A New Perspective

When a person reaches my age it seems that all your perspectives change.  When I was a young married wife with small children, I looked at the future as if the distances were astronomical and required a telescope.
And now looking back, the years have shortened so that no looking glass is needed.   The years past seem like such a short time.

I have been sorting all the photos of our children, and looking at them when they were babies and pre-schoolers.  I realized the other day that I never dreamed about all the things that those babies might accomplish in their lives - education, good jobs, world travel, families of their own.  They were just funny little babies with cute little faces and personalities.  They were such fun!

When I looked at Randy's pictures.  He is our oldest child, so of course there are hundreds of baby pictures of the first child.  He was a pretty funny baby.  From the moment he could react to us, he was a child of a myriad of facial expressions - most of them funny.  And from the moment he could talk, he loved to talk and tell stories.

Hmmm - as I look at Randy's pictures from baby to adult, I realize he is still pretty much that same way.
Let me present some pictures to prove my point.

Here is Randy, about 18 months old, telling a story with all his funny expressions.

Grown up Randy with the same expressions, telling a different story (I think).  Although, he is probably
saying, "Why do you ask?"  This is his standard response when you ask him a question.

And now we see Randy digging in the dirt and trying to do some gardening.

Yep, he's still digging.

Randy loved the party games, often leading the game.

Different balloon, entertaining a different girl, still leading the game.

Styling the cool vest look.

.Uh Huh.

His first Christmas, wearing a bib, and loving the presents.

His I don't know which Christmas, still wearing the bib, and still loving the presents.  (Actually this was the Christmas before Avery was born and she is twenty.  As you can see, the not-yet-born Avery received presents even before she arrived.

Now here is baby Randy taking his first steps so that he can model his new suit.

And here is the grown-up Randy (well, I'm not so sure about that) modeling some kind of suit.  I'm fairly sure from the back drop that this is a photo from Abu Dhabi.  It is hanging in his office.  The firm where he works designed Ferrari World Theme Park in Abu Dhabi.  I don't know about the outfit he is wearing.  It must have some desert connection.  I'm sure Randy can explain this picture if he happens to read this blog.  That is if he is still speaking to his mother!

All of this is just to prove to all you young mothers out there, that all those fun things that you see in your babies may still be making appearances when those kids are all grown up.

And that is a good thing in Randy's case!

Creating Some Christmas Fun

This past week I have been busily involved in a craft project that has been a lot of fun.  Let me tell you what I have been up to.

Last spring I purchased this little hand made sunflower at the local Goodwill Store.  Don't you just love it?
It is made from a craft wooden spool, a cinnamon stick, some cotton fabric, and a button - so cute that I had to try to make one.

So this last week I decided to modify the sunflower project so that I could make some Christmas type flowers that I could use for small friendship gifts or party favors.  I like to have such a project every Christmas so that I can give these little thank you gifts to friends - fun enough to say "I love you, friend,"  but small enough not to be reciprocated.

So I used these materials to create my Christmas flower pots.

1 1/2  red polka dotted satin ribbon
Narrow green checked satin ribbon
Black drawing pencils
Old wooden spools of thread that I already had
Old white buttons
Christmas design scrapbooking paper to cover the spools

I gather-stitched the red ribbon to create the round flowers.  Then I glued on the white button in the center of each flower using Quick Grab glue.  I covered each spool top and bottom with round paper discs, and then a strip of scrapbooking paper around the cylinder.  I punched the hole in the paper on top.  I stitched a loop of green ribbon for the leaves.  When all this was finished I used the Quick Grab glue to glue the flower at the top of each pencil with the leaves glued right beneath.  Then I simply stuck each pencil lead point down into the spool flower pots.

Please notice that the pencil/flowers can still be pulled from their pots and used for writing. These can be used on a desk or by the your phone. Since this is true, I created note pads that can be used along side the Christmas pencil.  To create these I used the following materials:

Folded green card stock
Small white note pads
Rubber stamps (Gift box and Merry Christmas)
White ribbon

So the project is finished.  I have made 22 sets.  I hope my friends enjoy them.  And I hope that they make for very festive place settings at our next Christmas luncheon.

Remembering My Brother, Jack

Yesterday, December 3, 2012, my oldest and only remaining sibling, Jack, passed away in Greenbrae, California.

Jack Edward was born in Anderson, Indiana,  on May 14, 1927, the first child born to Mark and Gladys Green.  Jack would become big brother to four siblings:  Clyde, Dan, David, and Phyllis.

Being the only girl and the youngest in the family, and being nine years younger than Jack, I was always rather in awe of this older brother - my hero.  And while he always teased his brothers, he was  very kind and sweet with his little sister.

As tiny tots during the depression, Jack and Clyde along with Mom and Dad, lived with our Grandpa and Grandma Lininger.  Families had to do that to survive the depression.  Jack was always especially fond of both Grandma and Grandpa.  Jack and Grandpa Lininger were actually a lot alike.  Grandpa was very creative, mechanical, inventive, and an excellent craftsman.  Jack admired his skills, and had a lot of the same talents.

Jack graduated from Anderson High School in 1945, and was immediately drafted into the military right at the end of World War II.  He was sent to Germany, but never served in battle, as the war ended that summer when he was drafted.  After Jack finished his military service, he came home and immediately enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington.  I was only nine years old when he left in 1945, and Jack never was to live at home again - only coming home at holiday times.

It was always fun when Jack and all the boys were home for the holidays.  Jack was always the great tease and kidded his brothers and our mother unmercifully.  Mother loved it when all the boys were home.  We all loved the laughter and fun.

After graduating from Indiana University where he was in the Kappa Sigma fraternity, and was editor of the yearbook, Jack married Dori and moved to Indianapolis.  Dori and Jack moved to Californina where Dori, a jazz pianist and vocalist, could pursue her career.  While they were married they lived in the San Francisco area and had three children: Richie, Karen, and Chris.

The marriage ended.  The children grew up.  Jack remained living in the bay area.  Richie works in the computer industry.  Karen, an artist, is the widow of author, David Foster Wallace.  And Chris works in the film industry as a cartoonist.

Jack was remarried to Stephanie, and they lived in Greenbrae, California.  Jack and Stephanie used their creative and craftsmanship skills to operate a home and furniture rehab business.

Stephanie has been a loyal and faithful wife to Jack, taking care of him through these last years of illness.
I feel very grateful to her for taking such good care of Jack as his health failed .  I am also grateful to the Nursing home facility that provided compassionate care during his long illness.  Thank you, Stephanie, we look forward to having you with us in Indiana whenever that is possible.

