Category: Nostalgia

Learning by Doing

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
toddler climbing on wall
Photo by Susanne Jutzeler on Pexels.com

The warm weather has been a bit long in coming this year which is just fine with me. I don’t want to live in northern climes where winter lingers until May. Nor do I wish to deal with snow and blizzards, but I do prefer cooler weather that allows me to dress in layers and wear cute boots. My figure is long past the showy stage. The less skin I expose, the better for multiple reasons not the least of which is my tendency to get skin cancers. Too much sun leaves freckles and brown splotches on my face, and my waistline is hardly bikini worthy. Fall and winter fashion serves me best. I can fool the world into thinking that I’m still slender. It’s amazing how many sins a nice long sweater can hide.

Nonetheless  I remember my childhood when I longed for the warmth of the sun, even though my family did not own an air conditioner. How we managed to survive the hot Houston summers with only  open windows and an attic fan is beyond me, but I don’t recall feeling unduly uncomfortable. I suppose that we humans adapt to whatever is customary, and back then summers meant wearing very little clothing and eschewing footwear in favor of bare feet. We’d found comfort under the shade of trees or through strategically created ventilation from open windows. Of course an invitation here and there from a friend whose home was mechanically cooled never went unanswered. Now I don’t think that I would make it through a summer without my thermostatically controlled coolness, and I certainly am no longer willing to reveal the true nature of my physical shape by wearing skimpy outfits.

I wonder what we would do if we were somehow forced to return to those days of ninety degree temperatures inside our homes. To hear some scientists’ claims it could very well happen again. We might once more have to learn how to deal with whatever Mother Nature sends our way. It will take a great deal of cleverness like we used back in the day. For now I’ll just be glad that the continuous state of sweat is but a distant memory, made pleasant by the selective nature of my mind.

I laugh when I think of how my generation grew up. In today’s world our mothers would be reported to CPS for doing things that were just natural back then. We rode in cars without any kind of seatbelts, sometimes even standing on the seats, riding in the front, and hitching rides in the back of pickup trucks like cargo. We had no kneepads or helmets for skating or riding bicycles which we often mounted in our bare feet. We stepped on nails and glass and as long as our tetanus shots were up to date our moms cleaned our wounds, splashed some mercurochrome on them and finished with a bandaid that fell off within minutes of our returning to the streets without benefit of shoes.

We played games in the middle of the road, and Red Rover was one of our favorite neighborhood competitions. We almost always sported scabs on our knees and cuts on our fingers. We’d cool down with water from the hose which also served as our drinking fountain. We roamed the area in little hoards finding adventure down by the bayou or in walks along the railroad tracks. We all knew the sting of hot asphalt on the soles of our feet or sticker burrs between our toes. We’d have make believe battles with the little berries on tallow trees, tossing those makeshift weapons like grenades. I don’t remember anyone losing an eye, but I  suspect that somewhere some poor kid may have been injured in that way.

We were as free as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn and just as inclined to mischief. We’d scale mountains of sand meant to be spread on some neighbor’s yard. We’d climb roofs and stand on the peaks like intrepid adventurers who had successfully scaled some high peak. Nothing was out of the bounds of our imaginations and in the process we got tough and learned how to work as teams. We thought out of the box, inventing ways to have fun without many store bought tools.

Summers were great times when we were free as the birds in the sky, little noticing the stifling heat that hung over our childhood games. Now I get weak in the knees and short of wind if I attempt to be too energetic in the hottest times of the year. I’ve grown far too accustomed to the luxury of central air conditioning to submit myself to the tortures of the sun. In some ways it makes me sad to admit that I have lost my toughness. I was once like a young warrior ready for any challenge regardless of the weather. Now I am more like a hot house flower, as I suspect most of us, including many children, have become. So yes, the cooler times of year are now my favorite. That’s when I don’t mind taking a many miles long walk or working all day in my garden. To my utter delight of late there have been more days suited to my taste than usual.

I’m still admittedly proud of the way I grew up. I sometimes think that the “greatest generation” that raised me understood how to treat children far better than we do today. My friends and I have glorious memories of fun that don’t appear to be duplicated by many young folk today. Children have their play dates and formal classes which I suppose are fun, but I worry that they don’t have enough experience in which they make all of the decisions without adult supervision. There’s something quite wonderful about working things out by trial and error. It is a glorious way to gain all sorts of knowledge. The warm weather always reminds me of my outdoor classroom and all of the things that I learned by doing.

