. Now, the reason this was done was because they were hung as they came out of the washer. Whites were always washed first because it was a wringer washer, and so the water was cleanest, and you never washed colored clothes with whites. 

3. You never hung a shirt by the shoulders, always by the tail! The clothes pins caused indentations and creases in clothes. They were ironed out, but it was better to not have the crease in the shoulders. 

4. Wash day is on a Monday! It was too much work to set up the wringer washer more than once a week, and Monday was a good day to start the week off with clean clothes. It was all done in one day, and ironed the next day.
                                                                                                 

5. Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your "unmentionables" in the middle. This really wasn't a big deal to my mom, but the sheets were the first load, hung first, and so were on the outside line.

6. It didn't matter if it was sub zero weather. Clothes would "freeze-dry." Sometimes you could wear gloves to hang them, but it was tedious and took longer. When the clothes were dry they were stiff as a board and rough. Ironing took that all out.

7. Always gather the clothes pins when taking down dry clothes. Pins left on the lines got dirty and that wasn't good for clean clothes.  Mom always sewed her clothespin bags fashioned from scraps of material and resembling the one shown here. We had a lot of clothespins, and the bag had to be substantial.

8. If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item did not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothes pins with the next washed item. It saved clothes pins, and it saved space on the line. 

9. Clothes were put into the basket, folded and put away or ironed. The clothes that were to be ironed were usually sprayed or sprinkled with a water bottle, rolled up and put in a basket. Damp clothes are easier to iron than dry. 

10. There also were clothesline poles with a notch in the top to prop up the line in different places along the line to keep it from getting too heavy and allowing clothes to drag on the ground. 

12. The clothes always smelled of the great outdoors. When I crawled into bed on Monday nights and smelled my clean pillow cases and sheets it was the freshest smell in the world.

Strange Words and Phrases My Parents Used

I'm sure that I can never remember all of these in one sitting, so this will have to be an ongoing topic, writing about them when I think of them.

1. "cheese the racket" I admit to you that I have always thought that this line was one of the stupidest lines I had ever heard, and I haven't changed my mind on that. This statement was used in a gruff manner by either of my parents to express their desire for me to shut up. They never would have said shut up, but it sure would have made better sense to me if they had.

2. "Well, I'll swan!" This was an expression that my mother would use to proclaim her surprise at some fact or sight. For instance, let's say the neighbor may have painted their house a strange color of blue. Mother might look out the window and say, "Well, I'll swan!" I recently experienced hearing that same expression in a Tom Selleck western movie, spoken by one of the characters. What a treat to hear it again! Ron had never heard it before, and I had not heard it since my mother died. Since coming south to live I have discovered some possibilities as to where it began, but I have nothing concrete to prove it. It may have something to do with the name Swanee which is prevalent in Georgia.

After further review from the dictionary:swan
34 ENTRIES FOUND:
1) swan (noun)
2) swan (verb)
3) swan (verb)
3 swan verb
swanned swan·ning
Definition of SWAN
intransitive verbdialect
: declare, swear
Origin of SWAN
perhaps euphemism for swear
First Known Use: 1784
Well, I'll swan!

3. "addle-do" Actually what my Mom was saying was "that'll do", meaning hush, or no more behaving like that. John, Jay and Jill all thought that she was saying "addle-do" and thought this was pretty strange and funny. So did I, kids.

4. "Grab a root and growl." This was an expression my mom used when feeding a larger group, always family. It must have been a very common thing to say in her family, as everyone would give a big smile and dig into the food. I have never heard anyone but my mom use this term, but I have heard it said in old John Wayne movies.

   I have realized that I have a friend in Georgia, Debbie Bell, who says this. I was just wide-eyed the first time I heard her say it, and now realize she says it every time we are ready to eat. It's such a thrill for me to hear it!

5. When shopping with mom we always met people that she hadn't seen in a while. When asked how she was she always responded, "Well, I can't complain, but I do anyway."

6.  Mom was almost always ready to go, to jump in the car and go someplace. The ony thing that would need to be done was to put some shoes on because she loved to go barefooted. So, if anyone said, "Lucile. Do you want to go to the store with us?" Mom would reply, "Just let me dress my feet."

