Story about Sharing Cups of Tea in Two Parts, Part One

This article appeared on Facebook and led me down a path of reminiscences. First, the tea story.

“In Ireland, you go to someone's house, and she asks you if you want a cup of tea. You say no, thank you, you're really just fine. She asks if you're sure. You say of course you're sure, really, you don't need a thing. Except they pronounce it ting. You don't need a ting.

Well, she says then, I was going to get myself some anyway, so it would be no trouble. Ah, you say, well, if you were going to get yourself some, I wouldn't mind a spot of tea, at that, so long as it's no trouble and I can give you a hand in the kitchen. 

Then you go through the whole thing all over again until you both end up in the kitchen drinking tea and chatting.

In America, someone asks you if you want a cup of tea, you say no, and then you don't get any damned tea.

I liked the Irish way better.”

― C.E. Murphy, Urban Shaman

The Gifts of Christmas Past

 

Note the green rocking chair.   I still have it.

 

 

Here I sit on Christmas Eve reminiscing about gifts.   Not gifts I’m giving and not gifts I’m receiving.    I am looking at gifts that my mother gave me over the years.

Mom and Dad in Detroit

 

I was sitting in my parents living room in Anchorage in the late 1970s as I opened a gift from Mom.   After the wrapping was off, I lifted one end of the colorful gift box and saw three pieces of folded cloth.   Completely white, no design, nice and soft.

 

“Diapers,” said Mom.   “Yours when you were a baby.   They make good cleaning clothes.”

My baby diapers.

 

Sure enough, they were cotton WWII era diapers.   Did she really save them for 40 years so she could surprise me one Christmas Eve?    

 

Did she not use them on my six-year-younger brother?   I remember his diapers.   I remember holding onto a tiny hemmed corner and dipping the diaper in the toilet again and again until its contents finally washed off.   Then, they were stored under the bathroom sink in a white enamel pot with lid.

 

Whatever, I still have them—more than 40 years later.

 

 

Then, there are some things from my childhood that were simply returned to me, not as gifts for any special holiday, I think.     My stuffed black sheep that I remember so well, and a threadbare teddy bear that I don’t recall at all.

The doll has a sticker on the bottom of one foot that says Poland.   I assume it's dressed in the  tradition folk costume of that country.

 

I also have a round plaque on some kind of wood (beaverboard?) with a drawing of a kitten and two rabbits on it.   There is something up in the air above the kitten where some paint is flaked off but I can’t tell if it’s a butterfly or a bird.

Reverse side

 

This is a keepsake that I question because I have never had the kind of artistic ability of  whomever drew it.

 

There is a stretched and framed embroidered with the Lord’s Prayer on it that must have hung in my nursery room.    The earliest discovered version of  “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep,” is said to be from George Wheler in his 1698 book The Protestant Monastery.

 

A newer version, identical to what’s on my souvenir, was found in the New England Primer.

Crazy angle to keep the light from shining on the glass cover.

 

Another gift from Mom that I saved is a ceramic plate in a triangular shape.   The design on it is a childish drawing depicting two comically malformed children with “Bobbie and Bonnie, “ the names of my cousins, though why Bobbie appears to be wearing a skirt is beyond me.  

 

Also, “Jeannie 5 years.”

 

Yes, I knew my numbers and letters and colors at age five, despite no nursery school.   I guess Mom wrote the names and I copied them onto the drawing.

 

I recognized the drawing immediately     I am sure it was something I copied from one of the Childcraft books we had as kids.    But, her note that I did the drawing at five years of age puzzles me because we moved to Alaska when I was six .   Did those Childcraft books come up with us on the four-engine airplane?

 

The set of Childcraft books are on the cabinet behind my head.

  

Or were they shipped from Detroit to Anchorage?  It’s all a mystery now but I remember the drawing in those long-ago books.   A plagiarist at age five.

Detente with little brother.

 

I must have taken better care of my Polish doll than my sister.

My youngest sister.   Those green chairs?   I still have them.

Me and the green rocking chair that I still have.   I sure wish my hair looked like that today.

The Third Date Important for My Generation

 

Nov. 22, 1963, Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

 

 

This date came to represent far more than the shocking death of an exciting, popular president. As in all the dates I’ve mentioned, the single event that occurred eventually came to be a reference point to the era that followed.

