Things My Mother Never Told Me

 

While I was wrapping Christmas presents this year an odd recollection came to me as I was fumbling around--it was a message from my mother offering advice, almost as clear as if she were standing beside me. “If you fold the paper this way,” she said, “you won’t use so much wrapping paper, "My oh my” she went on, "wherever did you get so much ribbon? Do you really need ribbon for every gift box? It seems to me that once you see one ribbon, you won’t even look at more when it is on every package.”

Of course, I knew what she was concerned about. Two things drove her: cost, and, in her mind at least, wasteful practices. If a foot of ribbon were used, she would question why a six-inch piece wouldn’t do just as well. Those attitudes had been driven into her psyche since she was a child.

Both my mother and father lived through the Great Depression starting in 1929. Each was born in 1917, both watched their parents struggle financially during the period when they were impressionable children, both saw and felt the effects of the financial hardship that was universal among their families and neighbors. It must have seemed to them that no one could escape what they called hard times. The solution to the problem of hard times was the same then as now: use less, reuse everything, and make do with what you have instead of buying new. One instance of that was wrapping paper for Christmas presents. In her mind, making do without new packaging and ribbons meant doing things like carefully unwrapping the decorative wrapping paper on gifts so it could be reused the following Christmas.

I didn’t realize the scope of the hardships my mother experienced until I dove into the genealogy of our family a few years ago. Her father seemed to be a proud man, concerned with appearance. This became apparent to me when he came to live with us after the death of his wife and his gradual decline in health. My mother seemed the only one of his children who had both the means and the inclination to take care of him. He was given his own bedroom in our house, and he laid claim to a comfortable chair in the living where he sat with an ashtray at his fingertips for his ever-present cigarette. He wore a dark blue wool suit every day that I can recall, including the time that he spent working in his large vegetable garden before his health prevented it.

His name was Jesse Hiester, and I learned more about him when I worked on a book about the family. Jesse was one of several Heisters that were involved in a furniture business in our small town. Jesse’s involvement in that business came to an end during the Great Depression when his boss decided to reduce Jesse’s wages from $9 dollars per week to $7. The blow was too great for Jesse and his ego and he decided to quit his job rather than suffer the ignominy of such a salary decline.

It must have been during this time that my mother recalled walking along the railroad tracks with a sack in hand to pick up and carry home whatever stray lumps of coal jostled from the coal car that bumped along behind the steam engine. Apparently, the family used the coal to advantage during the colder winter months in northeast Indiana. Another surprising find during my genealogy search was that Jesse never owned a house. He and his family lived in a single modest home for many years that was rented rather than owned. At the back of the house was an outdoor pump where all household water came from (as long as you were willing to work the handle) and further back, next to the alley, was the privy that was used by everyone who lived there. No one wasted time there during the winter months.

Living was harder during these times. 

 

 

 

Boots and Broccoli

 

 

These are my winter boots. I have been wearing them most days as I battle the snow invading my driveway and the sidewalk around my house. The boots are warm, water and snow proof, and comfortable. I have been wearing them most days because of the unrelenting snow. Another feature the boots contain is embedded in the soles of the boots. As you can see in the second picture, the soles are replete with small cleats that are intended to make the boots stable despite use in snow, mud, and whatever other miseries that Mother Nature throws at us.

Sometimes the cleats throw an unexpected curve ball at me and that’s the subject of this blog. To understand my surprise with the boots, I have to take you indoors where you can sneak a look at my dinner habits. Although my roommate doesn’t approve, I often wear my boots indoors and they often show up on my feet when I sit down for dinner. Another of my dinner habits involve my carelessness with food. For some unknown reason, an inordinate amount of my dinner escapes my fork and spoon and ends up on the floor surrounding my regular spot at the dinner table. It only seems to happen to me.

My lovely bride and occasional dinner guests don’t seem to have the problem of loose food. My after- dinner clean-up reveals that the only spot at the table with bits of food on the floor, is mine. I don’t know why it happens, but various dribbles of food, mostly vegetables, seem unusually determined to escape being eaten. It appears I am unable to shovel food into my mouth without a few pieces escaping the confines on my fork or spoon while making the trip from plate to mouth. Often, it occurs without me knowing.

