Christmas Eve 1970

 

It was cold and snowy that Christmas Eve as a group of high school classmates gathered, heady with the intoxication of being with familiar pals at the midpoint of sophomore year of college - though I can't say whether other intoxicants were in play. Sophomore always brings to mind the high school teacher who related sophomore translates to wise fool, though I cannot remember which teacher.

And so we went to The Reverend's rambling old house, a familiar hangout for us, to spend the evening away from the watchful eyes of our parents, before duty called him to preach the sermon for the combined Methodist-Presbyterian candlelight service at 11.

 I see the red velvet maxi skirt Susan wore that night, hand crafted by her mother who was often found sitting at the Singer sewing machine in the corner of the den in their big foursquare house on West Street. And the care taken in curling our long flowing locks - mine tamed with Clairol's heated rollers - the off-white ones with the spikes.  Debbie's  hair was perhaps her natural color by then. Carol, always the lady, with her legs clad in panty hose and neatly tucked to the side. I was hiding in the back, always self conscious, and next to me Arthur. Not a classmate, he was new to our group. It was six months into our relationship and six months before we were married by that same Reverend.

Even the boys were dressed up - Jeffrey with his special tie-dyed striped jeans and a baggy sports jacket. He had affected pipe smoking - this one with tobacco, no doubt. Dan chose a striped sport shirt and there's Tom, comfortably lounging in oxford cloth and denim. Keck in the back, wearing a brown bulky sweater that was a bit too long in the sleeves. Was his hand raised to instruct The Reverend as he struggled with Susan's Instamatic camera or was he directing the action as he so often did?

This photo surfaces every five years or so as our Class of 1969 marks off the years since graduation with a reunion, and we pore over the faded photos in albums and scrapbook memorabilia to remember.

The Reverend kept a framed copy with him as he moved on in 1972, first to Mansfield and then to Ohio and finally back to Coudersport. It was found among his effects after he died.*

*I find when mining memories for writing practice, the universe often coughs up other so-called ticklers. Yesterday I came across a letter from The Reverend, dated December 23, 1981. I share some of his closing words here:

"I often think of you both - particularly since I have a Christmas Eve group picture taken in 1970 I believe. You are two of the nine people in the picture. Yes, Debbie Lewis is in it too, in case Jane wants to know. The picture is displayed in my living room. My love to you both. God bless you all."

Update: I published a post to begin 2025 today recalling a neighbor from childhood. She was Louise Dudley- always Mrs. Dudley to me. She was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and came to be a friend to The Reverend. He featured her writing in his book "Poets Of Potter County" and often used her poetry for special occasions at church.

During our gathering that long ago Christmas Eve, the Reverend received a phone call with the news that Mrs. Dudley had died that afternoon. I share here her Christmas poem:

 

Pease Porridge Hot

Our Thanksgiving table was set for six on Thursday. My 'little'* brother Paul and his wife, Lugene, family friend Steve Green and my mother were expected to join Arthur and me. My mother came early to help with preparations and stood at the kitchen sink to peel potatoes. After she finished,  I fixed her a cup of tea and she sat by the fire, enjoying all the ways it warms.

"Mother used to recite nursery rhymes to us," she told me when she returned the empty cup to the steamy kitchen. Then she launched into this one:

“Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold

Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old;

Some like it hot, some like it cold

Some like it in the pot, nine days old”. 

My mind immediately went to the twenty-first century version on You Tube that sends my eldest granddaughter into fits of giggles. But she took me back to the beginning of the twentieth century. "It was your fireplace that brought it to mind. Imagine a pot hanging on the fire for nine days. Wonder how many people got sick after eating nine-day-old porridge?"

She allowed that having to live on pease porridge day in and day out was grim but it was better than the alternative - starving.

*Paul, who is three years younger than I and the youngest of our family of five siblings, is everyone's little brother, though he likely is the tallest of us all these days.

(Click here to read  memories of my childhood Thanksgivings, written last year)

Rally For What Cause?

The Free Pa folks have planned a rally in the back lot of Kightlinger Motors (site of Pro-Trump rallies before and after the 2020 election) to support some citizens who have decided to launch write-in campaigns to become school directors for the Coudersport Area School District.

The rally was originally scheduled for October 30 and promised a mask burning, along with the face painting and the trick or treating and the hot dogs and the bonfire.

