Iced Tea Memories

I gave it a year. I tried to be supportive. I was willing to let the voters have their voices heard. I, too, hoped for a promised 'change' for the better...

I had to give up iced-tea when I was 18. I was told it was necessary to qualify for a temple recommend. It was extra torment because I was engaged to be married in the scorching heat of the middle of July! You see, I was hooked. Iced tea was like the Mormon's Kool-Aid when I was growing up. It was the beverage of choice for a summer thirst quencher. It was even, as Tevya would say, "Tradition"! Towards the end of May, out would come Grandma Elna with her 4-quart glass tea jar. Along with the blooming lilacs, it was a sure sign that the school year was ending and summer was close. Grandma would almost ceremoniously place it in it's prestigious resting spot -atop the cement & bricked barbeque on the back lawn in the direct sunshine. We were forbidden to ever touch it. (For a woman of 4' 11" tall and 104# soaking wet, we always knew Grandma meant business! She was the object lesson of why dynamite is packed in small containers.) So, we watched and waited from the seats of the swingset and teetor-totter as the tea bags were allowed to 'steep'. Fresh lemons sliced, cups of sugar carefully measured, and ice cubes released from metal trays were our signals that the 'brew' had reached its peak of perfection! We'd listen for the sound of the back screen door and watch. Grandma, in her kitchen apron, would walk across the lawn, untwist the top of the jar, dip in her wooden spoon, and gingerly taste the concoction. She'd roll it around in her mouth and savor it much like a professional wine tester. All eyes watched for the approving smack of her lips and 'the nod'. That was the long-awaited signal to all of us grandkids. The race to the kitchen cupboard was on! The objective was to be one of the four lucky winners to reach the coveted tall, brightly-colored aluminum tumblers first. Nobody wanted to be stuck with the pale pastel, plastic ones. That meant last in line for 'the pouring' and left holding a much smaller container. It was nearly our family's right of passage to be first in the line for, through the years, the barbeque lineup usually went from oldest to youngest cousin. A few years later, Lipton made a store-bought version that made an 'instant' variety. After that, our tradition ceased. Iced tea was always ready in a pitcher in the fridge-just waiting for pouring. (Wouldn't you know it? Just as I was almost the oldest cousin around?)
I've not touched iced tea for 35 years, but in a restaurant, during the heat of a summer day, when I see a lemon slice perched precariously on the rim of a clear, ice-filled glass of it, my mouth still waters. (I told you I was hooked!) Floods of cousin memories and fun times fill my mind and I see my sweet Grandma Elna...The warm summer sun is hitting her iced tea jar and her beautiful red hair. And there I am...about 8th in line, holding a 4-ounce lavendar plastic tumbler reaching out for my portion of summer ambrosia.
So, you're asking: What's my point? Well, I am just wondering... do they serve the herbal type at the Tea Party conventions??? God Bless my dear America! We are going to need it!

Eye to Eye

Jake and I have never seen eye to eye on mothering, but as Robert Munsch said in his book "Love You Forever", 'as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be.' So, like it or not, even at 22, (yes, it's been a full year since I blogged) I am still giving him advice. You can listen in...
Son, every boy needs adventure. As soon as I had my first & only 'man cub', I began to learn that. It was fun to watch you tromp around in your daddy's shoes, explore the back yard, wrestle with 10 puppies, and climb the apple tree 'all by meself'! And then it started to change. You took a flying leap from the top of the playhouse and discovered that, even with your cape, you 'couldn't fly like Batman'. And I discovered I would not always be there to catch you when you fell. It broke your arm - and my heart. No wonder you resist mothering-you had 4 of them! Your sisters babied 'King Jake' through that broken arm and many other adventures followed. I cringed when you got that B-B gun and headed off into the hollow in search of 'prey'. We had lots of missing flashlights, binoculars, and cookies when you'd trudge off to Rindlisbaker's hill with your backpack. I really hated 'gun safety' time and 12 was a birthday I dreaded. Your aim was off just trying to pee in the toilet and your dad handed you a real live gun! How is a mother suppose to deal with that? Hunting seasons came and went. I held my breath and you survived. A brief episode of skateboarding gave way to Scouting adventures and then, of all things, 'RODEO'. Willy Nelson didn't say HOW to prevent it, he just sang it like I should know. Well, 'Mama' failed. I 'let you pick guitars and drive them old trucks' when I wanted to 'make {you} be a {vet} and such'. It's true - 'They'll never stay home and...' they certainly don't want mothering!
I don't want you to fall. I want you to find your dreams in this adventure. But, I hope you see enough of the world to know for yourself that the gospel is true. I want the distance between Texas and home to make you value your family and cause you to live what you've been taught.
Stealing a line from "The Adventures of Huck Finn", Huck said: 'Pray for me? I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that kind. She had the grit to pray for Judas if she took the notion--there warn't no back-down to her." So Jake, that's what this mother will be doing at least 2 times a day and I reckon I ain't ever the kind that's gonna back down from mothering either.

