“A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.” What wise man or woman said this? No one seems to know. It was probably only a cynical quip, but then, the Cynics were philosophers. Anyway, I guess that makes me a truly happy person. My life has been full of detours, both figurative and literal.
One of my most memorable was when I got off the Interstate and discovered the Natchez Trace. It was the summer of ’99. We were on our way home from a family reunion in Arkansas. I still traveled the Interstates in those days, always anxious to get to a destination as quickly and directly as possible. That year, I-20 seemed to be under construction everywhere and we were tired of sitting in traffic in the hot sun. After we crossed the Mississippi River and made it through Vicksburg, there was another construction zone. We crept forward. An exit with a brown sign indicated the Natchez Trace. I had seen those signs before on my trips to and from Arkansas but I had only a vague idea of what the Natchez Trace was. At least it wasn’t a construction zone.
“Let’s check this out,” I said. My life hasn’t been the same since.
Originally an Indian trail, the Trace was used by “Kaintucks” returning home from Natchez after floating their produce down the Mississippi to market. There they would also sell their rafts and make their way back home on foot. As more white settlers invaded this part of the country, traffic increased and the Trace became a rough wagon road between Nashville and Natchez. It reached its heyday in the 1800’s only to be virtually abandoned after steamboats took over the river traffic and other roads were built.
In the 1930’s, during the Great Depression, a Mississippi congressman, Thomas Jefferson Busby, saved the Trace and its history for future generations. He proposed construction of the parkway as a public works project to benefit his unemployed constituents. Of course it took an Act of Congress, much money, and many years to accomplish, but it was well worth the trouble.
The 500 mile long Trace is a leisurely drive through some lovely country, with picnic areas, restrooms, and campgrounds. The speed limit is only fifty and commercial vehicles are prohibited. With no stop signs or traffic lights to impede your progress, you stop only when you want to. I stop often. Every few miles there are historical and geological sites. I have spent days on the Trace, steeped in History. Even when I lack sufficient time, I never drive through Mississippi or Tennessee without visiting some part of the Trace.
I became so enamored by the Trace that I began to study it. One family’s story has so gripped my imagination that I am researching them with a historical novel in mind. It has been quite a detour.
I seldom take major highways anymore. I can read a road map and, if the roads are properly marked, I can follow a planned route. I said, “If.” For the most part, Florida roads are well marked, but that is not the case every where. I often find myself on unplanned detours. To be honest, I get lost. No matter, the scenery can be enjoyable and eventually I stumble across a town or roadway that I can locate on my map and steer myself back in the right direction.
One time I passed a mound of kudzu in the shape of a house. It was so remarkable that I had to turn around and check it out. Indeed, it was an abandoned house, chimney and all, that had become totally engulfed with vines. I have encountered many such interesting things on my “detours” but I haven’t been able to find the vine covered cottage again.
In 2006, heading south through Pennsylvania, I ran out of road signs. I had little idea where I was or, the way the roads wind among the mountains, no idea in what direction I was going. Oh, well, the scenery was beautiful, so I kept on. Whenever I came to an intersection, I’d take the road that felt right. Before I knew it, I had descended into Pennsylvania Dutch farmland and was not far from a highway which would take me home.
Our detour philosopher was probably referring to life, not roads, but isn’t it the same thing? I’ve always marveled at the people who can boast with confidence, “In five years (or ten or twenty), I will be at (a certain job, income level, or other goal).” Wouldn’t it be boring to have your life play out in an orderly succession with no surprises? I will never know. In high school my goal was to go to college and that was probably the last thing that worked out the way I’d planned. Another philosopher has said, “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” How true!
In college, I majored in Literature. I wanted to write, but journalism did not appeal to me. By my senior year I realized that I would have to make a living somehow, so I went into teaching. When I had children I wanted to be a stay at home mother and write in my spare time. How unrealistic. I did not plan to be a single parent who had to work. Since I had become disillusioned with teaching, I tried social work. This required a lot of writing and that helped me hone my craft. Quite a detour, wasn’t it? This career also exposed me to a lot of things I would not have encountered in a boring, well planned life. I learned a lot about people – good material for fiction. Now, with my state pension, I don’t have worry about where my next meal will come from, even though it is more likely to be hamburger than steak. I have the leisure to write without worrying about how soon it will sell. I don’t aspire to live in a mansion in a gated community. I’m happy with my little house in the woods.
And when I travel, if I end up somewhere unexpected, it’s not a detour, it’s an adventure.