Kindred Souls

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Some people in this world are larger than life and my Uncle Bob was one of them. I was only six years old when he died at the age of thirty, but he had left an impression on me than never faded. He and my father had met in Corpus Christi, Texas when they were in high school and along with a third friend named Lloyd they became like the Three Musketeers, eventually attending college together at Texas A&M University. To everyone’s delight when my Uncle Bob met my mother’s sister, Claudia, the two of them fell in love and married. That’s how my father’s best friend officially became my uncle.

Uncle Bob was an athlete who played tennis and climbed mountains. When World War II broke out he enlisted and became a bombardier flying missions over Germany. When he returned from battle he completed a degree in Geology from Texas A&M and found love with my Aunt Claudia. Together they were a stunning couple, young and beautiful and brilliant.

Uncle Bob next enrolled in the South Dakota School of Mines to earn a masters degree in Geology. Before he had finished his studies he was diagnosed with cancer that required the amputation of one of his legs. True to his unflagging spirit he never missed a beat, studying during his recovery and graduating on time with the other members of his class.

After graduating he and my aunt returned to Corpus Christi where he landed a job in a small oil and gas company. At first his bosses gave him a desk job due to his disabilities, but he was itching to work in the field and finally convinced his superiors to give him an opportunity to demonstrate his prowess. He proved to be quite capable of doing the sometimes strenuous work at drilling sites, often being more adept that those without the constrictions that he bore.

Uncle Bob and my dad were quite the pair, two highly intelligent young men with big plans for the future. I remember them laughing together and enjoying each other’s company like two brothers. I loved the times when he and my aunt would stay at our house during their visits from Corpus Christi and we in turn often found ourselves traveling to Uncle Bob’s home which was filled with a museum worthy collection of rocks and minerals as well as his paintings of places he had been. 

Uncle Bob was planning to enter a program for a doctorate when he was once again diagnosed with cancer. This time he endured surgery to remove one of his lungs and was quite sick. While he was in the hospital in Houston my parents were visibly upset and our home was uncharacteristically in a state of turmoil. My mother had just given birth to my youngest brother and my aunt was also expecting her first child. There was a great deal of furtive whispering in those days which culminated in my being quickly enrolled in first grade at the age of five. The adults seriously thought that I had no idea of what was happening, but I was all too aware that my Uncle Bob was not doing well. He had already prepared me for such an eventuality during one of his visits when I discovered him attaching his wooden leg. He treated me with so much respect when he told me about his cancer. I loved him for his honesty and his understanding.

After Christmas of my first school year Uncle Bob died. My parents attempted to shield me from what was happening so I did not attend any of the memorials or funeral events, but I knew all too well that I was never again going to see the remarkable man who had so enchanted me. I also noticed a profound change in my father who would grieve for his friend for what ended up being the rest of his own short life.

My family moved on just as people always do after such tragedies, but in my heart there would forever be a special place for my Uncle Bob. My image of him never grew old, but remained frozen in all the glory of his youth. It was only when I began tracking my ancestry that I began to learn even more about my incredible uncle, and only recently I uncovered a newspaper article about his father that touched me to the very center of my heart.

I never knew anything about Uncle Bob’s childhood or his parents, so I was stunned to learn that before moving to Corpus Christi he had spent much of his boyhood in Chicago. There his mother became ill and died while he was still rather young. Like him, she too had cancer that ended her life far too early. Nonetheless he was the apple of his father’s eye, an only child who brought great joy to the man who guided him through his childhood.

Uncle Bob’s father was a machinist and was apparently rather skilled in his trade. At one point he created a unique steam engine for his son’s train set. He used scrap metal from junked cars and dental tools to build tiny parts that made the details of the model realistic. Over the years the man had kept the treasure which had been loved by his son. When the father was in his seventies and retired he decided to donate his creation to a museum, and the local newspaper ran a featured article about his work.

As I read a copy of the piece I felt a tinge of great sorrow for my Uncle Bob’s father. There was a look of sadness on his old face and the story of how he had worked so hard to please his little son was filled with so much pathos. There he sat gazing wistfully at his creation and possibly thinking of all of the might have beens. Somehow I felt a deep connection to this person whom I had never met because I knew that he had loved Bob even more than I did.

