One Sunday Morning

My brother and I - 1961- Easter 

As a youngster, after Sunday school in our beautiful country church, my mom, two siblings, me, my maternal grandma, cousins and aunt that lived with Grandma all sat in the same pews (one or two) for the worship service. Since my grandma (and grandpa) had eight children, the extended family was large. Added to the "family" pew each weekend were visiting family members who sometimes attended church with Grandma Sadie. Needless to say, the family pew(s) overflowed. I would like to add that these were not assigned pews, but squatted, claimed emotionally by families.

My involvement with the family pew thing changed as I became a teenager and wandered around the church with friends,  until I married.

But this isn't a story about family pews. No. This story is about the pew that helped trap me. 

We weren't the only ones that sat in the same place each Sunday. In front of us, sat three of the elder women of the church and community who often sat together. They all had fluffy white sometimes blued tinted hair which I fought to not touch because their hair 'looked' soft. (I read somewhere that women blued their hair because they didn't want their gray hair to look yellow.)

One particular Sunday, the congregation sang its hymns, stood and sat as directed. (I can still hear my grandma’s sweet singing voice.) I liked two of the ladies who sat in front of us, but the third I did not care for since she was surly to me.  I witnessed her snippiness to others, too. All three of the ladies were close neighbors to us and each other. That day, a couple of things were flitting through my mind and it wasn't church related: obsessing on their soft hair and thinking on what I would do after church. I don't recall if I was singing, but I do remember running my hand over the wood of the back of the pew in front of me. That is where I left my arm, dangling over the back of the next pew when the singing stopped. 

After that last song, the song leader told us to be seated. Before I could collect both arms, the lady that wasn't so nice, fell back into her seat, slamming her body against my arm. There I stood with my skinny little arm pinned by her back to the pew. The moment was so brief, but felt lengthy as I pondered how to free myself without talking to the surly woman. I knew she would say I shouldn't have put it there in the first place. 

The woman didn't seem to notice that MY arm was the lump between her back and the seat. Maybe she thought the lump was her sweater or something because she shifted her shoulders side to side then pressed back even more against me. Suddenly, she moved again, this time forward, giving me the opportunity to pull my arm out and sit down. I looked at my mom who hadn't noticed my dilemma. She'd been in a whispering conversation with my grandma, as they sat down. 

I want to point out that others thought this woman was not surly but instead likable. Somehow, she left that impression on me. 

Neighbors

In my rural community, you either like (a measure of love) or dislike (meaning hate) a neighbor. It's probably that way everywhere. Usually, there is no middle ground since neighbors are important fixtures, in a rural community. They will help watch your property when you’re absent. They wave from their vehicles when they pass or from their lawn mowers in their yards. They call an ambulance for you and take your kindergartener into their home until you get back from the emergency room. Good neighbors also bury your nineteen-year-old cat that has crawled upon their deck to die. They rally around you when times are tough and cheer you on when good things happen. These are good neighbors.

I’ve talked to my eastern neighbors a lot this summer. There was the issue of my thirty-year-old tree needing to come down, that kept getting in the power lines and shutting off everyone’s electricity. It was an emotional issue for me, the tree. My neighbors never said that I needed to take it down, in fact they mourned the passing of the tree with me. There was the issue of limbs that fell out of that tree and damaging my eastern neighbor’s shed. This is a shed they’d just reroofed and painted a pretty shade of gray to match their house. I wanted to pay for the damage. They said no that it wasn’t that much damage. The male of the house cut up the limbs that fell on their property, before I could get someone to do it. They hauled that away plus a pile of limbs in my yard. There was the exchange of family matters, between the female and myself, on sad stuff like their kid and grandkids moving to another state. She talked about her debilitating autoimmune illness and a new treatment that is working. I talked about my being dumb and exposing myself to heat exhaustion this summer and wearing a heart monitor for thirty days.

I’ve lived near my eastern neighbors forty-one plus years. Forty here. One year at another location. My first house after marriage happened to be next door to them. After we both moved, they invited us to dinner at their new house. I even remember the menu and that I read a book (or ten) to their oldest child. I was pregnant at the time so I felt motherly, I guess. I looked out of their patio doors that day and asked about the house being built behind them. After our baby was born, we moved in.

