American Heritage March 14, 2009

During spring break this year, my granddaughter is going on an American Heritage Tour with her eighth grade class to Washington, D.C., the American Civil and Revolutionary War battlefield parks, Philadelphia, the United Nations, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, plus all the historic sites in and around Boston. She is leaving on March 21, from the Salt Lake Airport for a week of whirlwind travel.

When I heard about the upcoming trip, I felt it was an important enough experience that I volunteered to help her with the travel and hotel expenses. I am so excited for her – she is 14 years old and grew up in a single parent family in Pocatello. Although she has had some rough spots during her growing up years she has also been sheltered.

I was an adult when I was first visited our country’s birthplace and revolutionary and civil war battlefield parks and was amazed at how close all the places are on the east coast. Here in the west everything is so vast and spread out we think of distances in terms of how many hours or days it takes to drive there. On the east coast everything is so close travel time is estimated by how many minutes or hours it takes to drive there.

My husband and I lived in Fredersickburg, Virginia for a couple of years when he was in the Marine Corps stationed at Quantico. I thought it interesting how historic markers were welded or bolted to the sides of the buildings and stores in downtown Fredericksburg. The Battle of Fredericksburg was fought in the area where the city park is now located. The stonewall, where according to local legend Stone Wall Jackson got his nick name, still stands there in the park. One can find old civil war lead slugs, from the soldiers guns, in the woods there much like we find Indian arrow-heads in the desert here in southern Idaho. There is the remnant of an old slave-market in town and one can purchase slave auction posters from souvenir shops. Place names like Jefferson Davis Boulevard, Robert E. Lee Street and Martha Washington University abound. The pilgrims, the revolutionary and civil wars are as much a part of east coast everyday life as the gold rush, or cowboys and Indians are part of everyday life here in the west.

This trip will bring history and our nation’s birth and historic struggles alive for her. She is in for a great adventure. I told her I expected an emailed photo from her every day. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll bet she’ll be too busy gawking at the sights.

Animals have the right idea, they hibernate. February 2, 2009

I hate January! I always try to leave town to escape it. Over the years I’ve gone to Hawaii, Arizona and California in an effort to get away. When I am stuck at home during January I like to hide in my house by the fire and count the days till it is over. Unfortunately, there are always walkways to shovel and cars to dig out from under the snow. Once the shoveling is done I go from the warmth of the house to the warmth of the car, then to the warmth of a store, back to the car and so forth. I don’t know why but, January always seems three times longer than any other month. This year it seemed like an endurance test but I survived it. It is again in the past. Hallelujah!

I have a proposition for those in charge. Let’s draw up a law forbidding Januarys. That way New Years Eve would be celebrated shortly after Christmas and New Years Day would be February 1. We’d be that much further toward spring and nice weather. And we’d get rid of most of the cold, snowy, blowy, slick road, frozen pipe, nastiness that greets us every new year.

What do you think?

Stained Glass Windows December 1, 2008

 

As part of my old building repair project, I asked one of my nephews, a couple of years ago, to design and put together some stained glass windows for my rock shop. He does stained glass as a hobby.

After a few false starts he got a design that I liked. Then he stalled again for almost a year.  My niece, his sister, asked  if I cared if she took over the project. I said, “go for it.” So she got busy with his design and her energy and  a few weeks ago the two of them brought the windows down and installed them into the front doors of my rock shop. 

The installation was not without problems and delays. We had a plate glass window shatter all over the floor and had to get another window cut. We had to board up that window until we could get the replacement glass cut and transported to the shop. That postponed the stained glass installation for a few days. But the windows are finally in and they are beautiful.

The doors face the east and I love to look at them from inside the shop early in the morning when the sky is clear and the sun is shining. They are gorgeous.

Check them out.

