On Mother's Day, Mysterious Old Boxes, and Old Photographs

It's Mother's Day again, and while I'm still actually mourning the loss of my own mother just over a year ago, I am actually a mother myself, so I'm going to enjoy the day.  In reality it won't be any different from any other day around here.  I'll get outside in a few minutes and work on the yard (so much to do!), and later will probably throw some steaks or something on the grill.  Watch some baseball.

Yesterday I was cleaning house and trying to clear out some of the clutter around here when I came across a box of mom's things that my brother had dropped off last year.  At that time, he had been cleaning out mom's house and had been bringing truckloads of furniture and stuff to me so I could figure out where it all needed to go.  That box was one of the last things he brought and I was just worn out.  Could not deal with it.  I pushed it aside, knowing it was full of photos and some other random things, and knew it could wait.

Yesterday, when I came across the box I wondered if it was time.  I tentatively stuck my hand in the box and pulled out a folder that looked harmless enough.  As I did this I wondered if Mother's Day weekend was really the best time to go tripping down memory lane, but it was safe.  It had some photos I had taken for mom of the old family cemetery in Rapides parish and it had a copy of an old photo from the 1940s of my dad and a group of his friends sitting in a nightclub after the war.  The picture is already framed on a table in my house, so it wasn't traumatic.

Emboldened, I pulled out another folder and found some small black and white pictures of mom as a teenager with her friends at a camp on Lake Bistineau; I'd seen the photos so many times in the past and she and I had looked at them together so often that again, it was okay.  She kept them in a small white envelope so they would all stay together; she kept them in a drawer in a spool cabinet by her sofa and periodically she would pull them out and reminisce.  I took the little envelope and put them in the same drawer in the same chest that now sits in my home.

Feeling really brave now, I pulled out a brown manila envelope that held lots of photos from a wide span of years; of course I'd seen them all before, but this one picture of my mom and her parents caught my eye.  I don't recall seeing it before but I'm sure I must have.  My mother was an only child and she adored her parents.  She was spoiled rotten and was very close to them both.

I'm not sure where the picture was taken; I don't recognize the house in the background.  But I love it
because she is laughing and her dimples show  She is smartly dressed -- my grandmother spent fortunes on my mom's clothes.  I love how she has her weight balanced on one leg, one knee slightly cocked, and her arms linked through those of her parents.  The tilt of her head, the laugh, and the sun glinting off her hair -- she is forever young.

I don't remember my mom ever looking like that of course.  This picture was taken easily ten or twelve years before I was born.

But she is laughing, happy, and with her parents.  And that's how I want to remember her today.  It's almost as if she sent this photo to me on Mother's Day.  A treasure.  She is happy.  And so I stopped digging in the box.  It is enough for now.

The Boys of Summer Are Losing Their House

The House That Ruth Built is about to fall. This is the saddest weekend in sports, to me. This Sunday night will be the last game in Yankee Stadium. Forever. They are going to tear it down.

The legendary stadium opened in April, 1923.

It is where Babe Ruth hit his 60th home run in 1927.
Roger Maris hit his 61st home run in 1961.
A-Rod hit his 500th in 2007.
Mickey Mantle hit the right-field facade in 1963, one hundred and ten feet above the field.
Reggie Jackson hit three home runs there in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series.
Don Larson pitched a perfect Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.
And it is where Lou Gehrig gave his "luckiest man" speech in 1939.
It is where Babe Ruth gave his farewell address.
Derek Jeter, on Tuesday, passed Gehrig for the most hits in Yankee stadium.
There have been 100 World Series games played there. Not this year.

It is so sad to me that it will be gone; it's such a piece of American legend! They are tearing it down and replacing it with a park with three baseball fields (will bricks show up on ebay?). Trees will outline the old ballpark. The new digs will be across the street.

I can't imagine the emotions that will flood the fans and players on Sunday. There will be a formal fan goodbye ceremony in November, but oh to be there the last night...

Small Town America

With all the talk in politics this week about "small town America," I was interested to read this article this morning in the New York Times. It's about the changing face of Iowa farms. (Be sure to click on the interactive map when you read that article; several small towns are spotlighted with 2 minute video clips and the pictures ARE Iowa - they are gorgeous).

One reason it caught my eye is because Steve is from Iowa and his family has been farming in Iowa for years. Steve's brother now runs the family farm that Steve and his brother and sisters grew up on in Grand River, Iowa; Steve's parents ran it before him and the grandparents before that. But farming is not what it used to be. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on farming or even know much about it, but I know that Iowa is beautiful country.

The first time I went to visit Iowa I was thinking "This is just going to be flat cornfields as far as the eye can see." I don't get out much. Not well travelled. I was stunned when I saw Iowa. Rolling hills. Every shade of green in the crayon box. Cows, gravel roads, Amish people, and barns. Barns of all types, styles and ages. There are preservation movements for many of the old barns because barns today are not what they used to be either. Equipment is different; needs are different.

One of the many things I love about Iowa is that midwestern, all-American way of life. Sure, you get into Des Moines or one of the other cities and you can be just as big-city as Dallas or anywhere else. But I like the small towns. I love Lamoni with its little shops, its public library and everybody-knows-everybody else way of life. I love Villisca with its town square with the war memorial and the tornado siren. I love Mount Ayr with its old movie theater and friendly people. Everywhere you go Ameican flags are proudly waving in the breeze. I haven't spent lots of time there, but there's something about Iowa and those small towns that makes you feel safe and like you are at home.

I know that lots of people who would never consider living in a place where there was no huge art museum or did not have a huge concert or sports venue. And we need those things. But in Iowa, I'm more than happy to sit around the fire pit in Sheryl's back yard cooking hotdogs over the open fire. I'm more than happy to light the citronella candles as the fireflies come out and the evening air holds a perpetual chill; listen closely and you hear the clip clop of the Amish heading home from selling baskets and jelly on the side of the road. You feel every nerve ending in your body relax as you sit there and listen to the low voices visiting, talking over fences, recounting their day while you gently rock back and forth in the patio swing.

Firefly Mystery

While waiting for Gustav to arrive I was reading online and came across this article that caught my eye. It's all about the decline of the firefly. The reason it caught my eye is because this is something I have noticed for several years now so I feel sort of vindicated by this article in that now I know I was not simply losing my mind. Fireflies are, in fact, declining.

I can remember clearly when I was a kid catching fireflies. It was a rite of summer. As dusk settles on a humid summer day the lightening bugs would start to light up in the shrubs and shadows of the evening. As it got a little darker they would increase. We'd all run inside for empty mayonnaise jars, poke holes in the lid with a steak knife, and capture fireflies. The article suggests several reasons for their decline but none of them include kids with jars.

A few years ago while sitting on my deck one evening, I noticed that I had no fireflies. In fact, had NEVER had fireflies here and I live in practically the same neighborhood as my mother who had lots of fireflies. So, brilliant entomologist that I am, I went to her house, caught some, and imported them to my backyard. Where they died. Or flew home. I tried this several times before I gave up.

In Iowa, at Steve's sister's house, THAT'S where all the fireflies have gone. They are all in Sheryl's backyard. Hundreds of thousands of them. Is it the cooler climate? Is it the lack of humidity? Global warming!? I don't know. All I know is that I rather miss the fireflies. And I miss kids running around with glass jars and steak knives, stopping the hearts of safety police everywhere, trying to catch them.

(Photo credit: NationalGeographic.com)