I suppose that there is nothing quite like losing a person who seems far to young to die. The pain never really heals because of a lingering sense of unfairness. I would eventually undergo the even more sorrow only two years later when my father died, and as a young mother I would see my Uncle Bob’s daughter, my cousin Sandra, die at the age of sixteen. Somehow I feel as though these three souls and that old man are linked with me in a primordial connection. I am now a seventy year old like Uncle Bob’s dad was in the article that so touched my heart, and I sense an unexplainable closeness with him. Somehow we are linked as humans through our spirits, kindred souls wandering through life’s experiences. 

A Month of Madness

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
close up photography of blue and green smoke
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com

As I took my plants back outside after a couple of days of freezing weather I thought of how cyclical life is. I’ve been through seventy one winters now and watched the seasons change in quirky ways, but always somewhat predictably. Life is a series of repetitions during which we grow just a bit older and hopefully a bit wiser. We learn about the way of things and understand that while it’s unusual, it is possible to have a freeze in March in the south. We go with the flow and the routine even as big changes may occur to make things so very different. We understand that we can count on the calendar moving at its”petty pace” but surprises both good and bad may come our way at any moment. The traditions to which we often cling are ways of keeping us anchored even as storms roar around us.

March brings us the Houston Rodeo and Mardi Gras and Lent and the madness of basketball. In this month we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day even if we don’t have an Irish bone in our bodies. We decorate our homes with colorful beads and then replace them with shamrocks and finally bunnies. We take a break from work and school with an eye toward warmer days and fun in the sun, hoping that our plans to visit a beach aren’t spoiled with rain and cold temperatures. We seek a sense of control and continuity with our rituals. They create cohesion and memories that sustain us, but they can also be a source of sorrow when things spiral out of our control as often happens.

I remember a year when my friend Pat secured a beach house for all of us to use during spring break. Our children were teenagers who were not yet driving and doing things on their own although they may have been dying to do so. We happily packed enough food and clothing for what should have been a fun adventure, but things began to fall apart almost immediately beginning with the fact that we had to wear coats because it was so chilly. Nonetheless, by the time we had reached the rented house we had outlined a Plan B that did not include swimming in the still frigid ocean, but would still be filled with tons of fun. We were bound and determined to make the best of our situation.

As soon as we opened the door of the vacation home we somehow knew that even our alternate ideas were doomed. The place reeked of deceased rodents and there was no way that we were going to be able to stay inside. At that point our anger and disappointment reached its limit. We had no choice but to complain to the owner of the place and then return home. After shedding a few tears of frustration we were on our way back to where we had started with only a few lame ideas about how to have a fun time in spite of the frustrating developments.

I don’t remember what we actually did after that. I do know that we eventually found ourselves laughing in a kind of hysteria about how awry things had gone. At the time our misadventure had seemed so significant and horrific but as the seasons came and went and our children grew into independent adults the story of that spring break became more of a treasured memory of our continuing friendship than a terrible experience. Today my friend Pat is gone and I know in my heart that I would even stay in a stinky rat invested house if it meant that we might have a bit more time together. Such is life.

After someone dear to us dies the first few cycles of the the year are exceedingly difficult to endure. Each occasion reminds us of how much we miss them. Over time our wounds heal, toughen up, and turn into scars. We once again find joy in our traditions and the memories of those who once shared them with us. We realize how lucky we were to have them and the pain becomes bearable. Just as the dormant trees bud forth each spring, so too do we find ways to carry on even after we have felt as though we too have died inside.

I love this time of year. It is one of those grandly transitional months when we humans find ways to muddle through the last gasps of winter with the promise of spring just over the horizon. We gather together to celebrate all that has gone before and all that is yet to come. Our hats, parades, ashes, decorations, foods, and gatherings are inventions of the human spirit, attempts to maintain our optimism even when everything around us feels so wrong. How wonderful it is!

March is a hopeful month even as we witness destruction from the last gasps of wintery weather. It’s a month when we never quite know how things will turn out, but we plan them anyway. We may go to the Houston Rodeo in heavy coats with rain falling on our heads, but once we are inside the arena all of our worries seem to evaporate. March is ever a new beginning, a time to set the problems of the past aside and hope that better days are ahead. It’s also a time to prepare ourselves for whatever challenges may come our way by thinking outside of our own worries and needs. I’m now old enough and experienced enough to know that it’s often a month of madness that always seems to end with a feeling of peace.