Fishing and Hunting With Daddy

I wish with all my heart that you could have heard my Mom and Dad laugh. They both had an infectious, hearty laugh that would fill your heart with the same pleasure that caused it. Their lives had been filled with tragic heartaches and losses, and yet they nourished their capacity to enjoy life with delight at the humor that one finds as they trod on through it. My Mom loved God, worshipped Him in her life and in her singing, and so there was a constant peace and joyfulness about her. My Dad was angry with God for taking two of his children away from him, so his life was less than peaceful, and his moments of joy came and went with the people that he chose to be with. Still, the love and contentment that my Mom and Dad shared with one another was one of their greatest times of laughter and fun.

My Dad was not an educated man, leaving school after the 8th grade, but he was a hard working man and was very personable and social. He had a working knowledge of mechanics, so he was employed for some years as a car mechanic for Ford when we lived in Auburn. When we moved to Falls City he again worked for Ford Motors, but then put his talents to good use by selling cars, rather than fixing them, and then finished his life working for a car parts store. He was good at everything that he did, but I think one of Dad's flaws was his temper and pride that, many times, got in the way of being a reasonable man. Dad was never fired, but if he felt he was being offended in any way he could walk away and never look back. He was a civil man, but if you ever crossed him you lost his respect and friendship. He never spoke badly of you to others, but he would never recommend you either. He held grudges until the day he died, but he did it quietly.

Hard work and special talents do not guarantee high salaries. I remember at one time my attentive ears heard that my Dad brought home $50 each week. I had no idea at the time what that meant, but I was able to assemble all my facts to realize that we certainly had to do without a lot of things. My parents did a lot of things to make up for their lack of funds and to pay bills. My mother sewed almost all of my clothes, and hers, including our coats and jackets. My dad did all the grocery shopping, using Mom's list of necessities and his knowledge of where he could find the cheapest meats and vegetables. We had a big garden every year and canned what we couldn't eat. Our freezer was filled with fish and wild game that Dad brought home. We were friendly with many people who farmed and we purchased sides of beef and chickens and hams at much less than we would have paid in the store. Twice I remember my Dad shooting a deer, and we feasted on the meat for months. All these things, and much more, were done to help make ends meet financially, and I really appreciated none of it. I had no idea then just how hard my parents worked every day, though I do believe that I came away from their examples with a very excellent work ethic.

Many times after work when Dad went fishing on summer evenings he would take me along. Mom went in earlier years, but her knees kept her from climbing some of the river banks where we fished, so she would stay home if she knew it would be difficult. Some places were easier to get to than others. I loved going fishing with Daddy, especially when it was just the two of us. When you're fishing on a river bank there can't be a lot of talking going on or the fish won't come around. But when we did we talked softly, and he would share stories with me or just talk to me a little bit about his day. Often he played little tricks on me just for fun. He laughed a lot when we were together fishing.

Many times we fished with Dad's friend Vern Malick. Vern was Dad's best friend who owned a car body shop. They were both fun, terrible teases, and I was a very good target because I was shy and quiet, very gullible and naive. I became friends with Vern's daughter Carol who was a year older than I, and she was none of these things, so I'm pretty sure I was brought along for the comic relief, which was fine with me. I loved it because I loved them and I loved the attention I got from them. And they teased me with love.

I think I must have been eleven or twelve the night that Dad and Vern and I went fishing on a small creek just east of Salem, NE. It was a beautiful early fall evening, still warm but fall was in the air. There weren't a lot of trees surrounding this area, so the autumn moon, which was directly behind us, filled the sky with it's light with little to break the view except an old grain barn. This barn stood against the moonlight like a giant A with short wings on the side. The moon made the barn loose all of its detail and it was a black shape with a spooky air about it, especially if you're a twelve year old girl.

Soon Dad and Vern began to tell ghost stories, and I wished they would start a fire so I didn't feel so cold and alone in the dark. Their eyes twinkled as they told a story of three hunters out in the woods years ago. One of the hunters had been accidentally shot and died in the hunt, and the other two had carried him back to their cabin, lit a fire for comfort, and then began to mourn the loss of their friend. Along with the fire for comfort they also produced a stash of whiskey that they had brought along for the long cold nights, and they began to drink it and talk of the friendship that the three had shared over the years. The more they talked, the more they drank, and they began to feel sad that they couldn't share their strong drink with the deceased. An idea came upon one of them, and they decided to prop open the dead man's mouth and pour a little whiskey down his gullet. The more they drank the more they talked and the more whiskey was shared with their dearly departed.