Almost 150 years ago, a boy wanted to ride a carousel, but he was too poor to buy a ticket. He must have been fascinated by the brightly painted horses that galloped around and around to the cheery music. He made himself a promise that if he ever became rich, he would build carousels for children to ride for free.
When he grew up, he became an industrialist and owned several factories. He was a good employer and a benefactor to the communities that housed his factories. Among many other things, he built parks and donated carousels to the parks. There was one condition, that the cities would never charge money for riding his carousels.
This is a true story. My grandfather worked in one of those factories, and as a child, I rode those carousels.
My siblings and I were very fortunate. We lived out in the country where we could climb trees, swim in ponds, wade in creeks, catch fish, and roam about the fields and woods. The city children had to be content only with playgrounds. I’m sure that going out to the country was as much a treat to them as going to a playground was for us. But they were able to walk to their parks, and we depended on adults to take us there, so going to a playground was only an occasional pleasure for us.
The swings and slides were fun, of course, but the best of all were the merry-go-rounds. They were magic. The horses came in all colors and styles and there were also lions, tigers, and other wild beasts. For parents with babies too small to sit on a horse, there were chariots where they could be seated and enjoy the ride. Being a fan of the Black Stallion books, my mount of choice would usually be a black horse with a flowing mane.
My favorite merry-go-round had music from a Wurlitzer band organ. In my memory, it played one tune over and over but I never got tired of it. I do not know the name of the song but I can recall the melody and the words I put to it in my head. Beside the organ was a bass drum. A mechanical arm would strike the drum to the beat of the music. The drumstick had hit that drumhead so many times, it had worn a hole in the center, which was patched with tape.
Riding around and around with the music in my head, in my fantasies I was riding a real horse. When the ride ended, we would all exit and run around the pavilion to line up for another ride, over and over again, until we had to go home.
This summer, my son Joel told me he wanted to show his family where I had lived as a child and where his grandparents and mine had lived, worked, and gone to school. I did not tell him about the carousels before we made the trip. I wanted it to be a surprise. My favorite was closed for repairs, which is forgivable after nearly 100 years of delighting children, but my second choice was open and running.
This merry-go-round was in pristine condition. The pavilion it is housed in looked newly painted. Inside, around the top of the carousel, the panels painted with pastoral scenes and faces of Indians and frontiersmen looked as fresh as they had when they were first made. There were no wild animals to ride, but the horses were beautiful. They were of all colors and styles: some tossing their heads, some with fierce defiance in their eyes, and some intent on racing forward. The old music had been replaced with a modern sound system. This music was more varied, but it was still instrumental, with no lyrics to impinge on a private fantasy.
My son pointed out what a feat of engineering the carousel was. As a child I had never taken note of this. The large, round platform held 72 horses, four abreast. Each horse was suspended on a pole from a jointed rod which extended from the center pole. As this rod turned, each horse galloped independently of its mates. Platform, horses, hardware, and riders were all supported by guy rods from the single pole in the center. A motor turned the whole mechanism through a complex series of gears. Our ancestors managed to work wonders without the help of computers.
With still no admission price, and no posted age limit, I mounted a horse beside my grandson James and was carried away. The magic is still there.
I did not ride over and over again like I had when I was a child. Once or twice was enough. I wanted to take pictures, which was a challenge since the merry-go-round moves faster than my shutter finger, but it was pleasant to sit on a bench alongside the wall and watch my child and his enjoying themselves.
I look forward to going back again to ride the merry-go-rounds. Of course, it would be best if I were to take grandchildren with me.
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Carousels, Family Memories, Grandchildren, Horses, Tradition | 2 Comments »
I sit down to breakfast, but before I eat, I give Thanks for my food. It is a modest breakfast: coffee, eggs, toast, and sliced kiwi. But when I think about giving Thanks for all who helped make my breakfast possible, it reaches cosmic proportions.
I bought the eggs from a friend who has chickens, so I thank both him and his chickens, but it goes beyond there. The chicken feed was grown by farmers and prepared by other hands and machines, transported by trucks driven by truckers, and sold in a feed store. There a clerk handled the transaction and a hefty young man loaded it onto my friend’s pick-up truck. The tractors, trucks, and other machines were made by factory workers from metals extracted from the Earth by miners and their machines, and the ore was processed in other factories, all made possible by the minds of inventors, scientists, and engineers. Did I mention the fuels involved and their processing? And the wood and concrete and metal which went into the buildings? And the workers who constructed them? My Thanks is extended to all those who made this possible with their muscle and their minds, to the Earth which yielded the metals and the fuels, to the soil and rain that nourished the grains and the trees, and the sun which gave the energy to make it all possible.