Old Buildings And Repairs September 25, 2008

 

A current project of mine is remodeling and restoring a couple of old circa 1905 and 1908 buildings which are connected by a mutual wall and collectively contain an old derelict hotel upstairs, a separate upstairs apartment, a grange hall meeting room and kitchen, post office and small store downstairs where I’m housing my rock shop.  

Remember the old movie Money Pit starring Tom Hanks and Shelly Long. In the movie a newlywed couple bought an old classic house and proceeded to fixed it up. Every time they fixed one problem several other issues would appear. Well these buildings are turning out to be money pits. There are holes in the walls, holes in the ceilings, spongy floorboards and broken windows and the electricity and plumbing needs attention.

The buildings are located in King Hill and the first thing my hubby and I noticed after we bought them was the roof leaked so we put a layer of tar down. That stopped some leaks but not all, so the next summer we put a layer of tar paper on the roof. That also helped somewhat but the roof still leaked mainly through four skylights. We put a brand new metal roof on the buildings and removed all but one of the sky lights. The water then ran to the one skylight and poured down through it like Niagra Falls. So this summer we removed the last skylight and put metal roofing over it. We’ll have to see what happens this winter when the snow gets deep and piled up on the roof, then melts.

I have been applying insulation, sheet rock and paint to walls where I can reach without scaffolding. I can’t really afford to hire a contractor full time to do the repairs so we are fixing things one job at a time. I have a young man who helps me with the repairs and he uses the building projects like a part time job to supplement his full time income. I have parked a travel trailer there for him to stay in and stocked the refrigerator. He uses it much like a get away on weekends — takes his dogs with him and fishes and putters around fixing here and there. It works out fine because he keeps his hours down so I am never overwhelmed by his wages, and he is making steady progress.  

  Anyway, I have been having fun exploring the nooks and crannies of the old hotel upstairs from the grange hall. One trunk was full of small 48 star United States Flags (pre-Hawaii and Alaska statehood). There were a couple of old kerosene lanterns, a couple of old ballot boxes with pad locks, an old ice box, old stove, and many old books and agricultural records. There is an absolutely beautiful hand rail at the top of the stairs and If I can locate a good wood burning stove I will keep my rock shop open and me working on building repairs until Christmas. Then close everything down for the winter and reopen again in March.

I have started doing historical research on the buildings’ past and am finding interesting tid bits about the town as well as the buildings. 

Here is a photo of the buildings in all their fixer upper glory shortly after we bought them. I believe all my spare money and spare time is spoken for for the rest of my life.

 

Discovering The Old Is New February 2, 2008

New is a relative term. Just because something is new does not mean it is better. Nor does it mean it was just created. All it means is it was recently discovered by the beholder. That fact was reinforced recently when Hubby and I drove to Arizona for some summer sunshine in the middle of January. We’ve traveled the same route for ten maybe 15 years and although I always look forward to the tee shirt weather I always dread the stretch of freeway that goes through downtown Las Vegas. My husband is diabetic, lost his eyesight a few years ago and no longer drives so I am the official chauffeur in our family.
Locals call the city center’s intersecting freeways “the spaghetti bowl” and no matter what the time of day traffic is always snarled and congested there. Last year construction and confusing directional signs complicated the trip. I missed a connector, ended up on the wrong freeway headed toward the wrong city, got off the freeway, drove about a mile along The Strip, found an on-ramp, got back on the freeway and discovered it was the exact same freeway headed the same wrong direction. I got off again on the exact same exit, drove back along The Strip to the same on-ramp, then drove another block or so to another on-ramp and took it. That time I was on the right freeway headed toward the right destination. By the time we got out the other end of the city my hands were shaking I was so stressed.
I told friends about how I’d taken “the scenic route through the heart of Las Vegas not once but twice” and was advised of an alternate route through the city that everyone but me seemed to know about — a route along Boulder Highway that avoided downtown and the freeway completely. I tried that route this year and actually enjoyed my trek through Sin City.
When my children were little, my daughter came home from a friend’s birthday party once all excited about what she called “the newest fashion in theaters. … It’s a big building and you park your car in the parking lot and walk inside and sit in seats and they show the movie on the wall in front.” She explained. I realized she’d only been to drive-in theaters.
After this year’s pleasant trek through Las Vegas I discovered that it was the original route through the city before the freeway was built. Now I feel like my daughter when she discovered walk-in cinemas. Somehow everyone knew about my shortcut but me. It was the old route but it was new to me.

