Memories of my Grandma's House

Last week, on my way back up from down South, I swung through Western North Carolina to see Grandma. She's now living in an assisted living facility near my uncle, her younger son. It seems strange for her not to be in her own home, a place she lived in for nearly 70 years. Her home was my second home. Although I don’t remember it, I stayed there when my brother and sister was born. I celebrated at least two of my birthdays there. In the picture to the left, taken 50 years ago next week. This is my second birthday. Next to me is my cousin Marie. We both have cakes as we share the same birthday. I also had my sixth birthday there. It was right before we moved to Virginia and my parents were in Petersburg, finding us a place to live. My siblings and I would again stay in Grandma’s home for several weeks the summer I was nine, listening to my teenage uncle (the guy to my left in the photo)wear out “Satisfaction” on his record player while my parents packed up our stuff in Virginia and found us a place in Wilmington to live. Then, for the time I was 12 or so, until I started working at the age of 16, I’d spend a few weeks every summer with my grandparents, helping them out around the house and garden and spending the evenings fishing with my granddad… Her house is filled with memories; this is a memory of staying there on the weekend in the winter.

The second photo is of my family, at my grandparents, on a Sunday, in the summer of '63. I'm the good lookin' kid sporting a bow tie!


Grandmother always planned a great Sunday morning feast. She’d get up and get dressed long before anyone else, putting on her Sunday finest, and then put a full-length apron on over that and headed for the kitchen. The first thing she did was put the coffee on. She always perked her coffee, nothing but the best for my granddad and her family. She then turned her attention to the stove and put on a pan of grits to cook. It would have never crossed her mind to use instant grits. Then she’d fix the biscuits, cutting shortening into the flour, stirring in buttermilk, kneading the glob lightly, rolling the dough out and then punching out biscuits. She’d slide the biscuits into an oven, preheated to 425 degrees, where they’d bake for approximately 12 minutes. And as soon as she slid the biscuits into the oven, she’d begin frying bacon or sausage.

My grandma did most of her work before anyone would wake, but pretty soon the smell of fresh coffee, baking biscuits and fried bacon would fill the house. Such smells are more humane than alarm clocks and we’d get out of bed and began making our way to the dining room. In the winter, when frost were on the window panes, she’d have turned down the heat overnight and we’re hurry to the kitchen as it would be warm from her cooking. Once there, she’d have orange juice waiting and begin to take orders for eggs. “Over easy,” was the preferred choice for my mom and me. We’d both cut up our eggs with our folks and pour coffee off it, slopping the egg and coffee mixture up with bits of biscuits, a technique learned from my mother’s grandma.

Of course, we had to wait; we couldn’t chow down until we were all at the table and my granddad blessed the meal with his usual prayer. He not only thanked God for the food and the one who prepared it, but also acknowledged our dependence upon God for all that we have and asked that his family be consecrated for God’s work. Then we’d dig in, passing around the butter and various jars of jellies and preserves, the salt and pepper. The jam was always homemade, my favorite being grape-hull and pear preserves. The butter was from an old farmer who churned it himself. The butter had been pressed by hand, a flower design on top. The farmer use to stop by once a week, delivering butter and eggs.

We had a big breakfast on Sunday morning because it was an important day. Soon after eating, we’d all dress up in our Sunday finest and head over to Culdee Presbyterian Church for Sunday School and services. First, we’d gather in the sanctuary for the opening assembly. Grandma was often in the nursery, so we’d sit with Granddad, who’d sing loudly and off key. After a few songs and announcements, we’d go off to our various classes, only to come back into the sanctuary an hour and a half later for worship. Afterwards, we’d talk to folks in the front yard of the church, under the big pines. My grandparents friends were all be there and they’d all want to see us: Coy and Martha, Art and Florence, Sam and Lula, Polly and Lionel. After visiting, we’d come home from church and sit down for a big lunch. Gluttony wasn’t a sin discussed much during my childhood. Or maybe Sunday’s feasts were so big because it was an important day, a day of worship and of learning of how God has chosen us for his work in the world.

Last November, when I was home and helping move my grandma from her house, Lionel and Polly stopped by for a few minutes. Unable to drive, their daughter Diane brought them over to say goodbye. I hadn’t seem them in years and Diane, who’s my age, I haven’t seen since those summers when I stayed with my grandparents. Lionel wasn’t doing well, but Grandma and Polly sat on the couch and joked and laughed and carried on like kids. Polly asked my grandma if she remembered all the work they use to do for the church and grandma replied, “I remember all those meals we cooked for the men, we sure made them enough stuffin.”

