Bringing Back Good Memories...

A teenage Barbara Fish reading in bed

What brings Christmases past to mind so vividly? For some it's the memory of a special Christmas gift.

My mother wrote this is January of 2024:

"Another memory: the small square stand by my bed, made in the late 1930s by my Dad as a Christmas gift for sister Pat and me.

"We had modified four-poster twin beds and Dad copied the turning pattern of the bed posts to match for the table legs. He included a drawer and a shelf so it was very serviceable and – icing on the cake – also included was a small radio that brought in many shortwave stations.

"One of our favorites was WQXR out of New York City that played many classical music programs - symphonies, opera etc. as well as soap operas and mystery shows. A wonderful Christmas that year!

Barbara and sister Pat. The nightstand is seen on the right.

"Not sure where those beds ended up - I think they got a good home - but I kept the nightstand and now it's with me at Cole Manor, bringing back good memories."

Mom had written this piece in a notebook she kept in the pocket of her recliner. The pictures I came across in an old photo album - the kind with heavy black construction paper pages, the memories secured with little maroon corners.

"Twixt That Darkness And That Light"

I’ve gone to church nearly all my life. As a child, it seemed everyone went to church - except for my mother's father. All my friends went to church, mostly to my church, the Presbyterian (a hard word to spell) Church or to the Methodist Church just up the street. My family - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - went to the Presbyterian Church too.

We dressed up to go to church - the whole family. The boys wearing dress slacks and sport coats and ties, the church togs growing a bit tired by the time they passed along through the three older boys. Paul escaped the hand-me-downs for styles had changed and he could get away with a nice shirt and slacks.

My dad had two suits - a winter suit of wool and a summer suit, likely of some kind of synthetic fabric like Dacron. And we girls - my mother and I - wore dresses and hats and gloves. In winter, I wore tights under my full skirts and in summer those nylon ankle socks with ruffles at the top and patent leather shoes.

I first remember Dr. Todd standing behind that oak pulpit, tall and gruff.  His wife, with her rouged cheeks, substituted the word Hades for Hell in the Apostles’ Creed week after week. 

Rev. Loughborough was the one whose singsong voice almost lulled me to nap, sitting in the Heimel pew between my grandparents, Aunt Betty slipping me  lifesaver from time to time. Grandma didn’t nag at me for squirming like my mother did, who cautioned me with a little pat on my thigh or even a little pinch.

Rev. Baker, with his perky wife and pesky children, came next. He didn’t stay very long, but long enough to put his signature on the Holy Bible I received after completing third grade Sunday School.

And then came The Reverend Robert B. Merten, bringing liberal thought as he delivered his sermon each week and, after hours, opening the staid manse to a whole generation of Coudersport youth.

His ministry was unorthodox and reached far beyond the four walls of the Presbyterian Church. He was a controversial and outspoken figure - both within the church and the community. He questioned the place of the traditional baccalaureate observance in the local high school and even the branding of Potter County as God’s Country. His letters to the editor, addressing one or another of the social ills, appeared frequently in the local paper.

I’ve been thinking often of The Reverend these days, these days when I feel my faith in God shaken. These days just before Christmas when that man, that wretch of a human being who is President of The United States, stands up front of a jungle of greenery and faux gold ornaments, the lies tumbling from his crooked lips. These days when it seems as if saying God Bless gives permission to do profoundly ungodly things.

It was at another time of deep unrest in our country - the Vietnam War era and Nixon's disgrace - that The Reverend one Sunday sat down at the organ and played a tune known as Ebenezer to begin his weekly sermon, carefully and deliberately charging us to hear and absorb, line by line, the words of this hymn "Once To Every Man and Nation."

I've never forgotten that sermon and I believe James Russell Lowell's words have much to say to us today:

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,

in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;

Some great cause, some great decision, off’ring each the bloom or blight,

and the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.

I think I'll request this hymn for the next Hymn Sing and ask Chris to pull out all the stops!

Here is the full text to Lowell's poem. 

The Bureau

I have my grandmother’s bureau, the last piece of her bedroom suite that occupied the upstairs south-facing corner room in their foursquare house on North Main Street. Once there was a chifforobe and a double bed frame and a vanity to match, all with  dark walnut finish, dating from the 1920s perhaps. 

Opening its drawers, I can still catch a whiff of the scent I remember when this grandmother - my mother’s diminutive mother – moved through my early life. 

This grandmother was called Danny, after my mother’s plan for my elder brother to call her Granny (the moniker she claimed to despise) came out of his toddler mouth as Danny. This grandmother is the one I remember in a cloud of cigarette smoke, l’Origan perfume and Beeman’s gum.

Danny worked part time in Rosenbloom’s Men’s & Boy’s Store, one of the clerks along with Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Rosenbloom. They wore tape measures around their necks, at the ready to custom fit inseams and sleeve length.