I made the bread myself. But it was made from flour whose journey paralleled that of the chicken feed, and yeast produced by other hands and machines and microorganisms, butter from a dairy farm, salt from the Earth, and gas for my stove, again from the Earth with the help of men and machines, and ultimately, the sun.
The kiwi is from New Zealand, grown by farmers, picked by laborers, and sorted by many hands and shipped halfway around the world for my health and pleasure, again with all else that made this possible.
The coffee was grown in South America or maybe Africa. Again I must thank the farmers and pickers, the coffee bush, the soil, the rain, the sun, and all those who processed it and brought it to the store where I bought it. To the coffee I add milk from a dairy farm, thanks to the farmers, cows, feed producers, the grass, soil, rain, sun, and all those in between who had a hand in bringing it to me. I also add sugar, grown in South Florida or Jamaica, thanks to…etc.
And what about my dishes, utensils, and kitchen appliances and all that went into them?
It has taken a global effort to bring me my little breakfast and my expression of Gratitude takes more time than it takes to ingest the food. I am humbled. All this for me.
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Breakfast, Connections, Food | Leave a Comment »
When I was a small child, one room school houses were still in existence in some rural areas. One by one they were being closed as citizens succumbed to the progressive wisdom that children would be better educated in the large consolidated schools. I was fortunate enough to attend a little schoolhouse in the first grade. This was the same school where my father and grandfather had been educated in their days, but that’s another story. Unfortunately, by the end of that year, our school district had voted to close the school and bus the students to the education factories in town.
In our area, the county did not provide school buses. Each school district would contract with a bus company. Ours was a one-man operation owned by a fellow named John Sokol. Here was a character if ever there was one. He seemed to enjoy his job and most of his kids, and the students, for the most part, liked him.
On my first day of second grade, I stood dutifully at the foot of our sidewalk as the bus jiggled down the road toward my house. But I was small for my age, and along the road was a hedge of barberry bushes. I was already nervous about the new school and it did not help that, instead of stopping for me, the bus just kept on going! I heard the children on the bus yelling, and the bus screeched to a stop and backed up. Mr. Sokol said something about my being smaller than a bush and from that day on, he called me “Bush.”
I don’t remember any discipline problems on the bus. Even though Mr. Sokol could be as rowdy as the roughest boy, the kids behaved for him. I remember him laughing more than any thing else, but he was certainly no angel. Usually, if a child was not at the bus stop but could be seen running down the driveway, or if a parent came out and said Johnny was putting on his coat, he would wait for him. Mr. Sokol had some favorites among the children but there was one family he clearly did not like and I never knew why. The oldest boy was no longer in school but Chester must have been in high school at the time. Mr. Sokol would make unkind remarks about Chester, in and out of the boy’s hearing, and the older children would jeer Chester. The boy appeared to be clean, did not smell bad, and to my knowledge he was from a respectable family, but there may have been some past quarrel I was unaware of. If Mr. Sokol could leave Chester behind, he would. One morning the older brother came out and asked Mr. Sokol to wait for a few minutes. He did, but the second Chester came out the front door, Mr. Sokol drove away, laughing.
We made up a song about Mr. Sokol, to the tune of “The Old Gray Mare”:
Old John Sokol jumped in the Delaware,
Pulled off his underwear,
Smashed all the silverware.
Old John Sokol jumped in the Delaware
Many long years ago.
When we sang that song, he would laugh and laugh. Once he resorted to a serious voice and said there was some truth to it. He used to have a campsite on the Delaware River with an old school bus for a cabin, and he said he had jumped in the Delaware many times.
At the end of the school year, it was traditional for the bus companies to host a “bus picnic” for the students and their families at a local park. The usual fare was hot dogs and ice cream. I remember seeing a supply of Dixie cups packed in a cardboard box covered by a heavy gray army blanket. I wondered why they would cover the ice cream with a blanket on a warm day. The explanation that the blanket would keep it cold just didn’t make sense to my seven year old mind. Blankets keep you warm, right?
All good things come to an end. I’m not sure whether his treatment of Chester had anything to do with it, or what the reason was, but after a few years our school district stopped contracting with Mr. Sokol and went with the larger company that served much of the area. The buses were newer and probably better maintained, and our new driver was nice enough, but it just wasn’t the same. He was a quiet man who lacked Mr. Sokol’s sense of humor.
Eventually my family moved away. The last news I had of Mr. Sokol was a newspaper clipping my grandmother sent me. It showed an old school bus, our old bus, rusting in a field. In the caption under the picture some upstanding citizen was bemoaning the fact that the county was full of such “eyesores” and they should be removed.