At this point I remember my Dad and Vern had paused in the story for some reason because I had to ask my Dad if that was all of the story. "Oh, no. That's not all!" And then they picked up where they left off knowing that they had me right where they wanted me. I was totally fixed on the story and the pictures that I had created in my mind of those two old hunters and a dead man.

All of a sudden the dead man, full of whiskey that had been poured into his throat, sat straight up on the table where they had laid him out. The two remaining friends left all behind and scrambled out into the cold night and forest never to be seen again.

By this time my Dad was laughing so loud and so hard that there was no way we were ever going to catch a fish that night. Of course, his laughter had nothing to do with the story. It had to do with the look on my face at the thought of a dead man sitting straight up on a table. They laughed and laughed and then explained to me that the body full of alcohol would cause the muscles to contract and make the body involuntarily move. Well, then I was fine, but they had had their fun for the night, at my expense, and so we went home empty handed. No fish to clean that night.

Another evening my Dad and I were alone on the Nemaha River, a few miles between Falls City and Salem. It was a very popular fishing spot, and surprisingly there was no one else there that night. It had just begun to get dark. All was quiet, and Dad and I were enjoying the sounds of the summer night. I noticed that Dad had begun to look over at me quite a bit, but he said nothing. Trying to behave I didn't ask why. We sat quietly. He kept looking at me and he began to grin. I know my Dad well, and I knew he was up to something, but I had no idea what. All of a sudden there was this loud, screeching sound right behind me, and the next thing I knew I was up to my knees in the edge of the river, soaking wet from the splash, my hair dripping. My Dad could hardly stand up to help me out of the water because he was laughing so hard. He had watched a tiny screech owl walk up behind me, not realizing that this very still statue was a real person. It must have finally realized I was there, made an alarmed and frightful scream and ran for the brush. After I was out of the water, and the truth was known, that I was not going to be eaten by some huge animal, I had a good laugh about it, but it took a long time for me to stop shaking and calm down. It took a long time, months...years, for my Dad to stop laughing about it. And, again, we went home empty handed.

I hunted with my Dad for years as well. He had given a .22 caliber rifle to me, and I wasn't a bad shot. When he flushed birds I was often able to hit one, but I think only because I got lucky. What I was able to do was hit a squirrel if he sat still long enough on the tree limb. He wouldn't take me deer hunting because he didn't think I could sit still long enough or be quiet enough. We did a lot of road hunting, but you can't tell anyone that because it was illegal. Still is, I think. I didn't like to rabbit hunt, though I went along, because I couldn't hit the stupid things because they ran so fast and jaggedly. I also had pet rabbits at home, so I was a bit loathe to kill one, no matter how tasty they were. I could eat them, I just couldn't kill them.

One very cold winter day we went out for squirrel. He had parked the car along a roadside and we had walked but a few feet when Dad stopped and pointed silently at a small tree maybe thirty yards away. On the bare tree limb sat a red squirrel munching on his lunch and watching us very carefully. I stopped, checked my rifle, and then I aimed it at him. And he just sat there and looked at me. I knew what my Dad was thinking, and I was trying to take the shot, but I couldn't. That dumb squirrel was looking at me! Right at me! And he was still chewing on his lunch. The look in his eye was almost a trusting look; trusting that I was not going to hurt him. And I didn't. I couldn't shoot him. That was the last time I went hunting with my Dad. I knew I would never be capable of shooting another animal, so there was no sense in going. Dad wasn't mad or even disappointed. I'm pretty sure he understood.

We drove up into Minnesota a couple of times on fishing trips, but mostly we stayed close to home. There were a couple of lakes in Nebraska where we went to frog hunt, and that was fun. The most fun about that was watching Mom trying to keep the frog legs from jumping out of the skillet as she cooked them. Again the muscles thing. When the muscles got hot from the grease it caused them to contract and they would leap out of the pan onto the floor, with Mom trying to catch them before they landed.

We spent lots of nights at certain creeks where we would catch crawdads and minnows for fishing the next night. And after a good rain I hustled over to our neighbor's yard where the night crawlers were so thick they made the whole ground look shiny when you shone your flashlight on them. Oh, what fun! You grabbed for the night crawler as he quickly slurped back into his hole, then you had to hold on tight to keep it from slipping out of your hands and disappearing. The neighborhood kids and I went home with buckets of worms and slimy mud and worm goo up to our knees and elbows. I can honestly say that catching night crawlers is one of the most fun things I've ever done in my whole life; right up there with riding a roller coaster.