 

Kennedy had just prevented WWIII by making the Soviet Union back down during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

In that era are many events I could have included like the Civil Rights movement with the assassinations of Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, plus the deaths of the young victims of that movement, and the heroism of Rosa Parks. It was also a time of George Wallace and all that he represented. 

 

But, one must also consider the sexual revolution (I facetiously credit Elvis with that), the Hippies, the anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, the suspension of the Selection Service draft, the Kent State killings, and so on. It also marked a time when The Silent Generation founds its voice.

 

Larry Flynt and the US Supreme Court decision regarding pornography ushered in an inundation of soft porn in the entertainment industry and in society. Morals and ethics degraded from those we grew up with, and not always for the better.

 

Parents in TV programs began sleeping together. I mean, Ozzie and Harriet?   Can you imagine?

 

Also included in this era was the government fight against the Mafia and its eventual reduction in influence. Other entities joined in the corruption of drug-pushing, murder, bribing politicians, and all sorts of crime, not that any of them were new. We just became more aware.

 

I also include in JFK’s assassination era the Nixon time of presidential deceit and disgrace, and resignation, and the realization on the part of the public that their leaders can be corrupted.

The Second Important Date for My Generation

 Continuing with dates that are important to my generation, we arrive at:

June 6, 1944—Allied Invasion of Normandy, France, Europe.

 

This was the beginning of the end for the Axis armies. It took until May of 1945, VE Day, to reach victory in Europe and August 1945 , VJ Day, for Japan to surrender.

 

Again, it impacted the entire world. We were still too young to appreciate the meanings of the dates, but eventually could look back and understand why they should be important to us.

 

Many of my generation had parents or other relatives who fought and/or died for the Allies.  That meant for many of us kids, dads and uncles and brothers returned home from war and a process of re-acquainting began.

 Some of us were affected by post-war economic factors and the lack of employment.

 

Those economic factors became the main reason why my parents decided to move to the territory of Alaska in June of 1948.   And, for me, that began a  life-long love affair with this wild land.

My brother Jim in front of the Quonset hut  (Jamesway) that was our first home.   

 

My mother and Jim peeling logs for our log home.

And Where were You Last Saturday?

 I am one of those people who has trouble remembering dates, and, more specifically, what I was doing on a certain date.

If I were ever to be interrogated by law enforcement, I would be in deep doodoo.

Take last Saturday, for instance.  That date I remember.   Can't tell you what I was doing on that date but I know why the date is significant to me.  It was Dec. 7, and its significance is Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

That date led to a lot of introspection and the making of a list of four dates important to my generation.   I posted that list on Facebook, and then followed up with my reasons why.

Here on Blogspot, I will post each of the four dates and my reasons.  

Here's the first:

Response One:

 

First, I should establish the parameters of “my generation” and, since it’s mine, I choose those of us born in the 1940s who are included in The Silent Generation and whose parents were in The Greatest Generation, plus the Early Baby Boomers.

 

Those born after—1950s and 1960s and so on, will have names for their generations and might have dates that are significant to them that may differ from mine.

 

Dec. 7, 1941—The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor

 

Most of Europe, eastern Asia, and North Africa was consumed by war. FDR was fighting to keep the US out of the war.

 

The attack, a horrendous intelligence failure, destroyed much of the US naval fleet and planes based in Hawaii, and propelled the US into declaring war against Japan and, subsequently, into the European fray. 

 

This conflict became known as World War II, as it involved most major countries as well as smaller, remote countries such as Greenland and Iceland, a truly world-wide effect. 

 

While we might not remember the day these events occurred at the time, we eventually grew old enough to understand the importance of the date.   Many of us had relatives who went off to war.

I was two weeks old on Dec. 7, 1941.

 

 

A Guide to Surviving the Information Glut

These days we are overwhelmed with news and information and rumors and scammers and outright lies, all thanks to the World Wide Web.

This practical guide gives you the criteria to aide you in navigating that morass.

1.   Be skeptical of everything you read, and hear, and see, like the young fellow in this photo.

 

The Adventures of a Vertically-Challenged Person Trying to Get into a Full-sized Pickup

The last couple weeks have been challenging, to say the least.

\

Thursday, I drove to Anchorage for some routine medical stuff and went to Costco to grocery shop. When I pulled up to a stop light, I noticed the oil pressure on my 2001 Dodge Dakota crew cab pickup was low so I checked the oil as soon as I parked at Costco.

