A to Z Family Stories: F for Fred and Friend

April 7, 2015April 7, 2015 Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

They just showed up one day and started hanging around our back porch for the shelter, I guess. Fred and Skippy, two dogs probably out having fun, but of course we thought they were homeless, starving, needing love. So we named the big, fuzzy brown one Fred and the short legged black and tan one Skippy, and adopted them as our new farm dogs. My brothers were always happy to have a dog or two around to play with and this curious looking pair was friendly and seemed to have adopted the boys too. Then Fred had puppies.

Obviously, the naming came before anyone cared what gender they were, and looking at them it was much easier to imagine the big one being the boy and the little one being the girl. But, no. We don’t talk about Fred very much past this point and I think it’s because he she ran out on us – too much family responsibility I’m guessing. My brothers decided to raise two of the puppies, again picking noble doggie names for them – Steve and Andy.

Everyone’s memory is kind of fuzzy about what became of Steve and Andy as well. One of the problems with farm dogs was that they often craved the excitement of chasing cars. That was a problem with this rambunctious pair and likely the cause of their demise. Which brings me back to Skippy, the one we remember most fondly.

It became apparent that Skippy had at one point been someone’s house dog. He was very comfortable coming in and generally well behaved. Even mom liked him. He was always willing to eat leftovers that no one else wanted and that was his main diet. No one ever thought of buying food specifically for the dog, not on the farm. There were always other “things” for them to eat. And here comes the part of the story that we always laugh at when talking about Skippy.

When we milked cows, the milk was poured into a funnel like strainer with a heavy paper filter at the bottom, and into large metal cans. Washing up the equipment, we always took the filter out and tossed it – into Skippy’s mouth. He loved the wet, milky circles and pretty much swallowed them whole. Evidence of this would come in the spring as the snow melted and exposed the little white piles all over the lawn. They were composed of milk filter material and tin foil, swallowed with his leftovers.

Skippy was an adventurer though. He considered us his home but the world was his playground and he would be seen at neighboring farms and sometimes out in the woods. He often came back with wounds and bite marks, looking as if he had been fighting with other dogs. For a small dog, he had an amazing amount of hormonal motivation leading him to wanderlust. He may have just disappeared, like he came. No one remembers exactly. We’ll just say that maybe he and Fred found each other again and lived happily ever after…

A to Z Family Stories: E for Every Easter

April 5, 2015April 5, 2015 Shirleyjdietz2 Comments

There we would be – however many of us there were at the time. All lined up, or as close to that as possible, in the moment before the boys got into some dirt, the moment before we were herded into the car – hopefully not late for church. It was the Easter photo op.

Weeks before the event the planning would begin. Mom always made a new dress for me and I still have memories of many of them, partly from seeing the pictures so many times but also I remember how I felt in them, what I thought of the fabric, who I was trying to look like. Little girls always got a hat. Who started the Easter bonnet thing is still a mystery to me but it was a habit that died hard. Easter was also one of the two times when one might expect to get new shoes to go with the new dress. And because the snow might be melting by Easter I sometimes got to wear the new shoes without boots over them. There were so many things about the holiday that spoke of spring freedom.

The real miracle of Easter was getting all my brothers cleaned up and dressed in their church clothes before something tragic happened to one of them. For simplicity’s sake they always had matching outfits in various sizes. Often one component or another would go missing – a sock, a belt, a shoe – adding to the craziness of the morning. I can remember family routines of getting things ready on Saturday nights (commonly referred to as bath night). Shoe polishing must have been one of my favorite things to do as I have a mental picture of small shoes lined up, last week’s newspaper underneath them to protect the floor. But it was mom who did most of the work. I think she was the one who took most of the pictures, just to prove she had done the job.

Our church family and the routine of the church calendar added much to my growing up years. It was a pretty safe place to be, and there weren’t expectations of perfection that left me disillusioned, jaded or burned out. We were just people and we seemed to know there was something about God that called for our attention. Sometimes we gave it fully and lots of times we didn’t. I don’t think God was surprised.

A to Z Family Stories: B for the Basement

April 2, 2015April 3, 2015 Shirleyjdietz3 Comments

Cool. Dark. Smelling of wet earth and cobwebs.

It was the basement, or more commonly, “the cellar”. It was the place mom went to fetch a jar of green beans, or dad went to see if a fuse had blown, or something had gone wrong with the pump for the well. It was the place in my dreams, and sometimes for real, where we went when funnel clouds were feared and things started flying around in the wind outside. I had watched “The Wizard of Oz” religiously for years and knew the cellar was the place to be.

It was a dangerous place for children, or so we were told (until we were old enough to work at cleaning it). It was the cellar steps that scared our parents the most. The only access to the basement was outside – a cement staircase, worn and a bit jagged, descending down into the ground under our house. Retaining walls on either side were probably meant to hold a door that would keep little children from falling into the abyss, but I don’t remember when our doors disappeared or if they were ever there. I remember playing on the steps. It was a cool retreat in the summer. It was my pretend home where I “cooked” mud pies decorated with dandelions and put my dolls to sleep.

At the bottom of the staircase, was a heavy, ill-fitting door with an unusual latch. I remember worrying about opening it, and then worrying again about being able to get it closed. A door left open might be a nocturnal invitation to a skunk, or something bigger. Who knew? And of course, a small child, mistakenly left behind in the cellar might not be discovered for some time

The floor inside was dirt, uneven with cement scraps and piles of “stuff” that kids couldn’t identify. In one corner was old wooden shelving that held dusty jars of produce, canned and stored from previous years gardens. The other corner housed a pump on a cement block. It dripped water and the dampness and faint smell of mold permeated the room. We knew our water came from somewhere under the pump and whether or not it was working was always of great concern to our parents.

Stories of the cellar would not be complete without mentioning it’s most numerous occupants – the family Arachnidae opiliones, Harvestman, or as we called them “daddy long legs”. Somehow we didn’t fear them as we would a spider. Their long spindley legs made them look too clumsy to be vicious. They were interesting and I watched them often. Others were not content to watch and I’m sure some torture occurred during moments of childhood boredom.

I’m just sayin’, I remember the cellar. It was part of our world, our house. Not many of them left.