The worst part of hunting and fishing is cleaning the kill. Thankfully my Dad never made me clean fish. I think he was a little picky about how that was done. He did make me bait my own hook, but that was no big deal, aside from the fact that sometimes I couldn't get my worm to hold still.
I was seldom excused from cleaning the squirrels that I shot. He always said, "You kill it, you clean it." Funny that didn't go for fish. But I'm glad. What I didn't like to help with were the birds; the ducks and the geese and even the chickens when Dad would bring home a live one, and Mom had to kill it, and I got to help clean it. Yuk. I hated the feathers.

One day Dad had three wild geese laid out on the kitchen table to be cleaned. He had already started the process, scalded the dead birds so the feathers came off easier. I said easier, not easily. It's a stinky, yukky job. All of a sudden Mom announced that it was time for them to leave; they needed to go vote. So guess who got stuck with the geese. They left, and I picked and I pulled and I picked. Now, I ask you. How long does it take for two grown adults to go to the polls to vote? I was almost completely done with all three of those stinky birds before they came home to relieve me. My Dad was so surprised that I had not finished yet. I'm convinced to this day that they took the long way there, the long way home, and stopped for a visit somewhere. I hated doing dishes, but I hated cleaning birds worse.

So, growing up I ate lots of rabbit, squirrel, quail, pheasant, catfish, bullheads, even carp, wild ducks and geese and deer. All furnished by a fun trip to the river or the open fields. These were wonderful times, good memories with my Dad, and I will cherish them always.

THE STOVE

Nebraska winters can be extreme and bitterly cold. Mild winters are only occasional, and always include at least a few days of very low temperatures and some considerable snowfalls. My memories of winters when I was a child consist of wonderful fun and playful times in snow and sliding on ice. And in the midst of those memories stands a large brown monster of metal planted firmly into the corner of the center room of our house. It was ugly, cumbersome, dark, and dangerous if you leaned upon it, but it was my favorite place on those cold mornings as I prepared for school. It was the gas stove that heated our house.

On a January or February morning in circa 1960 I would awake in my room at the back of the house beyond the kitchen. Even though it nestled next to the warm kitchen, it still was the coldest room in the house, and that's one reason I liked it because I liked sleeping in a cold room. I awakened beneath so many blankets I wonder I could even move. There was a sheet, usually flannel in winter, two or three blankets, a quilt and a chenille bedspread. There were a few years when I was blessed to have an electric blanket. When I poked my nose out from under all this protection I would immediately see my breath as I exhaled from my warm body. I would turn to my right and look directly through the only window in the room, and on the sill would stand about an inch of frost, and the frost trailed up the window panes about one fourth of the way. Oh, how I wished I could stay under all those blankets, but I knew there was no hope for that. So, I would scramble from my warm bed, grab the clothes that I laid out the night before, and rush to the dining room where I would huddle behind that huge, warm piece of metal to dress. It took no time at all for me to finish; I didn't dally any longer than I had to. I dressed very quickly.

The brown stove was the first place I stopped when I came in from school. I removed my knitted gloves or mittens and laid them on the coolest part of the grilled top so as to dry and warm them if I had to go back out. I came home every day at noon for lunch because we couldn't afford school lunches, and I hated taking a sack lunch. We lived twelve blocks from school, so I appreciated the warmth of that old stove.

Mom also used the top of the stove to keep lunch warm for Dad and me. My favorite lunch was potato soup, so the big pot would be there waiting for us. Mom had many other chores to do, so making lunch ahead of time and keeping it warm was easier for her. On Mondays Mom baked bread for the week, and she would keep the baked bread on the stove until after lunch so that we could have hot bread.

In the bathroom, nestled next to the large claw-foot bathtub, was a very small gas stove to heat that room, and the kitchen was heated by the oven. On really cold days Mom would leave the door on the oven open to help heat the room, and the oven was never turned off during the winter months.

I am very thankful for the wonderful conveniences we have today. We didn't have air conditioning when I was growing up, just a large square fan perched in a screened window. Most of my friends had heat and air conditioning in their homes. We weren't that fortunate, but the memories I have of that old brown stove are sweet and precious.

PEEWEE, A VERY CRAZY BIRD

There are many people in this world who make our days fun and different and exciting. I enjoy people, some people, and I especially enjoy those who make the days fun and interesting. If the truth be known, I really prefer dogs to people because they are so devoted and loyal, so full of love for their master, and never have a bad word to say to you. But this story tells of a creature that, at one time, made my life fun and different and enjoyable. This is a story about a real birdbrain, if I may say so. It's about PeeWee the parakeet, and how a little animal can make life exciting and fun.

