Rx for a Winter's Day

The other week my husband, daughter Debbie, brother Terry and I went to Hinkles Drug Store in Columbia, Pa. for dinner. Strange place to eat dinner? Not really. They have been making great meals there for three generations. Food as good as my Mom's, and that's saying something. It's just a drug store, nothing tricky about it. They sell things like the old time drug stores used to sell. All kinds of neat ointments and salves. No Capilaris X (pardon spelling)though. Mom would smear that on anything from scabs (which I always had a lot of) to poison ivy. Soaps and smelly things. Prescriptions. Old time candy like sen-sens and chocolate babies. Best of all is the gift shop. Oh my! What a treat! When I was still making my dolls and Father Christmas Figures I got a letter from Mrs. Hinkle saying she wanted to buy some for the shop. I was rightously indignent about that. I sold to the best shops in the country. I didn't think they should be sold in a 'drug store'! That was before I saw the shop. Did I ever eat crow. I am their biggest fan now and have been for years. Take a little trip back in time and go to Hinkles Drug Store on the main street in Columbia. You'll be glad you did.

On the way home my husband took us on a nostalgic tour around the haunts of our childhood. We went to Long Level, along the Susquahanna River, where we would get jealous each Winter when the ice jams kept the 'river rats' off school for a week or so each year. We saw the Mc Mansions sprawling over the river hills where black angus steers used to pasture on a farm said to be owned by John Wayne at one time. What a view!!! I showed Debbie where I had my one cowgirl roundup of a neighbors cows that took them a few miles from home till I was done 'rounding them up'. Never told my Dad or the neighbor how they go that far away. :-( We showed her the hills where we used to sled for most of the Winter.
Canadochly Elementary School in East Prospect, where my education ended. I tell
everyone I have a fifth grade education. When they took me from my beloved Wills one room school house in fifth grade and planted me in this giant school, I didn't learn a thing after that. I never saw so many kids. Didn't have a clue there were that many in the WORLD! I had a job to do. Talk to all I could, no matter if it was during class or not. I was put in corners, behind pianos, in hallways, and any where as far from another child as they could get me. You'd have thought I had typhoid! I know I never learned anything after that. I still get weepy thinking of those days when I was on the farm in the valley. I loved that farm and my life there. I had such a wonderful childhood running free with my horse all day and having incredible adventures. (I know I told you this before, but I'm getting old) The only thing my mother warned me about was a neighbor named Mustard Kinard. She said I wasn't to talk to him EVER! This wasn't like Mom, and for some dumb reason I listened to her. Didn't question like I usually did. One day I was passing his farm on Flossy, my horse, and he said I should come with him and he'd show me his trick pig. I very politely said no thanks and rode off, kicking myself the whole way. I really wanted to see that darn pig! I must have been 32 before I thought about that again and I THINK I know what his trick pig was now. Whew! Years later he murdered his father in law, Davey Keller, the dearest little old man in the world. Davey was around 92 at the time. Mustard was drunk.

We took our time coming home and all had a great time reliving our childhoods and telling tall tales we have all heard a hundred times before. Such is the life of three retirees and a captive daughter.

Buried Treasures

I bought a trio of Buff Cochins Bantam Chickens this Fall and another black Cochin hen to add to my dwindling flock. The young cockerel is very handsome, but is less than a year old, not fully feathered yet and he doesn't have the wonderful comb he will have at maturity. The other day my husband came in and said I must come outside at once. We stood in the driveway. Just then I heard this squeaky, pathetic sound like furniture being drug across the floor or a rusty hinge being opened. It was the first 'crow' of our new rooster. You see they are like little boys who grow up and their voices start changing. At first a little bit, but before long they sound like Josh Groban (to the girls anyway). How exciting to witness such a bend in the road in a chickens life. I'm sure it really ruffled the 'girls' feathers.

These are the things that make you realize why you need to be living at a place like this. I don't need fancy clothes, big cars or things like that. I was there when Moose, a young horse my son raised from a baby lost his first tooth. It was laying in his stall like a diamond waiting to be discovered. Of all the places he could have lost it. Anywhere in the pasture. He could have trampled it into the bedding or anything. No, it was laying there waiting for me. I have it in my kitchen cupboard to this day, 25 years later along with the plaster impression of my own teeth when I had my partial made.

My friend Nancy is helping neighbors whose cows are calving. We were talking today about the white of a newborn calf. They are a glistening white like no other white you ever saw. Perfect and precious and innocent. When I had sheep I loved watching my lambs first experiencing a little hill in the barnyard. They all took turns playing king of the mountain. They'd bounce up the hill, stop, turn around and then bounce down flipping sideways and just having a marvelous time. Then the whole little band of them would go cavorting recklessly all over the place like the wind was blowing them here and there.

A few days after we moved here my daughter was in the back yard. She was sixteen, and not at all happy we had left town and moved to this God forsaken place. I heard her screaming for me. Thinking she surely must be under attack by a pack of wolves, I found her standing perfectly still, her bare feet covered with about 20 newborn ducklings. The former owners left some ducks here and one was hatching out a huge nest of eggs. Till all were hatched, Deb was their self appointed surrogate mother. They followed her all over the yard. After a while the mama came waddling over and claimed Deb's ducklings and life went back to normal again, but not for Deb. It was a gift from God she needed to see. A priceless little event. A moment she'll never forget.