Grandma told me that Lionel died just before Christmas. Evening is falling on another generation.

Honest Carp

Lisa, the Butterfly Farmer, recently tagged me to complete the meme “Honest Scrap.” I could think of a few other names for this meme: “Honest crap,” “Murf’s fodder,” “Mother Hen’s peckings,” "TC's BS" and “Am I really mentally sane?” I don’t do all the things I’m tagged to do, but occasionally feel obliged to respond and it does . So, here are the rules:

"The honorees are to: a) first list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep! b) pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the honest Scrap."

1. When I was a child, my brother and I shared a room and slept in bunk beds. I always slept on top and told my brother that I would be safe if we had a tidal wave or a volcano would mysteriously appear and send out a lava flow. My brother always said he was safer to sleep on the bottom, in case of tornadoes and earthquakes. The real reason I was more than happy to sleep on top was because I was afraid he might pee in bed.

2. The reason my handwriting is so bad is that I spent three years in elementary school writing sentences.

3. I know the teachers never read my sentences, because I would often replace the sentence I was assigned (something like, “I’ll be a good boy and stay in my desk) with something like “I hate Miss Freeman and hope she’s kidnapped by pirates.”

4. As a kid, I had a thing for pirates; perhaps this comes from living along the Carolina coast and having seen the movie “Blackbeard’s Ghost” too many times at the drive-in.

5. In the 6th grade, I signed my father’s name to a test that we had to take home and have one of our parents sign. When picking up the “signed tests,” the teacher stood behind my desk for at least an hour, examining the signature. She never said anything, but it was the last time I forged my father’s name in elementary school.

6. Obviously, I didn’t do very well on that test.

7. In high school, I once again took to writing my own excuses for coming late or being let out early from school.

8. When writing my own excuses, I signed them with my first and last name. The way I saw it, I had to get some benefit from sharing my father’s first and last name.

9. I don’t know why parents called their children by their middle name. It was always a problem, except for when I was in high school and needed an excuse.

10. I have been known to tie a tie while driving. It seems to be the only place I can tie one without having to redo it several times. This also means that I occasionally wear a tie.

Okay, I know these are lame… But I ain’t ever claimed to be Abe Lincoln! Besides, it was an exercise of the mind to think up things that are both honest and that I’d be willing to share in a public forum. I’m going to skip the part about tagging seven of you folks, but I invite all who are so inclined or have a streak of masochism to participate.

Skin Tight: A book review (and a note about being home)

I’m home now, arriving here last night and kissing the snowing ground, thankful for a safe trip. I’ve never seen as many accidents as yesterday—when a freezing rain came through western North Carolina. At nearly every bridge there were accidents. One involving a jack-knifed double-truck closed down I-77 for 90 minutes. When it got opened, we had to detour through the countryside around another accident, causing another ½ hour delay. Then, right after getting to Michigan, there was another pile up on the east bound lane of the interstate and cars were backed up. It didn’t bother me as I was heading west, but all a sudden a car in the east lane jerked and jumped up on the concrete barrier separating the lanes. For a moment I thought the car was coming over on my side as his headlights were pointing straight at me, but he didn’t. Somehow he (or she) managed not to roll the vehicle as the car stayed in the eastbound lane. I don’t want the last thing I see on this earth being two headlights flying over a medium! The driver must have fallen asleep and woke up and panicked with a line or stopped cars ahead. Enough of that…

As I let you know earlier, I spent December reading only humorous or feel good books. Here’s my review of my latest Carl Hiassen book, which I listened to on an ipod.

Carl Hiassen, Skin Tight (Putman, 1989). Audio book,

Carl Hiassen must be a nightmare for the South Florida Chamber of Commerce. This is my fourth Hiassen book (and third to which I’ve listened) and from these funny stories, one has to wonder if there is anyone sane in South Florida—including Hiassen. In Skin Tight, Haissen takes on the plastic surgery industry. Four years earlier, a greedy plastic surgeon accidently killed a young coed upon whom he was performing a nose job. Unbeknownst to Mick Stranahan, the surgeon thinks the former cop has incriminating evidence and hires a mob hit man from New Jersey to take him. The mobster ends us dead, impaled by the bill of a stuff marlin (Mick had to use what he had on hand to take out the killer). This begins a wave of killings of bad guys. Most die at the hands of Mick, but the doctor’s new hit man, Chemo, takes out Mick’s ex and a police officer friend of Mick’s gets the doctor’s brother. The doctor does some killing too, but it’s only on the operating table.