As I remember my brother, Jack, I remember that very handsome guy with a unique sense of humor who loved to tease everyone.  I remember a guy who was artistic and creative, a guy who loved cars and photography - a guy who loved a good laugh.  I imagine that he is somewhere having a good laugh on all of us because he beat us to a better place!

The Very Best Dog

We have a new Grand dog in our family.  Our daughter and son-in-law recently adopted a rescue dog.
She is a beautiful German Pointer named Lacey.  Her family thinks that she is the prettiest and best-behaved dog there ever was.  We have dog sat with Lacey and she is, indeed, a very special dog.

This last week I have been going through all our photos and organizing them into files.  I put all our photos of the dog you see above into our "Pets" file.  The pet you see in the above picture is the late and great pet named Scotty, who was undoubtedly the greatest dog in the world!  Lacey is very, very nice, but Scotty was the greatest.

He came to us as a puppy.  Don was then athletic director at Highland High School.  It was early spring and he was mowing the football field on a Saturday morning.  He later called home and said to me, "You'll never guess what is sitting under my desk and looking at me with these big brown eyes."  Thankfully, it being Saturday, I could rule out it being any sane human being.  Anyone sane wouldn't hang around school on a Saturday.  "Yes," he explained, "it is the cutest puppy I have ever seen.  I think I'll bring him home if it is all right.  He was either dropped off out here by someone, or has run away.  It isn't safe to leave him here.  He'll be  running out into the road."

I was not happy.  We had just recovered from our last puppy experiences.  We had just lost our not very bright bassett hound named Humphrey.  True, he was cute in a very wrinkly sort of way, but he wasn't very bright........in any kind of way;  He was a behavior-training drop-out.  He had suffered from a hip joint displacement, because he jumped out of the car (it was parked) with his leash on.  Then he sat down in front of a school bus.  We spent several hundred dollars nursing him through those injuries.  And, soon after he was recovered, he ran in front of a jeep and was killed. We had also suffered through de-fleaing and de-worming dear old Humprhey.  I wasn't ready for another dog!

I told Don he could bring the pup home until we found an owner for him, but we weren't going to have another dog.  The rest of the family did not like my refusal.  But I stood firm in my decision.  One of the coaches at Highland said he would like to have the puppy.  So, fine.  But part of our family (the kids) weren't being too friendly toward Mother.

About a month later, the coaches from Highland were making a weekend trip to some sporting event.  They asked if I would mind dog sitting the puppy while they were gone.  Well......... you can guess the rest.  One weekend with that sweet pup and I was a goner.  AND upon returning home from their trip, the coach said his apartment owners didn't want him to have a dog in his apartment. The rest is history.

We named our new pup Scotty, not because any part of him is Scotty dog breed, but after the school's mascot, the Highland Scots.  He seemed to know from the very first that he had to be a very good and friendly dog.  After all, Mom said she didn't want a puppy.  But Scotty proved from the very first that he was indeed a very good dog. He didn't bark much, he never had "accidents" in the house.  He just smiled at you, and liked you a lot.

If you look at the picture way at the top of this page, this shows Scot's reaction to anyone who asked him, ""Do you want to walk around the block?"  Immediately he head tilted and the ears were cocked.  Of course, you could get the same reaction if you said, "Do you want to rock around the clock?", or "Do you want to chalk around the stock?"  But he did love to take his walks.  I often took him on the nearly three mile path around Aqua Gardens along wth my neighbor, Evelyn.  He was still such a puppy on our first time around Aqua Gardens that his little paws hurt and he was so tired about half way round, I had to carry him the rest of the way.  Evelyn thought this very funny.  She laughed all the way home.

He also loved to go back to the football field.  There were farm fields all around the stadium.  After taking a few turns on the track, he would take off through the fields, leaping like a deer over any plant in his way.  Some times he got so carried away with this freedom that we had to wait a long time for him to return.  After one really long wait, we bought a cap pistol.  One shot with the caps, and he always flew back to the car.

Scotty loved everyone, especially all the kids who came to play in our yard.  He also liked all the neighborhood dogs.  He would happily run across the street, and wait in the driveway for the neighbor's dog to come out and play.  Cheryl's best friend, Cindy, had a dog named Scout.  Scout had a built-in clock and he knew exactly when it was time for the school bus to get home in the afternoon.  Scout would pick up

Scotty, and the two of them would go down to the bus stop to meet "their" kids.

As much as he loved walks, Scotty also loved to ride in the car.  And, just like his family, he believed that every car ride should include a stop for an ice cream.  One drive up ice cream store in Anderson had a "Scotty dish" on their menu.  He would quickly finish his dish in the back seat, then lean over the back of our seat and watch us eat our cones.  If you got too close to the end, he would tap you on the shoulder so you wouldn't forget to feed him the end of your cone.

He also loved to go to the lake with us.  He would sleep for most of the two-hour drive to the lake.  But he would always wake up about fifteen minutes before arriving at the lake.  Then he would hang his head over the front seat and get all excited watching for the lake.  He loved to get in the lake, ride on the pontoon, and  to roll in dead fish so that he smelled really bad!  He had his very own seat on the pontoon, in the back right beside Don.  If we had friends on the pontoon, and one of them sat in "His seat", Scotty would simply stand and stare at them until they found a new place to sit!

Scotty loved everyone, except maybe delivery men in uniform (what's up with that - it seems all dogs feel that way).  But Scotty especially loved his family.  Of course there was a very special bond between Scotty and Don because he accompanied Don on almost every trip in the car and on every walk.  And even after all the kids were grown and moved to their own homes, he loved to have them come visit.  Rod was always a favorite because he knew just the right spot to scratch Scotty's ears!

About a year after I retired, when Scotty was getting old and grey around the edges, he took sick one night while we were sleeping.  Don found him very ill and unable to stand one morning.  He immediately rushed him to our vet.  The doctor said that he didn't have long to live, so we had him put to sleep so that he wouldn't suffer.  Boy, what a void it leaves in  your lives when such a constant companion is gone. But I know that he must surely be in heaven where he is The Very Best Dog in Heaven, just like he was always the Very Best Dog on Earth!.

My love and thanks to son, Rod for the tutorial on photo scanning!  I love it.

Remembering the Summer of the Rose

Yesterday Don cut back our roses.  Yes, it is time, but I can't remember a summer when I have enjoyed the roses as much as this year.  I hate to see them go.

It has been a hard summer for most things green and growing - not to mention those things animate and growing.  Thankfully we have survived all the drought and sweltering temperatures, and have moved into my favorite season of the year.

But roses everywhere seemed to love the heat and the drought.  I always knew roses to be beautiful to look at, delightful to smell, and capable of speaking the language of love.  I just never knew that these dazzling flowers were such tough little cusses.

