Porch Time

Last night I had some quality porch time.  I blanked my mind of all the things that needed to be done and closed the door on them.  The sun had set some time before so all that was left was a faint pink glow above the trees on the horizon.  The porch swing was calling my name just loud enough over the sound of the crickets, frogs and other night creatures so that's where I settled. 

I talk about magic sometimes and here it was, all around me.  The night sounds, the cool breeze, the tranquility, the moon and stars...  They set my mind at ease and allow time for random thoughts and ideas to flow.  Magic.  But not pure magic for there was a flaw in the night.  For the night to be complete for me there has to be fireflies.  Of course, there are only certain times of the year for them to be out and about but this was the perfect night.  Not a firefly in sight.

Of all God's amazing creatures, the firefly is unique to me.  It's an ugly little bug when seen in the daytime.  It's shape is nothing special and although it does have a couple of orangey stripes, it lacks anything to make it outstanding.  Until the night.  Looking out across our pasture or in the backyard, suddenly there are tiny blips of light.  These little flashes are random and are sometimes hard to see.  At other times they fill a space completely with their silent communications to each other.  Part of the amazement to me is that there is no heat involved with these little flying lanterns.  At least not that you can feel when they crawl on your hand.  Seeing them at night in the yard has a calming effect on me.  When I see fireflies the night is complete.

So where are they tonight?  I can't imagine a more perfect night to be out communing with other fireflies.  Maybe they have stories passed down from generation to generation about how I captured them in jars when I was little.  Or especially (I am TRULY apologetic for this) when I used their little tail-lights for shiny rings.  I know, I know.  If I was a firefly, I wouldn't flash for me either.  But they have been there for me before so maybe they forgive and forget?  Just about the time I am about to give up and call it a night, I see a flash from the corner of my eye.  Then another.  Then a few more.  Not many tonight but enough that I can call the night a magical success. Time for bed.

I love to listen to the stories my dad has to tell about growing up.  The stories are especially entertaining when my dad and his brother, Vaughn, get together.  There were 10 kids growing up in the hills south of Stover, Missouri and times were incredibly hard.  I doubt there were many (if any) families as poor as they were but the stories told are always full of love and laughter, never complaints about what they didn't have or how hard the kids worked to help make ends meet.

How does a family come to be like this?  Where did they come from?  What are their roots?  Family history has always interested me so I joined one of the on-line ancestry sites and started looking.  It has been frustrating and enlightening, fun and down-right maddening.  Some lines are just dead-ends and one line goes back to the 1300's.  The frustrating part is that you can see where they came from, when they were born and died but not much else.  What did they do?  What brought them to the new country as immigrants?  Why did they end up in Missouri and what was it like to get there?

I still have 6 months on my membership so maybe I can find out a little more.  I found one ancestor who graduated from Oxford.  So how did we get from there to hillbillies in Missouri with barely grade-school educations?  I found several Catherine's in the past.  There was a Solomon, an Abel, Cain, several named after presidents, lots of male names passed on several times and my favorite name of all--Jerusha.  Jerusha Titus to be exact.  I don't know who she was but I love the name.

Now believe me, my comment about having only a grade-school education was not meant as a put-down.  Education didn't mean as much then as it does now.  Back then, the only thing that mattered was working hard.  My dad and one brother were carpenters.  One brother worked for the railroad.  The sisters raised families that are good people and did it based on the values they learned while growing up.  I have never come across a family that helped each other more than this family.  Calls are made on a weekly basis and on every birthday.  My aunts and uncles (and for the most part, their spouses) always say "I love you" every chance they get.  AND THEY MEAN IT!! 

There are only two brothers and one sister left now.  For the past three years we have had a family reunion at my house.  Cousins come, we laugh at the stories still being told, sing lots of gospel songs (yes, they play guitar and sing too--probably from their Pentecostal upbringing), and we have a wonderful time.  I love them and am proud of them.  Who came before doesn't really matter--it's who we are now that I enjoy and love.

TROLLING BUDDIES

This is a story about little girls and their dolls. So if you were expecting a story about guys doing their fishing thing, I’m sorry.  Sometimes titles can be misleading.

Forty-five years ago, little girls received dolls for birthdays and Christmas.  There wasn’t much choice at that time—you got a doll or underwear.  If you were really lucky, you got both. The first doll I remember was named Thumbelina.  She had a soft plastic head, hands and feet and a cloth body.  She was cute and cuddly and had a magic bottle.  When you tilted the bottle up to feed Thumbelina, the “milk” inside disappeared.  When you finished feeding her, the “milk” reappeared.  That was pretty amazing to a five-year-old.  I never thought to ask why she didn’t need a diaper with all that she was fed.  She was easy to dress but there was only one outfit, so I spent lots of time taking it on and off.  By the time the next doll came along, Thumbelina was grubby and the magic bottle was broken.  The stuff inside didn’t taste like milk, either.