Hiassen overdoes the characters and the killings in this book. There’s Chemo, a huge formerly Amish man who’s wanted for murder and who has a horribly scared face (hence, his name). Chemo, without the benefit of worker’s comp, loses a hand in his pursuit of Mick (when Chemo falls in the water outside of Mick’s home, Mick’s pet barracuda decides to strike at his watch, taking off his hand. Chemo becomes an even more refined freak when he adds a weed whacker to the stump at the end of his arm. Then there’s Mick’s ex, who is more than willing to show the hit man (whom she assumed was a bill collector) where Mick lives. When she discovers that Chemo plans to kill Mick and objects (she didn’t want him dead, just hurt), she’s tossed overboard, wrapped in the anchor chain. Then there’s a Geraldo type TV star, whose death is let me just say, surreal. (I don’t recommend this book if you’re considering liposuction.) Then there’s Rudy, the plastic surgeon who, having caused two deaths while supposedly practicing medicine, just wants to retreat to Costa Rica with his Hollywood actress girlfriend. Instead, he experiences a literal case of “eye for an eye justice” (or in this case, nose for a nose). Then there’s Rudy’s brother. He’s in the lawn care business with a tree chipper which does wonders at making bodies disappear. Again, there’s eye for eye justice. Then there’s Rudy’s former nurse, who wants to sell what she knows about the surgeon to the highest bidder. Then there are the crooked cops who also want to see Mick dead, but whose best laid plans are brought to a quick end by Mick’s better laid plans (or tighter strung marlin line). Then there’s Mick’s sorry lawyer brother-in-law, who can’t keep his hands off other women. Then there’s the beautiful young woman who just keeps showing up at Mick’s house, but fails to seduce the former cop because she can’t name all the members of the Beatles. And then there’s Christine, the TV producer, who can’t seem to decide if she loves or hates Mick, but at least she can name the members of the Fab-four. Like I said, there were a lot of characters in this book and after creating this list, I need a nap…

This was one of Hiassen’s earlier books which may be why there are so many characters and even a few strings left untied. His other books seem more tightly constructed. But even in his early books, Hiassen makes murder funny. Having now read four other books by Hiassen, I see some names and themes that are common. Mick later appears in Hiassen’s book, Skinny Dip. Mick’s fish (the barracuda) seems to find a parallel with Shink’s big hog (largemouth bass) in Double Whammy (which was published before Skin Tight). Hiassen seems to often create bad guys which home one can detest while also feeling sorry for. Chemo and the hired thug in Skinny Dip both fall into this category. However, Chemo doesn’t find redemption (unlike the thug in Skinny Dip), just a 17 year prison sentence.

This book is funny and if you can laugh and not get to squeamish, I recommend it.

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An update: In the "Business Insider," a catch all area for weird business news in today's Detroit Free Press (have you ever known a newspaper that was truly free?), there is a story about a Hollywood plastic surgeon who fuels his and his girlfriend's cars on people's fat that he harvests from liposuction... This guy sounds too much like a resurrected Rudy Graveline, including the fact that the surgeon was now in South America after having been sued by patients and sought after by the state of California for breaking a law regarding using other folk's fat as fuel. To quote Dave Barry, "I'm not making this up." (But someone else may have made it up). Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that the newspaper puts their "business insider" column online, or I would have provided a link.

Closing out 2008

Sunset behind the Georgia Mountains

This is my last post for 2008.

It’s going to be good to have this year over and done with. I hope 2009 will be better for us all. It doesn’t have to be an overly prosperous year, but for my chance of retiring sometime in this century, I hope we don’t lose any more ground on the economic front. I’d like to see world peace, but will be satisfied to see a little less war. I’d like to take more time off, but with a large construction project looming on the horizon, I hope to make the best of the times I do get away. And that’s what I’m doing now, lounging around in the Georgia Mountains, taking time to hike and sleep and read and journal… I’m staying at Amicalola Falls State Park. I was here once before—this is where you start your hike to Springer Mountain, to being the Appalachian Trail. I’ll have write about that some time, but not today.