Babies grow up...

My baby turned 21 on Sunday, March 1st. He is now of "legal age". I can't express how that makes me feel in any other words but these: "old" and "scared". When I was 21, I had already been married in the Temple, gone through the 'valley of the shadow of death' in childbirth, and survived the Teton Dam flood disaster! I was a busy wife, mom, and new Primary President in St. Anthony 3rd Ward. I really felt 'of age' and all grown up then. I knew so much about life and had no fear! I am now (gulp) 52 and the older I get, the less I know about life and the more scared I become. In 1977 the world was so very different at my "21". Road rage and child predator data bases were non-existent. Pornography was a photo of a topless girl available only in the centerfold of a $3 Playboy magazine. To buy one in Preston, Idaho you had to walk into one of two local drugstores and ask for one. They were taped up in a brown paper wrapper and kept behind the counter and there was shame in buying one. I worked as a soda jerk/clerk at Foss Drug. There were 3 'regulars'---middle-aged men who would come in each month, go directly to Ezra's pharmacy counter and then bring it to me to ring up. They never could look me in the eye.
How different is today...with one click of a 'mouse button' unimaginable images are flashed in a split-second's time - even unsolicited - to people much younger than 'legal' age. AND-there is no shame involved.
I often wondered where that mother pig was when those foolish little pigs went out into the world to seek their fame and fortunes. Hopefully, 21 really is the magic age! I hope Jake will go out and build the house of his future on a strong foundation, and not get eaten by 'the big bad wolf'. So, "Happy Birthday" to my youngest piglet. Stay away from sticks and straw!

On turning pages...

The sad thing about reading a book is that you have to leave the old page behind when you turn over the next. You know it's a good read when there is a sense of loss and sadness as you close the back cover over the final page. Harper Lee’s "To Kill a Mockingbird" remains one of my fondest books for many reasons.
Scout captured my heart from the beginning, reminding me of a freckled tomboy I once knew. Her summer adventures with Jem and Dill conjure up my own childhood musings by the score: Fireflies and fleeting rainbows... Sunburns and soap bubbles...Cricket crescendos at dusk followed by 'night games'... The still, humid Indiana air announcing an approaching tornado long before the warning sirens or radio did.
"Hurry" was not a word known to any child on Iroquois Trail. The clock slowed to allow time to savor each penny bug and pollywog rescued from the ditch. It was "Leave it to Beaver land" and gloriously innocent.
The year was 1961 and I came to know the one 'different' little girl in our sublime suburbia. She had a pink coat, a wide smile, and dark skin. I didn’t care about that. She liked bike rides and Barbie, just like me. She never would eat my penny candy nigger babies, but we shared the same pixie stick. We played and laughed together each Saturday and walked different directions to school on weekdays. I heard new words like "prejudice" and "segregation", but I was oblivious to their meaning.
The pages of my early childhood turned slowly and joyfully and I'm grateful for my memories. They allow me to re-read my history which lessens the sense of loss from life's closed chapters.
Fast Forward-2009! A new page of history has been written. We have a newly-elected president. He is different than I am. He has a wide smile and dark skin. I don't care about that, but I do care about the book that is about to be written. I have to say I am uneasy about the ending. For the first time since learning to read "Dick and Jane", I wish I could read the last pages first to see if I'm going to like the story.
In "To Kill a Mockingbird", Atticus said, "Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand." (Chapter 9) I don't understand either. My fellow countrymen and the media is 'stark raving mad' right now. I hope the dust settles soon because people are not being reasonable or responsible! I love my country and the principles it was founded on. I want President Obama to succeed and I am going to pray that he will. I hope he wields the mighty pen of the United States President to write a history for the American people that will prove too good to put down.
It feels weird to say that my life is more than half over. I don't feel like I flip page by page anymore. Rather, I am living my daily life in whole chapters! I’d like time to slow down again and allow me moments to lie in the grass and make shapes out of the clouds, fly a kite, or (hmm) maybe even read a good book! But I can say, I know why you can’t judge a book by its cover. Life is all about turning the pages.