Winter Wonder

            Growing up in South Dakota I experienced some rather harsh winters – below zero temperatures, four feet of snow in our backyard, and being stuck at home because our roads were secondary or third in order of importance for the county snow plows.  The winter of 1997 was the most conflicting of my childhood.  The pure, white snow came in the form of a blizzard and swirled by our windowsill.  We couldn't go outside because of the cold, harsh conditions so the only place that we could watch from was inside.  It lasted for what seemed like days upon days to me.  The heat blasted out of our electric baseboards constantly.  I would often lean over the top of my mom’s La-z-boy recliner to look out the window behind.  The heat would hit you in sporadic waves, but it made it seem as though the harsh conditions outside couldn’t actually be that bad.  Mom wouldn’t accept that excuse by any means.

By the time we were allowed to go outside, my sister and I were ready for an adventure.  Sure, we had schoolwork, but the snow wouldn’t last forever. 

“Freedom!” my sister Tirzah and I shouted in unison as we pulled on all of our snow gear. 

First, on came the scratchy wool socks that I still hate to this day because, while they were indeed warm as my mother claimed, they itched. Next were the coverall snow-pants.  My sister had purple and I had hot pick.  Two years later when she outgrew hers and got a black pair the purple ones became mine.  Then it was our bulky winter coats, ski masks, hats, snow boots, and lastly…mittens!  The gloves always had to come last.  I’d tried to go out of order once and realized it was just not possible to zip your winter coat up with them on.

Tapping my foot in a steady rhythm by the door I hoped that my sister would get the hint that she needed to move along a little faster. 

“Come on, come on Tirzah!  Hurry up!”

“Just hold your horses you nut!  I’m going as fast as I can!

Our house was right next to the old Lutheran church no longer used for services except once a year during the summer months.  The snow had drifted into the alley behind the church.  When I say drifts, I don’t mean we got a couple of inches of snow and it rippled gently in the wind.  I mean that there were 12 foot drifts of snow that some skiers such as me might have been happy to go on.  Instead my sister and I would stand up inside a very basic plastic sled holding onto the rope we had attached to the front and cruise down the hill for 20 or 30 feet.  It was like nothing I had experienced before.

            We played outside from lunchtime until dusk.  Tirzah and I heard our mom call from our back doorstep, “Time to come in girls!”

            “Tirz, can I please go one more time before we have to go back in? Plleeaasse?” I begged.”

            “Sure you can.  Only one more time though!”

That’s when it happened.  The slow motion scene…me falling from my perch in the sled, smacking the snow bank with my face, bending the nose piece on my glasses.  I gathered myself back together, stood up and said “Okay I’m ready to go in now.”  We took a few steps and my sister halted,

“Hannah…”

“Yes...?” I waited for her to finish her thought.

“Is one of the lenses from your eyeglass missing?”

“No, I can see just,” I started to say as I took my mitten off to feel my glasses. “Ah!  It’s missing!  What are we going to do?”

            “We’re going to look for it that’s what we’re going to do.”

The next hour we looked for it to no avail.  When we traipsed in to the house, I was close to tears.

            “Mom? I,” sniffle, “I lost my lens.”  Another sniffle and some tears started falling.  I’d been scared to come in and tell my mom that I lost the lens.  I don’t know why I thought my mom would be upset, but I did.  My sister and I had looked for over an hour and I thought it was hopeless.  Now my mom was going to have to buy me a new pair.

“No use crying over it Hannah.  When did you lose it?”

“About an hour ago.” Sniffle.

            “So you waited until it’s nearly pitch black out to come ask for my help?”

“I’m sorry Mom.”

            The troop of three headed back outside equipped with only a flashlight.  Imagine yourself searching for a clear piece of glass with a diameter of one inch by two inches against a white background.  Needle in a haystack anyone?

            “About where did you lose it Han?”

“Somewhere over here about I think?”

            My mom walked over to the area, shined the flashlight and caught the glare of the lens by pure graciousness from the Lord.  My sister and I had spent over one hour…one hour!...looking for my missing lens and in less than five minutes after we had all come outside my mom found it.  MOMS!

writing prompts: cold and evil

It is not easy for me to think of my school days without seeming to breathe in something cold and evil-smelling…