Last night it happened again, only this time I saw the uncooperative chunk of broccoli come loose from my over-burdened spoon while my spoon was about half-way to my mouth. It missed the plate, landed on the edge of table, and then dropped to my lap before bouncing one final time to the floor. I saw the whole thing as if it were in slow motion. Naturally, I lifted my gaze to see if my ever-vigilant wife witnessed the faux pau. Thankfully, she was concentrating on her dinner and failed to notice the errant broccoli. I quickly decided there was no reason to announce my mistake with the broccoli. I kept my eyes averted and plunged my spoon into another bite of food. The next spoon excursion was successful, giving me the chance make a subtle glance at the floor without revealing the reason. Sure enough, there was the piece of broccoli on the floor, midway between my boots and the sturdy oak table leg. I decided that the remedy for my mistake was to wait until dinner was finished allowing me the opportunity to pick up the soft green chunk of broccoli, deposit it on my plate while I helped clear the table, or, as my Indiana mother used to say, I would help “red (clear) up the table.”

My plan failed. As I stood and pushed my chair back, I made a quick glance at the floor. There was no broccoli there. It was missing. Of course, I couldn’t announce the mystery as I casually took a second look while I retrieved my dinner plate and utensils then crept toward the kitchen sink while surreptitiously glancing at the floor for a third time. Again, no broccoli or anything else was there except for the small green stain that was not worth mentioning.

The rest of my evening was uneventful. Even the TV had nothing of importance other than our new President revealing his inability to govern. Oh, I forgot to mention I saw another one of those green stains near the wood stove that I was monitoring that evening.

I kept my boots on until I got sleepy and it was time to get ready for bed. The boots came off easily enough and I went barefooted to the bench below which I store my boots. Then something strange became apparent: the green stain on the floor was following me. I hadn’t noticed earlier, but the green stain was following my footprints from the kitchen to my easy chair. I turned over the right-hand boot that was in my hand. The terribly smeared and nearly indistinguishable broccoli was wedged between the topmost cleats on the bottom of the boot. My estimation of the formerly beloved boots dropped several points, and I vowed not to eat broccoli while wearing boots.

 

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

WILLIAM WALKER - CREATOR OF THE MUSIC FOR 

AMAZING GRACE

One of the tunes in our ukelele playbook is the hymn Amazing Grace. It is a popular song among us ukelele aficionados probably because it is easy to play and most of us are familiar with it, including me. The hymn is likely the most well-known and best loved song performed in churches across the United States.

The lyrics were written by an Englishman named John Newton in 1772 in collaboration with a poet named William Cowper. The song was initially chanted without music or read aloud to the congregation. Music was added to the song some 63 years after it was written and the hymn increased in popularity around the world thereafter. Amazing Grace became an especially popular in America as it was used by Baptists and Methodist preachers as part of their evangelizing, especially in the American South. In 1835, American composer William Walker finally set the song it to a tune known as "New Britain" using notes that made the tune easy to sing. As a reminder, here are the lyrics. I bet that you can’t read them aloud without wanting to burst into song.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.

 T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved, How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. ‘Tis grace hath bro’t me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, His words my hope secure,

He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we first begun.           

Newton had a checkered career before he began writing poems for hymns. His father was a sailor and Newton gravitated to the same profession. At the age of eleven, he joined his father on a ship as an apprentice; however, his seagoing career would be marked by headstrong disobedience. His disobedience caused him to be pressed into the Royal Navy, where he continued his wayward ways. After some years, he deserted the navy to visit Mary "Polly" Catlett, a family friend with whom he had fallen in love. After enduring humiliation for deserting, he was traded as part of a crew that served on a slave ship. Thereafter he began a career in slave trading.

He recognized his own failings as he said “A common drunkard or profligate is a petty sinner [compared] to what I was.” While aboard the ship Greyhound, Newton gained notoriety as being one of the most profane men his captain had ever met. In a culture where sailors habitually swore, Newton was admonished several times for not only using the worst words the captain had ever heard but creating new ones to exceed the limits of his verbal debauchery. Such was the life of Newton during the years that he worked on a slave ship Greyhound.

In March 1748, while the Greyhound was in the North Atlantic, a violent storm came upon the ship that was so rough it swept overboard a crew member who was standing where Newton had been moments before. After long hours of the crew emptying water from the ship and expecting to be capsized, Newton and another mate tied themselves to the ship's pump to keep from being washed overboard, working for several hours. After proposing the measure to the captain, Newton had turned and said, "If this will not do, then Lord have mercy upon us!” Newton rested briefly before returning to the deck to steer for the next eleven hours. During his time at the wheel, he pondered his divine challenge. Newton’s life began to change after this storm although Newton continued in the slave trade through several voyages where he sailed the coasts of Africa, now as a captain, and procured slaves being offered for sale in larger ports, transporting them to North America.

