A story prompt

Delores, at The Feathered Nest, posted an observation today that reminded me of a story from my past.  I’m going to owe her pretty soon, but have no idea what.  Thanks, Delores, for a prompt about having a clear out.

This happened a long time ago, as I think my BFF Carol and her husband have been married thirty years, at least.  Frank told me this story; I wonder if Carol remembers this is how it happened.

On a beautiful Saturday morning Frank sat at the kitchen table enjoying the last of the toast and his cup of coffee.  Carol took care of the dishes, then started cleaning the counters and appliances as Frank looked on, making small talk.

Carol didn’t say much as she worked her way around the kitchen and back to the cupboards, which she set upon with ruthless determination.  Plates, bowls, platters came down, the cupboards were wiped clean.  Not everything went back.  Small appliances and crockery he had never seen before suddenly were landing in the trash.

Lazily curious in the warm sunshine and afterglow of a good breakfast, he idly asked why she was throwing out the item about to depart her hand into the waste basket.

Thump! went the crockery.  “If I haven’t found it useful in the last year, it’s going!” Carol informed him as she turned back to cleaning.

Frank said he proposed to Carol on the spot and bought rings that very afternoon.  I know they were married the next February, high in the Alleghany Mountains in Pennsylvania, in a blizzard, which is another story.

Go BIG and LOUD, or go home

   

New student orientation has been intense this past two weeks.  Lots of new students and their parents, learning about their new schools.  I am the only grandparent I’ve noticed, but I’m not surprised.  Our family is not typical.  I have meet children and parents from Britain, China, Indonesia, Australia, California, New York, Connecticut. 

In the grade school orientation for Laura today the counselor explained the fifth graders could be in orchestra, band, ensemble or chorus.  Or some, or all.  A recess is substituted for each activity.  A low murmur among incoming parents.  The counselor smiled and said Yes, music is big here.

Last night Laura and I went to a band show.  Six local high school bands performing on the field of one high school.  All this playing in August is the prelude to the football season and half time shows.

Uncle Tom is in charge of the band logistics for Emily, and so far exceeds expectation that he stays for every three hour practice he drives her to, goes wherever the band is performing after he gets her on her bus, then goes back to school to pick her up and bring her home.  In two weeks he’s been to five rehearsals and two band shows.  Laura and I went last night, too, to see what it is all about. 

There were six bands, invited by the host school.  All the schools and bands were small, except Emily’s school band.  The bands ranged from twenty to sixty members for the smaller schools; Emily’s school band is 220.  The schools’ enrollments ranged from two to six hundred; Emily’s school has seventeen hundred.

The band members occupied the bleachers opposite the parents, and our band’s numbers were visually striking.  The blue and white took half the bleachers, and the program said they would perform the fifth of six sets.  

Laura took it all in as she worked on her bag of popcorn.  When the fourth band marched onto the field to perform its fifteen minute set, our band began a steady march to their staging area, which Emily told us is The Pit.  No other band had done this.  “That’s how long it takes to move a company of men at a steady pace,” Uncle Tom explained. 

It was a very loud evening, with a lot of great action down on the gridiron.  The blue and white background of the uniforms across the field was striking, but I was most impressed that the band stood and cheered and clapped each of the other bands off the field.  Good sportsmanship. 

There were other small town moments.  A trumpet player on crutches who marched in from the sideline to join his band for one number.  A majorette in a leg brace.

And, Laura will go to the football games with Uncle Tom.  Grandma has done her bleacher time for the year.

Our blue and whites

Flag raising

A small fan

They called themselves The Smallest Band with the Biggest Heart

Our Blue and Whites take the field.  The largest high school marching band in the state of Ohio.

A marching swing band

Playing in the rain

Delores at the Feathered Nest said, over the weekend,

To be an Ontarion on vacation with children in the rain is akin to being on a short trip via a fast train to insanity.

I guess we did not have to look at the weather channel to know the weather in Ontario Saturday and Sunday.

I have good childhood memories of playing in the rain.  For instance, one time an army of little children clothed generally only in white underpants, under the leadership of “the big boys” carted enough rocks and rubbish to build a magnificent dam at the foot of the road, as the rain fell.  We scurried to orders, reinforcing both ends, making it higher in the middle.  When the dam broke, water rushed down, undercutting the bed of our undedicated road.  “Undedicated” meant the road belonged to the adjacent landowners and the city was not responsible for repairs.  A lot of unhappy fathers trundled in wheelbarrows of sand that night, filling in the void.  I think “the big boys” were put to work, too.  I know a lot of saggy, dirty bottomed underwear attired little kids lined up, watching.

A couple of summers ago, during a week when they were the only cousins at the house, Laura and Emily were out in bathing suits splashing in the dogs’ wading pool.  Later I realized they were running down to the swing, pouring their water bottle contents on the slide, trying for the effect of a water slide.  A valiant effort, with no success. Days later it did rain.  I sent them to get into bathing suits on the double; there was a water slide right down at the swing set.  Oh, the mud on them when they came in.

Sending grandchildren out to play in the rain is not one of our especial Camp 61 activities.  But the first week of this month, Emily was at band camp and the three remaining children kept finding more loose ends than the law allows.    Three children were out bickering each other in our small house. Then one evening it rained.  Hard.  I told them to go out and play.

“It’s raining!”

“I know.”

“Can we really?”

“Absolutely!”

Sunny exits stage right

I realized, as I pushed the appropriate button in the bank of door uppers and downers, I’ve never taken a picture of the sunflower with our town hall as a backdrop.  It is a wonderful building, wonderfully conserved.

Sunny was a little chewed up today.  Someone’s buffet.  I expect next week there will just be a hole in the pavement.

I looked under at the flower, and found a fat grasshopper.  He probably has not read Aesop’s Fables.

And on the sidewalk into the office, a dragon fly.  He was hard to snap.  When I moved, he moved.  So, we danced a little on the sidewalk in the sun before I went into work.

Sunday afternoon drive

Today is perfect.  After two days’ steady rain the sky is blue, the dust is off the leaves and the world is back right side up.

My friend Kathleen has re-opened her store after a three year hiatus that included too much trouble and sorrow.  Her new shop has been open four weeks, so it was past time to visit. She farmed and had sheep, goats and alpaca when she was in the Cuyahoga Valley.  Oh, and a guard llama, and George Bailey, her standard poodle.  Now she is in a very rural area of Wadsworth, with her basil gardens, her husband John and George Bailey.

Kathleen’s specialties are jams, jellies and herb infused vinegars.  And, in season, basil pesto.  Her shop is the Crooked RiverHerb Farm Shop.  The translation of Cuyahoga is Crooked River, and I believe most of northern Ohio knows the Crooked River is the Cuyahoga River. We loaded up on jelly and basil vinegar.

Mike Cohill, Kathleen’s brother, is almost as famous as Kathleen.  He is the founder of the American Toy Marble Museum in Akron, Ohio.  Marbles were the first mass produced toys in America, and made at the American Toy Marble Company, in Akron.  Mike holds regular classes to teach kids how to shoot marbles.  Kathleen says someone has to teach them.  There are always marbles on her counter.

We caught Kathleen just as the shop opened; a perfect time.  We caught up, had a tour, leaned on the counter and talked some more.  Then customers began to stream in, and we went out Kathleen’s back door, past a wonderful door stop and nasturtiums growing in the cracks between the rocks. 

Kathleen told us about her friend Laurie at a shop in Medina, The Olive Tap, where we could find balsamic vinegars and infused olive oil.   We left there with sour cherry and red raspberry balsamic vinegars. 

A perfect day for a Sunday afternoon drive.