holidays

The Ides of June

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments
Birthday Boy
Birthday Boy

The 15th of June ushers in a season of birthdays and other anniversaries that rivals Christmas in expense. Chef Boy ‘R Mine’s natal day kicks off the season. The 16th is my brother’s birthday and the 23rd is my father’s. Father’s Day usually falls in there somewhere. My mother will turn 69 on July 6th and I hit 50 in August. Niece’s, nephew’s, and friend’s are scattered about between now and September.

HMOKeefe and I met online in June. He also will mark the two-year anniversary of his bone marrow transplant in June. His daughter’s birthday is in June.

My birthday resembles a bacchanal jubilee event since the entrance of HMOKeefe in my life. Appalled that I didn’t’ do much to celebrate mine (due, in part, to overdosing on cake after the June-July events), he persuaded me to mark mine with great fanfare and hedonism.

I’m a quadruple Leo according to my astrological chart, so the persuasion wasn’t all that rough. I went from not much to marking the day with self-indulgence, to a week of intense partying, to a month. My own birthday damages my wallet just as much as the others’ I celebrate. I’ve taken to giving my self a present each year. With a budget of roughly a $100, I give myself something I would never buy under normal circumstances – something I want but can’t justify.

Chef Boy ‘R Mine, however, is the champ of Birthday Season. The only child, the only grandchild, and resembling me far too much for his own good, the anniversary of his birth is a circus. As he got older, it got more and more difficult to blow his mind with a stellar present.

When he was 12 a new friend came to visit. In tow was her dog Whomper. Child of Mine felt instantly in love with her little dachshund. At the time, he was already moving into his faux angry young man phase (although he insists it’s not anger, but angst), so watching him lavish love and attention on Whomper was a bit startling.

While not thrilled with the idea of a puppy, the ex and I agreed a dachshund was in order to mark the 13th. Presumably the Fruit of My Loins was old enough to care for and train the puppy. After a rather frantic search, Ex O’Mine came home on the 11th of June with a little, wiggly body of unconditional love and cuteness.

The idea was to hide her from the boy until the 15th.

Well. That was impossible. I hadn’t realized 8-week-old puppies could be so noisy.

dachshundstatue
For the love of Stevie. . .

I spent a day or two locked in the master bedroom with a puppy that melted my heart. She and I bonded. Big time. And since we did, any time I left the bedroom, she whined and whimpered. On the 13th, we gave in and realized it was impossible. Uncharacteristically, the boy slept late that morning, so the opportunity to slip a puppy into bed with him was irresistible.

Boy oh boy was Chef Boy ‘R Mine surprised. Since I had been adamant for so long that there would be no dogs in this house, he was shocked and intensely happy. Not only had we managed to come up with a great birthday present, we had come up with the best present ever.

He named her Stevie after Steve Prefontaine, a cross-country runner he was emulating.

Everyone who met Stevie fell in love with her; she’s the standard by which all dogs are measured. She was a cracker-jack. She also thought she was my dog. She went running with the guys. She cuddled with them. But she wouldn’t go to sleep at night until I did and, given a choice, it was always my lap that she settled into.

A few years later, she died in a tragic accident that I still can’t talk about without tearing up. I regret, intensely, not taking more pictures of her.

In my kitchen is a carved wooden statue of a dachshund. I found it a few years ago and bought it for my birthday.

stevieflipped
Celebratory Stevie

I didn’t take a lot of photos until I was given a new camera for my birthday. I hadn’t realized what a pain my old camera was until the new one entered my life; but the contrariness of the old one probably explains why there are years of my life undocumented.

Some days I can barely remember Stevie’s features. I look at the one good picture of her that I have and she comes into focus again.  Even so, the focus is getting blurrier with time. I miss her still.

Take photos of your life – the big, the small, the things that capture your attention, the people and flora and fauna that rock your world. Take pictures of the stuff you’ve worked hard to acquire. Capture the scenery. Document the celebrations. Mark it all and keep it.

Memorial Day Mountain Mama

/ wvfurandroot / 13 Comments
Williams River
Williams River – my most favorite spot on the planet.

I get a lot of questions about why I live in West Virginia. As soon as people learn that I’m not from here and don’t have generations of family living here, the questions begin. They’re even more puzzled when they learn where it is I have lived and I have friends all over the world and a significant other in Boston. So why I do live here? Well, now, there’s a story for you. The short version is I am wildly in love with Wild and Wonderful West Virginia.  [And with good reason.]