Most of our roses came to us as potted Mothers Day gifts from our kids in Cincinnati.  After enjoying them in the house, Don always plants them in the yard.  I have spoken before of our "surprise" flower garden.  We are just never sure what will decide to pop up and grow in any given year.  But that is the delight of such a garden.  And this year the roses outshone every other flower.  Where everything else struggled with heat and drought, these tough little cusses thrived and survived, and were more dazzling than ever.

It kind of makes me wish that I were still in my child-bearing years so I could have a daughter and name her Rose.  Hows that for a foolish wish?  Oh, but wait, maybe we could just change Cheryl's name to Rose.

After all she is pretty dazzling and perfect.  AND  she has often proven that she can thrive when things get tough.

Just Another Bad Idea - Clean A Closet

I have found that one of the best perks of being retired, is that most days you have the freedom to choose what to do that day.  I do have those regular days when I volunteer, routine club meetings, and occasional appointments.  But it still feels like a luxury to wake up in the morning (late) and realize that I can pick and choose what to do with that day.

There are a few things so routine that they are attended to without thought:  the morning paper, the five puzzles in said paper, the shower and dressing, the muffin and coffee.  But by lunch time and Price Is Right I must decide what comes next.  I still feel morally obligated to accomplish at least one productive task each day.  I don't know why, but I have allowed myself to define "productive"  in very loose terms.

Here are some "productive" accomplishments according to my very broad definition:  call a friend, mail a greeting card, do my nails (finger nails - I can't reach my toes), write a blog entry  ( so productive obligations have been met today), delete old E mail messages, hand sew trimmings on a love bear, etc. etc. etc.
I don't count reading a novel or watching favorite TV shows because those are my guilty pleasures.  I don't count doing the daily load of washing.  Ever since my teaching days, throwing that load of washing in every evening is as routine as brushing my teeth.

When I taught school and had children at home, I always walked through the house every evening and picked up laundry in each room and put a load of clothes in the washer.  By doing this I tried to avoid having the kids do their own "load" of wash.  That is because a kid considers one pair of jeans that they want to wear tomorrow a whole load of wash.  Now I do that load because Don only keeps two outfits per season in his closet.  That's the way he likes it.  It bothers him to have more clothes that he needs!  As a woman, I just don't understand.  But, anyway, my daily load of washing, keeps him in a clean outfit every day.

So, you can see that Don requires very little closet space, what with his two outfits that he will dispose of at the end of each season, when he gets next season's two outfits.  And we have four lovely walk-in closets in our house.  One is a real nightmare where I keep my craft "stuff."  One is Don's closet.  And can you guess what is in the other two?  Right!  All of my clothes and shoes. Yes, I am embarrassed to say that both these closets are full to the brim.

Well, back to my one productive act per day.  A couple of week-ends ago, I desperately needed a very productive activity.  I had seen as much golf and football on TV as I could stand.  So I lost my head and decided to clean out one of my closets!  I removed all the clothes, sorted and put all slacks, blouses, sweaters, and jackets into different stacks.  I had a throw-away bag for the really awful, a Goodwill bag for the still useful.  I sorted shoes, I straightened shelves, I made all the handbags stand at attention, my gosh, I even mopped the floor!  I mopped the floor right before I collapsed from exhaustion!  And then I had to return all the garments back into the closet.

Let me tell you.......it took me the rest of the week to recover.  But the closet looks great.

Now, I only have three more closets to go.  I'm sorry, kids, but you may just have to take care of those after I'm gone.

Another Dumb Thing Old Folks Do - Disrespect Doctors' Appointments

Yes, as the title indicates, we should never disrespect our doctors' appointments.  I mean DON'T  EVEN THINK ABOUT SHOWING ANY DISRESPECT!

Case in point:  Last week we were driving to Indianapolis very early on Thursday morning to keep my routine six month appointment with my eye doctor, the glaucoma specialist.  The morning was very foggy, and the traffic was early-morning- awful.  I said, "One of these days we will be too old to keep traveling to Indy to see a doctor."
And Don said, "  You are getting along pretty well.  Maybe you could ask him if we could just come once a year."
Now, perhaps, you will remember that a few years ago my very good eye doctor removed my cataracts, and at the same time constructed ducts in each eye that drained the eyes and keep the pressure down to single digit readings without the use of eyedrops.  This will hopefully keep the glaucoma from getting worse.
Well, my appointment was for 9:30, and we arrived about 9:10.  The receptionist apologized and said that doctor was running about an hour behind.  Indeed he was.  I saw the doctor at about 11:00.  So Don and I were all set to ask to be put on a year rotation.
Huh!  The doctor discovered that I had another small leak in the roof of my bleb in the left eye.  (I bet you don't have too many friends or relatives who have ever suffered that affliction!]  Well, it sounds bad, but it is just treated with a daily dose of antibiotic eye ointment.
BUT, now I have to return to the doctor in six weeks, not a year, but in six weeks.  And this will  probably continue until the eye heals.
So, don't even think about changing those appointments.
You would think that we would learn our lesson.  But on Tuesday of this week, we took sister-in-law, Janie, out to supper.  She had been to the orthopedic hospital that day for the one year appointment following her hip surgery.  She said that her doctor had dismissed her.
Don said, "He dismissed you?  Phyllis, don't you have an appointment with your hip doctor in February for you two year anniversary of your hip surgery?"
"Yes, I think I do."
"Well, do you think that is really necessary?  Maybe you can cancel that."
Oh, Don.  those words should have never left your mouth.  I got up on Wednesday morning and I could barely walk because my hip hurt so much.  And it has continued hurting today.  The doctor gods are punishing me for disrespectful thoughts.
Don was checking over all our insurance papers this evening.  When he looked at the dental insurance, he said, "That cleaning and exam every is months is mostly covered, but doesn't it seem a little silly to go so often at our age.  Maybe we could change that to once a year."
No, No, No, Don, don't utter those words aloud!
So, tomorrow I am fully expecting some fillings to fall out!

Number One of a New Series - Dumb Things that Old People Do

Well, I've been gone awhile, haven't I?  Once I finished my childhood memories doll house, I just couldn't get inspired about anything to write.  I am enjoying the finished doll house.  And the Art Club here in Anderson was kind enough to invite me to bring it to their meeting and be their program for the month.
I was nervous, but it was a very lovely group of ladies, and they met in the most beautiful home, and I did enjoy the day.  However, poor Don had to "tote the barge and lift the bale."  In other words, he had to
pick up the darn thing and find a way to get it into the car, deliver it and me, and then pick us up.  I solemnly promised to never do that again.