PeeWee came to our house when I was about three years old. My first memory of him is being in his cage that Mom had placed in the bathroom window. This observation point was perfect for him. One direction faced directly into the backyard where he could commune with the outside birds and dream of freedom. With the window open anyone in the yard working could talk to him. The opposite direction allowed him to view straight through the dining room and living room to the front door. The only place he couldn't see you was in the kitchen or bedrooms. PeeWee had a great setting, a great imagination, a great personality, and a very ornery streak.

Our first attempt to train PeeWee was to teach him to talk. It took very little time before we heard the results of our efforts. Dad worked in the backyard a lot, and so he would pass the window and stop to say hello. "Hello, PeeWee." he would say over and over. "PeeWee's a pretty bird." This sentence was repeated continually by my whole family. And soon he was saying it himself. Then he began to say things that we weren't trying to teach him. The dining room was just a few feet away and soon he was heard to say, "Shirley. Clean up your plate. Shirley. Clean up your plate."


I'm not sure why we named him PeeWee, other than his size. Most of the time mom and dad were trying to get him to say "Liberace", the name of a famous piano player at the time. Mom would say, "Call me Liberace." But the whole sentence never came. He would say "Liberace" and then laugh, "yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk", which sometimes sounded like my mother and other times more like my dad. PeeWee laughed constantly, and always sounding like one of them. What was so unnerving was that he had the ability to understand what he was laughing at. If mom made a mistake in the kitchen she would say, "Oh, rats!" Immediately PeeWee would say, "Oh, rats!" And then he would laugh. My dad would tell us a joke, and PeeWee would laugh. He would say, "That's a good one, yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk."


PeeWee was allowed to roam the house on most days. We never clipped his wings, so he had full power to fly where he wished. Sometimes he would fly around from window to window, stretching his wings and laughing. He might stop long enough to look around and say "PeeWee's a pretty bird." Then he would fly some more. He especially liked hanging out in whatever room mom was, sitting on the window curtain or on her shoulder. He couldn't stay on her shoulder for long because she was always moving around, so he had to find a station for observation. Mom sang continually, and he loved this, so he listened and sometimes he would repeat a word. More often he would just chatter along in his bird chatter. He stopped when she stopped, and he chattered as she sang.

When we moved to Falls City PeeWee's cage no longer had such good views, so mom would take him in his cage to sit on the porch or hang on the clothesline. Here PeeWee chattered and whistled and talked all day long to his feathered friends. We had to watch for cats, but PeeWee warned us if one came into the yard with such shrieking and fluttering that we knew to hurry out to save him from someones lunch, though they couldn't have gotten to him in his cage. We brought him in nonetheless.

More about outdoors later. I told you that he was ornery, and so I must explain some of the antics we had to tolerate. PeeWee loved butter. We learned to keep a lid on the butter dish or we would find little peck marks all the way around the edge. He loved to chew on the curtain tops as he perched. Mom continually had to either chase him off or replace the lace curtains. The curtains didn't get replaced until they were totally ragged along the top from one side to the other. You could hear him chewing, and then he would laugh, because he knew he wasn't suppose to be doing it. Often those curtains had to be washed....bird poop, you know.

PeeWee loved to tease and play with my mother. He would dive-bomb her head while she was cooking, grabbing at a strand of hair as he passed. Then he would sit up on the curtain and laugh before he went back for more. He would talk to her, then dive at her head and perch and laugh. But one day PeeWee went just a little too far. My mom was making a big pot of vegetable soup and as she stood at the stove stirring and singing PeeWee decided he wanted to play dive and scoop. Mom heard him flying toward her and ducked, and PeeWee flew into the back of the stove, knocking him senseless, and falling directly into the boiling pot of homemade vegetable soup. Mom screamed, grabbed a large spoon and dove in after him. She wrapped him in a towel and went to the sink to put him in cool water. We almost had parakeet for dinner that night, but mom was quick enough to save our poor little baby. After he was calm and shivering and wrapped into a soft clean tea towel we were astonished to see a totally naked bird. PeeWee had not one feather left on his body. The boiling soup had completely stripped him, and he was the most pathetic sight you would ever see.