There was only a drop of oil on the stick!!! This, along with a strong smell of burning oil, also happened in August. I had the oil changed since then and put 1200 miles on the truck. I drove immediately to the Dodge dealer.

There was no chance to have the truck checked that day. They did, however offer to have the service department top off the oil.

As soon as the mechanic removed the oil cap, I noticed a lot of yellow gummy stuff on it. "Coolant," he said and went to talk to his supervisor. "Park it, " was the recommendation.

They also said I could Not leave the truck there. So there I was. Stranded. They said I'm lucky the truck didn't quit on me altogether. That's scary. A hundred miles from home and temps dropping close to zero. No, getting stranded on the highway in the mountains at night was not what I needed.

My mid-sized Dodge Dakota, more than a truck should be loved.

I was stuck. Mid-afternoon and its was getting dark. I had groceries that needed to be removed. I was advised to talk with a salesman, of course.

No way to get around to other car lots to find a vehicle because they had no loaners. By the time I arranged for a rental, all the car lots would be closing.

I had frozen my credit years ago as an identity theft precaution and had no checks with me, only credit cards.

Long story short: I bought a 2011 Ford F150 4x4 crew cab pickup with matching canopy from them. It is spotless inside and out and a nice sterling gray clear coat metallic color. The canopy, should I have to buy one, would be about $5000 painted to match. It has Blizzak tires, like my Dodge.

Ir drives like a dream. Well, considering the dreams I had last night, maybe that isn't such a good analogy.

Why do I need a pickup? We have no garbage service where I live and have to haul my own, 17 miles RT to one site, and about 26 to another. I also use it for gathering firewood, brush removal and disposal, and to clean up litter along 40 miles of highway in the summer. Plus, with 4-wheel drive, I find a truck much safer in the winter.

During the winter, I put lots of split firewood in the bed and park it in the garage for convenient access to dry wood for heating my house.

Gulp.

Not money I needed to spend, and it just contributed to my anxieties.

I transferred all the items in the Dodge into bags in the 8 degree cold and my hands have been chapped and tender ever since.  

I loved my Dodge mid-sized truck more than a truck should be loved. Currently, I am in the process of donating it to Make a Wish. The repair might be as simple as a PCV valve, and then again, it might be far more serious and expensive. The charity says it takes vehicles that are not running.

Then came the next problem. How to get into this large truck!!!

At first, I tried grabbing the steering wheel with both hands and pulling myself into the cab. That fiasco was not for public observance and falling to the ground in the process is inherently possible.. I am hampered by restricted use of my left shoulder and no handholds built into the truck.

How, I wondered, was I ever going to manage this?

Ah, hah. I have a small plastic step at home that would be perfect. I took it with me on my trip to the post office after buying the truck.

It worked perfectly! Much easier to get into the driver's seat. Then, disaster! How to retrieve the step from the ground that looked to be a half mile down. Could I tie a cord to it to lift the step?

This was getting ridiculous.

Next solution: The driver's seat is power-operated. I can raise it high enough to see over the steering wheel and dashboard, and , thus, by lowering the seat to its lowest extremity, getting in is possible by grabbing the steering wheel and dragging myself up. Not easy, but possible. I would not want to have to do this often, though.

So, I wondered, how long until power-operated seat breaks?

Possible solutions: Have running boards installed. I'm starting to look into that.

If I don't find a solution, litter clean up next summer will be severely and negatively.affected.

The Fur and Feathers Journal, 2024, Day Three, Entry Six, Tides, Tides, all about Tides.

 Been a while since I visited this site.   I am so easily distracted by my self-imposed projects.    The latest was to accumulate  almost 20,000 photos that were on various thumb drives and memory cards.   Now, they are all in one place where I have sorted them by category.   It's a work in progress and I'm taking a break from it for now.

So, let's get back to the Fur and Feathers Journals.

***

When last we saw our intrepid travelers, they were at a remote tent camp under auspices of Silver Salmon Creek Lodge, Ronnie and Karl as hosts.   

Oliver, part owner/manager with his parents of the whole operation, had landed his Maule 3 on a gravel bar in the creek in front of camp, dropped off some supplies, took off and landed a hundred yards away on the shore of Cook Inlet.   There, he had much more "runway" available

First to go was Alicia, along with a lot of baggage.   When Oliver returned, Eddie and I piled in the plane for the very short flight to the lodge.   Eddie landed on a narrow trail that fronts the privately-owned cabins.

