Delaware Grammy

I suppose some of you are aware that I am the (unproud) owner of a gun.  It’s a BB gun, in a feminine color, and has almost no power at all  I purchased it for the sole reason of discouraging squirrels and pesky blackbirds, starlings and cowbirds from the bird feeders that I enjoy so much.

I’ve been disappointed in the effectiveness of this weapon.  The squirrels that I managed to hit have mostly just run away quickly and seem to return shortly, while the ones I miss look up questioningly, hop to a nearby perch or hide behind the tree trunk and wait (unless I pursue them, then they scramble up the tree, and hop from treetop to treetop until they are back in the big woods).

Over the last two months, I’ve been so busy with life and harvest and canning and company and traveling and sadness that my PIG (Pink Ineffective Gun) has mostly stood quietly in a hidden corner of the closet of my laundry room.  The times when I most wanted to use it were around 7:30 each morning when the squirrels would visit the platform feeder outside my kitchen window.  But 7:30 is a time of great intent for me as I am feeding breakfasts, packing a lunch, giving my ladies morning meds and trying to be ready for a DART bus that is often unpredictable.  So I mutter unkind words at them from my kitchen sink and will occasionally pound on the window, but by the time BL is on her bus, they have usually retreated.  So, my PIG has languished, out of sight.

Yesterday morning, I needed to go to see my dentist for a filling that was slowly developing behind my front teeth.  I got up and was trying to get around as quickly as I could.  My appointment was for nine o’clock, and my house was in shambles.  I had pretty much embarrassed myself thoroughly the night before by inviting Weston and Stephanie over on the spur of the moment to have a quick supper with us.  Certain Man had smoked some beef, and we had boiled potatoes, steamed cauliflower and the fixin’s for potato bar.  I had decided to invite them while I was out in the bean patch and had forgotten what state the house was in. Youngest Daughter was home and she and Middle Daughter lent their helping hands, but nothing was anywhere near the way I wanted it when they showed up.  There was laundry in the laundry room, leaves from the day strewn all over the place, and even though the food was ready, and we had a great time, I had to hold my tongue to not apologize for the state of my house.  When I got up yesterday morning, I purposed that I was going to have the floors swept, the laundry room in order and the areas straightened that had given me so much grief.

For those of you who may be wondering why the laundry room is getting so much attention in this missive, it’s because everyone who enters our house through the back door (which, for all practical purposes is everyone!) comes through the laundry room on their way in.  It’s just the way our house is.  And my closet doors hang open when I’m doing laundry and I had been doing laundry all day on Monday, and wasn’t finished.  As I went past the closet on my way to do something else, I noticed that, not only was the doors hanging open, but it was really dirty in that closet with dust bunnies and some hangers that had fallen down and even the bottom part of my PIG showing below the row of hang up clothes on the closet rod.  So I grabbed the broom as I was going past, and pulled out the various and sundry things and swept it out, hung up the hangers, and put things back in that belonged in there and shut the doors.

Whew!  I got it all done.  It was eight thirty, and I was planning to leave in fifteen minutes.  I flew upstairs and brushed my teeth, power washed them with my little gadget, swished my mouthwash, and washed my face.  I grabbed a housecoat and my everyday clothes and flew downstairs to find sister in law, Lena, waiting for me.  She was going in for a brief consult, as well.  The outfit that I wanted to wear was hanging in the laundry room closet and a threw open the folding doors and grabbed my skirt from its hanger and reached for a pretty top.  All of the sudden it happened.  That PIG turned on me!

From its perfectly upright position, it grabbed the hem of my skirt as it went by and came crashing down flat.  On my toes.  On my right foot.  It slammed with totally unnecessary force, and I still do not understand how it could ever have hit so hard.  Ker-shlam!!!

“Ouch!”  I said, loudly, but not nearly as loudly as the pain in my foot was hollering.

“What happened?” Asked Lena and Middle Daughter.  “Are you alright?”