I thought it was sad, not that the old bus was rusting in a field, but that someone would call it an eyesore. I thought about how beauty can be more than a well manicured roadside, and how memory, laughter, and tradition, while sometimes untidy, have an important place in our hearts.
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Family Heritage, Memories, One Room Schoolhouse, School Bus, Tradition | 6 Comments »
Traveling the Backroads, I stumble across many interesting little places that you will not find along the interstate highways. Scattered around the Southeast are small public springs and artesian wells where the public is free to take water. I’m not talking about springs where you go swimming, but places where you drink the water.
One of the most famous, though hardly off the beaten path, is Hot Springs, Arkansas. People have enjoyed its healing waters for thousands of years. About one million gallons of water flow daily from forty seven springs. This is ancient water which fell as rain some 4,000 years ago and percolated slowly through the Earth’s crust, finally to emerge from the depths at 147 degrees Fahrenheit, rich in minerals. Over the past one hundred fifty years, bathhouses have been constructed over the springs, and various health treatments have been offered to supplement the waters. Although the popularity of bathhouses has declined, people still flock here every day. Many do no more than fill water bottles at the public spigots. I once encountered a hale senior citizen whose car trunk was full of gallon jugs. He told me that this water is what keeps him alive and healthy, and he is not alone in this contention. I go out of my way to visit Hot Springs and take some of its health with me.
Over in Oklahoma, along Highway 259 in the Ouachita National Forest, is a small roadside park called Pipe Springs. The place has a history I will not relate here. Today it is visited only by the few who pause to picnic, climb the nature trail, and drink the water. This spring is no more than a pipe sticking out of the rocks which emits a steady stream of sweet water. It is not much to look at, but the water is well worth stopping for.
Back East, somewhere in the Carolinas on Rt. 15, is another little park whose name I do not know. An artesian well gushes from the ground through pipes. Here you will always find a line of people with their water cans ready. They seem to be mostly local people who know the value of the tasty mineral water, but there are a few like me who have wandered by and taken the time to stop. The water is good.
One of my favorite places is Healing Springs, near the antique town of Blackville, SC. I often overnight at the nearby Barnwell State Park, which is a comfortable days’ drive between my home and other destinations. I was told of this place by a park ranger and I make the pilgrimage about once a year. Native Americans considered this spring to be sacred and they would bathe here when they were sick or injured. During the American Revolution, as the story goes, four British soldiers were brought here by friendly Indians for this purpose. The men had been mortally wounded in battle. Two able bodied men had been left to care for them and bury them when they died. Six months later, the soldiers rejoined their garrison in Charleston, healthy and ready to resume action.
Since that time, ownership of the springs passed from the red man to the white man. In 1944, the last owner deeded the property to God, so that the water could be enjoyed freely by all people. This is a legally recognized deed. The place cannot be sold without God’s signature. An adjacent church maintains the park, called God’s Acre, which is no more than a couple of picnic tables and several pipes in the ground. Each pipe has four branches from which a generous stream of water continually flows. What is not collected in people’s bottles spills into a picturesque little creek. Healing Springs is visited daily by folks of all walks of life, some of whom swear to the healing power of its waters. I always take some home to my loved ones.
These waters have diverse histories and their taste is different depending on their mineral content. They may or may not have purported or scientifically proven virtues, but the one thing I have found in common in all these places is the friendliness and good will of the people I encounter there. None of them know me and few of them know one another, but they will engage in cheerful conversation. It’s as though, coming together to share a gift from the Earth, people find a common connection that goes beyond ethnicity, social class, or religious affiliation. Is it the magic of the waters? Or is it something much deeper that finds a bond among our souls? At Healing Springs, especially, parting is frequently accompanied by a heart felt, “May God Bless.”
There is another, very unlikely place that I consider it to be one of the friendliest I have found to take water. DeFuniak Springs is a little town in the Florida panhandle, built around a spring-fed lake which is ringed by a public park. A street encircling the lake and park is lined with Victorian era houses. This is a popular place for locals to jog or walk. But what I find most interesting here is not the park, and the water I take is not from the lake. At the sidewalk in front of one of the houses is a water fountain inviting one to stop and take a drink. A sign posted behind the fountain quotes, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” Although no food has ever been evident, I almost never fail to stop by for a few minutes to take a few sips of water. Usually I am the only one there, but I feel a connection with others who stop by and with the owner of the house who has extended hospitality to strangers, many like me just passing through, some who may never return.
So when you travel, slow down and explore the back roads and out of the way places. Don’t be afraid to stop or take time to visit. You, too, may find yourself partaking of the gifts of the Earth or sharing the hospitality of strangers.
