Keeping Company with Three Dogs; Report on the Weather.

Keeping Company with Three Dogs; Report on the Weather.                               April 21, 2012

Good Morning, everyone! I am keeping company with three dogs at their house, since Bill, Jennifer, and Veronica went to Nashville to visit 

Jen's parents. They are checking up on the parents. 'S funny, when We Cute Li'l Old Fogies are ''up there”, our children like to check up on us. 

It does make me feel good, though, that somebody cares! 

Bill fed the dogs earlier than usual, just before the departure for Nashville. I surmised that the dogs would want to eat quite early in the morning, like 4 o'clock or so, and I used my “noodle” to figure this out. I gave them each half of a big milk bone treat just before I went to bed at nine p.m. 

That was a good plan, because they were quiet and resting when I woke up at 6:30. Except for 2:20 a.m. when they needed to go out to pee. One of them gave a sharp, high-pitched yelp to notify me that it was necessary. That was almost better than my alarm clock ringing,

it made me immediately alert.

After about three or four minutes the yelp sounded again. I let them in, and they went directly to their sleeping places. It was peaceful for another four hours. 

I am up for the day, fed the doggies, and already, they are settled down for a long morning nap. As soon as I begin to make my breakfast in another hour, they'll get up and be underfoot, because each will want to be the first to see me drop some crumbs on the floor! It's one of their favorite pastimes, searching the floor in the kitchen and around the stove, sniffing and licking. They are, of course, adorable! 

Now for the weather: The thunderstorms that were forecast finally came, after some rumbling off in the distance, and thundering closer and closer. We had lots of rain, enough to satisfy the fields for about a week. 

But, and this is really displeasing, it is very cold out there, only 47 degrees, with the cold air coming down from the far north. The three doggies do not like it right now, because they have gotten used to the warmer temperatures this spring. They'll probably want to spend most of the day indoors, which is all right with me. The high today will be about 67 degrees. 

Are you all having a good time where you are? I hope things are fine and dandy for you.

Now for my breakfast. I’ll write more later…

Love, Mom - Grannamae - Anna Mae.

I’ll see you at the Corner Post…

Church Picnic; Double-Dip Ice Cream Cone.

My mother’s younger sister Mary came to visit us in the coal mining town, Larksville / Plymouth for a few days. She is only three years older than I am. She lived with her parents on a farm near Nicholson. It was summertime, and she was able to come and stay with us. The year must have been about 1939 - 40.

There was a Church Picnic that weekend, and she and I walked the two or three blocks to see it. The festival was held across the street from the church. I do not remember the name of the church, but it was on Chestnut Street. The various stands were set up on a little incline in an open lot with some trees surrounding it.

We walked around and looked at all the different stands they had. I don’t remember if anyone else was with us. We walked over to the ice cream stand to buy some ice cream.  She ordered a double-dip ice cream cone - oh, how luscious it looked. I ordered something else, probably a single-dip cone because I was smaller and younger.

We were so happy with our ice cream, and were walking away from the stand, licking at our dips of refreshing ice cream. When all of a sudden, as Aunt Mary was licking the ice cream, the pressure of her tongue pushed the ice cream off the cone and onto the ground!  It hadn’t been placed onto the cone very securely. We hadn’t gone very far away from the stand, and the lady there said that Aunt Mary could have another dip.

So Aunt Mary and I went back to the stand for the free dip of ice cream for Aunt Mary. That was a kind thing that the lady did. I felt so happy for my dear Aunt Mary!

Oh, just thinking about ice cream makes me want a banana split!

I’ll see you at the Corner Post…

Josephine's Goat; Later On, Our Goat Dandee.

Josephine’s Goat; Later On, Our Goat Dandee.

On the Springville Farm, after chores were done, and we children were at school, my parents worked a few days a week at the local Auction House. My Mom Josephine loved the young goat that was on sale. She decided to buy it. We were glad to see the goat when we got back from school. I don’t remember the goat’s name, but she followed us around, which was quite enjoyable for us.