The long version involves Memorial Day in 1974. I thought about posting this yesterday, but it seemed a tad disrespectful. But here it Tuesday evening, there’s a spectacular thunderstorm going on outside and I’m gazing, with adoration, at the pyrotechnics in the sky and the rain bouncing on my patio. I love it here and I love spring and I love that the on and off monsoons of this day will only make the greening of the mountains more vivid, the wildflowers more profuse, and the sky bluer. It’s all good.

In 1974, my father was wrapping things up with the Marine Corps, but had not yet settled on a second career. We were at Camp Lejeune on the southern coast of North Carolina. We knew we didn’t want to stay there, but were dithering about where to go. While trying to make that decision, we headed north to a family reunion in Michigan (one place that was in the definite “no” column of the decision list). Contrary to habit, we took the route through West Virginia.

In Beckley, late Friday afternoon of the Memorial Day weekend, our car broke down. We sat at the Ford dealer and fair gaped at the West Virginia mountains. All of us were awed. Our mechanic, bless his heart, I don’t know his name, was mournful sad when he broke the news that he couldn’t get the part until Tuesday morning due to the holiday. He was really concerned that we were missing our family reunion.

We were not particularly upset. Most of the kin lived in Michigan and we had all summer to dither. We checked into the Holiday Inn. Beckley was not as developed then as it is now. There wasn’t much to do but hang out in the motel. Sunday morning, about noon, the mechanic and his wife showed up with food and invited us to their family reunion the next day. We accepted the food and declined the invitation, but we were bumfuzzled by such caring and concern.

While there is a great deal of community in military towns, it’s somewhat detached and superficial. I never felt an outsider, but I also never felt like any of those places was home. Moreover, in terms of natural beauty, West Virginia won hands down – and I was comparing it to Hawaii, California and coastal Carolina. The mountains and the flowers just knocked me out. My parents and my brother were having the same reaction.  The people, their warmth and hospitality, just made it all that much sweeter.

Without much forethought or planning, we moved here. Through a twist that you wouldn’t believe if it were in a novel, we discovered we had old family friends in Huntington. Next thing I knew, we’d bought a house and had joined a strong church community.

My high school experience was less than stellar; it was my first time going to school with non-Brats. Brats, military personnel offspring, have a unique culture. We move so often that you learn to make friends really fast – even with people you don’t like. Nothing is worse than being in a new place with no friends. Brats adapt and they do it quickly.

My classmates had been born in the same hospital, went to preschool together, went to church together and, in short, had spent most of their 15 or so years with the same people. My outgoing, let’s-be-friends Brat manner didn’t go over well. They didn’t know me and didn’t know anyone who did.  While I wasn’t mistreated, in fact I was treated very well, I wasn’t included in things because no one thought to do so.  What I had experienced for years in moving from town to town and school to school, they wouldn’t experience until college. Once again, I was ahead of the curve.

Nonetheless, my love affair with all things West Virginia deepened into a serious, life-long commitment. I did leave to live in Wisconsin for awhile. The entire seven years in exile, I spent plotting to get back here. I finally did in late 1985.

In these intervening years, I studied Appalachian culture, the stereotypes, the myths and the history. I may know this state better than those born here. Warts and all, I love it. Memorial Day is the time of the year that I reflect on the good fortune of finding my spot on the planet. I don’t want to be anywhere but here.

Because I adopted this place, I go off the rails when somebody lights in about hillbillies and rednecks and outhouses and lack of teeth. It absolutely corks me that Appalachian culture is one of the last remaining ethnicities it’s politically correct to bash. It’s akin to the saying I can criticize my family, but don’t you dare. I can go from zero to bitch pretty quickly in such circumstances.

I had a spectacular Memorial Day. I gardened. I admired the lushness of my version of the 100-acre wood and I pondered all the military folk, some I know and some I don’t, for whom this holiday means something entirely different. But those in war zones probably just want to come home and, perhaps, spent their holiday thinking about home. The holiday for me is the anniversary of finding my home.  In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, one of the levels prior to self-actualization is belongingness – the need to feel you are part of your community and appreciated as such.  I belong here.

And it’s good to be here.

Ancestors

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments
I think I'll name her Emily.