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Artesian Wells, Blackville SC, DeFuniak Springs, God's Acre, Healing Springs, Hot Springs AR, Ouachita National Forest, Pipe Springs, Springs | 6 Comments »
I have a fool-proof system for mending clothes. Before I reveal it, however, let me tell you how I got there.
I grew up in an era when girls were taught to sew, in both 4-H and home economics class. Grandma Masters loved to sew and she would make pajamas for all her grandchildren. It was not surprising that I came to love clothing construction as well. I was never as good at it as Grandma was, but I did OK. As a teenager I made all my new dresses and blouses. (Pants are harder to make and were more easily bought.) When in college, I bought a used sewing machine for $10. I used it to make my wedding dress, and when I had children I would make their play clothes.
After I returned to work I had less time to sew, and by then it had become cheaper to buy clothes than to purchase the materials to make them. However, as my girls got older, I could make a much nicer prom or wedding dress than I could afford to buy.
Unfortunately, love of sewing does not equal love of mending. When the children were small and I did not work outside the home, I had the time and inclination to keep buttons sewn on and seams stitched. As a working mother, even if I’d had the inclination, I lacked the time.
That was when I developed my fool-proof mending system. I had a large basket to collect items in need of repair. I still have that basket. If you dig through it today, you will find a blouse I started to make before I gained weight, some pillow cases whose lace trim has come loose, and a few articles of clothing dating back to the 20th century.
I do not say that I never mended anything. Quite the contrary. If it was something that was immediately needed, it would get fixed in a timely manner. Otherwise, it would be tossed into the basket where it would eventually be buried under other garments. Occasionally I would go through my mending pile. If I was lucky, the children would have outgrown some of the clothes and they could be discarded. Some things would actually get repaired, but others would just have to wait. The mending basket became like a black hole. Some things might never be seen again.
My children eventually caught on to my system. One day, my teenage son brought me a shirt with a ripped seam. It would have taken only a minute to sew, but more time and energy than that were required to set up the sewing machine and wind a bobbin with the right colored thread. I was busy and not up to the effort. “Just put it on the mending pile,” I told him.
With a stricken look on his face, he replied, “But, Mama, I really liked that shirt!”
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Clothes, Mending, Sewing | 5 Comments »
Grandsons are fun to have around. Their fascination with tools and machinery makes them easy to entertain. In March, I took Tristan and Conall to the PioneerVillagein Green Cove Springs. This museum collection of old buildings and items from the 19th and early 20th centuries portrays early life in rural Florida. As we went through the grounds and buildings, I pointed out various objects to the boys and described what they were used for and why, many of which are now to be found only in museums. I drew the boys’ attention to the bell atop the little church tower and told them how it would be rung to call people to meetings. In the store, most of the goods were behind the counter, not out on shelves, which not only gave customers more personal service, but undoubtedly cut down on thefts. (People of the past were not really much different from us.)
I actually remember many of the old timey items being used during my early childhood. Rewind a half century or so. My great-Grandad had a little store that supplemented his farm income. I did not need to read the sign in front of a great wooden hulk to know that it was a threshing machine like Grandad’s. I remember seeing it in operation once when I was very small and I can’t forget how noisy it was and how it would shake. What is a threshing machine? A precursor of the combine, it would separate grain from straw. I believe Grandad was threshing oats that day. The machine was stationary and they would feed the oat hay into it with pitch forks. It was powered by a flywheel connected by a belt to the power wheel of a tractor. Before they had tractors, I suppose they used horses or other means to run those machines. And before they had machines, they did it by hand. That we are here today attests to the fact that they got the job done one way or another.
I remember Grandpa Rogers using a horse-drawn plow, mowing machine, and hay rake like those on display, before he got his first tractor. He kept his Belgian draft horses, Jessie and Duchess, around for years even after they retired from employment. I would ride Duchess when I was older, but that’s another story.
The houses had antique stoves similar to those my grandmothers used before they got modern stoves. I remember Grandma Masters feeding sticks of wood into her kitchen range. Grandma Rogers had a kerosene stove. The modern gas and electric ranges that replaced them were easier to cook on. I remember many of the kitchen utensils displayed, some still in use but others having been consigned to history. I remember Grandma Rogers using a crank churn to make butter, like one shown. I’m sure it was more efficient than the older upright churns, also on exhibit. I explained all these things to the boys and related my memories of them. They did not act bored.
