Happy Birthday Dad! A Post from the Archives

Sibling Assignment # 102: Father Daughter Banquet, Bowling, and Lemon Fluff

I gave the sibling assignment this week. In honor of Father's Day I asked my siblings to remember a time that our father made them proud. You will soon find the much healthier RP's here and if Silver Valley Girl is off the links yet, hers will be here.

Being a member of Bluebirds and Camp Fire Girls was a big part of my growing up experience. Each year around Valentine's Day we had the annual Father Daughter Banquet. At our Camp Fire meeting we learned a song to sing to our dads and worked feverishly at decorating a box with a Valentine theme. The box held our banquet, which was similar to a box social meal.

One thing I loved about the Father Daughter banquet was the banquet we brought with us. Mom made the same food for us each year and the menu was our favorite. We had her cold fried chicken, homemade potato salad, and the famous Lemon Fluff dessert. If I remember right everything we needed was packed into our dinner box that I had proudly decorated. Now we often got to enjoy her cold fried chicken and potato salad, but Lemon Fluff was a treat. The dessert was discovered by a teacher partner of mom's at Silver King school as an inexpensive and fairly easy dessert to make, so it had been dished up at many an event at the school for PTA ,but we didn't get it often at home. This light lemon flavored dessert with a graham cracker crust was placed in little plastic square boxes for Dad and I to enjoy.

Another part of the Father Daughter Banquet that sticks in my memory is that for some unknown reason Dad always had a bowling tournament the same day. The coincidence was that the banquet was held upstairs in the same building as the bowling alley. Just as we sat down to eat our banquet here would come my Dad. Depending on the sponsor of his bowling team, he would be wearing a flashy,bright bowling shirt in red or gold advertising the beer company that was his sponsor. His forehead would be shiny with sweat, there would be a hint of beer on his breath, but he would sit down by me and enjoy the homemade banquet of food.

If my memory serves me right I think sometimes he would have to go back down when it was his turn, then run back up the stairs. While catching his breath he always savored every bite of Mom's chicken, potato salad, and Lemon Fluff.

This was a moment that made me proud of Dad. Sitting awkwardly in a seat a bit too small for him , perhaps with his mind on the next frame of the bowling tournament and the cold Heidelberg he left downstairs , he focused on me as I sang "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" to him joined by my other Camp Fire friends.

Through the years Dad embellished his version of these banquets over and over again as he was so famous for doing. There was talk of missed frames, %#2$% George Linney, someone drinking his beer, and having to squeeze in small quarters to join me for the banquet. What will always stay with me was seeing Dad's misty eyes when I blew him a kiss when I finished " Let Me Call You Sweetheart". He hustled off to bowl his next frame not realizing I had seen those tears. I felt proud of my dad that night upstairs at the bowling alley.

What is Orange?

  What Is Orange?

Orange is a tiger lily,
A carrot,
A feather from
A parrot,
A flame,
The wildest color you can name.
Saying good-bye
In a sunset that
Shocks the sky .
Orange is brave
Orange is bold
It's bittersweet
And marigold.
Orange is zip
Orange is dash
The brightest stripe
In a Roman sash.
Orange is an orange
Also a mango.
Orange is the music
Of the tango.
Orange is the fur
Of the fiery fox,
The brightest crayon
In the box.
And in the fall
When the leaves are tuming
Orange is the smell
Of a bonfire burning.
---Mary O'Neill

The Blossoms of October

 

Perhaps this year I will still be picking flowers for bouquets in November!

Feeling of Fall

The date on the calendar is not always what indicates the arrival of fall. The summer held on this year producing rose blooms, red tomatoes, and morning glory blossoms last week. Another sure sign of fall is the first time I smell leaves burning. When I left school the other day the pungent smell took me back to 516 W. Cameron in Kellogg when dad would rake the yellow and brown leaves into the street by the sidewalk and burn the pile in the darkened twilight.

 It feels more like the fall when the temperature drops. When you have to warm up the car and pull out a heavier coat it signals real fall. When middle school boys don't want to play basketball in their shorts and sweatshirts before school, but would rather stay inside, it has to be fall.

Today JEJ prepared all the grapes into juice for jam making. That smell along with the aroma of the apples simmering for applesauce, the pears awaiting canning, and squash and pumpkin cooking in the oven all signal fall. Growing up I have such a vivid memory of baked apples cooking in the oven. When they came out we sprinkled them with brown sugar and waited eagerly for them to cool enough to sample. Now we might splurge and add a bit of cream or ice cream in the middle of the apple.

I look forward to preparing jam, making applesauce, raking leaves, building a fire, putting on a fleece vest, and basking in the October sun. That is what fall is all about. 

The Sketchbook Project

I can't even remember how I first learned of The Sketchbook Project. I am now for 2011and my moleskin sketchbook arrived today. There are only two rules. The book must be used in some way - no sending back an empty book or a completely different book! Second, the sketchbook must stay within its original dimensions. A barcode is already attached and in January it will become part of the Brooklyn Library system and will travel around on a tour. My theme is "In five minutes..." I have lots of ideas bouncing around in my head of what I will do the the sketchbook. I am eager to begin. If you are interested in this project you can find more information here. The dealine for signing up is October 31st. I will post periodically what I am creating in my own sketchbook.

The Family of Things

Whether it is jubilation over miners rescued in Chile, a prayer passed around for a accident victim, the kindness of a man offering help to one in need, or wild geese returning home.  We all have a place in the family of things. One of my favorite poets Mary Oliver said it best:

Wild Geese 

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver