His CB Handle was the Auditor

Veteran's Day is special in my family, but not for the usual reason. It's my brother Elliott's birthday. 

He was college-aged by the time I was born. And my sisters were young teenagers.

When he moved home to farm with Dad in April 1971, he lived less than two miles away from the home place. I was 5-years-old then.

Elliott is the one sibling who saw me almost every day of my growing up years—unlike my sisters who came and went throughout their adult years.

May Elliott's wife, five children, and thirteen grandchildren enjoy these memories from his three little sisters.

Tidbits from Childhood 

Priscilla's said 

Elliott kept the Sunday bulletins. He stored them in cigar boxes in his bedroom. He collected the eraser end of pencils. He drowned out gophers by pouring buckets of water down the hole.

Brenda said

When Mom & Dad would leave us kids home alone for a few hours, Elliott and I tended to pick on Priscilla, the middle child. Guess we got away with it because she never fought back.

 Melodie said

My earliest memory of Elliott is when he and his fiance came home and gave me a doll. I have no memories of Elliott without Doris, his wife. I turned four a few days before their wedding. I wrote about that in this post.

Doris and I were in a roll-over car accident before they had any children. As Dad made phone calls to authorities about it, Doris cooked lunch, and I sat in Elliott's lap with my arms wrapped around his neck. I can still see our reflection in the glass of the china closet in the dining room.

That's the tender moment I remember with my brother, 20 years my senior. Soon after he had his own children to provide affection to. 

Elliott, a Tabor College graduate, congratulated by sisters Brenda & Priscilla

Farm Work

Brenda said

I would drive the small tractor, and as I slowly drove past each bale in the field, he would use two hooks to hoist those heavy alfalfa bales onto a flat wooden pallet of sorts called the stone boat. Strange name, but Dad confirmed that's what they called it. After a full load, the bales were placed on a conveyor and sent put into the barn loft. Elliott worked up a sweat stacking those heavy bales.

Priscilla said

I would drive the tractor when we made bales. When, not if, I would plug the baler, the bale hook Elliott had in his hand would go into the air. I don't remember what he would yell.

Melodie said

I too have have memories of Elliott's yelling at the hogs or cattle. He never cussed. Never. Instead, he made up his own crazy words when he was mad—especially at the hogs. Things like, "You stupid, flyswatter, snot-driven, pan of no-good slime." That wasn't exactly what he said, but it would be crazy nonsense like that.

At top: Elliott's birthday in 1971 with me on his lap. Bottom: Elliott in July 2015.

A Numbers Guy 

Brenda said

Elliott was and is such a math wiz. He'd try to help me, but I think he had a hard time coming down to my level of understanding.

Melodie said

I earned good grades in high school algebra and geometry because Elliott and Dad would take turns yelling at me. I say that light-hardheartedly because they both just talked loud. I'd hear, "It's just like the other problem. Do the same thing!”

Or if a new concept emerged, Elliott would say, "Do it like the teacher did in class? He showed you, didn't he?" And yes, Mr. Frank Podraza showed us.

the family, long before me (not sure who the fella is in the back)

Games 

Melodie said

Playing Scrabble with Elliott is a maddening endeavor. He uses words that no one knows and is able to put them going vertically and horizontally—and they all match up as words!

Elliott has always been academic minded. He's well-read, loves a pun and a play-of-words. Mom was always proud of her son who could tell a joke and never ruin the punchline.

Do your siblings have any quirky childhood collections like my brother? Any games you avoid with them because they are too good?

The Scariest Place in an Old Farmhouse

Our farm house cellar was a place of dread for me. Damp, dark, pungent. Cracks in the foundation floor. I didn’t dread it for those reasons though. I feared the salamanders under the wooden stairs.

Mom would tell me to get a jar of pickles, canned pears or peaches, or sometimes a few more eggs. I’d whine that I was scared of the salamanders. They might run up my leg, bite my toes, or hiss at me, I thought.

Mom would hear none of that. “Those buggers are more scared of you than you are of them. Just go real fast and they’ll run away.”

And they would. Every time.

But I still didn’t like doing it. 

Funny how the daddy longlegs that lived among the pots and pans and the store-bought canned goods in the stairway on the way down never bothered me.

That cellar, stench and all, still exists. The hot water heater is down there, and my dad put a water distiller in there years ago. One time he had jugs of extra water all over the place.

The room carries a wet-earth odor. A small screened window to the east lets in light along with a single light bulb. Maybe Mom had a board she’d put up there in a big rain storm to keep it from flooding, but I don't remember. In the South Dakota winters, Dad would pile straw bails in front of it.

The cellar houses a couple old wooden chairs and some makeshift wooden shelves for all the home canned goods. In the middle of the room are a couple poles with a table top. It is taller than counter height. Mom kept her canning supplies on it with the cleaned out jars.

I remember only one time taking cover in that basement, ah, I mean cellar, during a storm.

I was already teaching in Kansas, but was home for the summer. My sister Priscilla and her daughter Angela were up for a visit when Dad came in yelling, “You guys take cover. Get in the basement.” Then he headed back outside.

After Mom questioned where he was going, he hollered, “I’m going driving. Gotta see what’s coming around the trees.”

Typical.

We grabbed our purses, a couple of blankets, and Grandma Katie’s old transistor radio and headed to the cellar. I wasn’t concerned about any salamanders then.

We hadn’t been down there very long when a loud bang startled us.

“That’s the front door,” Mom said. “Wind must have blown it open. It’s banging back and forth now.”

Angela mentioned our family dog, Jupiter, our black and white cocker spaniel who showed up one July day in 1994 after a comet hit the planet, thus the name.

“She’s in with the boars,” Mom assured Angela.

The door kept banging, so I said I’d go up and shut it and come right back. Neither Mom nor Priscilla protested, and I don’t remember being scared to do it. After all, my dad was out in this. It was just a terrible wind, right?

I think this was the storm that my brother Elliott, his wife Doris, and daughter Suzanne stood by one of their kitchen windows and watched an old hog barn (which as little kids, we’d dubbed the Laura Ingalls Wilder playhouse), roll back and forth towards the house. If it wasn’t this storm, then it must have been another one. That building never did hit their house or vehicle, but it rolled itself out of existence and ended up as a pile of boards.

Back at our place, I was able to close the outside door and return to the cellar unharmed. When it was all over, I don’t recall any major damage to our farm.

A few years ago, the family was talking about Dad's cellar, and Angela, now a full-grown adult with a family of her own, remembered the evening we took cover. She said she was so scared. Not of the storm. Not of any salamanders. Not of the creepiness of the place, but of losing me.

She said that she thought she’d never see me again when I went up those stairs to close that door. She described her feelings so vividly. She'd never told me that.
 
Salamanders or storms, I’ve never spent much time in that cellar.

But my Grandma Elizabeth did when my two older sisters were little—just enough time for Priscilla to cut Brenda’s hair while Grandma was down there sorting eggs.
 
Oh, if those cellar walls could talk.


Do you remember a room from your childhood home that gave you the heebie-jeebies? What about now? Is there a place that gives you the willies?

Piece of Furniture Finds its Forever Home

A piece of furniture that used to hold oil cans in my dad's garage now sets inside my house.

It's filled with books, items from my childhood, and other things I packed away in tubs when I needed to make room for a husband and step-daughter.

My crafty friend Valerie Shellhammer helped me refurbish this jewel.

at home in the house

When my brother-in-law Jeff saw it earlier this summer, he said, "It was a pie safe." He pointed to the screens on the top doors. "Flies wouldn't get in the pies that way," he added.

So that's what I'm calling it. The pie-safe bookcase.

Here's its story.

Dad said, "Are you sure you want that thing? It's really oily." 

I did. I had magazine pictures from years ago of what I wanted to turn it into. 

Dad didn't know that as a little girl, I had an entire plan of how to turn that yucky garage into a studio apartment. That bookcase was a key component of the design.

Yes, I have quite the imagination. Maybe when I'm 90 like he is, and if the garage is still standing, I'll renovate that garage into cottage I dreamed it could be.

Anyway, he let me have this cabinet, and that's when I learned there were doors for it. The top had that chicken wire, but the bottom doors were solid. Dad cleared out his stuff and packed it up for the trip from South Dakota to Kansas.

My brother-in-law Rick used my brother Elliott's pick-up to haul it down here. He brought a couple more items from the farm too.

The bookcase, a two-piece outfit, sat in my shed except for the times I took it out to scrape it.

I remember my friend and colleague Tim Hiebert bringing me, a relatively new home owner, a weed eater he'd picked up from a garage sale. That was somewhere in the mid to late '90s on Labor Day weekend.

Why do I remember that? Because he startled me when he walked into the backyard while I was scraping it. Tim said it looked like I had my work cut out for me.

And I remember the weekend because I thought I could get the thing completely scraped and done in a few days.

Work it was. Lots of elbow grease. 

What I found underneath was shocking. 

Red. Red paint.

Grandma Elizabeth, who no doubt had this in her house, must have painted it red. (Read "Namesake" by clicking here to know more about her.) Oil also seemed to seep from one corner. 

