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Tag Archives: Memory
Memorial, part 2
I didn’t understand most of those nuances when I was a kid. The modern version of the holiday, celebrated on the last Monday in May, didn’t even exist until I was a fifth-grader, when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act went into effect.
Grandma observed it faithfully. Every year, as May rolled around, she would begin calling distant relatives and old family friends. Grandma knew where just about every person descended from her own grandparents was buried, and she made certain that someone who lived nearby was putting flowers on the graves of those relatives by Memorial Day. She took care of all the family members buried within a couple hours drive of her home in southwest Washington.
She was putting flowers on the grave of my Great-aunt Maud (Grandma’s sister-in-law) seven years ago on the Friday before Memorial Day when she died. My step-grandfather said he was getting in position to take a picture of her beside the grave and the flowers (there are hundreds and hundreds of photos of Grandma beside graves with flowers on them in her photo albums) when she suddenly looked up, said, “I don’t feel good!” and pitched over.
One weekend she had blown out the candles on the cake celebrating her 84th birthday. The following Friday, while putting flowers on Great-aunt Maud’s grave, she died. And one week after that a bunch of us were standing at her graveside. It was just down to a few family members, and we were at that stage where you’re commenting on how pretty the flowers that so-and-so that no one had heard from in years were, when someone asked, “Isn’t grandpa’s grave nearby?”
Grandpa had died 23 years earlier, and was buried in one of a pair of plots he and Grandma had bought many years before. And after Grandma re-married, she and our step-grandfather had bought two more plots close by.
Anyway, as soon as someone asked that, my step-grandfather’s eyes bugged out, he went white as a sheet, and said, “Oh, no!” He was obviously very distressed as he hurried toward his car. Several of us followed, worried that he was having some sort of medical issue.
Nope. He and Grandma had been driving to various cemeteries all week long before her death, putting silk-bouquets that Grandma had made on each relative’s grave. Aunt Maud’s was meant to be the next-to-the-last stop on their journey. Grandpa’s silk flower bouquet was still in the trunk of the car. My step-grandfather was beside himself. He’d cried so much that week, you wouldn’t have thought he could cry any more, but there he was, apologizing to Grandma’s spirit for forgetting about the last batch of flowers, and not finishing her chore—for not getting flowers on Grandpa George’s grave by Memorial Day.
The next year, several of us had the realization that without Grandma around, none of us knew who to call to get flowers put on Great-grandma and Great-grandpa’s graves back in Colorado. None of us were sure in which Missouri town Great-great-aunt Pearl was buried, let alone who Grandma called every year to arrange for the flowers. Just as we weren’t certain whether Great-great-aunt Lou was buried in Kansas or was it Missouri? And so on, and so on. One of my cousins had to track down the incident report filed by the paramedics who responded to our step-grandfather’s 9-1-1 call just to find out which cemetery Great-aunt Maud was in.
Some years before her death, Grandma had transferred the ownership of the plot next to Grandpa to Mom. So Mom’s going to be buried beside her dad. Mom mentions it whenever we visit the graves, and I don’t know if she realizes how much it chokes me up to think about it.
We had put the flowers in place. We had both taken pictures. Mom always worries that she won’t remember where Grandpa’s grave is (it’s seared in my head: two rows down from Grandma, four stones to the south). Michael helped Mom take a wide shot picture that has both Grandma’s and Grandpa’s spots in it.
I thought we were going to get away with both of us only getting a little teary-eyeed a few times, but as we were getting back into the car, Mom started crying. Which meant that I lost it.
Grandma’s been gone for seven years, now. But every time we drive down to visit Mom, there is a moment on the drive when my mind is wandering, and I’ll wonder what Grandma will be doing when we get there. And then I remember I won’t be seeing her. It took me about a dozen years to stop having those lapses about Grandpa. I suspect it will be longer for Grandma. After all, she’s the one who taught me the importance of Those Who Matter
I remember thinking about it
I have remembered all of that, most particularly the part about thinking, quite firmly to myself, that I need to remember this.
But I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was I needed to change my Twitter name to, nor why I wanted to do it, nor why I thought it was so important to remember to change it.
Rinse, don’t wash
It was nearly identical in shape to a set of sage green and brown mugs that matched grandma’s everyday plates. That particular shape of stackable coffee mug was very popular when I was a kid. My other grandparents had a set that was very similar in a dark blue—though the bottom, narrow section of the mug was a little taller. And my parents had a set that was a darker, brownish-yellow than grandpa’s, was a gradient of the dark yellow at the top of the mug, becoming dark chocolate brown by the bottom. I remember seeing similar mugs at the homes of many friends.
Confessions of an absent-minded whatchamacallit
Not just my keys. I regularly misplace my wallet, my phone, my glasses, my hat… Almost every time I prepare to leave the house, I spend a few minutes trying to figure out where something that I need to take with me is. Several times every week my poor, long-suffering husband has to help me figure out where I left something.
And I hate it!
I have tried to fix this for pretty much my entire life. My mom used to tell the story of the day she found me wandering the house in tears, looking under papers, inside drawers, under the furniture, and so on, because I couldn’t find my glasses. I was seven or eight years old at the time. I told her I had looked everywhere. I was angry at myself for misplacing the glasses. I was afraid of what punishment my dad might mete out if they were broken or lost permanently. I was nearly hysterical. Continue reading Confessions of an absent-minded whatchamacallit
Clone, clone of my own…
When I explained to my friend that the guy he thought was me in one of the pictures was my dad, and the guy in another was my grandpa, he didn’t believe me. And when I wouldn’t change my story as he demanded again and again that I admit I was joking, he angrily stormed out of the house and refused to talk to me for several days, until my mom confirmed the story…
Grandma’s chili, part 2
Such a process recipe is my recollection of Grandpa’s cornbread. Approximately equal amounts of corn meal and flour, with some sugar, baking powder, salt, an egg or two (depending on how big a batch you’re making), some butter and some milk. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly first, soften the butter, add the eggs, milk, and butter, blend. If the texture and thickness isn’t right, add some more cornmeal, or some more milk. Pour into a greased pan and bake about 20-25 minutes at 400-ish degrees.