So, I have been thinking about a theme for my next bits of writing.  And, honestly, the only thoughts that come to my head are "all the dumb things that old people do."  The "old people" mentioned here being Don and I.  Believe me, I have a wealth of information to share.

The strangest part of reaching this age is that the brain has these little blank spots that simply pop up at the most inconvenient times during a conversation.  I hate to say it, but Don has suffered from this for years.  The kids and I always thought it was done to amuse us.  But, now I'm thinking that it is definitely just old age.

For instance, he will ask me, "Did you turn off that furnace?"  Now, it is summer and we all know that the furnace isn't on.  But I know how to translate.  He is asking me if I unplugged the hair dryer or the curling iron.

When he gets home from the casino after his morning visit there.  He always sits down while I'm trying to read the morning paper, and tells me about every machine he played, every spin, every bonus, and all the people he talked to.  (I really don't mind; it is rather endearing.)  Also it doesn't require heavy-duty attention on my part.  But the interesting thing about the stories is that Don never calls any slot machine by its real name.  For instance, when he tells me that he played Dolphin Club, I understand that he means a slot machine called Turtle Bay (one of my favorites.)  When he says that he has played Dollar General, I know that he means American Original.  This morning he told me that he played Sex is a Pity.  Well, it is, but he meant a machine called Sex in the City.  I did have to laugh at that one.

Then, there are our neighbors.  He spoke to one gentleman and called him Merlin.  Merlin is the name of the neighbor's dog.  The gentleman's name is Beryl.  So for months now Don has been calling him Berlyn.  I am tired of correcting him, so when he calls another neighbor Dolly, I have quit telling him every time that her name is Dixie.  Today he asked me, "Did you know that our neighbor's name is really Dixie?  I called her to tell her that I would mow her yard.  When I asked for Dolly they didn't know who I was talking about."
Soooo. I guess I'll just keep on correcting him.

I, on the other hand, am not so creative when my mind goes blank.  Darn it!  I have to give Don credit.  It is quite scary that I can almost always translate what he means.  But when I have those same frequent lapses in memory, I simply have to stop talking, and I just stare blankly, not finishing the sentence.

You know, it goes something like this, "Did you see that singer on TV, you know, uh, ________________?
Or, "Don, I'm trying to fix this towel holder, I need your, uh, ________________.  Now,  I may think of it in 5 minutes, an hour, three days, or in  a month.  Who knows.  But it really is a conversation stopper.  No laughs, either.  I have to give Don credit for his creativity and his entertainment value.  This last week I saw a fictitious name on a mock-up credit card on a TV commercial.  It was so close to a former student's name, and Don and I had been trying to think of her name for weeks.  Right then it flashed into my poor little empty- spaces head.

Don wakes in the middle of the night, turns on his TV, then sees something or somebody whose name won't come to mind.  He will get up, turn on the computer, and do a long search, because the question is driving him crazy.

So, there you have it.  Probably the number one dumb thing that old people do.  When I met with my ladies club, you know my good friends who have met for 40 years.  We had this very conversation the other day.
The totally agreed.So said my best friend, uh, uh, uh _________________________.  I'll have to get back with on that.

Why Reading Teachers Go Crazy While Reading, And How Muncie, Indiana ended up in Botswana

I love to read.  And I do read every day......and often into the night!  But I have to tell you that there is something that drives me a little bit crazy when I am reading.  I hate it when the main character(s) have names that are impossible to pronounce!

I used to teach reading and phonics for about thirty some years.  I guess that process left me interminably trying to sound out any new word that I encounter.  That's wonderful unless it is one of the characters in a novel whose name defies decoding.  For instance I recently read Elizabeth George's newest mystery in the Inspector Lynley series.  The story revolves around a large family of characters whose last name is Fairclough.  Okay, so how would YOU pronounce it?   There are 70 or more words in the English language that end in "ough".  Think about it.  There is : rough, though, thought, through, bough, etc, etc.  So which pronunciation should I use at the end of Fairclough?  And let me tell you that name appeared on every page of this very long novel.  I just couldn't give it up.  I kept on trying to pronounce it correctly as I read.

So this weekend I read Alexander McCall Smith's novel "The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection."
This is the 13th in the "#1 Ladies Detective Agency" series.  The setting of the stories is Gaborone, Botswana in Africa.  I can actually pronounce Gaborone and Botswana.  No problem.  But let me introduce you to some of the characters.  First and foremost:  Mma Precious Ramotswe who is married to Rra J.L.B. Matekoni.  Her assistant is Mma Grace Makutsi who is married to Rra Phuti Radiphuti.  AAaaargh!  Help me please!  And these characters NEVER speak to one another using a first name.  They ALWAYS use full names.  On every page my simple little phonics-driven mind continues to try and correctly pronounce the names.  I did figure out that Mma must mean Ms.  And Rra is Mr.  (I think.)

In spite of all this, I do enjoy Mr Smith's books.  Do you think because he is a "Smith"  that he is fascinated with hard-to-pronounce names? Even so,  the detective agency books are so charming.  I have really enjoyed them even more since I watched the HBO series of these stories. Now, as I read, I have a very real picture of each character, how they dress, and how the scene must look.  I can see Gaborone, and the countryside of Botswana.

Another item in this book was very interesting to me.  When Mma Ramotswe decided to  open her detective agency (all the way back in book one of the series), she found a book at the book store that she used as a guide for being a good detective.  It is a book titled "The Principles of Private Detection" written by Clovis Andersen.  Both Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi  (I hope you are going crazy trying to pronounce)  have committed most of the text to memory, as the manual has guided them through the events of thirteen novels.
You won't believe it, but in this No. 13, they at last get to meet their hero, Mr. Andersen, who appears in Gaborone visiting a friend.

And, guess what?  Mr. Andersen tells them that he is from (hold on to  your hat!)  Muncie, Indiana.  He says that he is a detective in Muncie, Indiana, a midwestern town where glass jars are made.  Not only that, but he graduated from a university in Bloomington, Indiana.  I don't know why he couldn't have gone to Ball State.  The funniest development is that at the end of this book, Mr Andersen admits that he is now retired, and was a terrible detective.  Not only that, but his manual was self published, and he only sold about 30 copies.  The rest were home in his garage.  And this manual has guided the two detectives through many successful adventures in all thirteen books.

I was very interested in reading Alexander McCall Smith's biographical information.  He was born in Zimbabwe, graduated from the University of Edinburgh, taught law at the University of Botswana, and now lives in Scotland.  I wonder how he decided to include Muncie and Indiana into this story.

Home for sale in Redbud

The home in Redbud Estates is for sale.