The goat was white, cute, adorable, frisky, and sometimes naughty, as in ‘being a pest’. She was quite young.

Mom and Dad would be doing the chores in the barn, and we three children would also be in the barn helping. The goat would also come into the barn, and suddenly leap around, having such fun. She was so nice to have around, we thought.

The cow feed was stored in a large chest near the middle of the row of stanchions, in front of the cows, to make it easier to dip into the chest and put the daily or twice-daily ration on the floor in front of each cow while they were standing in their stanchions.

The cute, adorable goat would nibble the food in front of the cow’s mouth and “share” breakfast. She also would reach into the cow feed in the bin if it was high enough for her to reach for a bite, and probably would jump into the chest to get a bigger bite.

If she jumped into the chest for some nibbles, sometimes she would leave those little black pellets from her last meal, and my Dad Joe would scold her to “get out of there!” and she’d quickly jump out of the bin, and race to hide behind Mom’s skirts. This was always fun to see, because she knew that Mom would ‘save her life’, so to speak.

Well, later on, when my husband and I had children, we bought a goat named Dandee, and tied her up to eat the grass and bushes that she liked. She was not a little goat, but a grown one. I would keep watch over her from time to time, and go back into the house to do my household chores, take care of the baby or toddler, and peek out through the window to see how Dandee was doing.

One day, I looked out, and she seemed to be tangled up in the fence separating our yard from the neighbor’s field. I went out to untangle her, and saw that she was really tangled up. So badly tangled was she, the rope around her neck was very tight. Her tongue was hanging out and the tongue was a deep color and not her usual pink tongue. She was trying to bleat for help, but couldn't quite do it. 

I quickly got her untangled, and thank my lucky stars, she was all right. Whew, that was such a scare! I don’t know why she just couldn’t stay on our side of the fence and eat all the grass, weeds, and little bushes that we had!   

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

Culm Bank Behind Her House; New DeLuxe Refrigerator; Penny Candy.

Across one of the main streets in my neighborhood, lived a girlfriend of mine. This must have been when I was seven, eight, or nine. I was old enough to be allowed to cross Chestnut Street. I would go to that little neighborhood to play with her. I don’t remember her name at the moment, but we used to have good times together.

I had to go up an incline from the street on a road which was really just an alley ‘paved’ with black coal cinders. There were at least two or three houses on that short little road, and my girlfriend lived in the middle one. There was a very high bank of culm, the refuse from coal mining, right behind her house.

There was a little piece of backyard with green growth, like an old lawn. We played in the back yard, on their back porch, and under the porch. The porch had a white latticed skirting on it, so it was a tiny bit secluded under the porch. We’d take the toys with us, probably playing house or something, and it was rather cozy under there.

We didn’t spend all of our time under the porch. We colored in our coloring books, and played silly games, sometimes good games, and once in a while we would play in the house, in the kitchen.

Her mom had a new refrigerator, and it was rather elegant. The mom called it her ‘DeLookes’, as it must have been a General Electric Deluxe Refrigerator, 1940. She pronounced it DeLooooooookes, and I thought that she must  be pronouncing it wrong. Being as old as I was, then, I must have been thinking that I ‘knew it all…’

Another day, my Mom gave me a few pennies to go to the candy store (the lower store on Chestnut Street), to buy some candy I would like. There were so many different kinds of candy to choose from! Almost all of it was penny candy. I felt so rich!

There were Squirrel Nutz or something; and ZigZag wrapped candies; red-hots, which were bright red colored, with a very tangy spicy flavor.

Ribbon candy colored with stripes and flavored with different flavors in each stripe. Valentine candies unwrapped, with words in pink on heart-shaped little pieces. “Be Mine” – “Love” – “Talk to Me”.