The sky has been clear and this is a joy. In the first three weeks of December, we’d received less than 8 hours of sunlight in West Michigan. I can use sunlight. As any reader of this blog knows, I like watching the sky. . Last night I sat savoring the sunset, enjoying the red band that lingered along a distant ridge long after the sun had disappeared. Above the ridge appeared a pencil thin crescent moon. Above that was Venus. At six this morning, I looked out the window and back into the west. The winter constellations were already setting, reminding me that every season comes to an end. Orion was no longer visible and his faithful dog, Canis Major, was slowly dropping behind the ridge. A bit higher were the Gemini twins. I pulled back the curtains and laid in bed watching the stars fade and light return to the ridges to the west.

Back in 2007, when I turned 50 (I still can’t believe I’m that old), I wrote my life goals. Here, at the end of another year, it’s a good time to review them.

To leave the path a little better than I found it.

To never be so busy that I not appreciate a sunset or sunrise, or stand in awe and watch a thunderstorm, or to be amazed at a snowfall, or to value the serenity of a fire.

To savor good food, drink and entertainment, but all in moderation knowing that both hoarding and indulging cheapens the experience.

To treat everyone as valuable and as a special gift from God

To be thankful for what I have, for those who have helped me along the way, and for the Creator.

Enjoy New Year’s Eve (but don’t enjoy it too much)! May we all find happiness and contentment in 2009.

Sage, watching the sunset from the porch at Amicalola Falls Lodge.

Buckskin Gulch: A farewell hike

The author at the White House trailhead, October 2003.

I sleep in the bed of my truck at the White House trailhead above the Paria River. The air is crisp and the stars are bright, filling the desert sky. Sleeping off the ground, I get cold and wish I’d slept out on the ground where my lightweight bag would have kept me warmer. I tumble and roll, falling asleep only to wake again and see that the stars have moved ever so slightly west. It's an uneasy night and it isn’t till it's nearly morning that I finally get some sleep. I stay in my bag until the sun’s rays break over the sage covered hills to the east. Knowing it would soon warm up, I get out of my bag, put together my stove and put on a pot of water for coffee. Then I wake up Ben and Pete. Pete slept on the ground, between our trucks, and Ben is the back of his truck. Both are slow getting up, but excited when I mentioned coffee. We have breakfast—coffee, oatmeal and fruit—sitting on the tail of my truck. Afterwards, Pete and I throw our packs into the back of Ben’s truck and pile inside the cab. I lock my truck and leave it behind, as we head east toward Kanab, the way we’d driven in the evening before. About five miles east, we leave the pavement, turning south on House Rock Valley Road, a road scraped through slickrock and sand and parallels a unique rock formation known as “the Cockscomb.” The going is slow and bumpy and it takes us nearly half an hour to reach Wire Pass Trailhead, just a mile north of the Arizona border. We shoulder our packs; Ben locks his truck, and we walk toward the rising sun.

Photo of debris from a flash flood in Wire Pass Canyon.

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I’d been to Wire Pass Trailhead once before, several years earlier, for a day hike into an area known as “The Wave.” The Wave is just a few acres in size, but geologically unlike anything I’d ever seen. The multi-colored sandstone with wavy pastel bands looks like some multi-flavored brand of ice cream. The area is fragile area and access is restricted, with only ten permits issued per day. Hiking the Wave is best done in winter, as the route runs along the top of exposed slickrock. This area bakes in the summer. Even today, in late October, it would be a warm hike. But today, instead of hiking south toward The Wave, we followed a wash eastward and soon pass the sign marking Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area. A half mile later, the wash drops steeply over dry falls, transforming the dry stream bed into a tight slot canyon carved into the rock. We twist through the winding the canyon, walking under logs jammed into the rocks high over our head, a reminder that this isn’t a place to be in a flash flood. After a half mile or so of twisting through this narrow canyon, we came to Buckskin Gulch. Petroglyphs, left behind by Anasazi’s, greeted us at the confluence of the two dry streams.