For you see, these citizens are rallying because they are incensed at the idea that a public school should require public health measures such as vaccination against disease and the implementation of mandated public health measures. It would appear this position is misguided and untenable, and the state has made it clear public schools must comply. (This from the Coudersport school's website.)

I'm not sure how it came about, but the date for the rally was changed (likely because no one wants to mess with the annual trick or treat rituals) and when that change was made, the planned mask burning was removed from the poster. Perhaps, in light of the extremely low vaccination rate and high rate of Covid-19 transmission and death in Potter County, they need those masks!

 

Hand-Me-Downs

A milestone birthday approaches. In the midst of the apprehension of reaching an age that once seemed so very far away and so very, very old, I've been helping to clear out my mother's little yellow house while settling her in a new, much-smaller space.

That intimate task brings to the surface a fact I cannot ignore. I am becoming my mother.

It's not just the times when my children will say "Yes, Grandma Barb" when her sage advice comes from my mouth. It's a whole collection of things - literally - that I have made my own. 

It's the colorful assortment of used twist ties in a kitchen drawer. It's the rinsed-out plastic bags and bread wrappers stored away for another use. It's the way I wash the kitchen towels and dishcloths and cloth napkins in a load by themselves, with hot water and every-so-often bleach. It's the perfectly-good jelly and mayonnaise jars with lids on the pantry shelf.

It's the boxes of photos sorted yet another time, one-by-one from one stack to another as the waste basket moved in front of the couch to receive the discards remains empty.

And this morning, pulling a load of work clothes (you know the ones - the patched ones, the stained ones, the ones with ripped seams and missing buttons) from the dryer, I decided that wonderful old soft blue t-shirt (a castoff from my then-teenage daughter) was just too immodest even for garden work.

I cut away the seams to make this pile of rags - so like those in the carefully-labeled bag I found in the back of  my mother's pantry just last week.

How The Community Feels

Coudersport Area School District Superintendent Drew Kyle said he wanted to know how the community "feels" at the September 13 meeting of the School Board. The meeting was the first scheduled after the Pennsylvania Department of Health issued a mandate to public schools that facial coverings would be required across the state beginning September 7. 

A school board member used his social media account to share the following with the public before the meeting: "To all the parents of students and faculty at CASD against the mask mandate. Now is not the time to sit back and hope someone fights this battle for you ... The only thing that matters now is that we convince my fellow board members that we will not mandate masks on our children, PERIOD.... There has been a clear line drawn in the sand. It's now US vs THEM. We cannot afford to be the silent majority any longer."

So there were lots of people filling the seats in the auditorium as the Board and Superintendent sat at the back of  the shadowy stage, some wearing the face masks as mandated by the Department of Health and some not.

Two local police officers monitored
the crowd filing into the auditorium

After the requisite Pledge of Allegiance came Mr. Kyle's mini lecture about respecting and appreciating the thoughts and opinions of those gathered and some vague comments about hands being tied by the Governor when the local decision makers were focused on "doing the right thing for our students, faculty and staff." "This meeting is not about public debate," he cautioned.

But then began the very public debate, complete with raucous applause and catcalls. It seems that most of those gathered were feeling that they're the public health experts.

The fellow who first stepped to the microphone: "Thank you for keeping masks optional. I would just pray that ..." He was the first of many who made reference to prayer and God in sharing their feelings.

"After a beautiful start of the new school year ... shameful," said a teacher, "... nothing to do with keeping others safe. No one is wearing them correctly." "Masks prohibit the immune system from doing its job," she boldy stated. 

Another citizen: "Masks violate our God-given rights. Covid is a genetically engineered bioweapon ... sold our souls to the devil. We must protect our health freedom."

Clad in a tank top and athletic shorts, another woman brought with her a letter from a State Senator, whose name I did not catch. "Parents want to control what is best for their child. This is misguided mandate." She mentioned supporting Senate Bill 846. "Let your voice be heard," she proclaimed.

A former school nurse thanked the Board for making mask wearing optional, saying that masks suppress our immune systems. "Why force them? Covid's here to stay," she stated.

Another teacher, armed with what he called 59 links to "studies" indicating masking was an ineffective infection control measure, cited an article from The Wall Street Journal that he claimed validated his opinions about the virus. 