Rock candy made of sugar water and different coloring, then poured into molds. Sometimes it took so many minutes to pick and choose. I wonder how many times the storekeeper almost lost her temper, behind the candy case, waiting… and waiting…                          Aaahh … Childhood …

Swimming Hole; Dumped Out of the Inner Tube.

When we lived on the farm in Springville, we kids sometimes went to the Teel Farm over a mile from our farm, on a dirt road. They had a swimming hole in their creek. I didn't know how to swim, but I went into the water with an inner tube so that I could be floating in the water. Everyone else was in the water, so I thought I could do that too.

This may have been during the first summer that we lived on that farm, and I was not quite ten years old. There were several of us there, a couple of the Teel boys, my brother Joe and I, and perhaps four or five  others.

I was floating along in my inner tube / liferaft, enjoying the camaraderie among all the kids. Suddenly I was dumped into the water. I am not sure who it was who tipped me over. All I know is that I was extremely scared, and I was under the surface of the water, trying to grasp legs so I could hold on to life. 

I knew I was in the water, I could see a lot of legs, and I was frantic, and suddenly... I was pulled out of the water.

I do not remember very much of what happened, or who pulled me to the surface, but I know I was saved from drowning by someone. I am truly forever grateful.

I have never wanted to learn to swim, as I am terrified of being in the water, although I like to be near water so I can admire it.

As an adult, probably when I was in my late thirties, or early forties, I went to an adult class at the local high school so I could learn to swim. I enjoyed being in the pool, but hung onto the sides of the pool for dear life.

Finally the young male swimming coach wanted me to try to swim. I was wearing my hair in a long braid about five inches down my back, and I begged him to hang onto my braid and I would paddle my way a bit. He graciously did so, and for the first and last time in my life, I swam three whole feet while he hung onto my braid. Three feet! I do proudly say that I swam three feet, but that might really be cheating...



I'll see you at the Corner Post...

Vinnie Rhodes Peters.

At the Dimock vocational high school, in Dimock, Pennsylvania, during fifth grade, we had a lovely petite lady who was a very good teacher. She was loved by almost all of the students there. She had taught school as a single woman, unmarried, and then during the 1942 summer vacation, she was married to a good man. She became Mrs. Peters.

My parents had moved from Larksville/Plymouth in April of 1942. We moved to a farm in Springville Township. Up the dirt road from our house, were a family of three girls, and the older one would tell me about Vinnie Rhodes, who taught fifth and sixth grades. I was looking forward to having her as my teacher. When school started after summer, there she was, Mrs. Peters, in my new fifth grade classroom.

She was very nice, taught us well, and she and I got along smoothly. I learned a great deal from her about life and getting along with people, and much more. We students usually obeyed her directions and suggestions.

One day, we were supposed to be getting ready for the next class. We each had a seat with a flat desk area in front of us, and a drawer under our seat. The drawer opened at the right side, and was pulled out into the aisle. We kept all of our books, pencils, crayons and tablets in there. We pulled our drawers open, and everyone got their book and put it on their desk.

‘For some reason’, there was a comic book in my drawer and it lay on top of my things, opened to one of the stories in it. I may have been looking at it at recess, and I had not closed it and put it out of sight.

Instead of getting the book needed for the class, I began to look at the comic book without touching it. Mrs. Peters saw my intense concentration and came around to my aisle. She stopped right there less than a foot away, seeing my drawer pulled out with the open comic book exposed. I don’t think she said much, but I remember being mortified that she expected me to be ready for class  -  and there I was, reading an open comic book instead.

She had caught me being disobedient, and I felt that I had hurt her feelings by sneaking to read the comic book in such an untrustworthy way. I know that she had trusted me, and I felt very guilty to have done such a deed. I am ashamed that I could do such a thing to her, sweet Mrs. Peters. The memory has never left me.