Photo by Karl.

Our cabin wasn't quite ready for us to move as the staff was still cleaning it from the guests that were leaving that day.

We took  a short ride around the area, looking for whatever caught our interest.

Our ride was restricted by the high tides. The  creek crossings were flooded and couldn't be crossed by the ATV and the trailer that hauled up around.

The dirt/gravel trail is where Oliver landed his plane.

The ATV trailer that hauled us around the area.

We looked for bears and Eddie spotted several but they were too far away to get a lens on them.   We found a bald eagle taking a bath in Silver Salmon Creek and that was the highlight , and. extent, of our late morning game drive.

And, we flushed some mallards.

After lunch, we moved into our cabin, which is actually a house.   The lower floor, where we were, is a complete house--living room, kitchen and two bedrooms.   Alicia and I paired up to share one room.  

Upstairs is another kitchen and breakfast nook,  two bedroom area where Karen stayed.   She would join our game drives.

Well, we couldn't get to the bears, so a bear came to us.   Just as we finished lunch, we were alerted to a visitor ambling along the trail.    

It paused nicely for photos in front of the blooming yarrow.

And came up the trail to the lodge grounds.

We all grabbed cameras and piled out of the lodge to see the bear.   This, frankly , is a common occurance and is one of the things that makes this place so special

The bear checked around the fish cleaning spot and then showed a special interest in the chef's cabin.

Then it strolled along in front of a bunch of us before turning into the forest.   It gave us all a nice face-on look.

I'm about 25 to 30 feet from this bear.

With that, we returned to our cabin for a break and to get ready for a late game drive when the tide was lower.

Family Time and Reminiscing

 

 

 

Last Friday I had the pleasure of a short visit with my favorite brother, Jim, and one of my favorite nephews, Jason.   I had seen neither in five years.

 

I braved the wet, slushy, and slippery highway in Turnagain Pass that necessitated 4WD at 50 mph, five construction zones with lowered speed limits and two with flag stops, an accident and three first-responder vehicles pull-over-and-stops, to get to Anchorage where they in town for a family wedding.

L-R along the newly opened Seward highway, Dad, Lauralee, Jim, Mon and Karen, me. ca 1950s

Living and growing up in Alaska back then meant knowing little of other relatives.   We heard their names, but often couldn't figure out how we were related.  Phone calls were non-existent, due to the difficulty involved.  You had to schedule a long distance call.   Air fare?   Unaffordable.

L-R:   Sister-in-law Karen, Jim, and Me.

Mom with Jim at Campbell Creek.   I'm the one at the end of the log, "rowing" with a stick.    This was the only "car wash" in the city.   You pulled down the the edge of the water and washed your vehicle by hand.

Campbell creek today.   One of the best burger joints in town is located there now.

My brother married into a Seward family with five sisters and three still live in Alaska, so there are occasions for Alaska visits.  Jim and his wife Karen, along with master vintner son Joel, my other favorite nephew, own and operate CAVU Cellars, a winery in Walla Walla, WA.

Did Jim's Kool-Ade stand give him the training to operate a winery?

Surely this did.

 

Jason and his wife Linnea live in Juneau, Ak.  While Karen was attending a bridal shower, Linnea was attending a meeting with fellow employees.  

This big spruce tree is gone now.  I never did get too far when I climbed it because of the pitch that was so hard to remove from my skin.

Sweet little Jim

 

Jim and I spent lunch catching up and reminiscing about growing up  during the 1950s in Woodland Park, a suburb of Anchorage.   Mostly we talked about all the things we did that we never told our parents about—like playing in the treacherous clay of Cook Inlet and seeing how stuck we could get, then washing off every bit of clay before we went home.

We stayed with our aunt and uncle in the Hale apartments at 5th and Gambell in Anchorage until we found our own place.   A fire in the apartment was caused by a window curtain blowing over the open flame on a  cookstove.

 

We rode our bikes far into the forest at Point Woronzof, visiting the ruins of an as yet unidentified log cabin that was sunken into the moss, its roof collapsed.  I always guessed it might have been a camp for Inlet watchers during WWII.   It also could have been a fox or mink farm.   We never found out.

Jim 'skiing' at a hill off 3rd avenue in Anchorage.

