Newsdump ~ Moments in Time

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein

Just For Today...

I'll try to see the sunny side of any situation.
I'll be an optimist.

Just for today...

I'll try to be a bright moment in someone's life,
with a kind word or a favor.

Just for today...

I'll appreciate all the good things
and not dwell on the bad.

Just for today...

I'll do what I can to make this day one of the best ever!
Unknown (found in my mother's keepsakes)

Blue Sunset

Children's Remarks Lighten The Heart

Hopes

      Moments in time are no sweeter than when children come up with humorous or profound sayings. Whatever they are, parents remember them for a lifetime. Most children forget them the minute they go to kindergarten.
      It was a typical summer packed with activities or the prospect of activities...a picnic, a day at the beach, a carnival, or a family celebration. Every now and then the weather would not cooperate on a carnival or picnic day. Each time there would be an anticipated event that might be canceled or postponed, we would say to the children, "Don't get your hopes up."
      The summer our daughter was five, at that moment in time, it was just such a day of decision. As we sat at our picnic table trying to decide the yes or no of an event, she noticed our dilemma and sat down

by us. Her face propped up in her hands, elbows on the table pushing her cheeks up in that exaggerated way children do. With a big sigh, she said, "Hopes are down."
We chuckled and asked her what she meant. She looked up with an all-knowing expression. "Well, you told us not to get our hopes up. So I guess, if we might not go, then hopes are down."

My Two Grammas...

My two grammas were both special in their own ways. We were closer, both emotionally and geographically, to my mother's mother Gramma Lousia who lived with my aunt about ten miles from our home. Additionally, Gramma Louisa would stay with us once or twice a year for a week or so.
There were no scheduled times. It would vary as to just when she would be with any of her children's families.

Since, I had seven aunts and one uncle, these short sojourns gave my grandmother quality time with her children and grandchildren, and the aunt who she lived with some time alone with her family. These times gave the rest of us treasured memories.
Gramma Edith, my father's mother, lived in Buffalo, which was thirty miles from our house. It was quite a distance in those days. But every now and then my father, sister and I would make a day of it for a visit with Gramma Edith.

Gramma's Easter Capes

Gramma Louisa was with us the Easter season I was eight. Since my mother worked full time, Gramma watched us after school until my parents were home. Being an accomplished seamstress, she decided to pass the time during the day by making my sister and me capes for Easter Sunday. Capes that we could wear to Sunday school and church all spring and fall, not just for that holiday.

      Rather than buy a pastel wool, she picked a lightweight gray wool that my mother had in her stash, and bought the material for the lining. Materials in hand she went to work, measuring us, customizing the patterns, pinning, cutting, and sewing.
      After a few days the fittings began. As she hummed away, she held the pins in her mouth (something my mother constantly told her was dangerous), tucking and folding and pinning strategic places on each cape. The wool itched, but we stood as still as we could.
      One evening as she had held the pins in her mouth, she told my mother she thought she had swallowed one. My mother, the nurse, flew to the cupboard, grabbed a slice of bread and immediately had my grandmother eat it. Then she sat down to calm my grandmother and herself. As they sat there, my grandmother spotted the pin on the floor and showed it to my mother. Mom did not speak to her the rest of the evening.
      The next day Gramma continued to work on our capes, now using a wrist pin cushion. Time after time she would get one shoulder line to meet with her eye of perfection, but the other would not match. She took the shoulders apart several times on each cape; after all she did not want these capes to look homemade.
      Each time she started over she would say, "Shush. Don't tell your mother I'm having this much trouble with these capes." The three of us would nod in agreement. And back to the sewing room she went, where we heard her fussing behind closed doors.
      Finally, the day came when the capes were finished to her satisfaction. As we modeled them for my mother, Gramma stood back, hands clasped beaming with pride at her labor of love.
      As mother slowly turned us around to see every angle and detail of Gramma's work, she touched each cape and said she was pleased with how well they were sewn. Then she turned to Gramma with her hands resting on each of our shoulders and said, "You're a better seamstress than I am, I could never get those shoulder lines."
      The three of us burst into laughter. Once composed, Gramma said, "It's our little secret."
      And it remained so for many years.