We did keep in touch through the years, and I stopped at her home in Dimock on my way to my husband’s parents’ home with my growing children. Sometimes I was by myself, and we had nice visits. Her husband had died by that time, and they had had no children. She was one of the very best of my teachers throughout my school life. 

I'll see you at the Corner Post...

Uncle Bernie; The Old Family Farm; Memories.

Late this afternoon, I was looking through one of my notebooks, of April 1994. It was near my Uncle Bernie's birthday and I was sending him a card; he would be sixty years old. I was also writing some things down in my notebook, so I wrote about this: I was writing in the card, and then I wrote him a letter, talking about their old farm in Nicholson. 


I really loved that farm, enjoyed so much going there. There was a huge cable swing in a very large old tree, when I was young, in 1939 -- through the 1940s. I think they moved off the farm in the mid-fifties. In 1994, the old swing was just a very thick rusty old cable. The house was caved in; that simply broke my heart. 

There was so much about that farm that I truly loved. One thing I liked a lot was the number of hickory nut trees out in the pasture, it was so lovely, a sort of rolling hill, and I can see it right now, in my mind's eye. The old ice house with sawdust and large cubes of ice, and you had to keep the door shut. 

So many little camomile flowers on very small plants, over a large area along the flagstone or stone walk down to the house. I always looked for them, and would take one of the little flowers off and smell it. If you crush the little flower, it smells so pretty. Those camomile flowers were one of my favorites. 

There were a few apple trees and a cherry tree very close to the house, and I enjoyed seeing the apples with their distinctive color pattern. It was a very old kind of apple.

We children would hurry down the stone path to the house, to see who would be first to sit on the porch swing! There was room for all three of us, so there was no need to hurry, but we probably got a thrill out of being the first to reach it.

The outhouse several feet away from the back door of the house. The old shed full of 'junk', parts of machinery, all kinds of tools, so many different items. Some parts of the contents were all jumbled up, some were neatly arranged. The spring house next to the barn, for cooling the milk in large milk cans, in the very cold water. The large stepping stone or very thick flagstone outside of the big door that you had to go through so you could see the cows lined up in their stanchions. Whitewashed walls and ceiling of the large ground floor area where the cows were. 

The second floor was reached by a man-made ramp. You could lead the horses or drive them, to pull the hay wagon up there to get the hay unloaded into the barn. The huge silo for chopped corn and cornstalks, in preparation for the winter season.  

The long row of elderberry bushes along the driveway down onto the farm from the public dirt road, all the way up from Nicholson itself. Those elderberry bushes always looked so beautiful when they were in bloom with elderberry blossoms. When the tiny maroon, purple, black umbels of berries were almost ready to pick, we would look very closely at them, eager to pick them. Finally the time came! You had to take the umbel off the bush and put it in your basket, bucket, or small pail, and take them into the house or home with you. You would sit and very gently pull or roll the tiny berries from the umbels, into large bowls. Elderberry jam or jelly was simply divine to have in the winter. For those who like elderberry wine, the wine made from the elderberries was even better than the jam or jelly! 

So on that day in 1994, I was sitting in the car writing a letter to Uncle Bernie, telling him how we all loved his happy smiles and laughter. He really loved his siblings and parents. The reason I was sitting in the car was that my Mom was in the hospital, and could have visitors  for fifteen minutes only, every two hours. She had had surgery for colon cancer, and this third time, the cancer was terminal. 

I am eighteen months older than Uncle Bernie, my baby brother was born four days after Uncle Bernie, so long ago. My Grandma was having babies when my Mom was having babies! Aunt Lillian was born two years later, and then my sister two years after Aunt Lil. I've always sort of felt that they were also my 'brothers and sisters'; Uncle Al is one year older 

than I. 

Uncle Bernie's birthday is coming up soon, so I think I shall write him a letter about the old farm and my many memories of it. Happy Birthday, Uncle Bernie. Happy Birthday, brother Joe! 

I'll see you at the Corner Post...