Older Than Dirt

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
person pouring milk in highball glass
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

I just saw a Facebook post called Older Than Dirt that lists seventeen items that have mostly gone the way of the buggy whip. If you are familiar with ten or more of them you supposedly qualify for the title Older Than Dirt. There were seventeen things listed and I not so fondly remembered all of them, so I guess that I’m officially ancient. I hadn’t even thought about or missed most of the items, but I felt a slight tug of nostalgia when I saw them on the list. I also realized that in many ways I’m part of a generation that has straddled the old ways and the new.

I still recall the weird inconvenience of being on a telephone party line. I must have been about five or so when we finally got our own private line. Before then it was not all that unusual to lift the receiver and hear someone who lived in another house talking away. My mom taught me the code of phone etiquette which meant that I would hang up quickly and be certain that I never mentioned anything that I might have heard. Even then it seemed weird to have to share telephone time with complete strangers, but it was the way things actually were. I had totally forgotten about that strange situation until I saw it listed with a string of other oldies. While party lines may sound unbelievable to young folk, I encountered an even more old time way of talking on the phone when I visited my grandparents in rural Arkansas. They actually had to go through the services of an operator to make a call, something that I had only seen in old movies from the thirties and forties.

I never knew what eventually happened to Studebakers, but my aunt and uncle owned one. It was a sporty little car that was much more adventurous looking than than the big featureless models that most people drove back then. I still remember being filled with awe whenever my aunt and uncle drove up in their Studebaker. They were young and attractive and newly married. To five year old me they looked like movie stars, and when they took me for a ride in their automobile I felt like a celebrity. The last Studebaker I ever saw belonged to my husband’s best friend. The car was old and doing its best to fall apart. The designers had lost their mojo and turned it into a featureless box, which is no doubt why the line of cars went the way to the junkyard, but I would always remember just how sweet the models were in the early nineteen fifties.

By the time my girls were using roller skates they simply slipped on a boot with wheels, but when I was a child we had roller skates that would last a lifetime because the parts were adjustable. The process of properly sizing the skates involved using a metal key to lengthen or shorten and fit the mechanism onto the sole of whatever shoe the skater was wearing. A pair of skates that came to a five year old at Christmas time might last until they were no longer used as a teenager. Our mothers usually found some twine or ribbon to make a kind of necklace on which we kept the key that made the whole thing work. I used to keep mine inside my jewelry box so that I might quickly find it whenever I got the urge to skate.

We had very few luxuries in our home, but one that my mom faithfully used was milk delivery. Our milkman left the white liquid on our front porch in big glass gallon containers. Once the milk was gone Mama would rinse out the bottle and then leave it on the porch to be recycled by the milk company which for us was always Carnation. We got to know the milkman better than the mailman because he came with three or four gallons of milk every week and rang our doorbell to let us know that the bottles had arrived. My brothers were voracious milk drinkers and my mother often attributed their strong teeth and bones to the calcium that they consumed. Eventually grocery stores were close enough that it was easier to just make a quick trip for some milk and the idea of having things delivered to the house went away. Now I laugh that young folk think that home food delivery is a new thing.

We used to use ice trays to make the cubes that we used to cool our water or tea. Back in the day they were made of metal and used a large handle to release the ice. Even the best ones never really worked very well, so when the flexible plastic ones came along it felt as though someone had invented a miracle device. The problem was that the trays took up a considerable amount of space inside the freezer section of the refrigerator so there was never much ice available at any give time. If someone neglected to refill the trays, which happened far too often, we were reduced to drinking things at room temperature like so many Europeans do. The ice makers of today are a joyful luxury that still leave me in awe each time I see the almost boundless supply of frozen water.

The Older Than Dirt list included drive in movie theaters which are worthy of an entire blog, and candy cigarettes which made us feel grown up and sophisticated in a time when it seemed as though every adult smoked without knowing the dangers. There were metal lunch boxes which often featured our favorite movie and television characters like Roy Rogers. They held our baloney sandwiches and apples and thermoses of warm milk. There were forty five rpm records that we played on speakers that sounded tinny, and Blackjack gum which to me tasted like melted blacktop. Our soda machines dispensed glass bottles that we had to either leave once we were finished drinking or had to pay a deposit to take with us. There was Butch Wax for styling hair that I never used because it was a product for the boys, but we gals had Dippity Do which we slathered on our hair along with our curlers so that we might create the enormous bouffants of the sixities. There were five and dime stores which were small versions of Walmart, and home economics classes where students learned how to run a household efficiently long before Marie Kondo came to tell us what to do. Books came with records that in a sense were the first audio versions of our favorite stories, and rather unsophisticated drinkers consumed Boone’s Farm wine.