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Sage points out petroglyphs in Buckskin Gulch

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Although I was the one who’d brought Ben and Pete together, I find myself wanting to hike alone as we followed the canyon downstream. Buckskin Gulch is one of the premier slot canyons on the Colorado Plateau and is top on my list of things I wanted to do before moving and this is likely to be my last long canyon hike as a resident of Utah.. I walk mostly in silence, spending much of my time looking up at the walls of the canyon carved through the rock, but my mind is torn as I internally wrestled with the future.

Further down the canyon, the rock becomes mostly layers of red Navajo Sandstone. The canyon is deeper and at places you could touch both walls with outstretched arms, and in other places the canyon is significantly wider, but everywhere the walls are steeps. We stop for lunch at a wide sunny spot in the canyon, where the rough Middle Trail comes down off the north wall of the canyon. In the twelve miles, from the confluence of Wire Pass Canyon to its confluence with the Paria River, this is only one place where you can exit the canyon, and it’s a steep rugged trail that’s not recommended. Our boots are still dry; there’s been no water in the canyon up to this point. We joke around as we eat crackers and peanut butter and cheese. I pull out one of my apples and my knife and cut it into quarters and dig out the core. I eat half the apple and give a quarter to Pete and Ben. Afterwards, I lean back against my pack and bask in the sun. The canyon, when it narrows and blocks the sunlight, is quite cool. I fall asleep, enjoying the warmth.

Shortly after lunch we encounter the first difficult section of the canyon. As the walls move closer in, the canyon floor is nothing but deep mud, which sticks to our shoes. In places, the ground gives way and we find ourselves struggling through calf-deep mud. Overhead, there are places a hundred feet above us where logs have been lodged during a flash flood. This is dangerous country if there is rain upstream, but the weather forecast when we left called for clear skies. Throughout the afternoon, the trail alternates between nice easy sections of dry trail and short sections of wading through mud and water. We keep pressing forward. Night comes early in the canyon and we’ve taken our time to explore and to nap. It’s getting dark when we get to the boulder jam about a mile north of the confluence. We take our time, picking our way down through the rocks, passing packs down to those below. Once over the obstacle, we hike fast to a campsite at the confluence. I wash the mud off my legs and change into sandals. Walking out into the middle of the shallow Paria, a Paiute word that means “the water taste salty,” I fill my water bottles and collect enough water in a pan to fix dinner. The water may not be the best tasting, but after treating it, it’ll have to do.

We fix dinner in the dark, tuna and noodles, and go to bed shortly afterwards. Sleeping on the ground, I’m not nearly as cold as the night before. Canyons are eerie at night, the red rock are now gray and cast weird shadows upon the ground. Lying in my bag, I watch the stars for a few minutes, then quickly fall to sleep and don’t wake till light has returned to the canyon. I’m up first in the morning and put on water for coffee and oatmeal. By the time the others are up, I’ve rolled my bag and bivy sack and have eaten breakfast. I take the potty bag and head up onto a bench, under some cottonwood trees, where I take a morning dump. In the Paria, like many of the popular canyons on the Colorado Plateau, when you obtain your permit, they give you sacks to use to carry your solid waste out of the canyon. These sacks have chemicals to keep the shit from stinking. I tie the sealed bag to the outside of my pack. Watching me, the conversation turns to potty humor. Pete, who’d never hiked before, can’t imagine going in a bag and hauling it out with him and vows that he’s going to wait for the privy back at the trailhead, seven miles away. He didn’t make it.

Pete looking at Slide Rock Arch

Shortly after breakfast, we pull on our wet boots and shoulder our packs, and set off upriver on the Paria. A few hundred yards north of the confluence where we camped, we pass Slide Rock Arch, a well known landmark. The further we hike, the canyon becomes wider and its wall lower. Again, I find myself often walking alone, lost in my thoughts. Crossing over high bench, above the river, I peel the leaves from the branch of a sage. Crushing the leaves between my fingers, I raise my hand to my noise and smell. I love this country.


We reach my truck at White House Trailhead a little before noon. Dropping my packs in the back, we all climb in the cab for the ride back to Wire Pass, where we pick up Ben’s truck. Then we caravan to Kanab, where we have a late lunch/early dinner at Nedras Too (yes, that’s its name), pigging out on their famous homemade salsa and looking at the photos of actors who’d eaten there in the olden days when many western films were made in the area. Once we finished eating, we head back to Cedar, arriving at home at dark. Two weeks later, I accepted a position in Michigan and began making plans to move across country, leaving the canyons and sage behind.