I decided I'd better measure the thing. It was too tall for my house­—if I was going to use both parts. I have low seven-foot ceilings, and this thing was nearly 10 feet tall.

My dream project went back in the shed to be infested with wasp hives and bird poop. Not much different than its life on the farm in the garage.

That was around 15 years ago.

After I got married in 2006, we moved the bookcase from the shed to our newly built garage, so the bookcase got cleaned up a bit for that. It stored lots of stuff on its open shelves with the doors setting on top collecting spiders. I still had dreams of it being inside the house some day though.

One summer my husband Chris bought me a hand sander, so I could use electric power to continue to clean up the thing. It worked. I went through a lot of sandpaper, but it worked.

A couple more years passed.

Brittany moved on to college and then out on her own. Her teenage room got redesigned back into a guest room. Here was my chance to get that thing in the house.

Valerie and I checked out vintage stores in Wichita for ideas. She snapped pictures. I bought paint. We had good intentions. But life happened.

And so it remained.

In the garage storing golf balls, flower vases, sander equipment, old yearbooks—not what I had envisioned for the thing years ago.

One day, Valerie said, "Let's get your bookcase done.

So on November 6, 2014, our first cold day of the fall season, we painted it with white chalk paint in the garage.

My husband had to cut off about two-and-half inches from the bottom, so it would fit in the house when finished.

Val finished up the doors at home.

Months pass.

Then finally in May, the entire thing was done. We put some sort of glaze on it. Smooth surface now.

Val found new hinges, but we saved the original clasps.

Oh, if those clasps could tell me the hands that have touched it throughout the years.

Finally, my dream piece had its new home inside the house.

I had fun arranging the items in it on my first full day of summer vacation. It took me all afternoon, but I wanted to make it look inviting to the point that if you came to my house, you'd love snooping around in the thing.

You'd figure out a lot about me through the book titles, the cups filled with bookmarks, the newspaper clippings and pictures arranged in boxes by year or topic. If my memory ever starts to fade, this will be my go-to place.

Sentimental me sure enjoys going in there, pulling out a box, reading through old notes.

After 26 years of teaching, I have a lot of notes from students—and I believe I have kept every one.

My Cousin Cynthia gave me Aunt Mary Ruth's notes from the state quilt she made me when she finished the embroidery squares that Mom had started. Precious to see her handwriting and planning.

Letters from my sister-in-law Doris when I first attended college. I've always loved her fancy cursive writing. And letters from Mom too. Kept in the envelopes with the dates stamped on them.

Notes from college pals. Homemade cards from my eight nieces and nephews who are now all adults. The vocabulary list of a made-up language my niece Jessica and I tried to invent one summer.

Notes from Steve Elliott and his mom about how thankful they were for the connections we made while I student taught at Halstead the fall of 1988. I would not have stayed with teaching if it wasn't for Steve, but that's a story for another post.

Material things. Yes. But things from events, students, and people that matter. This bookcase keeps them safe. Just like it did Grandma's pies.


Have you ever taken on a project that spanned two decades to complete? Have any items from an earlier time that you wished could be at your fingertips? Any family heirlooms in your home?

Easter Tidbits

It's Easter. Here's a lighthearted look into what popped into my mind for each letter of the holiday. Then, find my spiritual perspective of the letters.

E - Energizer Bunny

Makes me think of Ashley Graf, a former student and basketball player of mine. She never got tired. Coach Randy Weber nicknamed her Pink. I ran into Ashley on Good Friday. All grown-up, married with hubby and three kids, and living nearby me. Here’s their uprooted tree from the storm a couple days ago. 

Ashley's tree

A - April

It hosts Easter, at least for this year. Always a fun month. Lots of family birthdays. A new one soon: my step-daughter's baby Jack Von Schmidt. He hasn't arrived yet at the writing of this post.

S - Spring

Storms and showers and little flowers. Here's a picture of what the recent storm almost slammed into the front of our house. Ironically, that tall Chinese elm was scheduled to come down this weekend along with two others. Its last deed: to protect us.

Monte's cedar tree ended up in our tree

T - Trees Bud

The red buds. The crab apple. All signs of new life. Maybe I like spring after all. Click here to read why I didn't. Then click here to read how my heart and mind have changed.

E - Eggs

The ones that get a colored bath. My older sisters tell me that Mom loved coloring Easter eggs. I don't think she did it much with me. I only remember spreading out the funny paper on the kitchen table. You feel sad for me, don't you? No worries. I'll make sure Jack Von gets to color eggs, so maybe I'll learn how.