I could barely answer, the pain was so overwhelming.  “Oh, OUCH!”  I said again.  “My gun fell on my foot!”

I was out of their sight, so I kinda hopped around a bit, and made quiet grimaces of pain and tried to not cry.  Oh, I WANTED to cry, but I didn’t think that I could warrant much sympathy from that puny Pink Ineffective Weapon falling on my toe.

So I swallowed it up, finished dressing, got my sandals slid them on, and then went on down to the dentist to get my filling.  I had to get a shot in the front of my mouth, and my foot ached and I hate going to the dentist and life wasn’t looking very bright.  But I tried to be cheerful and I was grateful for the dentist’s ability to give shots and my tooth got fixed and I came on home.

I worked on things for my ladies, eventually picked lima beans, made some apple dumplings and cleaned my kitchen.  My foot ached, but there were lots of other things crowding my mind.

Finally, last night when I was getting ready for bed, I happened to notice that my big toe looked really rather strange.  I had kinda forgotten about the injustices of the morning but this bore some attention.  My big toe had a purple stripe across the joint, the next toe had a purple stripe across the joint and the third toe had a bit of discoloration.  My toes are not aesthetically pleasing anyhow, and this certainly did not add to their state by any means.  Certain Man was already asleep, so I couldn’t tell him, but I looked at my poor toes and they suddenly hurt worse.

Oh, well.  I decided to go to bed and see if they would keep me awake.  They didn’t.  I slept really, really well, and this morning they are just as purple, but they don’t really hurt very much.

I tried to tell Certain Man all about this morning, but I don’t think he even heard my tale of woe.  Mornings are a bad time to tell him anything anyhow, so I shall ask him later if he remembers me telling him.

And that’s the news from Shady Acres this morning, where the PIG is back in its corner, the day is  looking grand, and this Delaware Grammy is hoping for some quality time with her sisters.

So, I have a story for you.  I know I’ve been very quiet, and there has been some really stellar posts that got lost in some “busy hands, busy heart” kind of days.  Some things were drowned by an overwhelming sadness over a number things, and some were just crowded out by the stuff that needed doing in these busy days of summer.

But I digress.

As some of you may know, we were in Ohio with Raph and Gina and the three hooligans. We Then went to Indiana to see Certain Man’s Aunt Katherine Yutzy (“Aunt Kay” as she is known to her numerous nieces and nephews). From there, we came to Plain City for a family reunion at Rosedale.  This particular reunion happens every three years and Certain Man has been on the planning committee for a number of years now, and so it has taken priority over the last decade, although I don’t remember a time when we’ve intentionally missed it.

Certain Man had been greatly concerned about the weather forecast since it was calling for hot weather at Rosedale, and we were going to be rooming in the dorm where there is no air conditioning. His plan was to buy a small unit that he could take along with us to use while we are there.  He considered it for a few days and we discussed it at length, and then he had the bright idea that maybe Mark, Jr. had one that wasn’t in use at the rest home that he could borrow to take along for the weekend, so he called and asked about it and in due time, Mark said he could have one that was at Holly’s house but wasn’t being used. (At least that was our understanding.)

So Certain Man went out and fetched it home and set it in our new shop overnight where no cat would mark it and no person would steal it and where it was off the floor and SAFE.  He looked at it somewhat dubiously and wondered if it was too heavy or too big for the windows at Rosedale Bible College, and then asked me if I would look for something at the local Walmart in my late dash that night to pick up last minute things.  So I checked, but there was nothing but a vast array of empty shelves, silent tribute to the hot, humid weather that had hit Delaware over the last few weeks.  This sealed his decision to take the borrowed air conditioner along.

So Sunday, after church and lunch, Certain Man loaded our trusty van with all the things that were needed for our trip, and then loaded the air conditioner at the very back of the cargo bay, and carefully closed the gate.  Finally, around 1:30, we were headed to Ohio. It was a terribly hot day, with temperatures registering over 100 for several hours on the trip, and never getting below 90 until after sundown. We ran into all sorts of traffic and took some wrong turns and even went through downtown Pittsburg.