Fast forward to the present. A few weeks later, Tristan helped me clean out a shed where some things had been stored untouched for more years than I care to admit. There were buckets of tools and sundry items, covered with dust and rust and unidentified debris. One by one, I emptied and sorted through them. Discarding the trash, I picked through the relics and asked Tristan if he knew what things were. If he didn’t know, I would tell him and explain their purpose: a vise, a drawing knife, a carpenter’s plane, some electrical components, and so on.
There was a fuse from an old electrical box. I explained to Tristan that these were used before circuit breakers like I have in my house. I didn’t tell him the story about when I rearranged the fuses in my grandparents’ cellar. I didn’t want him to get ideas. Maybe when he’s older I’ll tell him how they were many different colors, to my eyes randomly placed, so I proceeded to organize them into a prettier pattern. Of course, since each was of a different amperage, this affected some of the circuits in the house. When the adults went down to see why the electricity wasn’t working, I had to explain how the fuses had moved from one socket to another. I got into some trouble over this, but at least no one got hurt.
Fast forward another half century or so. I imagine my grandchildren going through my attic after I’m done with all my material things. I imagine them saying to their children or grandchildren, “Do you know what this is? Do you know what it was used for?”
“This is an electric typewriter. That’s what people used before they had personal computers. And what’s this? It’s a manual typewriter, which they used before they had electric typewriters. And here’s my grandmother’s old sewing machine. She used this to sew clothes with before they had … (a more efficient invention might be mentioned here).” What other gadgets that I now use will be replaced by new ones that I cannot envision? If I could, I’d invent them myself.
I’m not advocating that we live in the past, although a return to a simpler life style wouldn’t hurt us. I like writing on my computer, even though it seems to have a will of its own at times. I don’t have to rely on white-out when I make my myriad mistakes. It’s so easy to edit, and I don’t have to retype whole pages to get a manuscript to look right. But it won’t work when the electricity goes out, like the old manual typewriter did.
Much lore was lost with the passing of my grandparents’ generation and those before them. While my family was fortunate enough to have listened to the old stories, how many did we miss? We need to insure that what we learn and do today is shared with our descendants. An appreciation of our heritage enriches us. When we know how our ancestors lived, how they grappled with challenges and overcame obstacles, we have a better understanding of ourselves, of our own strengths and needs. Knowing where we came from better equips us for our future. Our children and grandchildren will have richer lives if we continue to pass down the lore.
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged antiques, Family Heritage, Grandchildren, Threshing Machine | 13 Comments »
“Treat people as if they were flowers and you will have a happy life.” I recently came across this quote by a man named Jacques Romano. Largely forgotten today, he was quite a sensation in his time, chemist, traveler, philosopher, and psychic, who maintained his down to earth personality even while hobnobbing in the salons of the rich and famous. He died 50 years ago at the age of 98. I believe he deserves lasting renown on the basis of that one quote alone.
“Treat people as if they were flowers.” How do we do this? There are so many flowers and their lives are so very different. Some are beautiful, some smell nice, some are useful, some are unpleasant, and some are downright treacherous. But all have their place in the world.
Take the hybrid tea roses. They are cultivated for their beauty. Some have a romantic fragrance and some have no scent at all. But like the beautiful people in this world they have needs. They can easily be devastated by insects and disease and thus they require our care.
Some people are more like azaleas. They bloom their hearts out each spring, then they fade into the background for the rest of the year. They are quite hardy and require little care, but be wary of stunting their growth. I have seen azalea bushes pruned like ordinary shrubbery. They lose their form and grace. When spring comes, a few brave blossoms try to emerge from the squareness and they look sad, if not ridiculous. Leave them alone. Let them grow.
Some flowers of course need to be pruned. My Cherokee rose blooms in profusion for a few weeks in early spring then spends the rest of the year trying to take over the world. If I did not cut her back, she would. When I approach with pruning shears, she fights back with thorns that can deeply wound an ungloved hand. The runners seem actually to lash out at me, tearing at my face, arms, and clothing. I have to treat her with respect, but I keep her around because of her beauty.
Many flowers are not only showy but useful. Think of fruit trees. After the lovely petals drop, the blossoms are pregnant with new life – to sustain us and to perpetuate new generations. Other useful flowers are not as showy. Think of the many vegetables without whose flowers we would starve.
Speaking of starvation, think about our pollinators, the bees and butterflies. We have learned to plant flowers to attract these insects and hummingbirds to our yards. The canna lily is one. Not a true lily, it is so called because it looks like one. The native varieties have small, bright flowers rich in nectar. New varieties have been developed that have more showy flowers but our nectar loving neighbors are unable to get past the big petals to drink the life-sustaining fluid. Do not disdain the modest but useful. Nurture them.