Grandma’s chili, part 1
Most of her recipes began with the sentence: “First, chop an onion.” Most of her childhood was in Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, but she also lived in Texas at several points, and her accent sounded more coastal Texan than Missourian. Her oldest brother, who was born in Kansas, often teasingly called her the family’s Texan transplant. I have sometimes labeled homemade chili’s I’ve made from Grandma’s recipe as “Grandma’s Texas Chili,” because of this.
As I mentioned above, her recipes are never strict. I must have eaten her chili hundreds of times, and helped her cook it dozens of times, and I suspect that no two of them were ever exactly alike. Her chili recipe differed from her others because, it begins with, “While the bacon is cooking down, chop an onion and your peppers.”
Among all the variants of Grandma’s chili I ever had, the only three constants were: onions, beans, and bacon. Usually there were several kinds of peppers, but if she didn’t have peppers, she’d just sprinkle in some (or, depending on her mood, and whole lot of) cayenne or even paprika. She favored ground beef, but would substitute pork sausage, ground chicken, or sometimes chopped meatballs or even chopped bologna, if that’s what she had. There might be tomatoes, or not. Frequently the tomato component would be generous dollops of her homemade green tomato relish (which was always spicy), because she almost always had many jars of it in the pantry. Even if she didn’t cook the relish in the chili, she’d usually set out a jar so you could add some to your bowl to spice it up.
She wasn’t particular about the beans. When I was younger, she almost always started with dry beans that soaked overnight. Later she was more willing to use canned beans, since they were more convenient. Any beans would do. I remember more than once she used Van Camp’s Pork & Beans.
The basics of the recipe were:
- Cook some bacon until it is very crisp, set the bacon aside.
- Chop your onions and peppers up while the bacon is cooking. Saute the onions and peppers in the bacon grease.
- Add your meat. Yes, even if it is extremely non-lean hamburger, cook it in the bacon grease. The bacon is very important!
- Season liberally with salt. Optional spices to throw in while satueing include pepper, chili pepper, cayenne, paprika, garlic, or pickled hot vegetables.
- Add tomatoes or tomato relish or tomato sauce if you are doing tomatoes.
- Depending on how you’re doing the beans and what kind of pan you’re cooking the onion, peppers, either add the beans and some liquid to the pan, or start the beans cooking in a pot and add the meat, onions, et al, to them.
- Crumble up the bacon and stir it in.
- Get the chili to a boil for a while, tasting and adding seasoning, until everything tastes right.
- Serve with grated cheese if you have it, and/or green tomato relish, or some salsa, or…
I mention the hot pickled vegetables because she almost always had some of those around the house, too. I was one of the few members of the family who loved eating those as much as Grandma (later, when I started regularly making haberno salsa to bring to family dinners, Grandma always asked to take the leftover home, so I started bringing a separate container of it just for her to take). One time, when she didn’t have any fresh peppers and didn’t have any cayenne, she fished all the pickled peppers out of a jar of the hot veggies, and poured some of the hot pickle brine into the pan with the sauteing bits.
Even with the wildest substitutions, by the time Grandma was finished, it was always Grandma’s Chili. And it was always great.
I’ve only gone all out on Grandma’s Chili a few times in the seven years since she died. I make chili all the time, but it’s not Grandma’s. When making “ordinary” chili, I am as prone to substitutions as Grandma was, and almost never use bacon. When I make chili that I call Grandma’s Chili, I always soak beans overnight, spend too much time choosing bacon, always get some fresh peppers, and onion (usually a sweet one). I try to steer the taste to the milder end, since my husband (and most of our friends) can’t take the kind of chili that Grandma or I would call hot. Sometimes I make some haberno salsa for myself and the brave souls.
I didn’t pick up any really hot peppers. I stuck to mostly sweet ones, since as far as I know it will only be Michael and I eating my chili tomorrow while I watch the Superbowl.
I’ll post a follow-up on how it came out.
Reverend Tutsia
That’s one reason I spent a rather large part of my late 30s buying CDs of old albums from previous decades. I really did want to own a legitimate copy, send a few royalties toward the musicians whose work I had loved so much. That’s also one reason, since going digital, that I regularly scroll through online music stores looking for re-releases of albums recorded 30 or more years ago.
One consequence of those can’t-afford-music years is that I often didn’t know or remember the titles of a lot of songs I listened to. I had a bad habit of not writing down the track names when I made a copy of a tape. My favorite tracks on a particular album I would know the titles, but several of the other songs I would wind up thinking of as “that song right after X” or I might pick a phrase that was repeated that might sound like a title.
And then, of course, there are the misheard lyrics… Continue reading Reverend Tutsia
Being prime
Last year my age was divisible by 2 (more than once) and 13. The year before that by 3 and 17. The year before that by 5 (more than once) and 2. I could keep going, but I know if I do I will give some of you flashbacks to failed algebra quizzes.
The upshot is, that it has been six years since my age was a prime number.
It’s good to be prime, again.
Font Folly 