The car AC didn’t missed a beat all day and things were comfortable in the van.  We were quite pleased with ourselves and our plan for continued comfort in spite of the heat.  When we parked at Raph’s, it was still in the high 80’s.  It was so late that we grabbed only our necessities and locked the car and soon called it a night.

The next morning, we put on the clothes wehad worn the day before for travel for the first part of the morning.  Both Raph and Regina had morning appointments, and Certain Man and I were granted the glorious opportunity to watch the three boys.  Soon after breakfast, Certain Man decided that he was going to see what he could do around the yard and went out to the van to fetch his familiar grey coveralls.  He soon returned with a wrinkle to his nose.

“Hon,” he said rather irritably, “Something stinks something AWFUL in that van!  I can’t figure out what in the world it could be!  It smells like something dead!”

I had my neighbor and good friend, Sharon, detail the van for me before we left, and it had been as clean as a whistle. We hadn’t taken any snacks or anything along that should have been stinky so I was as perplexed as he was.  I followed him out to where he had left the back end of the van open and, believe me, the man wasn’t imagining anything!  It smelled pretty awful, indeed. The air conditioner sat there in all its innocent glory, but I eyed it with suspicion.

“Do you think it might be the air conditioner?”  I asked.

“Well, I wonder,” said Certain Man.  He got down close and sniffed the openings!  “It really smells pretty bad right here,” he said.  “I think there’s something dead in there!”

“But wasn’t it in the window?”  I asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’ve been using it. It smells like a dead mouse to me!”

“But this was hanging outside the window, Daniel. How could it have been a mouse?  Do you think maybe a bird?  Maybe a bird had its nest in there or–”

I was given a rather pitying glance and it was plain that he thought it smelled like a dead mouse so that was probably as good a guess as any. I didn’t think it really smelled like a dead mouse, but it smelled pretty awful, so I asked him what he was going to do.

“I’m gonna take it out of this here van and first chance I get, I’m gonna take it apart and see what I can find!”  And he proceeded to haul it into Raph’s garage and put it on a table and there it sat for the rest of the day while he weeded garden and snoozed and went to a grandson’s t-ball game and ate soft ice cream at a local shop and then talked with his son and finally slept the night.

On Tuesday morning he set about with his three grandsons, !four males on a mission) searching for screwdrivers and a hammer (A hammer? – I don’t know!) and Certain Man tore into that thing and behold! He found the source of the great offensive smell buried deep within the internal chamber of the unit.

It was a very dead FROG!

Great was the commentary of the three hooligans. And poor Certain Man had an interesting time retrieving the carcass, replete with maggots. “I thought it was moving, then I realized it was the maggots!” He told me.

And of course, the boys told the story with sound effects and great glee, including, “. . . and Grammy!  There was worms in it!”

“. . . and Grammy!  Grandpa had to put his finger in it when he was getting it out!  Yuck!  Ew-w-w-w-w-w-w!”
Certain Man persevered, in spite of the gross-osity.  He cleaned it out and made sure it was bereft of any traces of the unfortunate animal. He borrowed some Yankee Candle air freshener so spray it down, put it back together and turned it on!  It worked!  He let it stay on the table in the garage to air out, and on Wednesday morning, loaded it into its place in the back of the van, and we set off for Indiana.  There we visited his aunt, Katherine Yutzy, who lives on the Campus of Greencroft Communities in Goshen.  We helped her with a few errands, had supper together at Ponderosa, and then visited for a while in her pleasant room.

We spent a most enjoyable night with a cousin and her husband, Karen and Steve Miller, and on Thursday came to Rosedale where the weather was hot and exceptionally muggy.

Once again, Certain Man set to work first thing and checked to see if the air conditioner would fit the window in our selected room.  Glory be!  It did!  He turned it on and it cooled our room in no time flat.  And it didn’t stink.  At all.  We’ve slept in cool comfort at night and have had some respite during the days when the heat and the humanity – I mean, the humidity gets a little unbearable.