I've lived next to my western neighbors, my daughter-in-law's parents, for the same forty years. Funny thing is that one out of each of the households graduated high school with me. To the north, there is an older couple that I absolutely adore. They moved in from CA about seventeen years ago (I think). One of their kids (with family) lives northwest to me. They are all wonderful.

I am blessed with good neighbors.

Trading Lives

In the early morning hours, we leave our farmhouse, the outhouse, the best well water you’ve ever tasted, a large extended family and my best friend behind. My parents are trading a Missouri rural life for an Illinois city life, a new job for my dad at Caterpillar, a new school and a house on Hamilton Street. I feel excited for the adventure, but dread whispers a sad goodbye. 

Mom’s brother is tall, with black hair and tanned skin like her. He’s leaving his farm work behind (for someone else to do) to help us move. His wife has come along to help him haul some of our worldly possessions, in the bed of their pickup.

Along the highways, I switch from looking out of the side window of our car to the front windshield, between my dad’s red curly hair and my mom's head, to watch the pickup traveling in front of our car. Normally, my aunt and uncle fuss at each other, but on this trip, they are newlyweds again, laughing and using names like “honey” and “punkin”. At least temporarily, they trade their old relationship for a pre-marriage one. This new side, of my aunt and uncle, causes me to stare at them, much like people do when passing a car accident. 

After hours of traveling, we arrive on Hamilton Street where darkness has smothered the day and evenly spaced street lamps shed dim light. When we pull into the driveway of a dark house, my dad is the first to exit the car and enter our new home. From the car, I watch the house until blocks of light pop on inside the windows, from the back to the front. My dad appears again in the driveway, and we get out of the car to go inside. He and my uncle begin hauling our things to the house. 

Inside, I explore the unfamiliar two-story with basement, but leave both the upstairs and its basement for another day. I end up back in the kitchen where everyone has gathered. My mom’s tired eyes sparkle when she turns on the kitchen faucet and allows her fingers to dance under the flowing water, a convenience we did not leave behind. She giggles, but my dad says to turn off the water because we have to pay for it now. I’m saddened by his command and wonder how anyone can be made to pay for water.

Two men who seem to know my dad stop by our house. Even though they are old and in their twenties, like my parents, I immediately fall in love with the one called Anthony. He makes me forget my third grade boyfriend back home.

Before long, I follow my uncle and dad back outside, but when they return inside, I stay behind and walk to the edge of the driveway. Each house along the street is close to another and lit up. My eyes scan each one finally resting on the house across the street. Through sheer curtains, I see shadowy shapes of various body sizes darting around the room. My mind pushes past the weariness of travel, the heartache of leaving our Missouri place and a growling stomach to suggest that this is the adventure I’d been waiting for all my life.

My eyes focus on the ghost dance of my new neighbors, through their filmy curtains. “I hope kids my age live there." My voice sounds small on my new street and as it mingles with city noises that I am not accustom to, yet.

(The picture is of the house and me on Hamilton Street.  I thought I was alone in the picture. If you click on the photo, you might be startled by something or someone in the bottom left corner. I was.) 

Did you move as a child? Was it a good or bad experience? 

Unique Brooch

Some called them pins, some call them brooches. I called them either/or depending on the day and my mood. This vintage brooch is not a family heirloom, but could be one day since it now belongs to me. This is how I became its owner.

There was a dear woman who worked for our school district for many years as the special education director. I considered her my friend. When she decided to retire, I was saddened.



My collection of brooches

On one of her last days with the district, she brought a collection of her brooches, to the school, that she wanted to share with the people who had admired the ones she'd worn over the years. Because I had a little collection of brooches myself, I was thrilled when she asked if I would like to pick one out of her collection for mine, to remember her by.

 

I picked this unique one—a large snowflake with clear rhinestones. (I wish the photographs actually did the pin justice.)

Guess what?  I do think of her when I wear it.

 

The Sugar War

At the age of nine, my parents move us to the city of Washington, Illinois. The experience is exciting especially the part where there will be other children to play with, on our street.

*Lily is younger than me and lives on the opposite side of the street, but at the end, near “the creek”. The creek winds its way through its banks and a few trees that we call “the woods”. 