And yet another teacher  cautioned that there would be "an exodus out of the schools" if the mandate was enforced. "Somebody has to step up and say no!"

Some used the old Trump/Fox News line "it's been widely reported" to express to the Board their feelings. There were those who spoke of "cancel culture" and others who had feelings about the highly effective and safe treatments that are being kept from us in order to enslave us or our children. Then we heard how masks are dehumanizing to our young children and the undisclosed ingredients in the vaccine that " 'they' are trying to hide." I even heard someone say "your body, their choice."

There were a handful of people who stepped to the microphone to encourage the Board to consider that the state mandate might be the best tactic to prevent transmission of the virus while keeping the students in school. Another presented a petition supporting the masking mandate, signed by over 70 Coudersport taxpayers. These folks were met with disapproval from much of the audience.

The September 13 meeting of the School Board was its regularly-scheduled monthly meeting. Board members were silent during the public comments, as the majority decision had been made to not require face coverings in the schools.

 Now a special meeting has been set for Monday, September 27 at 5:30 in the auditorium to discuss COVID protocols, according to a post on the school's Facebook page.

Could it be that Covid-19 is roaring through the school, striking both teachers and students? Could it be true that t0day more than 200 students are currently not in school because of quarantine or illness? Could it be that the administrators and school board members do not want to assume the personal liability for their decisions about public health and safety after ignoring a Department of Health mandate? Could it be that school funding is threatened?

Insular

A couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed a typical summer Friday afternoon here at home in Potter County. At the downtown Farmer's Market in Coudersport, vendors greeted me from their tables set up under the oak trees that circle the square. I picked up my weekly supply of eggs from Netra Baker who tempted me with her baked goods, artfully arranged on a patchwork quilt.

I selected a carefully crafted bouquet of flowers from a teenage neighbor who had often visited our farm with her father to pick up fresh vegetables when she was just a tot. She and her aunt have launched a business selling colorful blooms.

Next door at the funeral home, folks were gathered to honor the life of a schoolmate of my older brother, a history buff who could be counted on to set the record straight when those less knowledgable chimed in on social media sites.

Later at the grocery store, a former co-worker and her out-of-town grownup daughter were shopping for picnic supplies and we stopped in the aisle to chat. Other shoppers smiled a greeting as they steered their carts around us.

Does my experience sound like a page from the tourist promotion literature? 

"a friendly setting ... our small towns throughout the region will welcome you" 

It was a far different experience for a young woman I joined later that afternoon. She, too, had visited Coudersport on the same summer Friday afternoon. She stopped in town on her way to a nearby camp in the woods. But she had not been welcomed with friendly smiles at the grocery store. Rather she was greeted with glares and inpatient clucking of tongues and sighing as she slowly navigated the unfamiliar aisles to find needed supplies.

"It felt really uncomfortable. Unfriendly. People were staring at us and nobody smiled. All I wanted was to get out of there as soon as possible," she related. "My daughter and I were wearing masks because she isn't vaccinated and I am aware of your low vaccination rate. Do you think it's because we were wearing the masks? "

But I didn't have  to say what I was thinking because another companion did. "My husband won't go to the grocery store here anymore and it's not because he's wearing a mask - it's all about his skin color." And my friend looked over her shoulder to locate her dark-skinned, dark-haired little girl, swinging on the branches of a maple tree.

Ugly. Ugly. It was all I could say. I could not find other words.

There was another time when I couldn't - or didn't - find the words. It was a time when I made my living at the local hospital.

Recruitment of physicians to this rural area, always a challenge , led the recruiter and medical staff and board and hospital administration to make special efforts to find and encourage skilled doctors to practice medicine here. On this Sunday morning, a physician and his wife were wrapping up what had seemed to be a successful visit. They had met members of the medical staff, had toured the facilities and the young doctor with impeccable credentials seemed ready to make a commitment to sign a contract. But then his wife, wearing a hijab, stopped in the local grocery that day to pick up some diapers for their infant. It was while she was standing in the baby supply aisle that a person walked up to her and spit in her face. 

I don't often recount this story from my days working as Public Relations Director at my hometown hospital.  Mostly it's because of the loud sounds of silence that accompanied this unforgivable ugliness. And I was part of that silence. Of course, at the time we told ourselves we were being considerate of the wishes of the physician and his shattered wife who simply couldn't bear the thought having any spotlight shown on her. But now I wonder if openly talking about this incident would have given our community an opportunity to examine and call out this kind of prejudice. To perhaps have opened conversations, to perhaps have sparked outrage that this happened here. To perhaps have led to a greater understanding.