It has 3 bedrooms with large closets.
2 baths
Large open living room, dinette, kitchen
3 season glass/screened porch
carport
Newer kitchen appliances
Newer AC and furnace
Nice carpet and all windows with window covers

Lovely shady yard and on the golf course
All this for $15,900   Call Teddy at Redbud Homes 644-4479    House located at 241 Freedom Way

Shouldn't You Put Brothers in the Attic?

At long last I have come to the final room (or two rooms)  in my childhood memories doll house.  And, at long last I have finally gotten even with those big brothers who always had the first choice and best bedrooms in the house.  Remember, that I didn't have my own room until I was eleven years old!  Up until then I had a cot in the corner of the dining room or living room.  Poor child!  Don't you feel sorry for me?
Truth be spoken, I can't recall that I ever minded my little cot, and I always slept like the proverbial log.

Anyway, in my doll house I have put my brothers' rooms up in the attic, under the roof.  But I think they look pretty swell.  Don't you?  In fact, my brothers' rooms never looked this neat.  It is impossible to find doll house- sized dirty socks and clothes to strew about.  So I gave up and made their rooms look like those occasions when Mother cleaned their rooms in desperation when company was expected.  We did have the bunk beds in one room and the double bed in another.  But I think that, more often than not, the bunks were set up as twin beds.  However, the bunks fit better up under the doll house roof.

In the bunk room you find the basketball and trophy from the Anderson Indians state final championship game in which brother Clyde played.  The state champion tournament was the most exciting day of my childbood.  The Anderson Indians won the Indiana state championship in 1946, so I would have been 10 years old.  Mother and Daddy had seats in the team parents section (good seats).  David, Dan, and I sat way at the top of Hinkle Field House.  But did we care?  Not a bit.  We were so excited.  Clyde was just a junior so he was not a starter on the team.  He did get into both games (afternoon and evening), but only for the last minute or so.  I was so happy!  I told everyone with hearing distance that he was my BROTHER!
Between games we had supper in a private dining room at a very nice hotel along with other team parents. We had fried chicken.  Pretty exciting stuff for kids who didn't get to eat out often.

And after the championship game, they brought the team back to Anderson and took them around town on a fire truck that ended up back at the high school gym for a big celebration.  Dave, Dan, and I got away from Mother and Daddy.  Guess what.   We ended up climbing on the stage with the team.  Mother and Daddy were so embarrassed.  But, in all the excitement, they forgot all about it.

Clyde eventually went to Butler University where the famous Hinkle Field House is located.  It is the field house featured in the movie Hoosiers.  The tournament was just as exciting as the one portrayed in the movie.

You see signs on the bedroom walls showing that besides Clyde going to Butler, Jack went to Indiana University, and David to Ball State.  Dan didn't go to college, but went right into the Navy.  All my brothers had military experience.  Jack was drafted into the 2nd World War as soon as he graduated from high school.   Then he did some ROTC at IU to help pay for his college.  Clyde also did AFROTC, and eventually served in the air force after college.  David did army service and also army reserves.    They served their country, and helped pay for their own educations.

If you have teen-aged brothers or sons, you know that there may not be a "No Girls Allowed" sign on the door.  But, really, do you want to spend time in such a messy place?   Maybe, even in real life, they would be better placed up in the attic, and under the roof.

The Master (and Mistress) Bedroom

These pictures show my doll house version of my parent's various bedrooms  in all my childhood houses.
It was not the "Master Bedroom."  I never heard that phrase growing up.  The room was just "Mother and Daddy's room.  It was the safe place you could run to if you were sick or scared in the middle of the night.
When did real estate ads and designers start with the master bedroom thing?  Oh no, let me correct that.  They are ideally called "Master suites."  Yes, I am addicted to HGTV.  And no self-respecting twenty something buying the first home would have anything less than a master suite for heavens sake.  Nor would they accept anything less than a bathroom for every bedroom for heavens sake.

Well, I grew up in a family of seven with a grandmother who visited for three or four months every year, and we never had more than one bathroom.  It sometimes wasn't fun, but you just made it work.  And, anyway,
isn't it rather sexist to call it the "Master"  bedroom.  I'd say that in our house Mother had a whole lot more to do with the care and cleaning of the room and everything in it.

But I do digress.  Front and center in the picture you see Mickey, the dog.  Mickey was that ugly little puppy that my oldest brother, Jack, brought home when I was three or four.  I swear that dog lived until I was almost through high school.  Mickey was much whiter and uglier than my little statue dog.  He also had  a  chronic case of eczema on his back, so that he had a large pink bare spot there.  And he smelled exactly like a dog.  Although I wasn't aware of that until someone told me a few years ago that our house always smelled like Mickey, the dog.  How embarrassing is that?  But Mickey and Mother loved one another.  He followed her around the house all day when he wasn't out chasing other dogs or scratching his eczema.  He also slept by their bed at night.  So their room probably smelled like dog, too.

The little black chair beside the bed is the ironing board chair that my Grandpa Lininger made.  I am sure he made it as a "time out" chair for my older brothers. And he made it out of an old ironing board.  But all during my time at home it sat on Daddy's side of the bed and was filled with a large stack of "Saturday Evening Post" magazines.  My dad always subscribed to this magazine, and read them every night before falling to sleep.  See the bed lamp hanging on the head board?  Do you remember those?  Well, they were great for night time reading.  I just remember lounging on Mother and Daddy's bed on hot summer afternoons with a breeze coming in the window.  I loved to read the Saturday Evening Post.  Well, I suppose I first looked at them, and then, when I learned how to read, I read them.  The procedure was:  get the windows opened wide, get the breezes going, select a Post, first go through and see all the cartoons,  then check to see if there were any movie stars pictures, or any pretty ads, then read something if it attracted my attention or I understood what I was reading.  The Saturday Evening Post taught me a lot about America and American culture.  Oh, and I loved the Norman Rockwell painted cover pictures.  I loved them then, and I still do.

On the dresser you see Mother's extensive collection of cosmetics.  That would be Pond's Cold Cream and Pond's Vanishing Cream.  I think there might have been some loose face powder and one tube of lipstick.
That was it!  She used the Ponds every day, but the powder and lipstick only when going somewhere.  But I thought my mother was very pretty.  And Ponds was scented like roses.  So my mother always smelled like a rose.  I remember that Mother could only afford the beauty shop every other week.  And she waited a long time between permanents.  So her hair had a pretty natural look a good bit of the time.  I loved it when she had a new permanent or had just been to the beauty shop.  I thought she looked beautiful.  I always wished she could go every day.  Silly child.  Oh, and she always had a blue rinse put on her grey hair.  All the grey haired women did that.  Why, I don't know.  And it always rubbed off on the pillow cases.