Yes, I knew about all of those things, but I also realized how far we have come in making the world far better than it once was. I can only think of a few things on the list that we might do well to emulate in a more modern way. Recycling glass bottles was a great idea and I’d like to see it happen again. Those stunning Studebakers of the early fifties were a sight to see. Drive In movies were a great place to take the kids on summer evenings. The metal lunchboxes were akin to Bento boxes and prevented much wasting of paper. Most of the rest were fun while we had them, but hardly worth reinventing. We’ve moved on and in most cases it has been for the best. I like my streaming music and the mountains of ice at my fingertips. Nostalgia is fine but progress is better, especially when it takes the health of our planet into account. 

Go Climb A Tree

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
green trees
Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

I was lying on a table about to get a bone scan when I saw the loveliest sight. It was an overhead image of a perfectly blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds and the green canopy of a tree. It reminded me of being a kid again and lying in the soft grass on a spring day doing nothing more than gazing at the sky. If I exerted any effort at all in those long ago moments it was to use my imagination to find cloud formations that looked like animals or objects. Mostly I was simply chilling out, enjoying the glorious day and the joy of just being a child. There is something quite magical about that. It’s a time in life that can never quite be duplicated as an adult, a time of innocence when worries and cares are still mostly related to friendships and school.

Back when I was young I liked nothing better than climbing a tree, finding a nice niche between two branches and lying back to do some sky gazing. We once lived in a house that had a specimen that was perfectly made for such things and I spent more than a good share of time high above the earth leaning back in a chair created by nature. It was such a sturdy place that I was even able to read among the branches. One day I carved my name on the trunk to let some future climber know that I had once been there.

I often wonder what became of that tree. I suspect that a big storm or hurricane may have damaged the spot where I left my signature, but I like to believe that it is still standing tall. Perhaps it is inviting a new group of kids to find a foothold and use it as a magnificent stairway to the heavens. I hope nobody cut it down, but then such things happen all the time in the name of progress.

I have lots of memories associated with trees. There was a great tall one near the bayou where I grew up. It looked as though it had possibly been growing when explorers used those waters to navigate inland. Perhaps native Americans had once camped underneath its shade. It was quite magnificent and we used it as a launching pad for a rope swing that carried us over the water and back to the safety of the bank. I don’t think that I’ve ever had as much fun or felt as excited as I did when I climbed higher and higher into that tree and then jumped through the air clinging to the rope that was tethered in the highest branches. Sadly someone wanted to build a home right in the middle of where it once stood, and so it has been gone for some time now. I just wish that those of us who loved it might have saved it. There’s something so sad about losing a truly great tree.

Really old trees are spiritual. When I walk among the redwood forests of California I feel a kind of magic emanating from the gigantic plants that have withstood the centuries. Somehow they seem to be whispering to one another as the wind caresses their leaves, and I wonder what they are saying. Do they want us to go away, or do they understand that some of us truly love them?

My grandparents had a peach tree that filled with luscious fruit each summer. I once helped my grandmother pick the juicy orbs by skittering high up into the branches. It never occurred to me to worry that I might fall or break a bone. I felt the exhilaration of climbing until the branches became too thin to hold my frame. Then I would grab as many peaches as my arms would hold and slowly move back down to my waiting grandmother. I repeated my journey over and over again never getting tired or bored. Youth is like that, a time of unlimited stamina. I suppose that I miss that as much as sitting in a tree, something that I would now be afraid to attempt.

I hope that children still have fun like I did. I hope that they get as much joy out of nothing more than lying down at the foot of a tree and just staring up into the sky. There really is nothing quite as glorious as getting in touch with nature. Nothing that we humans can create or buy is quite as magnificent, save for our children, but that’s another topic for another day.

These days I have to even be careful about something as simple crouching down into the grass. Unless someone is there to assist me I may have a very difficult time getting back up if it’s a day when my knees decide to get surly. Of course I am unable to climb anymore, and even if I had the ability it would be dangerous for me. One small misstep might create a fall bad enough to break my now fragile bones. It’s such a bummer to lose the glorious abilities that I once had. If I could I would find a tree and climb it on a nice spring day. I’d look heavenward and just let my mind relax. Now the closest proximity that I have to such a sight is from the table on which a machine takes pictures of my bones.

Still, I have those memories that are so vivid that they still make me smile. If I close my eyes I am a child again, able to conquer the challenge of climbing as high as I wish. it’s a truly wonderful image. For now it will have to do.