City Girls Make Nice-Nice with Nature

Not only did M. Peevie and I survive in the woods, with the ticks and poison ivy and bears, we thrived. We dipped deep into our personal wells of fortitude and pulled out full buckets of Hey! This Nature Thing Isn't So Bad After All!

Except for sleeping on a plastic mattress supported by (and I use that term "supported" so lightly that it is practically floating off the page like a magician's assistant in a levitation act) an ancient metal cot with tired springs that hammocked to the wooden floor when I laid my substantial rear end down.

And except for the bathroom being 50 yards away, up a steep, be-rooted path, in a wooden structure that housed four sinks (three in working order, one encrusted with bits of nature), four toilets in plywood stalls with no doors, some outhouse-esque odors, and a variety of peeping tom insects that clung to the wall directly in front of my face as I sat on the pot.

I felt like a regular outdoorswoman as I crawled, shivering, into my rated-for-20-degrees-Fahrenheit sleeping bag and waited for sleep to take me to a warmer climate. The mercury dipped to 48, and I wore long pants and several layers of shirts, plus a polartec vest--but still I shivered. Not enough body fat, probably.

My little city girl did way better than I did. She felt no cold as she slumbered in a pair of thin PJs in the platform tent, and she even swam in the lake, not seeming to feel the icyness of the water. I think maybe 8-year-olds don't have nerve endings.

The first night I stayed up until almost 4 a.m. talking to one of our camp husbands. The girls had gone to bed hours earlier, and one by one the moms gave up and went to bed also. But NatureDad had some interesting stories to tell, so he poked the fire and talked while I asked questions and listened.

I was almost ready to call it a night when NatureDad asked me where I grew up. "Northeast of Philadelphia," I told him.

"Really? Where?" he asked. "Where were you born?"

I was born in a hospital in Abington, I told him, but my family lived in another suburb.

"Abington Memorial Hospital?!" NatureDad asked, amazed. "You're kidding me! I was born in that hospital, too! My mom worked there for years!" All of his stories had been about growing up in Florida, so I was not expecting this small town connection. (As of the 2000 Census, our little suburb had a population of just over 31,000.)

Then he asked me what town I lived in, and when I told him Warminster, he almost fell right into the fire. "Shut UP!" K-Daddy said. "That's where I lived until I was nine!" I am about ten years older than my camp husband, but we had similar memories of running wild in the woods, catching crawfish in the creek, and going to the same Dairy Queen for Buster Bars.

"I have never met anyone from Warminster before," he said; and neither had I in the 32 years since I moved away. I finally crawled into bed at around 4 a.m.--and then my tentmate woke up and talked for another half an hour.

When reveille sounded less than three hours later, I thought I might actually die. And yes, they really did have a VERY LOUD recording of reveille that sounded like the bugler was standing right next to my pillow. I almost said a bad word.

But being the good Girl Scout mom that I am, I hoisted my tired self up out of the Cot of No Support, got dressed, grabbed a cold Diet Coke, and went to breakfast. After French toast and sausage, M. Peevie and I went boating on the lake. She chose a rowboat, and we zigged and zagged our way across the tiny lake to a small island, where we explored, peed in a crouching position, and discovered dozens of snail shells, some empty, some occupied, on the beach.

I opted out of the free-time hike in the woods, and instead took a free-time nap. I slept right through lunch, but got up in plenty of time to watch M. Peevie enjoy archery, horseback riding, and tie-dying. Later, the girls gathered at the lodge for dancing, games, and make-your-own-sundaes, while the moms and dads wall-flowered and sipped adult juice boxes.

Again with the late night fireside chats on Saturday, this time until 2 a.m. with another mom from our troop. Most of the moms are way younger than I am, but I can put the youngsters to shame when it comes to burning the midnight oil. Just don't ask me to look like a supermodel the next morning. I look more like Maxine.

I was having a conversation with Nature Dad, who built and tended our campfire that first night. He loves everything nature-y, and hopes to escape the city and return to the mountains where he can get Colorado Rocky Mountain High. "Don't you hate the city," he asked me, "Don't you get tired of all the concrete, pollution, noise, and everybody being so close together?"

"No," I told him. "I love concrete."

He thought I was kidding, but I was glad to get home to my neighborhood, my sidewalks, my city, and especially my own bed. It builds character to make nice-nice with nature now and then; but I'm a city girl in my heart of hearts.

How about you?

Little League Mom Strikes (Out) Again

Hey, hey, hey, baseball fans. (Oh, my. I always start missing Harry Caray around this time of year.) Check out my new post on The Little League Coach.

Out in the blogosphere, parents and coaches are reporting that their seasons are over, and they're well into play-offs and all-stars. Not us. Our Little Leaguer is still suiting up and swinging away. We still have two regular season games and 2.5 make-up games to go.