During a winter storm we had about 23 years ago, the creek flooded and ice a foot thick was left on the lane coming in from route 94. The township had to spend the whole day with backhoes clearing the lane of mountains of ice. Frozen in the ice were Sunfish. I have pictures of 12' slabs of ice standing beside the road, and showing through the ice are these perfectly preserved 'Sunnies' as we call them. Buried treasures. Another time in the spring, our yellow transparent apple tree was lush with fruit. A mother raccoon had her 4 babies up in the tree eating apples. They ate so many that they fell asleep on the branches and were oblivious to at least 6 people under the tree looking at them.

Life is good. You have to keep your eyes open though or you'll miss some of the finer things. Across the road in our woods long about April there is a transformation that takes place. The whole forest floor is carpeted with the most heavenly blue you have ever seen. If you lay down among them you become disoriented. You feel as if you were floating somewhere between heaven and earth on a fragrant blue plane known only to you. Virginia Bluebells. There was never a human gardener who planted them. No frazzled housewife who wanted to brighten her corner of the earth and then complained about the weeds. God spread them all along this valley, and it's up to YOU to take the time to find them. He spreads His treasures at our feet all around us and waits. I know I see a lot of things, but oh the things I miss. Imagine the beautiful, magical things in the world we don't see, but they are there all the time waiting. My prayer is that we don't get so wrapped up in all the useless everyday things in life that we miss the first Robin of Spring or overlook a Box Turtle coming out of the soft mud after sleeping there all winter. There are treasures in this world, and you don't need piles of money to have them. All you need is curiosity and a will to smell the earth's breath. Sniff my dear's, sniff while your sniffer is still working!!!!!

Yesterday

I was thinking about my childhood recently, well I do it a lot actually. My
first memory to be exact. We had just moved to the farm of my childhood. It
lay at the end of a long lane that wound around the barn, behind the house
and sort of petered out at the back tobacco shed where it turned into a path
to access the fields on the east side of the farm. In front of the tobacco
shed it turned into a sandy oasis. It was shaded by huge apple trees from
the orchard on the other side of the fence. This is where my brothers, 10
and 12 years older than me were found playing with------the mill!!! They had
a vast array of little trucks, wagons and tractors working at 'the mill'.
Mom had made them bunches of tiny muslin feed bags filled with sand to haul
around on these entrancing vehicles. I remember standing in the tall grass
along the lane, yearning to join in the fun. I was 3 1/2 yrs. old and far to
young to drive. I crouched there trying to imagine what it would be like to
make the put-put sound of those machines. How would it feel to load them and
haul them to 'the mill' where they were unloaded carefully and stacked
neatly for the farmers. My fat little fingers were locked together to keep
me from exploding from my hiding place. Rod and Terry were very serious
millers. They took care of their machinery. 3 yr. olds were strictly
forbidden from entering the work area.

Just then I heard a REAL truck approaching the barn. My brothers took off
like lightening to see the new tractor (our first) being unloaded. Now was
my chance. I darted out of the grass, looking to be sure the millers were
still in the distance. Oh heaven!!!! Down in the sand I lay. I carefully
touched the little bags of grain. I gently pushed the little tractors,
making tracks in the sand. Put-put-put. The trucks started a wiggly drive to
the mill. Every few seconds I'd check over my shoulder, looking for the
boys. They were too busy with a REAL tractor to bother with these little
imitations. How long I played I don't know. All I know was it was bliss. I
had many more blissful hours, days and years on that farm. For some reason
my mother had no sense of danger about her children. She swore she knew
exactly what we were doing all the time, but I KNOW she didn't know most of
the things I was doing. She was too busy keeping us in cakes, cookies and
wonderful meals to see me slide the top off the well in the back pasture and
stir it with a stick. As a 5 yr. old, I was given a large horse by my uncle.
I rode him miles a day. She never even questioned where I had been. Had she
known I had found farm sales to attend? Sitting on the high perch of my
horses back I could see every thing that was going on. Old men gave me
barbeque sandwiches made by the church women and sold at sales. I didn't
know them from Adam till then. Now we were fast friends. One bought me a
pair of civil war spurs. What a treasure they were. I didn't know the
monetary value, but they are in my living room today.

Mom didn't know that I rode my horse to all the tobacco shops in the little
towns sprinkled around our neighborhood. These were usually in the back of
the only street in town. Long, narrow white buildings with yawning doors. In
the darkness men and women sat at long tables making countless cigars and
packing them in wonderful wooden boxes that I craved. You see I had
treasures to hold. I needed such boxes to hold them. I amassed quite a stack
of them and filled them all. None survive. What became of them I will never
know. Mom swore she never threw them out. I KNOW I never did. These sweet,
hard working people took the time to talk to a child. To answer endless
questions and to watch out for me. A glass of cool water, a bologna sandwich
on homemade bread, taffy for the journey home. Thank God for my freedom as a
child. I have endless stories to tell, memories to keep me smiling till I go
to the home. Some time I'll tell you about the cattle roundup I went on and
chased the neighbors cows almost to the river. Whew!!! It's a wonder I am
still here to tell about it. All because of 'Covered Wagon Theater" on the
new TV thingy we got. Don't tell ME TV doesn't influence children!!!