by jphilo | Jun 23, 2014 | Current Events
After a three day weekend comprised of a writers’ conference, a wedding, and a high school class reunion–all in different Iowa towns–being back in my own home has rarely looked so good. The future’s looking pretty good too, if what I observed at the different events is any indication.
- Writers diligently working to learn their craft so they can creatively share their faith with a needy world and generations to come.
- High school classmates, all of us puzzled by how forty years went by in the blink of an eye, who count family their dearest possessions and who are grateful for their blessings.
- A young bride and groom who put others ahead of themselves by anticipating and meeting their guests’ needs. Even a table of activity packets–bubbles, crayons, and a wedding-themed coloring books–for the children.
Everywhere, it seemed, young adults and older ones were congnizant of not only of their own present needs, but also of the needs of future generations. These adults encourage rather than oppress children who are at their mercy. They count it an honor to explore the world with young ones in their care. Adults whose kindnesses give hope for what is yet to come because they remember the children who will one day own the future.
by jphilo | Aug 6, 2013 | Family, Top Ten Tuesday
My mother and her 7 sibs were a prolific bunch in their heyday. They and their spouses produced 39 children from the mid 1940s until the early 1970s. This coming Saturday a goodly percentage of the 37 living cousins, their extended families, and a few members of Mom’s greatest generation will gather for a family reunion. Here are the top ten reasons I’m looking forward to the day.
10. We all remember Lawrence Welk differently from the rest of the world. To us, he’s not the maestro of national television’s squeaky cleanest dance band of the 1960s. To us, he’s the leader of a traveling 1930s and 1940s North Dakota band that sometimes played in dance halls around the midwest. They were so wild our parents weren’t allowed to attend their dances for fear of being corrupted.
9. After lunch, we reinact reunions of our childhood. It starts when someone asks for a dime to go swimming. (Yes, way back when pool admission was one thin dime.) Then everyone responds in unison, “Ask in 30 minutes, once your food’s had time to settle.”
8. We share the same memories of Grandma Josie’s kitchen: sugar bread eaten in the backyard on painted aluminum chairs, Grandpa’s pink wintergreen mints and Grandma’s red hot candies hidden in the top shelf of the cupboard by the refrigerator, and oatmeal raisin cookies stored in the hat box in the bottom shelf of the cupboard across from the stove.
7. Everyone shares tips for raising African violets and geraniums.
6. It’s rare to be with so many people who take such pride in the state of their vegetable gardens.
5. We all appreciate the value of fresh tomatoes and kohlrabi.
4. Our reunions are a rare opportunity for math nerds and theater geeks to rub shoulders, because we’ve got plenty of both.
3. Being with my older cousins makes me feel young again.
2. I see the faces of Grandpa Hess, Grandma Josie, and my aunts and uncles in the faces around me.
1. Reunions with my cousins renew the security and sense of belonging I experienced at family gatherings during childhood. Could I ask for anything more?
by jphilo | Sep 17, 2007 | Family
My husband, son and daughter are science fiction fans. They love Star Trek (every generation) and Star Wars, Dr. Who and any other show that includes time travel and extra dimensions. So I’m wondering why I’m the first person in our family to have actually engaged in time travel.
It happened last Friday when I accompanied my mother on a lunch date. She wanted me to meet some people she recently reconnected with, former sixth grade students from the first class she taught in the late 1940s. She’d gone to their 50th class reunion back in June, but there were plenty of old memories left to share in September.
The time travel part started as soon as we entered the restaurant. “Miss Hess is here,” one of the students announced. They all looked at my mother and smiled. “Miss Hess?” I thought. “I never knew her when she was Miss Hess. Too weird.”
“Miss Hess,” another student told her, “you have to sit in the middle so we can all talk to you. We’ll save your place while you pay for lunch.” “Don’t forget to ask for your senior citizen discount,” someone else reminded her. “We all got ours.”
I was feeling younger by the minute. First my mother had become someone she’d been before I existed. Now I was the only person in the room who didn’t qualify for the senior citizen discount. Since Mom treated me to lunch, I didn’t have to suffer for being such a spring chicken. I kind of enjoyed being the youngest in the room, something that’s been happening less and less often of late/
For the next few hours, they shared memories of days that didn’t include me. And as they laughed and told their stories and laughed some more I thought of days in the future, I perhaps far in the future, that will not include me or them.
Time goes so fast I realized as I watched these retired adults see my mother with sixth grade eyes and call her by a name last spoken almost sixty years ago. Time goes so fast. How will I use mine before it is gone?