The slave trade was among the worst outrages that humans brought upon the heads of other humans who were easily identified by their black skins. Given today’s standards, it is difficult to understand how our forebears had so little regard for human life as those who worked in the slave trade. Newton continued in the slave trade until 1754 or 1755 when he ended his seafaring career and began studying Christian theology. After he completed his studies, he was ordained in the Church of England and was assigned to serve as a Curate in a place known as Olney. It was here that Newton wrote the poem that became the basis for the hymn Amazing Grace.

His new hymn was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It is unknown if there was any music accompanying the verses; it may have been chanted by the congregation without accompaniment by musical instruments. It debuted in print in 1779 in Newton's and Cowper's Olney Hymns, but settled into relative obscurity in England until it became known in the United States and set to music.

With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed, and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world. [Editor's note: Much of the foregoing came from Wikipedia, including the text color and underlining. 

 

My Electric Car

Thomas Edison and his Electric Car in 1913

Wikipedia “History of the Electric Car”

I am now the proud owner of a 2025 electric vehicle from Chevrolet, the EV Equinox. It is an SUV that replaces my former small truck, the GM Colorado. The new car has taken some getting used to. I had assumed that the local GM Dealer would explain the Equinox features on my purchase day and I would drive away fully informed, chortling about my good luck in capturing one of the early EV’s that will provide a tax deduction, courtesy of the Fed.

But first, here is a little background about electric cars. The earliest vehicles in America were carriages or wagons powered by a horse (or horses depending upon the size of the load and the quality of the roads). That changed in the mid 1800’s when several inventors learned about steam engines and batteries and how they could be used instead of horses.

An English inventor named Thomas Parker built the first production electric car in 1884. Parker is famous for electrifying the London underground tramways, and his EV was produced by the Elwell-Parker Company. Meanwhile, in the U.S., chemist William Morrison in Des Moines, Iowa, applied for a patent for an 1890 “electric carriage.” It was featured in a city parade in 1888; a six-passenger, four-horsepower wagon with a top speed of 14 mph, which needed to be recharged every 50 miles.

Gasoline powered cars were having their own issues in the early-1900s. Outside of cities, there were no paved roads – just horse paths – and gas-powered cars constantly got stuck. Plus, they had to share those roads with horse-drawn carriages – and horses hated the noise and stench produced by loud, smelly internal-combustion engines. Early cars were hand-cranked – starting them was a dangerous process and the electric starter didn’t come along until 1912. Gas-powered cars vibrated terribly and the pollution and racket from their tailpipes was intense. By comparison, early electric cars had no hand crank starters, didn’t smell or pollute the air, and were extremely quiet.

By 1912, most American homes were wired for electricity, and that helped early EVs to be accepted and adopted. At that time, 40 percent of cars were still powered by steam, 38 percent were powered by electricity, and only 22 per cent were gasoline-powered. That changed as many buyers of new automobiles were seduced by the power and low cost of gasoline powered vehicles like Henry Ford’s early cars and trucks.

(https://www.greencars.com/greencars-101/history-of-early-electric-cars?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=gc_merkle_electric%20car_basic)

Now, here we are in the early part of the 20^th century, and gasoline (or diesel) powered engines have become the principal power source for automobiles for more than 50 years. In those 50 years automotive engineers developed reliable gasoline powered automobiles that have added to air pollution and helped provoke the catastrophic problem of climate change. [In the interest of full disclosure: I was one of those automotive engineers for 37 years].

One answer to the problems provoked by the millions of internal combustion engines on our roads are electric cars that are now being resurrected for everyday use. Most people believe that EV’s can save money, help the environment by eliminating air pollution and finally, offer an excellent driving experience. I decided to climb on this wagon by purchasing an EV that I would use while still relying on my diesel-powered truck for heavy loads and long distant travel.

I have learned a lot in the past week that I have owned the vehicle, and I no longer laugh about my good luck. Instead, I turn to my life partner for advice. She and I are jointly studying the Equinox Owner’s Manual that we downloaded – a 350-page compendium. Sadly, I have begun to learn that our new car is smarter than me.

Here’s an example: I like using Cruise Control. Even for short distance driving the Cruise Control helps me control the speed of the car without my constant attention to the gas pedal. The new Equinox has an added wrinkle on its many features that involve Cruise Control. There is not a single version of the conventional Cruise Control, instead there are three Cruise Control programs: the conventional one, another called adaptive Cruise Control, and a third that I have yet to discover on the massive touch screen.