Many plants that we call weeds have beautiful flowers. Some of these we now call wildflowers because we have learned to appreciate them, such as the Florida state wildflower, the coreopsis. We actually plant them on roadsides now, but once I saw a work crew mow down a bank of black-eyed Susans in full bloom. I’m sure the men were told to mow down those “weeds”. No flowers ever bloomed in that place again. Some other less showy weed replaced them. Do we sometimes treat people that way?
I have learned to appreciate a cursed weed called Bidens. It is also called Spanish needles because of the barbed seeds that will attach to every thread of your garment if you get too close. They don’t hurt, but the seeds are a devil to pull off because there are so many of them. But the Bidens has a small daisy like flower which is edible. So are the leaves. The plant’s most saving grace, however, is that it’s popular with the butterflies. I have seen Bidens bloom in winter when they were the only food available for the butterflies. Be sure to include them in your butterfly garden. Or just leave a patch along the edge of your driveway or in a corner of your vegetable garden. If you don’t want them to spread everywhere, just pinch off the spent flowers before they go to seed.
Bidens may deserve its bad reputation but goldenrod does not. These yellow spikes that brighten roadsides and waste spaces in the fall are blamed for people’s allergies. Do not prejudice yourself with rumors. The real culprit is ragweed which blooms invisibly at the same time. So enjoy the goldenrod.
But what about the ragweed? They are a nuisance in your garden and to your sinuses and they are not even pretty. Maybe the world would be better off without them. Do you know people like that? But wait – the larvae of several moths feed on ragweed and the seeds are an important winter food for many birds. So don’t obsess over your bird feeders. Leave some ragweed in your garden for the birds.
Sometimes as I walk around my yard I catch a whiff of something that causes me to check the soles of my shoes. No, nothing there. The smell is from a variety of viburnum whose blossoms smell like dog poop. Do you know people like that? But the viburnum is a native shrub. It belongs here. Other than its unpleasant odor, it is an attractive shrub which produces berries that are food for wildlife. Sometimes we just have to put up with a little unpleasantness.
Treat people like flowers. Each is unique. Treat each with love and respect. Appreciate them for their virtues, have patience with their shortcomings, and be wise in handling their vices. When we treat our flowers this way, they make us happy. How much more happiness would this world have if we would treat all people like flowers?
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Azaleas, Bees, Bidens, Butterflies, Canna Lily, Coreopsis, Flowers, Goldenrod, Humming Birds, Jacques Romano, Native Plants, Ragweed, Roses, Viburnum, Weeds | 3 Comments »
In my childhood, sweets were not as readily available as they are today. One of my pleasant memories is of getting to lick the bowl after someone had mixed up a cake or a batch of cookies. Today, as I was beating some batter, I remembered a time a few years ago when my grandson Tristan was visiting. One day I made a cake. As I was pouring the batter into the pan, I asked him, “Who should I be today? Grandma Masters or Grandma Rogers?”
You see, my grandmothers were quite different individuals, but there were lessons to be learned from each. Both were strong women who reared their families during the Great Depression and made sacrifices during World War II.
Grandma Masters was French Canadian, one of 11 children who grew up on a farm. She once told me that when she was a child she had only one dress. On washday, she had to hide in a corner until it was clean and dry. Life was more comfortable after she married my grandfather, a factory worker, but they still had to be frugal. During the war when sugar was rationed, they used saccharine in their coffee. After the war, they continued this habit for the rest of their lives. Grandma Masters was also very clean and I swear you could eat off her floor. It was not surprising, then, that after she finished making cookies, she would scrape the bowl so clean it hardly needed to be washed. There was little left for an eager child to lick.
Grandma Rogers was one of two surviving children whose father was a wall paper hanger. She did not suffer as much privation as a child, but she married a farmer and the Depression hit them hard. She never talked much about the war when her only surviving son was a soldier in the Pacific theater. I can only imagine her anguish. She, too, was not one to waste anything, but when she finished a bowl, she would leave a satisfying amount of batter in it. I don’t know if it was because her arthritis made it harder for her to scrape the bowl clean, or if she was only trying to please a treasured grandchild.
Anyway, I briefly explained to Tristan the differences between my two grandmothers. Again I asked him which one he wanted me to be that day. Not surprisingly, he chose Grandma Rogers. I obliged him and left a generous amount in the bowl for him.
Today as I poured my batter, with no grandchild in attendance, I declared, “I should be Grandma Masters today.” Actually though, my performance fell short. Scrape though I might, I still had to wash the bowl.