C. Peevie caught a stinging line-drive at first base the other day, and is generally playing well in the field. He's struggling at the plate, however, which I'm sure is bringing his confidence down.

I remember what that was like. I often struggled at the plate as well--but in this 1977 game (!) apparently I was a "tour de force":

"William Tennent gained its eighth win in nine outings behind the pitching of Kathy Strobel, who is now unbeaten in four starts.

But the real tour de force belonged to sophomore second baseman Eve Meyer [AKA E. Peevie]. Starting for the first time, Meyer was a little nervous. She fumbled a couple of balls which paved the way for an early Pennridge lead.

But with Tennent down, 7-5 in the fifth inning, it was Meyer who drove home the tying runs with a single. Then in the sixth she opened the game up with a double.

The key defensive play of the game came when Monique Cousin threw out a runner at the plate--Monique was on target all the way from her left field position."

The caption reads, "Tennent's Eve Meyer shags throw as Upper Merion's Francine Collins steals second"--except they spelled my last name wrong.

Ah, those were the days.

Don't forget to check out my post on The Little League Coach.

Snapshots of Retirement Living: The Food Kind of Sucks

Mom’s cooking spoiled all of us, Dad included, for the dried out, over-cooked, over-salted, quick-cook menu items that for many people pass as normal fare. Nearly every night she’d whip up a delicious, under-appreciated, nutritionally balanced gourmet delight, including at least one green or orange vegetable, warm dinner rolls and a homemade dessert. I don’t honestly know how she did it with five kids.

I remember not sufficiently appreciating breaded veal parmesan, tender swiss steak, roast chicken, homemade potatoes au gratin, always perfect homemade gravy, pristinely fluffy white mashed potatoes, and the absolute best macaroni and cheese in the hemisphere. Mom didn’t bring home the bacon (except literally), but she made sure dad’s paychecks stretched as far as possible by dressing up the leftovers so nothing went to waste. A chicken one night would be chicken a la king the next night and chicken vegetable soup on the third night.

I don’t think she ever cheated with Kraft macaroni and cheese, or Hamburger Helper, or even—to my deepest distress—Rice-A-Roni. I had to go to my best friend Jane’s house to get me some of that San Francisco treat.

(Mom did cheat with Minute Rice, though, which to this day I do not understand. Why would a person who obviously cared about real, fresh, delicious food use that nasty not-rice, when real rice is simpler and more delicious? But that was her worst culinary faux pas, and I’m a big enough person to overlook it.)

OK, so my point about all this is, dad and I are spoiled. We know what roast pork with a spicy garlic rub should taste like—moist, tender, flavorful; but here, it tastes a little like boot leather. The BBQ chicken was dry and tough, and the baby snap peas had had their snap boiled right out of them until they laid there, limp and sad, like soggy strips of faded green construction paper.

There’s nothing like crisp, bright green asparagus, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with kosher salt and perfectly roasted, right? After my first dinner at Chez Telford, I vetted the asparagus before ordering it—and the server warned me that it had been steamed to soggitude. Shepherd’s pie came sans crust; it was more like shepherd’s stew on a plate. The white rice that came with my so-called pepper steak reminded me of lumpy grade-school paste—which some kids did actually eat, even though Miss Rudasill frowned upon it.

The price of mom and dad’s apartment includes one meal every day, either lunch or dinner (same menu). I’ve been trying to convince dad that just because it’s paid for doesn’t mean he has to eat it, if he’d rather go out to dinner, or eat dinner in the apartment. Since the money’s already spent, I tell him, take it out of the equation. Now the decision, in economic terms (props to my first husband) is, from which option will you derive the most utils?

It doesn’t sink in. Dad feels compelled to eat the meal that’s paid for, and they’ll be eating that meal every day, like it or not, until mom decides that she will derive more utils from making one of her own truly gourmet delights. I predict that this will happen sometime in the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, avoid the asparagus.

Snapshots of Retirement Living: Downsizing and Repurposing

I flew to PA yesterday to help my parents move into their new retirement apartment in a scenic corner of historic Bucks County. They had experimented with living in Virginia with my brother and his wife, but that situation was not a good fit for anyone. After a little more than a month they called it quits and decided to move back to PA, near where they had lived for the past 20 years and most of their lives.

So here we are at The Lutheran Community at Telford, trying to fit 61 boxes of planet earth souvenirs into a smallish two-bedroom apartment. I find myself winnowing through my parents’ earthly goods and treasures and ruthlessly eliminating duplication and extraneity (is that a word?) while helping to put everything else in its place.