Believe me!  My heart gives grateful praise.

And that is the news from #Grandpa&Grammyintheminivan.

I was reading the account this morning in I Kings about the Sidonians being hired to cut the trees for the temple “Because,” King Solomon said, “we don’t have anyone who can cut down trees as well as the people of Sidon.”  I looked over at Certain Man, sitting in his morning chair with his Bible cradled in his lap.

“Huh!” I said, surprising him a bit, “I wonder what made the people of Sidon good at cutting down trees?  I mean, what is there to cutting down a tree that a certain group of people would be better at it?”

He looked contemplative and then said, “Well, maybe they were like Wade, and were just naturally good at it.”

“Wade?” I queried, puzzled. I knew immediately who he was talking about, but I didn’t know this about him.

“Yeah, Wade!” Said my good man.  “He was incredible when it came to cutting down trees. It was almost unbelievable!  He could make them fall wherever he wanted them, no matter how they were leaning.”

“Really!”  The word was more of a statement than a question.  “How do you know?”

He looked thoughtful, like he was trying to remember something he hadn’t thought about in a long time.  “Well, when Greenwood Mennonite Church would cut wood for the widows, I would go and help sometimes and he was usually there, and he would do the cutting.”  He paused again, and then said, “I heard a story once about him taking a tree down at someone’s house–.   I’m not sure whose it was, but as I recall, the tree was leaning towards the house and it needed to come down because of the danger it presented if there was a bad storm. Wade said he could do it and came over to take it down.  Nobody thought he could do it.  He made a big notch in one side, and everybody watching said that it would never work.  But then he started making a cut in it and whoever was telling me said it was almost unbelievable!  That tree actually appeared to rotate on the stump and fell exactly where he wanted it.  That may have been one of the harder ones he did, but even when we were cutting the wood for the widows, sometimes we had just a small place for the tree to fall, and he would look at it, think a little, and then lay it right down where it needed to go.  It was phenomenal!  There was nobody quite like him.  I don’t know who taught him or how he learned it, or how he could figure it out, but he did it and it was something to watch!”

I went back to my morning reading with troubled, wondering thoughts circling my heart.  In that brief exchange, I learned things that I had never known before.  For one, the fact that Wade would come to the widows’ woodcutting told me something about his sense of responsibility for his widowed mother.  The handsome, curly haired oldest of her six children, was also her wild child, but he must have felt both her prayers and her love.  And then this unusual gifting that took some sort of knowledge of  math and physics and trigonometry gave me pause to consider what went on in that head.  I knew he had an artistic eye and that he could draw fine line pictures that were incredible in detail.  My Daddy, once when we were still children, hired him to make a series of pictures to illustrate the six verses of Psalm 1.  He brought the pictures to our house one night, done on letter size white paper, finely detailed, one picture for each verse.  I was still in elementary school, but I would look and look at the pictures and wonder what was in Wade’s heart, where no one could see.  (I kept thinking that series of pictures was still somewhere in my parents’ house and I looked for them when we cleared it out last summer, but never found them.  I wonder if someone has them somewhere.)

It would be nice if stories could end with the perfect endings in real life.  Wade’s life was difficult and sad.  He made choices, yes, I’ll grant anyone that who wants to quibble.  But so did the community that he grew up in, and I wonder if anyone ever told him how very special it was that he could cut down a tree so well that he would have been chosen to build Solomon’s Temple.  I know that people tried to encourage and engage and influence and help, but sometimes our best intentions are not the most helpful or effective. And sometimes the way people try to help actually ends up hurting.  Unfortunately, for Wade, the hurts seemed to pile up.

All day I’ve been thinking.  Maybe if his choices and our choices would have been different, there just might be art shows and museum pieces with the name, William Wade signed in a corner instead of a tombstone inscribed with his name and the dash of his life,  1/9/44-5/6/95.

Maybe his name would be remembered for his abilities, his intelligence, his skills.

And even though we will never know, I still wish it could be so.