At the time when going downtown included stops at the many shops along Main and Second Street, I carry vague memories of Danny moving between the large flat cases with shelves displaying the sweaters and shirts, and Lee jeans and Hanes underwear, The blazers and suits hung on racks suspended on the perimeter, along with slacks with zig zag bottoms, waiting for custom hemming. It seemed cavernous with its mysterious back room where the men went to the fitting room and the clerks went to the bathroom. 

My mother once told me Danny used the money she earned working at Rosenbloom’s to be able to buy beautiful things. Danny loved beautiful things, coveted beautiful things. After she died, I helped my mother sort through the clothing stored in the bureau and the chifforobe and the vanity. The silky undergarments and soft nightgowns, cashmere sweaters, pleated wool slack. And hanging in the closet, dresses for any occasion, including a stunning slip dress in a green and ivory paisley pattern with a floating overdress, its shoulder pads stiff with age. My mother claimed a spring coat from that closet, a buttery yellow color with the tags from Moren’s Dress Shoppe still attached.

Danny loved china and crystal and snowy white  table linens. We carried a tote full of Danny’s Ermine Blue Spode china to its new home with Danny’s great-granddaughter Kate on one of our cross-country road trips. Kate sets the table with it for special occasions as I remember family gatherings with Danny and Granddaddy at  the head and foot of the long dining room table..

The mirror on Danny’s bureau is getting hazy, the two wide drawers have been repaired repeatedly and lately have begun sticking again. It’s likely time to let it go, to let it all go.

Thunder and Lightning

I've been practicing writing - truly practicing - since the Covid 19 Pandemic. In that time, I've filled many notebooks with writing - most of it from writing prompts - simple idea starters - and some of those sessions have yielded essays I've put out in this blog.

I've been feeling lately like it's time to move to the next step - as one of my writing gurus Natalie Goldberg writes ..."turning our flashes of inspiration – the thunder and lightning of creation – into a polished piece of work."

And that's where this book comes in - Goldberg's Thunder and Lightning. It literally fell off my bookshelf when I was cleaning up my office last week, Tucked between its pages was a yellow sheet of paper torn from a notebook. I recognized my mother's familiar scrawl. She wrote:

Essay by Robert Pope: "Beginnings may be entrances to a time and place, a culture and a faith, a moment, and eternity. The struggle to find first words creates great anticipation, if not great anxiety, in the writer searching for the voice in which to speak, for each writer hopes to reach the voice inside which is immortal."

I think she's trying to tell me something! 

... and our flag was still there

I have a stack of books  - essays, poetry and the like – to read while I enjoy a soak in my hot tub. Yes, that hot tub is a great luxury, I admit.

I sometimes need  - no I often need some inspiration - especially in these times when I feel discouraged and frightened by the course being set by the individuals steering the ship of government.  From the local where folks are ready to get out the tar and feathers because a school board member shared a meme on facebook, to our state representatives voting against funding that benefits their constituents and then turning around and taking credit as they hand out the checks. Then there's the Congress and the President, none of it good. 

So with the steam rising from the bubbling water surrounding me, today's morning read was from Small Wonder* a book of essays written by Barbara Kingsolver. The book was born after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Tthink of it - 24 years ago. 

Under the heading of "And Our Flag Was Still There," I read these words:

" . . The great attraction to patriotism is, as Aldous Huxley wrote, that 'it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation, we are able, vicariously to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.'"

She wrote later in the essay:

"... Only we the people have the power to demolish our own ideals. It is a fact of our culture that the loudest mouths get the most airplay, and the loudmouths are saying that in times of crisis it's treasonous to question our leaders. Nonsense. That kind of thinking allowed the seeds of a dangerous racism to grow into fascism during the international economic crisis of the 1930s. It is precisely in critical times that are leaders need most to be influenced by the moderating force of dissent. That is the basis of democracy, especially when national choices are difficult and carry grave consequences. The flag was never meant to be a stand-in for information and good judgment."

"... We're a much nobler country than our narrowest minds and loudest mouths suggest. I believe it is my patriotic  duty to recapture my flag from the men who wave it in the name of jingoism and censorship... I've been further alienated from my flag by people who waved it at me, declaring I should love it or leave it. I always wonder. What makes them think that's their flag and not mine? Why are they the good Americans, and not me?"

"... Americans who read and think are patriots of the first order – the kind who know enough to roll their eyes whenever anyone tries to claim sole custody of the flag and wield it as a blunt instrument. There are as many ways to love America as there are Americans and our country needs us all. The rights and liberties described in our Constitution are guaranteed not just to those citizens who have the most money and power, but also to those who have the least, and yet it has taken hard struggle through every year of our history to hold our nation to that promise..."

If you'd like to borrow my book to read the essay (and the others) in its entirety, let me know and I apologize in advance that it's a bit waterlogged!