But instead, here we are all these years later and I must face again that this insular community is not only unwelcoming, it's racist.

And a postscript: My friend from away is a runner and planned to drive into Coudersport the next morning for a run. "I'll park my car in a place where no one will see my Black Lives Matter bumper sticker.

 

A Great Profusion Of Blooms

It goes with the territory of living still in the place where you spent your childhood. Add to that the forced isolation from the pandemic opening chunks of time to focus on my writing practice, and I am often resurrecting memories of childhood in 1950s. 

Our family's camp in the shadow of Denton Hill State Park on the Nine Mile looms large in those memories, partly because those were happy times, often with several generations of extended family. Ask my brothers and cousins about childhood memories and it's guaranteed all will talk about camp.

It seemed a place of woodland magic, presided over by the kinda cranky old man who sat on the porch with his fly swatter and gigantic portable battery-powered radio, often with the volume way up so he could hear the baseball game. We all knew to be especially careful to cushion the closing of the screen door when we passed by to avoid hearing him growl.

Daffodils still grow every spring at
the camp along the Nine Mile

Though he was through with his gardening days when I came along, I remember how he had pointed out to me the snow white daffodil blooms in a sea of yellow in the patch of woods beside the stone steps to the spring house. They seemed especially magical to this child's eyes.

"Daffodils are out in all their splendor. What beautiful flowers they are!" wrote my grandfather in his newspaper column in April of 1947.  "The first daffodils of the season opened into bloom at Golly's Folly in the Nine Mile Saturday, and they were beautiful! We picked a bouquet, and for green to go with it, we dug a few leeks. Incongruous! Maybe, but the particular shade of green of the leek is also beautiful. That's one of thee qualities of the leek that we admire."

It was also in 1947, in September, that he wrote:

"We harvested our crop of narcissus and daffodil bulbs. For some years, we have had a great profusion of blooms each springtime. In this case 'we' means Merve Chamberlin, who has a cottage close to our shack, and this scribe.

Would you like a half dozen Striped Chipmunk Brand of Nine Mile grown bulbs? You can surely have 'em for free  We'll even pay the postage to mail them to you.

There are no strings on this offer. No matter where you live if you'll write a letter to say you're interested, we'll mail the bulbs. Then we'll hope you will enjoy the beautiful blooms as much as we do.

This is our idea to scatter a little sunshine and brightness into a world too often clouded and drear.
Please do not be bashful. So long as the supply lasts, they are yours for free. Ask for 'em and they'll be mailed promptly. Now is the season for planting."

As would happen should such an offer be made today, my grandfather had lots of responses.   Miss Gladys Beebe, RD 3, Coudersport, replies:

"Of course I want some of the Nine Mile daffies, but should you pay the postage?" She went on, "I enjoy the wild life part of your writing. Do you see and hear chewinks? Do deer 'blow' under your windows at night? Do hedgehogs 'rattle" until you get up in self defense and drive them off, 'hunching' in the queerest way? Do you ever see by flashlight your cunning little flying squirrels? And again thanks for bulbs if any are left for me."

The story continues as the columnist writes the next spring:

"Recently Golly asked anyone who received bulbs from this office to please report any blooms. Here's the first letter in response, even if no blossoms have appeared. 

 Dear Editor: So you wish you wish to hear from your bulbs. I think every one of mine grew. I potted two or three to see if they would not bloom inside this spring; they didn't. So I set them outside in the garden where the others are tall and green. I am hoping that next year I will have something worthwhile to report. I also hope they will be a golden color. P.S. Just heard, for the first time wild turkeys ' 'gobble.' – Gladys Beebe.

The next year she checks in again: 

"Three beautiful golden daffodils bloomed in my garden this spring and I think it's the editor I have to thank.  This message came on a card from Miss Gladys A. Beebe of R.D. 3.

Fine – we wish there might have been 33 at least."

Family friend Steve Green, who today lovingly stewards the old Beebe place (known in this century as the Southwoods Farm Nature Preserve), reports daffodils still bloom there every spring.

Daffodils planted in the Southwoods
in 1947 still blooming in 2021