Where Have All the (Purple) Flowers Gone?

    When we were in the first few grades of school in Valley Falls, a springtime ritual for all us little girls was  picking violets to bring home to our mothers. Violets grew alongside many of the sidewalks, and in the ditches near the school, but the richest violet lode was adjacent to the Catholic Church.  There was an old wrought iron section of fencing between what was most likely the border of the church property and the shallow bank that was beside the little-used road.  We thought it was acceptable, not a sin, to pick the violets outside the fence, but would not venture inside the old piece of fencing to pick the flowers inside, though the fence was forgotten and guarded nothing.  We girls picked handfuls and handfuls of violets, and in those days, and years, violets were purple.  We were excited to find the rare cache of white violets.  They were much prized as an exception.  I couldn't say when was the last time I picked violets, or even paid much attention to them.  But it is a beautiful sight and a welcome harbinger of spring to see our lawn studded with violets.  However, for a number of years now, the violets are mostly white, with only a few purple flowers.  The white violets have spots of blue near the center, with yellow in the middle.  The purple violets have yellow centers, no signs of white.  I wonder why violets aren't violet anymore.......

Sunday Visits

When we were little, we regularly visited my mother's family in Cooksboro, and her sister in Melrose.  We also went to Hoosick Falls, where my father's younger brother Frank lived with his family.  That was the only one of my father's relatives who  had children our age;  my father was second youngest, and didn't marry until he was 40.  Visiting was different in those days.  Most of our relatives did not have telephones, so visits were usually reserved for Sundays, on a drop-in basis.  Most people could be found at home, as there  was no place else to go except mornng church services.  Businesses were all closed on Sundays, and anything to do with entertainment was essentially unheard of.  A different world.  My father always had a car, and always an old car with dubious performance capability.  I don't think he ever drove more than 35 miles per hour, whether by  his choice or not was never determined.  Nevertheless, he would feel the need, every few years or so, for us to visit his relatives.  We would undertake the trek to Schenectady, or Glens Falls and it would consume the entire day. The highway system was still quite primitive, with old and narrow roads.  In those days, no one,  at least to my knowledge, ever brought food or drink on a road trip, even, or maybe especially, for kids.  No bathroom stops either, but then with no drinks for the several hours of travel, we were all dehydrated so didn't need to go.  Moreover, maybe because of  the surprise nature of drop-in visits, or maybe because of the Yankee thrift ethic, I don't recall any offerings of food or drink at those distant locations.  I remember being starved and anxious to get home for something to eat. I assume no one wanted to feed people they only saw once every year or so.  Life was so different then.
     While most visits were to places without kids, and therefore tedious and boring for us 3 kids, one visit was memorable, at least to me.  We were at a relative of my father's, fairly local, a farm, probably in the Pittstown area. The man's name seems to have been Dan something, maybe Delurey, though that doesn't seem to be quite right. Again, no kids; it must have been a nice day because we kids were outside, while the adults engaged in talking, which we couldn't stand.  They had a farm collie that  followed us all around, very friendly.  We petted it and played with it for the time we were outside.  Its name might have been Shep, but I'm not sure.  When the time came for us to leave, all the adults, 4 or 5, were standing around the opened door of our big old car while we 3 kids filed in. The dog was sitting in front of them, a perfect family picture.  We kids said goodbye, probably mostly to the dog, when suddenly without any warning or provocation, the dog jumped up and bit me on the forehead. The adults all sprang into action, but it was all a blur.  I'm pretty sure somebody smacked the dog, because when we were leaving, the dog was cowering at the end of the driveway, and it was being consoled by the hired hands, who probably thought some bratty kid had teased it into desperation.  I remember I felt embarrassed and guilty, as if it were my fault that the dog didn't like me, because it really was a nice dog.  All I wanted to do was go home and forget about it;  one of the prime commandments of our childhood was that you did or said nothing to bring attenton to yourself.  Kids were supposed to be silent and invisible, and here I'd been front and center right before a whole group of adults.  Several days later, in the early evening hours, we were playing at our house with a number of neighborhood kids, as was usual, when the man, Dan, showed up to see if my wound was healed, as it were.  I was called from playing so he could see that I was recovering.  Once again, I felt a rush of embarrassment and humiliation, and responsibility for the nice dog's bad action.  My father, always the detective, surmised that the dog might have sat on a cigarette butt that someone had dropped while all were gathered to say goodbye to us.  Some things we'll never know.
    

Specialist Okay

   One  erudite ophthalmic specialist  I have been referred to is an internationally  renowned speaker,  instructor, researcher,  and author of many professional papers and dissertations, 74 so his vitae states.  One of the papers he authored deals with the subject of oral sex among orangutans.

Irritants, of a minor nature

  (1) I'm getting really tired of hearing people say that some problem or event or process is so involved or difficult or heartbreaking that they "can't wrap their head around it."  That might have been fresh  and meaningful the first few times the phrase was uttered, but really, what does it mean?  Wrap your head?  Around what?
   (2) I hope I'll never be forced to put on my jeans or pants after I already have my socks on.  I hate the feeling of having to push my sock-clad foot through the long tunnel of my pants leg, and besides I invariably lose my balance standing on one leg for that long. 

Wake-up Call

  I woke up in a rush, startled to hear my mother calling my name up the same staircase where she used to rouse us for school.  Something was wrong:   it was pitch dark, and I was grown up now, with a clock radio  to wake me up for work.  But it was my mother's voice that sent a chill through me; she was calling my name in a voice filled with a panic I'd never heard before.   She had found my father dead.  Only several hours before that, I was sitting on the floor in front of the living room stove, correcting papers.  He was reading as usual   in his  chair by the window.  He'd gone upstairs to bed while I was alone downstairs.  That was the last time I saw him alive.  He was 71 years old.

Torn

  Part of me wants to shake her, and part of me wants to drive with her to the beach to lie in the sun and empty our minds of all thought, as in the past.

And That's the Way It Was

"Joseph, MaryEllen and Dorothy---Time to get up!" My mother would open the kitchen door and call these words up the back stairway.  We never had alarm clocks then: Ma was always awake.  She would call us for school  after my father left for work, always through  the front door.  We kids didn't drink coffee, but the smell wafted up the stairway when she opened the kitchen door, and it smelled like morning in the  house.  The coffee pot was tan enamel with green trim at the top.