My next doll was a large one that came with at least ten different outfits.  The outfits were really nice; she had pajamas, dresses, hats, a coat and shoes.  Actually, she was better dressed than I was.  But she was a large doll with unbending arms and legs which made it hard to dress her.  My parents finally sold her to someone who would “appreciate” her more.  If I could have worn her clothes, I would have appreciated her more myself.  I can’t even remember if she had a name.

Then came Serenade; she came with a record player and record.  When you played the record on the player, the words and music came out of a speaker in her chest.  She was pretty cool but I got tired of the same songs over and over.  My friend Cheri and I (this is where the buddy part comes in) eventually thought of playing different records.  Hearing the Beatles blaring out of Serenade’s chest was vastly amusing to us.  It didn’t take long for the speaker to quit, though.

Cheri stayed at our house after school and during the summer.  Her mom worked and my mom babysat.  It was a really good deal for us.  By then, we were into playing lots of things besides dolls.  We made tents, went bike riding and one year even collected locust shells.  No, I don’t recall why; it just seemed important at the time.

About the time we were seven, troll dolls came on the scene.  (Ahh, now it’s coming together!)  They were ugly little hard rubber dolls with googly eyes, squashed noses and big ears.  They were about 3 ½” high with arms that stuck straight out to the sides and stumpy little legs.  Between their ears, coming out of a cavity in their heads were long strands of fake, furry, brightly colored hair.  They were fantastic.

Cheri’s doll had white hair and mine had bright yellow.  They didn’t have any clothes because there was no way to get them over the huge ears and stick-out arms.  So we improvised with lots of ties and safety pins.  We didn’t think real trolls would have been too fashion conscious anyway. We made houses out of shoeboxes and we even made a troll church with a stained glass window (melted crayons and waxed paper).  We made furniture out of cardboard which didn’t work very well since they couldn’t bend their legs or arms.  That year for Christmas I got a troll doll house; a little suitcase sort of thing that looked like the inside of a cave.  It was cool but we had more fun making our own.  I’m not sure where all the shoe boxes came from; my family didn’t buy that many shoes.

Those troll dolls went with us everywhere, even to school.  We would take them out on the playground where every girl who had a troll doll got together to compare hair color or a new outfit made from scraps. 

Georgette (Gigi, for short) was the only one of our friends who didn’t have a troll doll.  They weren’t very expensive but Gigi didn’t have money to buy one.  Her mother had left a couple of years before and her dad just never seemed to be home.  She had a teen-aged older sister, two older brothers and a younger sister.  They were being raised by their grandmother who we thought was a very mean woman.  Looking back now, I’m sure she was just overwhelmed with responsibility and money worries.  She was strict, that’s for sure.  Gigi couldn’t come to play until all her work was done and sometimes not even then.  She knew better than to ask for a troll doll; it simply was not in the budget.

But it just wasn’t fun playing with troll dolls when Gigi didn’t have one.  We shared but then that meant someone else was without a doll.   Cheri and I finally decided that we would pool our money and buy one for her.  My dad made a special trip to town with me to buy it and probably chipped in what we were short.  I found one that had beautiful turquoise hair and knew that it was meant for Gigi. 

We told our teacher what we had done and asked if we could give it to Gigi at recess.  Instead she sent us out into the hall so we could give it to her in private--that way no one but us would know that she hadn’t bought it herself.  The thought that Gigi might be embarrassed about getting a gift she couldn’t afford never crossed our minds.  We were just excited that now she could play with us with her own doll.  I’m not sure but I think our teacher had a talk with grandma about seeing the troll doll as a gift instead of charity.

Gigi moved away a year later and other than one letter, we never heard from her again.  I don’t know if that troll doll was kept as a reminder of friends left behind or not.  It doesn’t matter.  I came across my old doll the other day and called Cheri.  She knew where hers was too.  I doubt that my grand-daughter will show any more interest in it than my daughters did. Cheri has a grand-daughter too so we’re keeping them around just in case.  Maybe trolling buddies skip a generation.  You never know.

I haven't posted for a long time which is no one's fault but my own.  Recently a heart-friend started posting a daily blog so I decided it was time to start again.  There is a problem though--I am not blogger-literate.  My friend Wendy is able to post her blog on Facebook so that people she knows can read and enjoy (which I certainly have!)  I don't have any idea how to do that.  I'm sure that somewhere on here are the very simple instructions but so far they have hidden themselves very well.  Maybe I just have blogger envy.  It's not that my blogs are so very wonderful or life-changing but it would still be nice to see someone commenting.  Then again, people can't comment if there isn't anything to comment on.  Sigh~ Life can get so complicated!  Maybe it's just time for some of that magic I've posted about.  So, here goes.......ABBRA CADABBRA!!! 

Darn, where did my screen go?