 

We never asked permission; we just went.   Such freedom we had, compared to kids today.  

The pond behind our house, the result of dredging, something that could never be done today.

 

“All the things we did and all the places we’d go, it’s a wonder we never ran into bears,” I told Jim.

 

We picked up Karen from the bridal shower and ran into one of my favorite authors, Mike Travis*, also an in-law, and I told him again how much I loved the books he wrote. 

 

Then we drove to our old family home on Brookside, and the log cabin our parents built.   It’s still there, only it looks a lot smaller.   As far as I know, it’s had only two owners since our parents sold it in the 1960s, and both have loved it as much as we did.

Mom and Jim peeling logs.   I participated, too.

The finished house.

 

Much to our dismay, Fish Creek was subsumed into underground drains and pipes and no longer provides the water to fill the pond.   Its bed is a mess of grasses and other vegetation.   No place for frogs, or beavers, or muskrats, or fish.

On the other side of the street, and up a few houses, was the stump of a birch tree.   I asked Jason to stop so I could get a photo of it. 

 

What's left of our favorite tree--the stump at right.   I thought it was a lot bigger.

 

I was surprised how small the trunk was.   This used to be a tree that my BFF Judi and I climbed a lot, pretending it was a pirate ship, or a mystery vehicle, an airplane, or anything we wanted it to be.   I loved that birch tree and I have been thinking about Judi a lot because we recently re-connected after many decades.   The birch was on her property.

 

Jason drove to the end of the block where a 45-degree corner went up the steep hill.   “We used to ride our sleds down this hill,” I told Jason.   He gave me a fisheye look and I assured him that we always posted a lookout on the corner.

Tjis is the only photo I can find that has a part of the steep road at left that we used to sled down, always posting a lookout at the sharp corner.

On that corner now is a small park.  In 1948, there was a Quonset hut there where our family lived while the log home was being built.  After we moved into the first 20’x20’ part of the log home, my aunt and uncle moved into the Quonset.   

The Quonset is more correctly called a Jamesway, as the roof does not reach the ground like a true Quonset.

I have dreams to this day of living in the Quonset and wishing I could again.  However, with it being right on that corner, the location was treacherous in the winter and my aunt’s white picket fence was taken out a few times by vehicles sliding into it.

Jim with a bit of the Quonset hut.

Perhaps our first Christmas in the Quonset.   We had running water in the kitchen, but a honey bucket in what would become the bathroom.   Dad dug a trench and hooked up lines to a cesspool.

Christmas 1948

Quonset huts were a big thing in Anchorage back then.   Here, my journalism class at Anchorage High School was in a real Quonset.   When I was in the 4th grade, my class was in a Quonset.

A special treat for me.  We played in the dirt road a lot!   The two-block long street known as Brookside is hard-surfaced now, but with no curbs, gutters, or storm drains.

The Quonset after our aunt and uncle moved in and improved it.

The Quonset hut is long gone, replaced by a neighborhood park with a sturdy guard rail that prevents cars sliding into  the park.

 

We talked about the neighborhood kids we knew back then, where they lived and where they are now.

 

It was a good time to live in Alaska.

 

As I told my brother and nephew, “I am forever thankful that we grew up where we did and when we did, and that it was in Alaska.”

 

 

***

 

*Michael D. Travis:  Author of:

 

“Melosi”—a teenager’s search for a summer job and his coming of age.

 

         Funny, heart-warming, and full of adventure in the Alaska bush

 

“El Gancho”—Mike weaves a tale from family stories (that he heard of his great-grandfather’s journey out of Mexico way back when, including a botched train robbery, Pancho Villa, and the death-defying rodeo experience of a colleda( one who flips bulls by their tails)

 

         Who cares if it’s all true?   Mike says it is.  It’s a darned good story.

 

“The Landmen”—written with Armand Spielman, the incredible story of how the preliminary struggles and obstacles to secure the right of way for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline were overcome.

 

         An astounding story with lots of names familiar to Alaskans.  It evoked lots of memories for me.

 

All these books have multiple five-star reviews.   I concur.

El Gancho is hiding among the stacks and failed to appear for an impromptu photo session.
Why I have two copies of Melozi is obscured by time.   I must have meant to send it to someone.

 

 By "stacks" I mean;

Now do you understand my difficulty in find El Gancho?