Some of this sifting happened under duress when mom and dad packed up their belongings for the first move to Virginia. But the first move happened kind of quickly, and a lot of stuff was dumped into boxes and shipped south. Many of these boxes did not see the light of day in Jefferson’s fair state, and now we’re opening them to find these kinds of treasures:

• Hotel stationery from hotel chains that no longer exist, and from trips taken decades ago.
• Neighborhood telephone directories from the mid-1980s.
• Three identical sets of 175 Bible memory cards in small red boxes, probably 40 years old, and untouched for the past 20.
• Three containers each of dried basil flakes, dried parsley flakes, and rubbed sage, plus duplicates of several other herbs and spices.
• Dad’s work ID from 1938.
• Dad’s business cards from the 1970s.
• Two boxes labeled “playing cards,” neither of which contained playing cards. Instead, they held marketing freebies like keychains, fingernail clippers, paper weights, tiny tool sets, and lots of pens.

One entire box was filled with records. Not written records, not medical records. Record records. LPs, 45s, and albums of 45s. I thought I had entered a time warp. I read through the titles:

• Paul Mickelson Plays for Youth (at the giant Robert-Morton pipe organ), including “In My Heart There Rings a Melody” and “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.” Several albums featured the name and/or location of the pipe organ prominently on the cover.
• The Chesterfield Broadcasts Glenn Miller and His Orchestra: “Authentic broadcasts of the legendary radio program by the original orchestra—all on record for the first time!”
• A Treasury of Immortal Performances: “Dance Band Hits” including Tommy Dorsey playing “Boogie Woogie,” Glenn Miller playing “Song of the Volga Boatment,” and Duke Ellington with “Mood Indigo.”
• I loved this one: Ronnie Avalone sings “The Holy City,” plus “duets with Mrs. Avalone.”
• A four-album set of audio Bible studies in Galatians by the legendary (if you run in those circles) Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, Th.D. This gem is a podcast of 1960!

Among the 45s I found the ultimate political classic, “Excerpts from Richard M. Nixon’s Nomination Acceptance Speech, August 8, 1968.” Are you old enough to remember one of his most unforgivable lines: “America is in trouble today, not because her people have failed, but because her leaders have failed”? (I’m not, of course, but I do remember voting for him in our mock presidential election in second grade.)

There was more: souvenirs from Honduras, Peru, Spain, Holland, and Germany; imitation cut glass peanut butter jars from the 1950s; no fewer than six dictionaries; and hand towels that carbon date back to the Triassic Period.

Tune in tomorrow for more Snapshots of Retirement Living.

President Hay Hay

My little brother was a pain in the you-know-what. One time we were playing in the rocks that the street-makers had laid down in preparation for paving. I don't know how the little creep did it, but somehow, he got his head right under a rock that I threw, and started bleeding and screaming. I had to start screaming, too, in order to protect myself from the wrath to come. They probably locked me in a closet while they took him to the ER. I'm sure he did it just to get me in trouble.

Another time he really bugged me, so I pushed him and he fell backwards right into a metal garbage can and cut his leg open. Again with the screaming and bleeding; and again I had to launch the counter-measure, screaming and crying and claiming "He started it!"

My brother hated it when my Dad referred to me as "the athlete of the family," since I was a girl and all. What I realize now and didn't then is that Mark is and was a much better athlete than I was, but he had greater competition, and didn't shine as bright on the field or court as I did against other girls.

My brother, his friends and I would play run-the-bases on the side yard until we wore a base-path into the grass that my Dad nurtured with chemicals and the sweat of his brow. Sometimes we'd play half-ball in the street with the neighbors, with half of a pink rubber ball and a broom handle bat.

I never remember a playtime with my little brother that did not involve competition. We'd compete for the most Halloween candy (kids take note: pillow-cases make the best bags for collecting candy), over board games like Risk and Battleship and ping-pong, at who could keep their candle lit the longest at the Christmas Eve service at church.

We had a long hallway at the top of the stairs, and when we were supposed to be in bed, we'd play this insane game of chicken. We'd charge toward each other, our pillows clasped in front of us, and we'd crash and send each other flying. One time he ended up with his butt at the bottom of the hamper and his feet waggling out the top.

In the winter, we'd sled across the backyards, and make fake outlines of sled-tracks leading up to and beyond the baby pine trees that Mr. Pendowski had planted two months earlier. We knew it would drive him nuts to think we had sledded right over them; and sure enough, my Dad would get an angry call the next day.

The best trick my little brother pulled was hiding the wooden paddle that my Dad used on our disobedient butts. Mark had created the "Hay Hay Club" with walls of piled-up pine needles under the wooded yard that abutted our back lot. One day he'd had enough of getting his butt shined with that stupid paddle, and he stole it and buried it under the pine-needle carpet of the secret clubhouse. It's probably still there today.

Today my brother is honorable and honest, hard-working, kind, peace-making, and tender-hearted. He's a great husband, brother, son, and friend. And sometimes, he's still a pain in the you-know-what. Even if he weren't my brother, I'd want to be his friend.