I think I'll name her Emily.

Since it is Memorial Day weekend, I am introducing my Ancestors.

Memorial Day, formerly known as Decoration Day, is a U.S. federal holiday set aside to honor those who died in combat. In the southern states, and Appalachia in particular, the holiday has expanded as a time to remember all of one’s relatives who have passed on.

Because my dad was in the military and for a host of other reasons, I grew up without an extended family – without ancestors, so to speak. My immediate family does not have a cemetery that we can go to this weekend and decorate. We will not be attending any Homecomings (family reunions often held at churches or cemeteries).

While I’m not really all that keen on the idea of spending Monday at a cemetery eating potato salad, I do miss knowing the people that make up the furthest branches of my family tree.

When we moved back here in 1985 and bought “Frank’s old place,” I was often asked, “Who are your people?” That, or some more subtle variation, is a common question and one of the defining characteristics of Appalachian culture. Often the conversation begins with “Where are you from?” The questioner is expecting an answer that names a county or town with more descriptors identifying the family tree. We don’t particularly want to know your occupation (so forget the “so what do you do? question), we want to know who you connect to – how you fit into the quilt of our communities.

My mama's people - the infamous branch.

My mama's people - the infamous branch.

I explain that I’m not from anywhere as my dad was in the military, but that my great-grandparents were Appalachians who out-migrated around the turn of the century. Consequently, I grew up with hillbilly ways in non-hillbilly places. My people, the ones I’m related to by blood, are scattered around the country and due to different life circumstances, I don’t have a lot of information about the kinfolk much past a few generations. It’s kind of sad.

Dusty cardbox box of ancestors

Dusty cardboard box of ancestors

One day, while perusing stuff in an antique store, I found a bin of old photographs. I was enchanted and appalled. Who? Who, in their right mind, would get rid of old family photos? These people, their individuality permeating sepia, were languishing unloved and unappreciated in a dusty cardboard box in a junk store.  The indignity!  And then it dawned on me.  For $3, I bought the first portrait of my Ancestors. I’ve adopted many Ancestors since then.

The photo below is one of my favorites. I’ve named them the Kinton family and have decided that the photo is of a married couple, the vicious mother-in-law, and the sulking teenage son (who, as you may note, is trying to distance himself from the embarrassment of having to hang out with his parents).

The Kintons
The Kintons

I’m particularly fond of the noble steeds. Apparently, my extended family eschewed equestrian activities for burro-ian ones.  [Note:  Now we know where I got my innate sense of dignity in awkward situations.]  Of all the Ancestors, this family intrigues me the most and set the tone for my collection.  Not all, but many of my Ancestors, are quirky.  While I regret not knowing my real family well, I love the freedom of choosing people and creating biographies while simultaneously being pissed off that someone, anyone, would give up such precious photos.

I love the church pew - I'm strange that way.

I love the church pew - I'm strange that way.

The Ancestors have been languishing in a dusty cardboard box on my church pew for sometime now. I want a better life for them, buth such things take time and money – precious commodities in my life.  My goal is to have them all professionally framed so I can hang them above the church pew to be viewed (and remembered). I will be able to point to “my people” and, as soon as I finish writing biographies for each of them, explain where they lived, what they did and who they loved. [Note: I adore the church pew. Having been raised in a fundamentalist religious tradition, I take a certain amount of contrary pleasure in sitting on the church pew en flagrante déshabillé, smoking a cigarette and sipping wine.]

I’ve spent the morning digging through the ancestors as well as photos of my more immediate family. It’s been a bittersweet time. I’d like to go to a cemetery and sit in green grass and remember them – pull some weeds, plant a rose or two, admire the daisies growing on the hillside. Instead, I will spend this weekend working in the garden that includes many of the plants they gave me or I dug up from their yards after they passed.

Daisies - a really underappreciated flower.

Daisies - a really underappreciated flower.

We lost two of my dad’s sisters a couple of months ago.  Marvelous women, both of them, we are still grieving.  They died two hours and 900 miles apart, some what unexpectedly. I’m planning to go to the nursery and buy their favorite flowers to plant in my garden. I think that will encompass the spirit of things.

In memory of Kathy, and, in particular, Irene, who loved the absurd as much as I.  One after one, they endured some of the most horrible events life can offer, yet still managed to laugh.  I miss them both.