My school days weren’t cold or evil-smelling except for when I upset my mom before a school lesson. Why did it matter if I upset my mom?  It was because she was also my teacher.  Having your parents as teachers can be rather upsetting for students because you can’t get away with anything!  Parent teacher conferences...oh yeah they were tight my parents and my teachers.  It was almost like they were one and the same…weird.  I did feel a little chill inside my soul whenever my mom pulled out an algebra or science book – especially physics.  You could have put that textbook on someone’s chest and the weight of it probably would have killed them!  Terminal velocity – heck!  Terminally dead!  I, instead, preferred the little reading of War and Peace and the collaborative works of Shakespeare, especially if they were the condensed Readers Digest versions.  In all honesty however, the broad spectrum and materials that my mom made me learn have had a positive impact of my life.  My father was never one for the books either, unless you count using them to prop open the garage door for fresh air when he was changing oil on our Jeep Grand Cherokee.  That’s why he was in charge of the PE and workshop part of my education.  I can not only count to one hundred, but I can change a flat tire, sharpen lawn mower blades on a bench grinder, and lift 50# bags of concrete mix.  I’m also quite flexible due to the number of painting projects I’ve participated in.  Two houses later and I can extend my arm for over six inches.  I feel fairly accomplished in what I learned from my parents and my teachers.  

Injustice in the Eyes of a Child - Such, Such Were The Joys by George Orwell

            While an author’s stories should be reviewed on their own merit, I found myself comparing Orwell’s essay Such, Such Were the Joys! and his book Animal Farm.  My mother had always enjoyed Animal Farm for its classical and hidden meanings and felt that my sister and I would benefit from reading his writings.  While the tone in which these two stories were written differed greatly, the overarching theme remained much the same – injustice and leaders who only cared about themselves.  The schoolmasters at Crossgates made George Orwell into a guilty, ashamed person every chance they could while he there.  He wasn’t a prince?  No, he was there purely by luck.  He was reduced to feeling gratitude to the headmasters in hopes that he would one day get a scholarship to a decent school.  The only other option would be a desk for 40 pounds per year. 

            Orwell seems to hate and accept the punishment doled out by the headmasters.  At the beginning he felt that it wasn’t his fault, i.e. the bedwetting, but by the end of the story he believes all of the lies told to him, i.e. masturbating.  The psychological issues in the background of this story showed how much his life was impacted by living at Crossgates. 

            At the end, George Orwell makes a point to tell us that he has never been back to Crossgates, but he though he thought of it scarcely, when he did the memories were pointed and vivid.  He wants to forget, but is not fully able.  Life keeps us in its boundaries no matter how hard we try to escape.

Girlhood is the age of...

Girlhood is the age of knowing and not knowing.  I suppose a clearer, one word way of putting this, would be puberty.  Both boys and girls go through this phase yes, but I think the way it affects girls is much great than boys.  For girls it's the time when we know what we our bodies are going to look like (for the next 20 years or so at least).  The awkward limbs, chubby cheeks, and pimply face are on their way out and beauty is coming in.  Beauty for some might not be what they hoped, but in this phase we are often our harshest critics.

A Time Travelers Circus: E.B. White - "The Ring of Time"

E.B. White confused me.  Each part of his essay's focused on a different topic, thus making it somewhat more difficult to follow.  The broad overtone of the circus narrative implied that the general story was dealing with the passing of time, but it was told through the story of a young women at the circus.  While he was telling the story of time, I felt that there was almost a surrealistic undertone.  He focuses in on the beauty which he sees in her at this time and how she will never be so beautiful again.  It is almost metaphorical when we read about her riding the horse around the circle.  For her, that was how time seemed to pass.  For him, it was all that he could do to keep from yelling out and telling her that it would soon be useless to try to keep time going in this circle.  Without a doubt, she would, just like the rest of us, fall onto the straight path and grow into her old age.

My favorite part of "The Ring of Time" was the Fiddler Bayou section.  The narrative at the end of him describing how a performer performs pulled the whole story together for me.  He connects the performance we give in life to the time we have on earth - no one else can control it and "our most notable performances have already been given."

E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake"

There's one item that I've always missed from childhood - traditions.  Many families I know base most of their family gatherings and holiday celebrations on tradition.  From the Christmas fruitcake to singing Auld Lang Syne on New Year's Day there are numerous ways to celebrate and remember just as E.B. White's characters did in "Once More to the Lake".  As I've gotten older I realized my family was more than a little lacking in traditions.  I'm not sure if this was due to the fact that we lived so far away from our extended family and thus we never got into the habit of participating in them, or if my mom and dad thought they were pointless.  I remember my mom reading the Christmas story of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus a couple years ago right before we were going to begin opening our presents.  She mentioned how this was becoming a tradition.  I thought to myself, "It must still be in the beginning stages, because this is the first time we've done it this way."  But a tradition has to start somewhere.  The same goes for the little son just learning how to fly fish.  It may not have been a tradition for him before that summer, but you can be assured that he will continue to go now that he has learned this important skill from his father.

Sometimes remembering and going back to your past hurts.  The father realized he was getting no younger and in a way was living vicariously through his son.  Still, I believe that this is almost the best way to bond and fondly remember the "good old days" while living in the present, bringing you closer to your family.