R - Relatives

My brother Elliott and his wife Doris gave me a pretty stuffed rabbit one year. Cream and mint green. Wish I had a picture of it. Speaking of Elliott, Mom always bought him a large solid chocolate rabbit. Even as a married man with five children, Mom gave him a rabbit. Sweet gift for her first born.

Now for My Christian Perspective on Easter

E - Eternal Life

In heaven with Christ. What we gain by accepting Him as our Savior. This is a choice. It's a gift, a free one.

A - Arose

What Christ did. I hear the harmonic voices from my childhood church singing the old hymn, "Up From the Grave He Arose." Click here to hear the hymn. I find it hard to sing it now without tearing up—just like my sister Brenda will when she reads this and then listens. If hymns do nothing for you, how about the modern version? Click here.

S – Salvation

I received it when I accepted Christ as a little girl. I sat in the black chair in the dining room by the east window and asked Jesus into my heart. My sister Brenda said she was there with me, but I don’t remember that part. In jr. high and then again in college, I rededicated my life to Him. I cannot imagine not having that peace.

where I sat when I accepted Christ: the black chair in the dining room

T - Tom Macy

My former pastor from my early adulthood who now preaches in Indianapolis. Such a scholar. It was rare if he did not preach with references to the Greek and Hebrew and connect the Old with New Testament. He knew how to apply Biblical truths to modern day life. To read Pastor Macy's blog, click here. To hear him preach, click here.

E - Ebenezer Church

My childhood church in rural Doland, South Dakota, whose faithful attendees help teach me about Christ and the Bible. They were the same people on Sunday as they were throughout the week. To read about one such person, also a relative of mine, click here. To read about my VBS days there, click here.

my childhood church, Ebenezer

R - Resurrection

The miracle of Jesus' resurrection is the common bond between Christian religions. I know we debate, argue, and even cause church splits about so many interpretations of passages and religious practices. But I think the bottom line is this: Jesus was born of a virgin, fully man and fully God, was tempted in all ways yet lived a sinless life, was crucified, died, and rose again. All this for our sins. On those, I think Catholics and Protestants agree.

Final Thoughts

For those who prefer an intellectual read on the topic, try Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi. You may find the answers you need from a historical perspective and from a man who was a practicing Muslim. He risked his life to become a Christian.

Happy Easter. What are some of your Easter memories, secular or religious? What emerges in your heart and mind during this holiday?

Writer's Note: next week welcome again my friend Amy Wallace who shares another Circle of Life story. Click here to read her first one.

 

The Wash House: Bird Fear Begins

I would like to thank the joker that had something sent to me in the mail. What was it? Something from the Auburn Society. How do I know it’s a joke?

Because it is about birds!

Anyone who knows me, knows I am afraid of birds. I have all sorts of reasons, so this is the first installment of a series of posts explaining my trepidation of the beasts.

They swoop at me. Always have. Always will.

It started when I was a little girl and would retrieve my bike from what we called the wash house. This little building stood near that junk pile I wrote about in the post entitled, "Procrastination Pile Removed."

The wash house is pictured below with my now 40-something nephew, Michael, on the three-wheeler. That little shack is where all my fears began.

the wash house: the palace of the birds

We butchered chickens in that wash house. Watching Mom clean out the gizzards was my favorite part. Got to see all the sand the chickens did not eat, and Michael played with the rest of the guts in the pail. 

The wash house contained what us Germans call, in Hutterish dialect, a wosh kassle. In English, it is pronounced voosch case-el, meaning wash kettle. It’s a large cast iron barrel with a chimney pipe. Here it is below after it got moved to the garage.

the chimney for this monster is setting over on the right

We did not heat things in the wosh kassle anymore when I was a kid, but since it did not leak, we would use it to soak the chickens in ice water after they were singed and plucked.

Here I am in the picture below doing just that on a hefty chicken. Behind me is the wosh kassle. Looking at how I am dressed, must have been a chilly day that year. I know, I know. It doesn't look like I am too scared of flying creatures, but these buggers were dead.
 

me--probably fake plucking to pose for a picture

Some of the windows to the wash house were often left open. The picture of Michael's mom below proves it. This is my sister-in-law Doris (whose wedding I discussed in the blog entitled, "Curlers, a Bra, and an Airplane Ride"). She is scalding the chicken so it can be plucked. See that window in the background by the old gas stove? It’s open! Yes, probably because we were working in there, but it was open when we weren't--trust me. And that stove was always filthy like that too--because of--birds!

Doris scalding a skinny chicken

Take a look back at the picture of the wash house. In front, you'll see some gaps between the boards. So, this little wash house had plenty of places for birds to sneak in. And when I’d go get my bike, guess what? They’d flutter and fly about because I had scared them.