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Baking from Scratch, Family Memories, Grandchildren, Grandmothers | Leave a Comment »
While most of the country is shivering under a blanket of snow, we in North Florida alternately shiver on frosty days and sweat when the mercury hits 80. You may think we’re wimpy to complain about our winters, but our summers are truly brutal. While folks in most parts of the country grow vegetables in summer, little will grow here then. Even heat-loving tomatoes will not bear fruit when the temperatures stay in the 90’s around the clock. Here, we garden from September to May. Right now, our lettuces, cabbages, and carrots are happy, until an arctic air mass moves in and it plunges into the 20’s. Then even they threaten to move south.
Winter is the time to enjoy home grown salads in Florida. I pick a few lettuce leaves and look for something else to add without going to the grocery store. I don’t like radishes, so I didn’t plant any. My carrots aren’t mature enough yet, so I take a stroll around my yard to see what I can find.
My grandmother had a plant she called “shamrocks” and I inherited her love for them. The leaves look like clover and they have cute little pink blossoms. They are not true shamrocks, but an oxalis. “Shamrock” is derived from the Irish word for “clover” which is what true shamrocks are. Oxalis is a member of the wood sorrel family. They grow all over the world, and they grow in my yard.
I don’t remember when I acquired my first oxalis but they do not like to stay contained. They reproduce by seeds and bulbils and I find them all over my yard, in my garden, and even in my potted plants. Since they are so plentiful, it’s fortunate they are edible. They have a tangy flavor and are high in Vitamin C. As their name suggests, they also contain oxalic acid which is toxic in large quantities. But spinach and many other vegetables also have oxalic acid. Spinach didn’t kill Popeye. Unless you eat rhubarb leaves (which is not advisable) you are not going to consume enough to harm you, so don’t worry.
I find three varieties of oxalis in my yard. One has rounded leaves that look like clover and another has triangular leaves. Both have pink flowers. Then there is a native called wood sorrel with yellow blossoms and seed pods that will explode in 1000 directions. You don’t want to encourage this one too much. It will take over. I have another that I bought at a nursery a few years ago. This one has purple leaves and white flowers. They assured me it would not escape and so far it has stayed nicely in its pot.
I pick oxalis leaves and scatter them on my salad. I chop the stems and cook them in soups and with mixed greens. One day I realized I was out of pickle relish and added some to egg salad, which they flavored nicely. You can also make a refreshing tea from this plant. The flowers are also edible. They may not make it as far as the kitchen as they are so tempting.
Wandering about my yard, I find a winter resident that is found all over the world, probably spread by European explorers. Chickweed (Stellaria media) makes a soft, spreading carpet no more than six inches high. The leaves are pointed ovals and it has tiny white flowers. The taste is as delicate as the plant appears to be, reminiscent of raw corn. This makes a sweet addition to my salad and can also be put in soup and cooked greens.
Ralph Wald Emerson wrote, “What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” One much maligned plant is Florida Betony (Stachys floridana). If you Google it you will find 101 ways to eradicate it. Why not just eat it? I actually planted some in my yard for the pinkish-purplish spring flowers that honeybees love. This wildflower is a member of the mint family. The leaves are edible but not very tasty. Other names for Florida Betony are rattlesnake weed and wild radish. Dig down and you will find a small white tuber shaped like a snake’s rattle which tastes like a mild radish. This is the part to eat and it goes nicely on my salad. Unfortunately for some of you, it grows only in the southeast. Like most snowbirds, you won’t encounter it when summer comes, because it doesn’t like the heat.
Wild onion and wild garlic grow as far north as Canada and as far west as Arkansas. You can smell them when they mow the roadsides. They taste like their cultivated cousins, can be used the same way, and don’t cost anything. I’ve planted some of these in my garden. With chopped wild onions, wild radish, and oxalis leaves, my salad needs no further flavoring.
Emerging from the ground are the wild violets. They’re not blooming yet and the leaves are too small to harvest but they too will soon dress my salads. The blossoms are higher in Vitamin C than oranges. The leaves can thicken soups, the flowers can be made into candy, and the whole plant will make a nice tea. There should be some growing near you, maybe in your lawn. They, too, can be found around the world.
Some words of caution: don’t eat anything unless you know what it is, don’t pick plants that have been sprayed with chemicals, and be sure to wash anything an animal may have watered. If you don’t live in Florida and your landscape is still buried under snow or brown from frost, don’t despair. As winter begins to recede north, you, too, will be able to enjoy these, and other, culinary delights. Bon appétit!
Posted in Marie's Musings | Tagged Wild Foods | 1 Comment »
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