by jphilo | Jun 15, 2011 | Out and About
This week’s look back in the archives comes from June of 2009. I wrote it after Mom and I took a quick road trip to the town where she taught school for over 30 years, the town where I grew up. Two years have passed, and I’m even older enough to be a grandma, but our kids have not yet added that role to my job description. Since I still feel too young for the job, I’m really and truly okay with that!
Coffee Club Update
Mom and I have returned from our travels. In our 36 hours away from home the grass grew exponentially, much to Hiram’s chagrin, and the weeds did, too. Mom went to bed early and slept in late, and this morning she mentioned again how much she enjoyed the trip.
The highlight of the excursion was the impromptu coffee my Aunt Donna (second from the right) hosted. Our former neighbors dropped what they were doing when they heard their former neighbor (third from the right) was in town and stopped in for a lovely chat. Not only was Mom their neighbor, she taught most of their children. She’s now completely up to date on the lives of her former students, their children, and in some cases, their children’s children.
I am still in shock over the update, since many of Mom’s former students are my contemporaries. So how can they be grandparents already? I mean, I understand the mechanics involved. But are these people, my age and younger, old enough to be grandparents of children in high school?
A good look at the women who attended yesterday’s coffee reveals the truth. We’re all old enough to be grandparents, and some are old enough to be great-grandparents. But Mom, bless her heart, did not complain about the dearth of great-grandchildren in her family quiver.
And to make things perfectly clear to my own children, I am not complaining about my empty quiver, either. No need to rush on my account. I’m in for the long haul, ready to wait until you are ready for the joys and responsibilities of parenting.
Until that day comes, I’ll keep pretending I’m not old enough to be a grandparent. Denial is a wonderful thing.
by jphilo | Sep 21, 2010 | Out and About
I spent a few days in my home town last week. As is the case whenever I visit, it seemed like nothing had changed – our old house, church, school and neighborhood were comfortingly the same. Then again, everything had changed. I can’t get used to the college being gone or the football stadium sporting red paint instead of black.
One of the best recent changes in Le Mars is a new coffee shop, Habitue. It meets trio of travel requirements: great coffee, relaxing atmosphere, and free Wi-Fi. Friday, I spent a comfortable and delicious morning at Habitue. When I left the shop after a couple hours of productive work, the building across the street caught my eye. In the olden days, it was the Spurgeon’s Department Store. For the past few years, it’s been an antique mall, but these days, the front and side walls are hard-pressed to remain upright.
“What happened?” I asked my cousin.
She explained that Wells Blue Bunny (yes, my home town is also home to Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream) purchased the building to house an ice cream parlor and museum. “But when they gutted it,” she went on, “the roof and the back walls collapsed. Now they’re in litigation, trying to determine who’s at fault – the engineering firm that said the structure could safely be gutted, or the contractor for doing the work incorrectly.”
For some reason the building, propped up with the help of wooden braces and trees visible through the glassless second story windows made me happy. This evidence of man’s intentions gone wrong comforted me to no end.
See, lately my inadequacies have confronted me daily – even hourly. Book sales are dismal and nothing I do boosts them. That means the parents who need the encouragement the book gives aren’t being encouraged. They are struggling alone, which breaks my heart. I have failed to complete the work God gave me to do.
But the building says that I’m in good company. Wealthy men and women in charge of big companies, with access to large sums of money and the advice of experts fail, too. Their dreams collapse. Their best efforts aren’t good enough. The building, working so hard to stay upright on main street in my home town, reminds everyone who walks by that someone tried. Someone took a risk. Someone tried to effect change.
“And so did I.” I whisper while opening the car door and placing my computer bag on the passenger seat. “So did I.”
by jphilo | Nov 10, 2009 | Reflections on the Past
When I was a kid in northwest Iowa, Sioux City was big. Really big. Really, really big. It was the center of civilization and all things phantasmagorical, a legendary place we visited a few times a year for gala events such as the Shrine Circus and the debuts of wholesome movie debuts including Jungle Book, The Sound of Music, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Mary Poppins.
Every childhood trip to Sioux City commenced with Dad singing his rendition of the old song, Sioux City Sue and the rest of us chiming in. He only knew the first few lines – “Five foot two; eyes of blue; she’s my sweet Sioux City Sue; Has anybody seen my gal?” – so the concert didn’t last long.
Before the last note died away, he launched into his standard commentary about Sioux City being a rough town, like river towns tend to be. “So you kids stay close when we go shopping.” Dad would wink. “Don’t wander off. Got that?”
All those memories came flooding back last weekend when I drove to Sioux City to leave complimentary copies of my book at hospital chaplains’ offices. On the way, I passed the McDonald’s where I tasted my first hamburger. I drove by Stone Park, where we used to picnic with my uncle and aunt’s family.
To be honest, the town seemed a whole lot smaller than I remembered it. The streets weren’t hard to navigate, and I wondered why my mom always got so tense driving around the tiny city.
Only the hills were as big as I remembered them, maybe even a little bigger. The walk from my car in the parking lot to the hospital’s main entrance was quite vertical. Good exercise, but it’s hard to make a good impression on strangers when huffing and puffing, all red-faced and sweaty. Still, it was good to visit Sioux City again, the exciting Mecca of my childhood.
I drove back to Le Mars, humming Sioux City Sue and thinking about my dad. What I wouldn’t give to sing with him one more time.
by jphilo | Jun 30, 2009 | Book Updates
Okay, okay, so this hometown girl hasn’t made it big yet, and I may never make it big. But for the first time in a long time, my hometown paper, The Le Mars Daily Sentinel ran a story about me in which I am not:
a) Perched on an improvised Sopwith Camel
b) Sporting a green, ratted up-do
c) Dressed as a hedgehog
d) Garbed in theatrical black
e) Pretending to be someone I’m not, and having a jolly time doing so
Instead, the story is the first of what I hope will be many newspaper stories about my new book. My goal isn’t to get my picture taken, though it was fun when the reporter, who is also my old friend Beverly Van Buskirk, snapped my photo in front of our former high school. And my goal isn’t to create a big fan base, though it was fun to get a congratulatory FaceBook note from a former high school classmate.
My goal is to get A Different Dream for My Child into the hands of parents who need answers and hope as they deal with their children’s health issues. Bev’s article helped realize that goal because the former classmate who sent me the FaceBook note also has a special needs son. She’s eager to buy the book. And if it helps her and her family, no matter how many or few copies are ultimately sold, I will have made it plenty big.