On the shelf you see some of her unfinished crafts.  I swear that when I was born  my mother had a half-finished hooked rug in her cedar chest.  It was still there when we disposed of her household goods at the time she had to have full-time care.  In that chest were some baby books.  Jack, the first born, had a pretty complete book.  Clyde's was so-so.  After that the baby books were pretty much non-existent.  I didn't understand that until I had three children.  There was also a curling iron from the 1920's.  As a child I thought it was a weird thing.  Mother always put my hair up on rags every night.  When I grew up, you would have thought that curling irons were the hottest new inventions around.

On the back wall hang the framed senior pictures of the five children.  When my parents finally bought their first house (a year before I was married), they did have those five pictures framed and hung in their bedroom.
I'm so happy that for a while they were able to have that nice big "master bedroom" in a house that they owned, after all those years of too little money, too small rental houses, and too many kids.

Just the Bare ( or Bear) Facts

I spent Thursday, Friday, and the weekend working on putting faces and trimmings on these bears.
  A group associated with RSVP, are called the "Love Bear Ladies."  They have been making these bears for I don't know how many years.  My friend, Sally, reports that they give away at least a thousand bears a year.  The Love Bear Ladies give these to the Police Dept. and both of our local hospitals.  They are given to children who are ill or are involved in stressful or traumatic situations.

Sally told me that the group has been short-handed because several members have been unable to work, so I volunteered to help out.  It has been fun to give these plain little guys some personality.

Frank, the cat,  thinks he is a bear, or wants to be a bear, or is vying for my undivided attention - the attention he usually enjoys.  Or maybe it is all three!

Oh, and thanks to friend, Ginny, who proved on Friday that she really is a good friend.  She came out on a 103 degree afternoon so that she could stuff bears!

The BEST Room of All!

Finally, I get to tell you about the best room in the house.  Well, anyway, it was my very favorite!  You have to realize that I never had a bedroom of my own until I was 11 years old.  So, no wonder I liked it so much when I finally did get my very own space. Up until then I had just had a cot in an available corner someplace.

The house on 13th Street was large enough that it had four very nice upstairs bedrooms.  Our landlady had put fresh new wallpaper on all the walls, and  my room had pink flowers.  The Canadays, the friends who lived behind us and gave us the kitchen sink, also gave me their only daughter's bedroom furniture.  She had gotten married that summer and they were turning her room into an office.  They gave me a twin bed with a pretty rose sateen bedspread, and a long dressing table with the same rose sateen skirt.  There was a large mirror over the dressing table.  Oh, I became such a princess.

My room had two nice windows that looked out into the tall green trees outdoors.  They were perfect windows for a daydreamer.  Grandma and Grandpa had found a section of school chalkboard someplace, and I had that in my room.  One of my favorite pass times was to used colored chalk and cover the board with a huge picture, or write some long story on the chalkboard.

See the box propped up at the end of the bed?  That is the box that Jack brought home and Mother painted for me.  Inside you will find all my  favorite pictures and paper dolls.  On the wall you see a wall shelf that Grandpa Lininger made.  Grandma and Grandpa had had a fishing cottage at Riverwood, so that Grandpa could go fishing.  When they sold the cottage they gave us the shelf.  Mother let me hang it in my bedroom and on it I placed the doll tea set that had been my mothers.  I still have some pieces of that china tea set.
I also had my Storybook Doll collection.  That sounds impressive.  But I don't think I ever managed to collect more than three of them.  I have no idea what ever happened to those dolls. Our daughter, Cheryl, still has the shelf in her kitchen.

On the dressing table you see a blue perfume bottle.  Several years before on my sixth birthday, about midday Mother realized that she had forgotten and had no presents for her precious daughter.  As I remember it she called Daddy at work and then baked a cake for supper. My sixth birthday was in 1942, and we had no car, nor was there much gasoline available if you had one.  Daddy rode the city bus to work, and it required that he transfer to another bus downtown.  Daddy must have gotten off the bus on his way home and shopped for my present at a drugstore downtown.  When, after blowing out the candles after supper, I opened my present, it was an aqua blue hobnail bottle of cologne!. It was probably a totally inappropriate gift for a six year old, but I adored it!  I felt so grown up, and my daddy had picked it out!
That was seventy years ago and I still have my aqua blue hobnail bottle (no cologne).

You see a doll house in the picture above.  Let me tell you the story of my FIRST doll house.  My Grandma Green always came to stay with us for three or four months each year.  Grandma had very limited eyesight, and had to walk with a walker (hmmm?  I think I may be related to her.)  I am thinking now that she must have had such patience.  Since she couldn't climb stairs, she always had to sleep on a sofa bed or some awkward place.  But she was always sweet about everything.  Grandma spent her day reading and writing letters to every relative she had.  First thing in the morning she read the newspaper from cover to cover ---I mean Every Word!   Grandma saw a classified ad about a doll house for sale, and talked Daddy into going to see it.  It must have been about my 8th birthday, because Daddy bought the doll house.

Let me tell you, this was a doll house and a half.  It was about five feet long and five feet tall with Southern colonial pillars on the porch.  The biggest problem was that where we lived on Meridian St.  at that time, our house was very crowded, and I had no bedroom.  So this monster of a doll house sat in the basement.  The next problem was that doll house furniture built to that scale did not exist, and no one in our house had the time nor the money to build any furniture.  I am very sad to say that I can't remember what happened to my Monster Doll House #1.  It certainly didn't make the move to the next house.  But I think it did spark that interest in me that has never gone away  - only now I try to keep it in scale.

I remember the open windows in the summertime, listening to the summer night sounds.  I remember watching the neighborhood comings and goings.  I remember a lot of daydreams happening in that room.
I remember having the German measles during sixth grade, and having to stay in bed in the darkened room.
I was so sick.  I remember my mother coming in and washing my itchy skin and powdering it.  She made me feel so much better.  I remember a bat got into the house one night and was flying up and down the hallway.
I stayed under the covers until Daddy caught it and put it outside.

It was a long time coming, but I am so thankful that I finally had a room of my own.

Where the Living Was Easy

Houses didn't have "family rooms" when I was a child.  At least I had never heard of such a thing.  In my world you had a living room or a parlor, or sometimes you had both.  In most of our rental houses we just had a living room, and that was the place where everyone gathered in the evenings or on weekends to relax and be a family.  In the houses where we had two such rooms, we invariably chose the smaller and cozier of the two for the daily gathering place.  Now that I have used that word "gathering", I realize that I have often seen that used in country decorating books to describe just the sort of room I am talking about today- the "gathering room."