He couldn't eat; he couldn't drink. Mom nursed him back to health over the next few weeks with an eyedropper, making sure he drank plenty of water. Eventually he began to have a little fuzz on his body, then feathers. He began to eat a little lettuce as mom held it for him, then some bird seed. It took weeks, but he was nursed back to health, just as pretty as ever, just as ornery as ever, and with just as good a vocabulary.

PeeWee spent most evenings on my shoulder sleeping until it was time for bed. He cuddled into my neck as far as he could, snuggled his head under my chin or into his feathers, hunkered down, and there he stayed. Oh how I loved this bird. He was warm and funny and sweet. On really cold nights PeeWee would crawl into the front of my blouse and nestle on my chest to sleep. While he was awake and sitting on my shoulder he would talk and tell me how pretty he was, and how dirty. "PeeWee's a dirty bird. yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk." "Well, I'll be a dirty bird." We taught him to say this because it was a famous saying by George Gobel, a famous TV comedian. "Look out, PeeWee! Look out, PeeWee! yuk yuk yuk yuk yuk." "Gimme a kiss. Come on. Gimme a kiss." Then he would scoot over to my cheek and kiss me. He did this to mom, as well, but for some reason he never asked dad for a kiss. He would sit on his shoulder, but never ask for a kiss. He also kissed mom and I on the lips, and he was very gentle about it. PeeWee almost never bit, but I remember a couple of times when he got mad and bit me if I put my thumb on his feet to keep him from flying. Dad or mom would be going out the door and I didn't want him to fly out with them.

One summer day mom took PeeWee in his cage outside to clean it. PeeWee's cage was shaped as a rectangle, which made it easier for him to sit on the top and move around. It also makes it easier to hang bells and treats on the inside, and it is bigger than most cages. As mom pulled the sliding floor out the paper on it caught about halfway, and it tilted the cage just enough for a frightened bird to fly out and right on up into the apple tree. Mom called and called. PeeWee laughed and laughed. He talked and whistled to the birds, and when mom called him he laughed. This went on for hours. I called. PeeWee laughed. I tried to climb the tree, but he was so high up that I couldn't get to him. And he laughed. Mom and I were both frantic, but he just wouldn't fly down. Hours passed and then we didn't hear him anymore. He had flown away, and I cried myself to sleep that night. There could never be another bird like him, and my heart was broken.

After a week of calling and watching I finally gave up and realized that I was not going to see PeeWee ever again. By this time I was sure he was dead from exposure and not eating or drinking. But about two weeks later mom saw an ad in the paper in the Lost and Found that a parakeet had been found. Mom immediately called the number. Mom described PeeWee to the man, but other than being green and a parakeet, was there any other way to identify the bird, the man asked. Mom thought for a minute. Yes! Our bird has an identification band on one of his legs with the number 69 on it. That was it! They had found PeeWee. We hurried to pick him up at the sight where he had been found. The city was building a new elementary school, and one of the workers had found PeeWee sitting on the old merry-go-round. He was battered and tired, and he let the man pick him up with no resistance. We brought him home and treated him to the very best treatment ever. He was even allowed a little dab of butter to peck on.

It was a while before PeeWee began to chatter and talk, and even longer before he wanted to play dive-bomber. There was little laughter for quite a while. PeeWee was very glad to be home, and he wasn't in the mood for much nonsense. But he eventually perked up and was the same old tease, with lots of laughter and diving.

We also had to be careful when we ran our bath water to be sure the door was closed. He loved to dive through the water as it was coming out which invariably knocked him down. He was able to fly out of the water to repeat the process until he was too wet to fly. So we kept the door shut, and kept a small bowl of water on a table so that he could swim and splash safely and at his leisure.

PeeWee had a very large bell in his cage. Mom had received it from Dad and it had a small bottle of nice perfume attached to it. So, PeeWee inherited the bell, and he loved to place his whole body inside it and sleep. Inside the bell was a little ball on a piece of thick string, and he could beat on this bell with his bill and make a lot of noise, ringing and shrieking, and, of course, laughing at himself. He could see his image in the bell, and it was just a delightful addition to his many toys. While we were gone to town that day PeeWee decided to take a nap inside his bell. We can only imagine what caused him to get wrapped up in that string, but when we got home we found a bloody bird laying on the floor at the side of his cage. Somehow he had gotten the string with the ball on the end of it wrapped around and around his neck. When he realized he was caught he had flapped and fought his way, bell and all, down the side of the cage and onto the floor where he lay exhausted and not appearing to breathe.