But oh, how they scared me more! My screaming only made it worse.

Sometimes I’d have to wait until Mom was home from the field to get my bike out of there, and I got used to riding my banana seat with bird poop on it. Never paid to wash it. Yes, it was a boy's style bike. Mom insisted that it was built better due to that dumb bar. I hurt my crotch on it a couple times.

my old bike my husband Chris found, still full of bird poop, back in 2011 in dad's garage

But with age came guts, so I’d swing open the wash house door to startle those nasty creatures on purpose and yell, “Get outa here you birds!” Then I’d venture in.

Later, after that shed was torn down and the wosh kassle moved to the garage, I'd employ the same routine as a teenager to get out my 10-speed bike. I earned it one summer by helping scrape and paint our farm house. No, I didn’t paint the high peaks, my sister-in-law did that. I’ll have more about birds and painting in the next post.

Until then, do not send me bird pictures, bird jokes, bird clothing or any bird stuff—unless they are dead!

That reminds me. One time a shoebox ended up on my school desk as an end of the year gift. Inside this box I found a rudimentary casket scene. I guess the 12-year-old thought it would scare me.

My response? “I don’t mind dead birds, Doug Hague. And since the live ones scare me, this is a great gift.”
 
The next year, Doug may have given me a stuffed parrot that talked when I shook it. Or, it may have been from Todd Howard--I don't remember! I have received so many fowl gifts throughout the years.

I have considered telling my students I hate dogs so I’d get cool, canine stuff instead of bird crap.

Curlers, a Bra, and an Airplane Ride

I was a best man years before I was a bride.

And before that, I had been just about everything else in a wedding except the candle lighter, the musician, and the preacher.

After attending a wedding this month, I reflected on my own siblings’ weddings, one of which was in June. Why is June the month for weddings anyway? I prefer October.

My role as best man came at the spur of the moment for my sister Brenda’s small backyard nuptials. In fact, I wasn’t even planning on attending, but my plans changed as did the groom's son's. So, ta-da! I got to sign on the dotted line.

For Brenda's first wedding back in 1973, I was a flower girl. Oh, how I hated sleeping on curlers the night before—probably because we had been practicing my hairdo all week.

The planning of that wedding put me around kids my own age, something that rarely happened since I am the late comer in the family. And I loved it.

Nancy, my fellow flower girl and groom’s sister, taught me the word fart. I don’t know what our family called it before that. Dad still scolds me when I say the word around him. He doesn’t mind that act of it—just hates the word. Go figure. 

And Cameron, Nancy’s older brother, taught me how to cure hiccups by drinking backwards and bending over. Any student of mine knows that trick, and that it works.

I'm in the middle between Cameron and Nancy.

My oldest sister, Priscilla, married when I was in sixth grade. She asked me to be a bridesmaid and then added, “But Mel, will you wear a bra for my wedding?”

Back then, girls didn’t seem to develop as early as they do now, and in fact, I don’t think I even wore the thing after the wedding until Mom made me. Wearing the bra was no big deal, really, but having to stand up there for the entire ceremony was. 

And that night, when my Sissy was gone and I realized the house would never be the same without her, I turned to the wall and cried myself to sleep.

That's me on the far left.

Years prior to either of my sisters’ ceremonies, the family boarded an airplane to Detroit where my brother was marrying a city girl. This was only a couple days after my fourth birthday, so it is one of my earliest memories. A trip of a lifetime.

The stewardesses allowed my cousin Gordie and me to run up and down the aisle. They served us kiddy martinis: 7-Up in a clear cup with a maraschino cherry stuck in a fancy toothpick. 

And I still have my wings, the little airplane pin tokens they gave us. After this adventure, playing airplane became my favorite make-believe activity for years.

Cousin Gordie, my martini partner, escorted me over to my sister-in-law, Doris.

The funny thing about Doris and Elliott’s wedding? The pictures. Or lack thereof. The bride’s brother forgot to take off the lens cover, so the only photographs of the occasion are snapshots.

That picture fiasco is probably why I spent more on the photographer than anything else when I got married. Our six-guest wedding in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was simple and quick. Just like our engagement period: three months. Just like our dating period: two weeks.

Now I would not encourage that for young people, but I think the man I picked has turned out to impress everyone. And soon it will be eight years already that I wore my little black dress to get married in. It still fits too—a little snug, but it fits.

My hairdo was not fancy. My bra was built into my dress. And the road driving there, with signs warning crooked and steep, scarier than any airplane ride.