I’m not exactly sure what Lily’s dad does for a living, but I do know he wears a white shirt and slacks to work. I know this because one day I ride with Lily and her mom to pick him up, from his office.  Another thing I know about Lily’s dad is that he brings home free samples to his family. In fact, the cabinets in their basement kitchenette are stuffed with samples, as are the shelves lining the walls and down the center of another room. 

 

One day, we’re playing a 45 record—a Beatles’ song, on the record player, in her basement. John Lennon is my favorite Beatle, she chooses Paul McCartney. At some point, Lily decides to show me the shelving in the next room, brimming with samples. Inside the room, I stand amazed at the assortment of foodstuffs.  

Lily’s voice breaks through my trance as she becomes the tour guide and calls out names of products, sometimes touching the item and sometimes just pointing. She pulls one box from a shelf and names it sugar.

“Our sugar doesn’t look like this.” I challenge her.

“It’s sugar cubes.”

I feel confused, but curious about the box she hands to me. “What’s a sugar cube?”

Lily grabs the package back from me and opens it, folding back the wax paper lining, and pulls out a tiny white cube that sparkles a little. “It’s sugar—that looks like a cube,” she says, popping it in to her mouth.  Then she pulls another cube from the box, grabs my hand and drops it in my palm. 

I turn the cube over again and again, investigating its squareness.

“Eat it.”

When the sugar cube hits my tongue it’s gritty, but soon dissolves into a sweet crunchy mass, begging my teeth to bite down and finish it off.  “Can we take these with us—outside?”

Lily thinks about it, then says, “We’ll have to sneak them out. Mom won’t be happy if she thinks we’re eating a box of sugar.”

Willing and eager to become the smuggler, I pull up my shirt and slide the box between my skinny belly and an elastic waistband. I pull my shirt down over the box. The rectangular outline is obvious so I cross my arms over it, partially to hide it and partially to hold the box in place.

The summer sun is bright and hot when we escape the basement and run to the sparse woods, beside the creek. After we find a stump to share, we sit beside each other and pop one sugar cube after another into our mouths to satisfy our sweet cravings until we eat half of the box of sugar.

Being the sugarholic that I am, I say, “Let’s hide the box and eat the rest tomorrow.”

Lily says yes because she doesn’t want to return a half eaten box of sugar to her basement.

We look around us for a suitable hiding place, but there is none where we're sitting. Then through the sparsely spaced trees, I see a familiar old tree. The tree’s two limbs jet upward, causing a fork, but out from there grows a canopy of limbs covered in leaves. Beneath the fork is a dark hollow that will hide our sugary prize. There’s only problem with my idea, the field is a pasture for a flock of sheep and a cantankerous ram.   

At one time or another, by dare or by accident, nearly every kid in our neighborhood has been chased out of the field by the ram. Lily and I know this about the ram, but decide to use the tree to hide our sugar. The guard ram is a bonus.

At the fence, we look for the ram, then carefully part the barbed wire and help each other through.  On the other side, we run to the tree and shove the box of sugar cubes deep inside the dark hole. It’s then we see, running across the field and in our direction, the charging ram tossing his head around. We know we haven’t much time to escape and run back to the fence and climb through.

It is the next weekend when we meet up again and decide to retrieve the box of sugar for a post-breakfast treat. Outside the fence, we scan the field for the bully ram, but he’s nowhere in sight. Feeling safe, we climb through the wire and run to the tree. I can barely see the top of the box, but I thrust my hand inside the hollow to get it. As I grab hold of the box and pull it out of the black hole, pricks of pain cover my hand.

When my hand surfaces, I see the source of my pain is a swarm of ants clinging to my hand and fighting for the box of sugar cubes that I hold. As their attack increases, I realize the sugar war is over, and I let the box fall to the ground. Shaking the remaining ants from my hands, I surrender our box of sugar to the ants and leave with Lily.  

*Name Changed

Small Community Interest

This week I revisited my love/hate relationship with small community interest in others, which some may call nosiness.