We got him out of the cage and clipped off the string with scissors. He had beaten himself raw of feathers in many parts of his head and neck and wings. He was a sad, bloody mess. He was barely alive, and once again my mom spent weeks feeding him water with an eyedropper, hand-feeding him lettuce and bird seed. He slept on my chest whenever I was home from school, and I never let him out of my sight. His cage had always been covered for the night, but now I not only covered it, but I kept it close, either having it in my room or sleeping on the couch. And wouldn't you know it, PeeWee grew back to health, and was the same old stinker that he had always been. This bird had nine lives.

PeeWee said lots of words, some in sentences, some just words he heard that he repeated. He knew when to say "Give me a kiss." He knew when to laugh, especially at mom. He was one of the smart ones. I've seen many instances when people have tried to teach a bird to talk and they never do. I'm not sure if it's the bird's fault or the teacher's, but I know that he was quick to learn and he knew when to say things.

One thing my mom and I thought was one of the funniest things is when my Grandma who we lived with would get angry. She often would slam doors and move her furniture around in her room and stomp through the house from the bathroom and back to her room. When she did this PeeWee would laugh at her as she passed his cage. She would stop, give him a dirty look, make a scoffing sound and stomp on, to which PeeWee would laugh. He really was a bad, bad bird. And mom and I were bad for thinking this was funny.

One morning when I was 16 I was in the bathroom getting ready for school. The door opened and my mom walked in and sat down on the edge of the tub. She asked me to sit down with her, then told me that during the night PeeWee had died, that she had found him on the floor of his cage and that dad had immediately taken him out to the back to bury him so that I wouldn't have to see him. It took old age to kill such a fine bird. Nothing else could overtake him.

My life has been blessed with many pets that were dear to me. PeeWee was the first. He was the bravest. And he was the most exasperating pet I've ever seen. To this day I think of him and smile with admiration. PeeWee was a dirty bird.

TAKING VACATIONS?

My, how times have changed! Perhaps it's because growing up in the 1950's was already so pleasant. But, I suspect that the reason our family took so few vacations was that we couldn't afford it. Actually, the word vacation just wasn't in our family vocabulary, or just not considered at all. There was work to do, and it was done six days a week. Sunday was for church and rest. There were one or two times that I think I can say we were on a vacation, but not often, and certainly not every year.


I don't remember my dad even taking days off, or having a set vacation time every year. He went to work every day, even when he was sick. He had no "sick days", and I don't believe he had "vacation days" at any of his jobs. We just stayed home. We had short trips on weekends, but those were always to family within driving distance, and we went fishing in the summer evenings. That was dad's relaxation time, not to mention it filled our freezer for winter meals. He also hunted on winter Saturdays, and I went along most of the time, and my mom would come along sometimes. We hunted squirrel, rabbit, quail, pheasant, ducks, and deer. I didn't go along when he went deer hunting. That required too much sitting, and you had to be very quiet and still. Quiet I could do. Still was another story. The commom quip from my day about me was that I had "ants in my pants". Winter meals were pretty much established by fishing and hunting, and of course, there were canned vegetables and fruits from the garden.

I looked forward to Falls City's "4-H Fair Days" every year. During these three days of parades and a carnival on main street (Stone Street) there was a rodeo every evening, and during the daylight hours there were 4-H entries at the auditorium that were being judged, winning ribbons, and people wandering around admiring all the entries. I was in 4-H for many years, so I always had baked entries, hand sewn clothes, and crafted items. There were many farmers in the area, and so there were livestock entries, rabbits, and other domesticated animals. Those three days were usually the highlight of the summer. They were the first week of August, just before State Fair and County Fair, and we always had so much fun, even though I wasn't allowed as much money for the rides as other kids. But I did my best to save pennies. Rides were usually 5 cents, some were 10. My dad would give me 50 cents, and I made it last most of the day. The best part about a small town is that I could go to the fair without my parents. My dad worked in the downtown area, so I always had access to him. If it was a good day, and he was in a good mood, I just might be able to stop by his store and weasel another 5 cents, but he had to be in a good mood. It helped if there were other people around.