Winter Solstice January 1, 2008

December marks the winter solstice, the point where the sun is at it furthest from us (northern hemisphere of earth). I have always suffered seasonal affective disorder (mild sadness or melancholy in winter when the sunlight is low intensity). This year December was particularly bad — I didn’t even put up a Christmas tree.
Early in the month a vertebra in my lower back shifted out of line and was pinching a nerve and causing lots of pain. I couldn’t walk, sit, or do much of anything but lay in bed moaning, groaning and feeling sorry for myself. The doctor suggested it was age related.
As if that wasn’t enough the day after the slipped vertebra my younger brother (he had Down Syndrome) died in his sleep. When he was born, in the middle 1940s, most children with Down Syndrome were warehoused in residential state-hospital-schools. My parents chose to raise him at home.
I was three years older than him — we were babies together and I drew some of my identity, my self image from him. He found pleasure in the simple events of life: helping in the garden, feeding his rabbits, playing with the dog, hauling rocks in his little red wagon. He was upbeat and friendly as if he did not know what he was missing.
As a child I was embarrassed and would get mad at him because he would act up and make a spectacle of himself in public and people would stare, snicker and point. We other siblings had to take care of, make concessions to and defend him from others who might want to be cruel. I secretly hated him for being who and what he was and felt guilty because I did. We were family bound by a genetic tie. In college I packed that emotional baggage into a closet in my mind and shut the door. I lived in denial and tried to not look back. I didn’t deny that he existed but throughout my life I did not volunteer the information readily. If a person knew me long enough they would eventually meet my extended family.
At the time of his death he was in assisted living. I visited him a couple of times in his later years but he lived 150 miles away — excuses to stay away were not hard to find.
I understand he died peacefully in his sleep but long buried emotions came tumbling out at the news. The fact that he died does not bother me nearly as much as that he never really had much of a life, plus my guilt for resenting and begrudging him his identity. All my life the question jumped from: “Why me?” to, “Why him?” to just plain “Why?” I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.
At the lowest point of my despair I thought about euthanasia and momentarily wished I was a horse so that someone would shoot me. Then, I don’t know what happened. Maybe endorphins from my physical therapy started to kick in; maybe the sun reached the southernmost point in its trek across the sky, turned and started northward again; maybe my little brother forgave me. I realized that I had not written all that I want to write in my lifetime. If my body is starting to show its age and wear out I figured I’d better get busy and focus on stories of substance with themes and ideas that are important to me, help define me as a human being, show me as someone who lived and hopefully made a difference in the world. I remembered after the winter solstice comes the new year, new beginnings and a chance to start over.

Nanowrimo November 27, 2007

I took the nanowrimo challenge and got 50,000 words done in one month on a novel which I plan to finish up, hopefully by spring or summer. If it is not finished by then it will certainly be more organized than it is right now. The exercise was interesting. You had to write 50,000 words in one month on a novel. There were times during the month when the novel would not come out of my head but I just kept pouring out the words and the novel gradually evolved and floated to the surface in and among all the words on the page.
There were times when I would say it was just automatic writing or stream of consciousness and a lot of useless crap and other times when the writing was purposeful. But when it was all done I have the basics of a novel. I’ll have to remember that little trick next time I get stuck for something to write. Or when the words do not come easily. Just keep plugging away and they will come even if unorganized and in the end most of what you write down will be useful for either story line or background information.
I also got a really neat idea for a short story in and among the nanowrimo novel writing. I just set the idea off in brackets and kept right on writing. I have since pulled that short story idea out for further development.