You see that there was no television set in our living room.  We didn't have a television set until I was in high school.  My dad finally HAD to go buy one during the high school basket tourney time, so he could watch the games happening in Indianapolis.  You do see a radio.  And that was what the family gathered around when we wanted some entertainment other than conversation or games.  I LOVED listening to the radio shows in the evening.  David and I would fix snacks.  We used to make "Hermit" cookies, or Mother's "Never-Fail" fudge, or popcorn.  Then we would lie on the floor and listen to "Jack Armstrong", or "The Shadow" and eat our snacks.  And the whole family listened to "Fibber McGee and Molly", "Gildersleeve,"
or "One Man's Family."  I think that "One Man's Family"  was our favorite, and it was aired on a weekend evening.

I can tell you exactly what the house and street looked like where Gildersleeve lived.  I can describe Molly's living room, and the  jammed closet that would "explode" every time Fibber opened the door.  Strange, though, that the house and closet looked a lot like ours.  And Gildersleeve's street looked a lot like our street.  That was the beauty of radio.  It required that the listener really listen and use his mind to conjure up the sights.  It was a much more creative process than mind-numbing television.  Perhaps we were fortunate to grow up in such a time.  Our granddaughters attended a Waldorf Elementary School.  In Waldorf Schools the teachers use no audio-visual equipment whatsoever.  Everything is done through story-telling and visualization.  Both girls have grown up to be very creative writers and artists.

On the game table you see a Monopoly game.  We did play games like Monopoly.  We also played card games:  mostly Hearts or Canasta.  Mother and Daddy played Bridge.  Alas, I don't seem to have any card-playing sense.  I have never learned to play bridge.  Don likes to play euchre.  I play for awhile, then my mind begins to wander, or I start an annoying conversation (annoying to the card players), and all is lost.
Also, I am a terrible loser.  I HATE to lose.  While Don, on the other hand, is very competitive, but takes losing right in stride.  So, these days, television is pretty much our entertainment of choice.

The throw on the back of the couch would have been crocheted by Grandma Lininger.  Grandma never sat down that she didn't have her crocheting with her.  She made an afghan for every child and grandchild.  I still have mine.  It has been mended and repaired, but I still treasure it.  Often, during the evening, Mother would wrap up in the throw and take a nap on the couch.  Or sometimes I would come home from school in the afternoons and find her under the throw and listening to her radio shows (Soaps.)

When we lived on Meridian Street and I was between the ages of 8 - 11, one of my favorite tricks was to search for coins under the chair cushions, and down in the chair crevasses.  You know that fathers and brothers do not sit up straight when they are relaxing in an easy chair at home.  They slump and lounge, and pocket change has a way of escaping from their pockets.  Glory! Glory!  If I could find enough change, I would run across the street to the drugstore and buy a magazine.  I loved movie, fashion, or home magazines.  I loved magazines that had pretty, colorful pictures.  Then I would read them and cut out all the pretty, colorful pictures.

When Jack came home from the army, he brought with him a German ammunition box.  It was wooden with rope handles and an attached lid.  Mother painted it and put my name and a Pennsylvania Dutch design on the lid.  This was my treasure box.  For years I collected all my favorite magazine pictures and kept them in this treasure box. I also kept my paper dolls in this box.  I liked paper dolls, and I liked making my own clothes for them out of  scrap paper.  And sometimes I cut out the ladies from the Sears catalog, and cut out extra clothes for my Sears paper dolls.

The Hermit cookies I mentioned were from Mother's recipe books.  As I remember them they were soft and chewy, and had raisins and spices in them.  Sometimes they were better than at other times.  If we couldn't find one of the ingredients, we just made them without that ingredient!  The fudge was one Mother had made all her life.  I have seen many Never-Fail fudge recipes, but not like Mother's.The newer recipes call for Marshmallow Fluff and chocolate pieces.  I remember Mother's recipe called for cocoa powder, butter, water, milk, vanilla.  You had to stir and stir.  At eight years old, I could check to see if fudge had reached the "soft ball" stage.  That is, if when you dropped a bit into cold water, did it form a soft ball?  If so, you could take it from the fire, stir, and pour it into a cake pan to set.  I have one of my mother's teen-age diaries, and she talks about going to "fudge parties."  At Christmas she mentions that one of her gifts was a "fudge apron."  Our mother knew her fudge!

Ah, such simple pleasures.  But I do remember it as a mostly happy childhood.  Today's children might find it hard to survive without electronics.  But I recall all that "living" with great fondness.

With a Little Song in our Hearts

I have put a lot into my memory doll house that reminds me of my mother and her interests and talents - definitely her creative and artistic talent.  But my dad had his creative talents also - only his outlet was music.

Daddy worked for General Motors from the time I was six  until he retired some twenty years later.  He worked at Guide Lamp in the office where he wrote applications for states' approval for their head lamps.
It was a good job and he earned a pretty good salary, I guess.  At least our family of seven survived even though our parents had to crawl out of the great financial hole created by the depression.

But my dad's real love was music.  Daddy a a very nice bass singing voice, and his great love was sacred music sung by a choir.  He had grown up the son of a Methodist minister, and he had learned early to love the music of the church.  He did not play the piano.  His sister, my Aunt Alice, had been given the piano lessons, and Daddy had been given violin lessons.  I guess their parents had a small family orchestra in mind. But Daddy used his musical talents to add much- needed extra income to the family treasury.  He directed church choir, a community chorus, and an American Legion male chorus.  Besides this, he gave vocal lessons at home to some of the choirs' more talented singers.

The picture above shows the "music room" in my doll house, really the end of the living room.  At our various rental houses, the piano had to be placed where it would fit.  On Meridian Street we had two living rooms, one that could be shut off by french doors.  On 13th Street, there were two living rooms, but we had to use a folding screen to provide a separate place for lessons.  In those old houses, heating duct work didn't go to the second story.  There were heat register grates cut into the ceilings of the down stairs rooms.  Heat naturally rises, so that is how it traveled upstairs.  These grates also gave ornery children a wonderful birds eye view of the lessons going on down below.  And sometimes the lessons, or rather the singing, was pretty funny.  We were in trouble more than once for giggling overhead!

Daddy's students?  Well, some were better than others.  Like I said, most of them sang in one of Daddy's choirs.  Their voices were fine, but Daddy made them sing "fah lah lah" scales, and always was asking them to breathe deeply.  Sometimes it was pretty funny.  One of his students did become a professional singer.
He wasn't famous, but he sang in night clubs all over the country.  Every time he came back to Anderson to visit his relatives, he would call Daddy and come back for one more lesson.  I think it was mostly a way to keep in touch and thank Daddy for all his help.

A few years ago I attended a West Anderson church.  A gentleman from the choir sang a solo.  After the service he approached me and said that he had taken voice lessons from my dad, and he remembered me as a child.  He spoke so kindly of Daddy.  The soloist also had a lovely bass singing voice.  It was a little like touching my Daddy again.  So sweet!