*Small Wonder, a book of essays by Barbara Kingsolver, copyright 2002 by Barbara Kingsolver.

Rotary's Halloween Parade

When the fire siren blows and the high school band heads up Main Street tonight, how many know the Coudersport Rotary Club's annual Halloween Parade reaches back nearly 100 years?

from 2024

A piece written in 1969 by my grandfather, W.D. "Golly" Fish in The Potter Enterprise tells the story of Rotary's efforts ... and was confirmation of a story my mother told me of the night she was born 

Here are his words:

Hallowe'en pranks! Golly remembers Halloween of 1923 especially. That was the time our daughter Barbara, now Mrs. Joe Heimel, was born at the hospital on South East Street.

Retiring home to North Main Street was really like running an obstacle course. Everything that was loose was piled in the street. Doorsteps galore were in the jumbles along with pieces of porch furniture, bundles of shingles, rolls of barb wire and everything that was loose. What a mess greeted Sunday morning a few hours later. We believe it was that year Ed Stevens, small grocer, lost his wheeled popcorn or peanut cart from the front of his store. It fell off the East Second Street bridge. It never came back.

Then there was a change. Coudersport Rotary Club was established. The club took the matter in hand, organized a costumed parade for the youngsters, gave them a treat and sent them home. There was no hell-raising. All the years Rotary has performed this duty there has been no destruction.

The thanks of the whole town go to Rotary!

The October newspapers from 1924-1927 offer some insight on efforts  of local folks to stop the mayhem of All Hallows' Eve.

from 1925

from 1926

The first reference to an organized parade came in 1928 as far as I can tell from reading this in The Potter Enterprise on November 1.

 Below the headlines the following appeared in 14 pt. type.

Approximately Four Hundred Take Part In Holiday Festivities – Prizes Awarded for Best Costumes – Dr. R.H. Jones, Dr. C.H. Dudley and Mrs. Eugenia G. Benn Are Judges – Rotary Club Entitled to Credit – Next Year's Parade To Be Bigger With More Prizes – No Lawless Acts Reported.

The story goes on to tell us:

Hallowe'en was celebrated in Coudersport last evening in an orderly and fitting manner and some 400 children enjoyed taking part in the festivities, while probably a larger number of spectators stood on the sidelines and cheered the paraders. There was a great variety of costumes in the line of march – good bad and indifferent – and much originality shown.

... Kenneth Covey was first winner among the boys although his costume was that of a girl. He had to insist to the judges that he was a boy to get the five dollars.

... After the parade those taking part were treated to ice cream cones and crackerjack on the courthouse square. There has been no lawlessness reported, which proves the idea of an orderly parade is the correct one and already certain of the townspeople are planning for a bigger and better celebration next year.

The following year, Rotarians built on the foundation urging "Let's have a good time!"

I'll be standing on the sidelines this afternoon 'cheering the paraders' including the present-day Rotarians shepherding the costumed merry-makers. 

UPDATE:

Performing my annual fall move-the-furniture around ritual, this picture fell out of a photo album. Daughter Kate (the senorita) and Melanie Butler pulling their donkey (and very good sport) Denise Heimel in a long ago Rotary Halloween Parade. And in the background, good friends Arnie and Billie Haskins. 

Where The Winds Carry Prayers

Stark red rocks reflected changing light of early spring sunshine. I felt a pilgrim in this place, drawn to it – seeking, observing, absorbing, listening. Navigating the steep, rocky path from the dusty turnoff spot in a residential Sedona neighborhood, following the footprints of others who had gone ahead, I encountered a presence, a brief whisper of peace, the fleeting embrace of the sacred.

Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park

I was hurting that spring morning - grieving - numb from the loss of loved ones. I was hurting that spring morning, grieving, angry and sad, absorbing the fact that results - consequences - of the recent Presidential election - were going to be far worse than even the blueprint of Project 24 laid out, consequences that were leaving chaos in the lives of those I love.

And so, I sat, closed my eyes and listened - to the birds, and the soft sounds of distant wind chimes, and sometimes, the quiet, respectful voices around me.

The symbols in this place, this Stupa and Peace Park, seemed foreign to my faith tradition, but I was drawn to offer my prayers as I spun the prayer wheels and walked three times around the Stupa. And all the while, prayer flags, strung with intention everywhere in the peace park, were sending prayers heavenward on the breeze.

And so, I brought strings of flags home to Crandall Hill where they send our prayers, prayers for peace, compassion, strength and wisdom into the sky and beyond.

Prayer flags feature five colors:

1. Blue for sky and space, to bring wisdom and clarity

2. White for air and wind, to purify and bring harmony

3. Red for fire to inspire transformation and energy

4. Green for water to encourage balance and healing

5. Yellow for earth, encouraging stability

It is said this arrangement brings all the elements into harmony, blessing the space and everyone who passes by.