Sunday Comics September 1, 2007

Sunday Comics
by Dixie Thomas Reale

We were radiant. My sister, Jose, and I had scrubbed ourselves from head to toe in the galvanized wash tub set up in back of the pot bellied stove. A green army blanket draped across that corner made it private while father, in his rocking chair, guarded our innocence from behind his magazine.
Then Mama dipped a comb into in a glass of water, wet my hair down, pulled it back and braided it tight. Jose’s wheat colored curls were much too short for pig tails. Long violet ribbons tied up our hair and tiny lavender bows held forget-me-nots in small bundles across the print of our dresses, still stiff with new from the store. We’d spit-shined our white patent leather shoes and little purses where we kept dimes for the collection plate.
It was our Sunday morning routine. Daddy would drop us off at the Golden Gate Baptist Church for Sunday school then go to the Green Lantern for coffee and a piece of cherry pie. He did this every week.
In primary, we sang “Jesus loves me” and “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.” We held up a finger to represent our flame. I showed Jose my middle finger; we giggled loud and sat down on our chairs. Teacher made a hissing noise like steam from a tea kettle and pointed her claw at us.
She told about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Teacher moved odd shapes around a flannel board set up in front of the room, called one Forbidden Fruit, said Eve was tempted. I’d heard the story before and knew Eve was in for big trouble.
“Don’t eat the apple!” I called. Alice Mills frowned at me. I shoved out my chin at her.
When it was time to go home, Jose and I burst through the annex doors and tore pell mell past the front steps of the chapel. The congregation was just coming out. A blue 1938 Desoto sat in its usual place. After Daddy finished his coffee and pie, he would always park the car parallel to the curb in front of the church, throw the funny papers in the back seat and read the news while he waited for Sunday school to let out.
We clawed and shoved one another, each anxious to get to the comics first. I jerked open the back door on the passenger side as Jose went around to the driver’s side. We pounced on the funnies strewn across the seat, kicking and slapping, dividing up the pages.
“I get Smoky Stover and Li’l Abner,” I announced.
“You can have stupid old Smoky; I want Dick Tracy.” Jose grabbed her favorites, shoved an elbow into my ribs and smirked.
Little LuLu was on the same page as Dagwood and Blondie and I wasn’t about to let her have that one. Jose was nearly four years older but had always been sickly. I was younger but stocky, close to the ground, like a bull dog. I could hold my own in a scrap and loved to show her. It made me feel big and powerful. We were fairly evenly matched as we wrestled on the seat. Her weak spot was her hair. I entangled one hand into curls and pulled. She screamed as she slid to the floor, braced her shoulders against the back of the front seat and raised a foot to kick me.
“What the Hell’s going on back there?” A man’s voice bellowed. A sharp nose, skinny face and wire framed glasses peered over the driver’s seat where Daddy’s squashed features and bushy black eyebrows should have been.
That was not our father.
This man was blond; Daddy was dark haired. Jose and I looked at one another. The upholstery was all wrong — rather than fuzzy gray seats the back seat was tan with little metallic threads running through the fabric. This was not our car. It smelled like cigarettes. Our daddy didn’t smoke.
I turned loose of Jose’s hair, laid the paper down and we crawled out, each by a separate door. From the sidewalk I could see the tail lights were different, big and protruding and the car was a dusty blue, ours was blue green.
We tried to sneak away hoping nobody would notice, but of course everybody gawked. Billy Norris, the bully, glared at me backwards over his shoulder as he opened the front door of that very car. The skinny blond man must be his father.
Just then I saw Daddy’s car turn the corner up the block. Jose and I raced to meet him singing, “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.”
We clawed and shoved one another, each anxious to get to the comics first.
“I get Smokey Stover!” I announced and ran faster.

“Sunday Comics” was originally published in Nostalgia and is included in Squirrel Pie and Other Morsels.