I remember traveling on some Saturdays with Mother and Daddy to other cities where other American Legion posts sponsored chorus concerts, and Daddy's chorus would perform.  His church choir also did some joint programs with churches in other towns.  Mother and I would go, listen to them practice together, then enjoy a pitch-in church dinner, then stay for the evening program.

But the most memorable program was the one given by the Anderson Community Chorus.  A stage was built at the base of the Japanese Gardens at Shadyside Park.  The chorus sang on risers on that stage accompanied by an orchestra.  All the songs selected to be sung were titled with girls' names.  As the chorus sang, pretty girls in appropriate costumes would walk down through the gardens.  It was a lovely concert, and we were very proud of Daddy so handsome in his tuxedo as he directed the chorus.  Mother let us kids go up and sit at the very top of the high hill where we could wiggle and talk without bothering the audience.
We had so much fun, and I still remember the beautiful scene and the beautiful music.

So was any of his musical talent passed on to his kids?  I guess not so much.  We all sang - in choral club at high school, Clyde sang in a quartet at college, Dan always sang in church choirs, I sang some.  We had voices that were good for a group, but not solo voices.  I took piano lessons, but was not disciplined enough to practice like I should have.  I can read music.  I used to be able to play one song, "Bless This House"  from memory.  I can't even do that now.  Mother could always play one song that she remembered from childhood lessons, too.  Clyde learned to play Claire de Lune, not from music but by ear.  Jack could play the boogie beat.  It wasn't a very impressive family concert.  Daddy had to hire a pianist to accompany his voice lessons.  For years a teenager named Gerry Thornberry came to accompany the lessons.  We all loved to have Gerry come to visit.  She later married and became an English teacher, teaching at Anderson High School.  Her name then was Gerry Casey.

But we all did learn to love music.  Sacred music is still one of my favorites.  All our homes have always been full of the sound of music from one source or another, and several of the grandkids and great grand kids have more than a little musical talent.  So I guess you can say that Daddy's Beat Goes On!

It is in the Dining Room Where Life Is Shared

If the kitchen is the heart of the home, then the dining rooms in our houses were the communication centers.  In some of our rental houses we had eat-in kitchens, and in others we just had dining rooms where we ate all our meals.  But the evening meal was always the sit-down-around-the-dining-room-table meal.

We always ate between five-thirty and six, shortly after Daddy arrived home from work.  At our house this meal was always called supper, and it was the big meal of the day, except on Sundays and holidays.  Then the noon meal was called dinner, as in "Thanksgiving dinner", or "Christmas dinner,"  or Sunday dinner.  It was expected that all would show up and sit down together to eat.  Sometimes jobs or classes interfered, but usually everyone showed up and on time.  This was the time of day when news and experiences were shared.  And, with the boys, there were usually a lot of laughs.

We couldn't afford fancy meals, but Mother was a  pretty good and creative cook.  In those days we didn't have freezers and frozen foods, so foods were fresh or canned.  Grandpa and Grandma Lininger had a garden, so we did get fresh or home-canned foods from them.  I especially remember canned green beans and cherries from Grandma Lininger.  I was always amazed as a kid , that Mother could get home at 4:45 or 5:00 from her club meeting, open some cans, and have supper on the table on time.  Although, I was always expected to set the table.

What our meals lacked in special foods, Mother made up for with a pretty table.  As always the artistic side of Mother made her find a pretty table cloth, a pretty centerpiece, and set the table correctly.  I learned early about where to place the napkins, the silverware, the cups and glasses.  I am, even now, a very indifferent cook.  In fact, I cook very little.  But I still like for the table to look pretty for whatever Don fixes or carries in.

Grandma and Grandpa gave Mother the pretty pink and white flowered dishes for on of her birthdays.  And another birthday she received some crystal stemware.  We had nice silverware from when Mother and Daddy were married.  These we saved for Sundays and holidays, and used our every day dishes for the other days.  You will see in the picture above that on the buffet is a crystal punch bowl set.  When I was fifteen I had my first job working at the Star China Shop during the Christmas season.  I bought the fanciest punch bowl set that my wages could buy to give my parents for Christmas.  Looking back now, I know that there were many other things that my parents needed more.  But that punch bowl set has been used for every family party in the history of our family from that Christmas on.  AND I have it in my china cabinet even now.  AND we still use it for every one of our holiday parties.  Grandson Taylor always requests the cranberry punch.

Look again at the picture.  See the greenery on the buffet?  When we brought home a Christmas tree, Daddy always trimmed the lower branches before nailing it onto the stand.  Mother used these branches to decorate the rest of the house, including the top of the buffet.  She also added candles and ornaments or bows.  One Christmas we were eating dinner, when my brother, David, (without pausing from eating) announced in a very calm voice, "The buffet is on fire."

Everyone, but David, jumped up and began pouring water and trying to put out the fire.  But David just went on eating.  After that we were always careful about combining greenery and candles.  We also never let David forget this story.

I think the dining room table in the doll house is quite pretty.  But the dining room suite that I grew up with was pretty --uh, what shall we call it?  It was Sears and Roebuck baroque.  It was several shades of brown stain, with inlaid veneer designs, and lots of carving.  It had big fat ball legs, and heavy antique-looking gold drawer pulls.  The chair seats were some kind of dismal velvet.  It did make a statement!  Mother kept table linens in the bottom two drawers of the buffet.  But the top drawer was the place you could find anything that was missing from the rest of the house.  Look there if you were searching for a bill or receipt, tape, scissors, a nut cracker, your lost report card.  Doesn't every household have such a drawer?

After mother received all the wonderful china and crystal, Grandpa Lininger made her a wooden cabinet for storing her dishes in the dining room.  It had a flat wooden door with no glass panes like most china cabinets.  So Mother used her paints and artistic talents to paint a large floral design on the door.  You can see my version in the doll house.  Grandpa's was a corner cabinet and was brown wood stained.  I do remember coming home from Central Avenue School for lunch and finding Mother , still in her pajamas and robe, painting the flowers on the cabinet door.  She looked up aghast and said, "Is it noon already?"
It is hard to be a mom and a housewife when you are really an artist at heart.

And, of course, I have already and often told the story of the Saturday night when our parents went to bridge club and left us kids home alone.  We were all in our early teens, so this was no scandal.  We decided to set the table with all the fine linens, china, crystal and silver.  Then we cooked our supper - I think it was bacon and a can of peas.  We put on our dress-up clothes and sat down for a good ol' banquet.  Mother and Daddy came home while we were eating.  Thank goodness they had a good laugh, so we weren't in trouble after all!