Almost every year my mom and I traveled by Continental Trailways (bus) to visit my Grandma Campbell. I remember twice we took a train. That's my idea of a vacation. My grandmother lived with her son Raymond and his wife Marian and their son Jerry. I really loved going to their house. It was always fun. For a while they lived in Waxahatchie, Texas, and that is when we traveled by train. I was very young, but I remember it very well. We usually went at Christmas time, and in southern Texas it was usually pretty warm, so there was lots of outdoor time with Jerry and his friends. My grandmother would sit with me for hours to teach me things like embroidery, and crocheting. We did crosswords together, and the whole family played board games every night. My uncle would challenge me to spell really long words on the blackboard they had in their kitchen, and he would tease me constantly about everything. I loved being in that house.

They moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma later, and I loved going there as well. Their home was a Cape Cod style brick, with a wonderful climbing tree in the back. Mom and Grandma and I would sit on the back patio for hours and drink iced tea and talk and sing hymns. I was a little intimidated by my Aunt Marian. She was about four foot ten, talked so fast you really had to pay attention, chomped ice incessantly, and was a stick of dynamite. She and my uncle were both Baptist preachers, and they were fun. But I didn't mess with her. I did exactly what she told me to do.

When I was about nine or ten my dad planned a fishing trip to Minnesota in September. September in Minnesota is pretty cool, and I remember a bit of rain that year. We all went up together and the lake and fish odors, and the autumn damp smell will be in my memory forever. There were no other children to play with because the normal tourist season was over, so when I wasn't out on the lake with my dad and his friend I would be in the little cafe that was on the grounds. This is where I learned to slow dance. The daughter of the owner of the campground worked in this little cafe, and she was a teen, probably fifteen. She was just old enough for me to think I wanted to be just like her. And I was company for her. So she played the jukebox or the old piano they had there, and taught me to dance, and especially to waltz.

Being on this trip was the first time I had ever seen a chipmunk, and it was the very first time in my life that I was allowed to wear something other than a dress or skirt. My dad was very old fashioned and strict, and I wasn't even allowed shorts in the summer. We were in Minnesota, almost to our destination, when my dad asked my mom if she had enough warm clothes for me. She said that I had a coat and a sweater, but she thought I would still be cold out on the lake. Dad hadn't even considered this, so we stopped at a store in the next town, and they purchased for me my very first pair of jeans and a hooded sweat shirt. As far as I was concerned, it might as well have been a princess dress. I was so happy to finally have pants, and I wore them every single day I was there. Mom washed them out and hung them to dry or I would have worn them dirty.

I remember another time when we travelled to Tuttlecreek Lake in Kansas for a weekend fishing trip. This was just after a tornado had leveled a lot of the area around it. We saw a piece of siding from a house trailer that was speared into a tree. And I remember going to Joplin, Missouri a couple of times to visit my dad's sister, my Aunt Vera. This was in the Ozarks, and that was enjoyable because we not only went to her house, but we did some sight seeing. Beautiful country, and my mom almost got wiped out by a mama buffalo because she got to close to her baby buffalo. That was exciting. On our way home we stopped at some caverns called Bridal Cave and saw stalactites and stalagmites.

My dad had stomach ulcers, and once I remember he and my mom had to go to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, so they dropped me off at my dad's brother's in Iowa City. That was sort of a vacation, and I got to meet their friend's children, and grew closer to my Aunt Bettye. I also can tell you what music was popular at the time because my dad played the car radio a lot. He seldom did this, but on a trip he did because my mom enjoyed the music. I rememer hearing songs like Personality, and Don't Know Much About History, the first version, so this must have been in the late 50's.

I was allowed many times to spend weekends with friends and family who lived on farms. Those are wonderful memories, and I really enjoyed farm living. Once, when I was eleven or twelve, someone in our church paid for me to go to church camp with the kids. Initially I wasn't able to go because we didn't have the money, but someone came forward to pay my way.

Well, there you have it. I can't think that there were any other times that we left home for any length of time. Even leaving home for a day trip to visit aunts and uncles or even the cemeteries was like a vacation at our house, and we did that often.

Today, Ron and I travel to visit our grandchildren. We enjoy being around them more than going anywhere else. That family planned a trip with us to the ocean, which was my first time to see it, and that was lots of fun. Ron and I seldom go to places without our children. When you live away from all of them there is just no where else we want to go, though, I will say I do have this desire to see the Grand Canyon, and I am campaigning for the trip, but I'm not holding my breath. When I take a trip, I go alone lots of times, which is fine with me, but after about four days I get very homesick for Ron, and sometimes I cry and get a little cranky until I can get passed it. I always love going home.