It all began when I called my bank and told her the account numbers where I wanted to transfer money from and to (no I haven’t mastered that online yet). I finished and the gal said, “Who am I speaking to?” I told her my name and she said, “I knew it, I knew that was your voice.” I don’t know this person very well and can’t remember ever talking to her on the telephone, but she felt and then was convinced that my voice belonged to me.

(Love living where everybody knows my name.)

A few months ago, I ran into someone at the grocery store who asked me how I was because she had heard I had been ill. She had heard this from a place where I had purchase some of my medication. What about HIPPA?

(Hate everyone knowing my business.)

For years at the end of each summer, I would go into the local post office where various postal workers would ask me if I needed a change of address form.  I would say no and ask why. I would be told that he or she had heard I was moving to the large city nearby. Every summer. It became quite amusing to me.

(Hate fabricated information being told as truth, but love the humor of it.)

A few others:

I wonder often, what’s going on at my neighbors’ homes when multiple cars are parked in the yard or along the road. Is it a death? Is it a birthday? Is it a murder? Of course it’s none of my business, and yet, that’s not our way. It is our business. It’s our reality and you can’t change our minds.

(Love that I notice my neighbors and they--me, and that I’m not ignored.)

I wonder why my meticulous neighbor’s grass is nearly a foot tall. Is he sick? Is he travelling? Is he dead in his house and no one knows? None of my business? I think I’ll check.

(Love how we think we are taking care of each other.)

I wonder whose untagged cow lays dead in the ditch apparently a victim of a car crash. Who didn’t fix his/her fence? Who does not own up to the cow being out because he/she might be sued?

(Hate having to dodge farm machinery on the highways, and cows, and horses. Love having to dodge farm machinery on the highways, and cows and horses.)

Love and Hate. As my mom has told me, there is a fine line between love and hate, a relationship of similarity. We can love and hate something in the same breath.

Significance of Community

I must admit, I have been aggravated by the lack of privacy in my rural community, and yet, there is something satisfying about walking into local restaurants and stores and being identified that makes you feel like a rock star. During my own personal “hard times” my community has rallied around me. There are always friends who don’t make an appearance, but there is always the extended family--of friends called community.  It's my reality and I love it.





Photo source: Ruralhood

Rural Loneliness

The Welcomed Voice of Neighbors and Friends

"The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.” Pearl S. Buck

Causes of loneliness in the Ruralhood (for me growing up) were:

• Party lines
• Distance
• Lack of new experiences
• No public transportation

As child I didn’t feel lonely, but as a teenager I felt lonely –many times. Adults went to the local stores and post offices to chat or they would stop by a neighbor’s home to talk. I remember seeing farmers on their tractors in the middle of a field stop just to talk to another neighbor driving by.

Siblings were a good source of company for children.

Some of the women in my community did not know how to drive. I felt very proud that my mother could and did drive. Her mother did not drive and depended on others to get her where she needed to be. I don’t remember her ever having a problem getting anywhere. However, the lack of the driving skill limited women on where and when they shopped and visited. This also limited their independence.

Church and school activities helped with rural socialization and perhaps lessened the feeling of loneliness. Personally, I looked forward to attending school. I loved learning, but what I most desired was to see my friends. People need interaction with other people. Rural people too.

The party line (definition in sidebar) in our home was a big inconvenience for a teenage girl. Often times, I felt I had very important information to contribute to and extract from-my friends. However, the phone line always seemed to be busy with four or five families sharing it. The people that seemed to be using it the most were the women. I was very careful and quiet in testing the line to see if it was free often covering the mouthpiece with my hand. Many times I couldn’t resist in listening to the matrons of my community rag on another. But before I whined about the injustice, I would remember that my paternal grandparents could not get a telephone in the area in which they where they lived- at all.

A dangerous aspect of seclusion in any culture is domestic violence. It happened in my community. Rural people tried to keep their own secrets, but, children will tell. It wasn’t until I volunteered with a domestic violence organization that I realized how the rural location (even today) is a prime location for violence against women.

Rural Significance
Today’s rural person has many opportunities to seek companionship through land lines (no party lines please), cell phones, texting, vehicles, email and social networking. What might be suffering is the one-on-one interaction of my childhood between people face-to-face. My question might be: Are we less lonely today with so much technology at our fingertips? Or have we moved loneliness to another level?