I don’t like the adaptive cruise. It is a safety feature as it tracks the distance between me and the car immediately ahead. If I get too close to it, my Cruise Control automatically lowers my speed until the car ahead disappears or increases its speed thus increasing the separation distance between me and it. On the face of it, it would seem to be a nice safety feature. Unfortunately, the notion of having my car tell me how close or how far away I must be from the car ahead isn’t inscribed on my musical score. I just didn’t like it. I haven’t yet figured out how to override that feature since it is only one of the myriad controls featured on the, here it comes, The Infotainment Screen.

In comparison, there are any number of features on the new car that I am growing to enjoy. The air conditioning system is one of them. Now that winter has arrived and my garage is getting cool, the Equinox heating system takes over to keep the occupants warm. Without asking, the car turns on the heated steering wheel, the heated seats, and, of course, the heater’s blower motor sends out toasty warm air from each outlet surrounding the driver and passengers.

This feature comes at a cost. The heating system is powered by the vehicle’s batteries. Every BTU consumed in heating reduces the number of miles that can be traveled before recharging the vehicle is necessary. So far, the requirement for keeping the batteries charged has not been a barrier – I simply plug in the car each night before bedtime to recharge the batteries. The car says ‘thank you’ when I plug in by a pleasant chirp and a brief flash of the exterior lights.

Driving the EV has been a hoot. The smooth ride, lack of noise, and luxurious interior makes every ride a pleasant driving experience. The need for re-charging the batteries to obtain a charge that will satisfy my travel needs has not been an issue for me as the plug-in feature has worked flawlessly. There are those on the internet who complain about electric cars based on faulty information. One writer summed up the situation succinctly, he noted that the only people who don’t like EV’s are those who have never driven one. So far, mine has been a hoot and I haven’t used a single gallon of gas to get to town.

Goodbye Ethel

 Goodbye Ethel

 

Ethyl left us today. This, after 34 years of living at our house where we provided for her every need in return for her faithful service. Today she left our front door in the company of a lady-friend of Marjorie’s in spite of our history of providing her shelter and care. Marjorie and I expect that we will never see her again unless the lady friend sends us a picture of Ethel in her new home. Perhaps this blog will be a fitting epithet for Ethel and her faithful service.

I should give you some more detail about Ethel before you get the wrong impression. I will enclose a picture of her below. I took the photo this morning to help you and the two of us remember her. First of all, you should know that Ethel was a careful dresser. The fact that she left our house this afternoon at two PM wearing rather skimpy clothes was not her fault. Marjorie was in charge of her attire, and she admitted that she hadn’t furnished the poor creature any new clothes in a long while. Close inspection revealed that, in fact, the bottom part of Ethel’s attire was a long apron that was a perfect match for the clothing beneath it.

Ethel was something of a clothes horse, wearing whatever Marjorie provided. The aforementioned skirt, shirt and apron has been her everyday clothing for the past several years while she greeted visitors as they ascended our stairway to the second floor. This site was Ethel’s station every day. Our second floor consists of three bedrooms and one bathroom. Especially telling is that one of the bedrooms doubles as a sewing room for Marjorie. Within that room is a host of sewing machines, tables, and a large closet where rests an untold number and stacks of fabrics and notions for the making of quilts. The room is more of a sewing room than a bedroom although a large log bed stands within, mostly used for organizing quilt fabrics.

That sewing room is on the extreme righthand end of the house, past a second bedroom and past the bathroom which sees use only by visitors who spend a night or two with us. At the other end of the house is another bedroom with two beds, including a closet that stores quilts along with a hall tree that our visitors use. Ethel stood just outside that bedroom, greeting every visitor whose ultimate aim was to visit the bathroom or one of the bedrooms. Ethel was always respectfully quiet as she performed her service for Marjorie and or visitors, presumably proudly showing her clothing. 

Ethel awaiting a ride to her new home

In case you get the wrong impression, I should tell you that Ethel came to us as a part of a real estate deal in 1990. She was found in the upstairs of a barn, a tool for the making of homemade dresses. “A dress form,” Marjorie called her. I preferred the name Ethel since she was a full-figured outline of a female, standing upright, with components within that permitted adjustment of the outer panels resembling hips, a waist, and bodice. Unfortunately for Ethel the dress form had no head, but she was normally displayed wearing a red hat, thus mitigating the shock of a headless servant greeting our guests.