Gramma's Lamb Chops

Gramma Edith had a flat* where each room looked like it was a picture in House Beautiful Magazine. She was the fussiest housekeeper. After she mopped her kitchen and back hall floors, they were covered with newspapers to keep them from getting dirty. Even as a child, this never made sense to me because she lived alone.
Her furniture was used but looked new. Her coffee table was covered

with her collection of somewhat pricey knick-knacks that gleamed because she cleaned them often.
      Every time we visited her, it made her edgy because our noses would almost touch them. But we never seriously thought of touching them, because we respected her wishes.
      When my sister and I were seven or eight, we would ask to take a bath when we were at Gramma's, much to my father's embarrassment. For our daily bath at home, we had to heat our water on the stove to get the barest amount of warm bathwater.
      She always said we could. A deep bathtub of hot water filled to the top was a treat. My sister and I would take turns filling the tub, and languishing in it. And, Gramma Edith being fussy would scour the bathtub between each bath. Hot water rinsing was not good enough. But we did not let that bother us, because as we finished our baths, we could smell the aroma of the dinner she was cooking for us.
      Her vegetables came from a can, corn and peas, not like our freshly grown. But the juicy lamb chops came from one of the best butcher shops and the melt in your mouth mashed potatoes were cooked from scratch.
      She served this fare at her kitchen table, a table that had a red and white checked plastic table cloth. I do not recall a time that anyone ever ate at her formal dinning room table. It appeared to be only for very special occasions.
      But year round sunshine came through her white lace kitchen curtains. The food was delicious, and the ambiance of these times shared was priceless. We ate every bite of our food, not even leaving a crumb on our plates.
      Overall, these times were bittersweet for my father who had a loving but strained relationship with his mother. In Gramma's world he lived in the shadow of his brother, who lived a block from my grandmother. And in my grandmother's world, my sister and I lived in the shadow of my cousin, my uncle's only child.
      Still, my father did visit her often because he worked in the city. And whenever he had time, he did errands for her and took her on errands in her neighborhood and downtown, since he had a car and my uncle never owned one.
      All the family grinds aside; Dad always seemed renewed as he enjoyed those uninterrupted leisurely times in the presence of his mother. Moments in time well spent at her table because he loved his mother and his children.
      On the lighter side, back to Gramma's lamb chops. My mom, try as she did, never mastered lamb chops like Gramma did.

Aunts and Uncles...

Aunt Margaret's Dishes and Uncle Roy's Plums

      Whenever I am in a posh department store and see the current fad in dinnerware, I have to smile. These chunky dishes with their mix and match colors remind me of a kinder gentler time and my Aunt Margaret's dishes.
      As my mother walked into Aunt Margaret's kitchen her steps were lighter just being there. And so were mine.
      Her kitchen and dining room walls were a light canary yellow. Not the subdued beige or loden green in the kitchens of my elitist aunts, nor the wallpaper trend of my folksy aunts' kitchens. And over her dining room buffet was a ceramic silhouette of a man and woman entwined. The woman was a light blue, the man a darker blue and both blues matched some of her multiple colored dinnerware, candleholders and decorative accessories.
      Children hear things. Something just let me know that this was a happy person who enjoyed her different décor and dishes even though she was not accepted well by most of my German American aunts. It is not clear to me why, but I surmised it was because she was Italian. But my mother cherished her.
      She was an accomplished Italian cook. And my mother, a gourmet cook in her own right, sat at her elbow in awe and wonder. Mom would taste even the most obscure dishes she made.
      We shared many moments in time with this branch of our family in good times and sad. In her late forties, Aunt Margaret had a dormant childhood disease reoccur. When she was near death my mother, my sister and I would sit with her while my uncle was at work. Even though she did not seem to be aware of her surroundings and those around her, still she did seem to be comforted with us there.
      On a happier note, in his youth Uncle Roy had been a forestry helper in the Great Depression years. He was part of a small crew in the Buffalo, New York, area who planted pine trees along miles of rural roads. To this day these trees are a natural wonder and some are comparable to the high pines in the Rockies. For many years, whenever we drove on the roads along side them in our hometown area we referred to them as Uncle Roy's trees.
      In our younger years, he had a plum tree in his back yard (not the popular plum of the day, but a small purple plum). His face lit up with a smile when he gave us all the ripe plums we could take with us. My mother liked all plums, but as children we were not eager to eat them. Recently, I noticed these plums were very popular in the supermarket and expensive.
      When Aunt Margaret passed, my uncle honored her memory by giving the land behind their house to her Catholic church for a new priest manse. The land was vacant and backed up to the church's land. His Protestant siblings and their spouses were not happy with this gift to the church. His converted Catholic siblings and their spouses were pleased with this gift. My mother was neutral.
      My Uncle Roy and my mother were the middle children of their seven sisters. He was a couple years older than my Mom but they were close.
      When he was finally infirmed, my mother was semi-retired and working a few days a week. One or two days a month for over a year, she would go some twenty miles one way and get him for the day. He would sit in a chair on our sun porch and not speak, oblivious to his surroundings. She would talk to him

as she made his favorite foods, and did household chores. He somehow connected to her voice and presence. Just after dinner she would drive him back to his nursing home. She held her tears for the drive home.
They had a life time of moments in time together, and for some of them we were along for the ride. In their youth they were rascals. In their middle years they were there for each other. In their senior years they were chums.

*Flat is the word used for apartments in Northern cities and the old South.