Our Odes on the Spinning Stool

My sister and I attended  a writing workshop where we were challenged to write an "ode" on an object from our childhood.  We both began writing immediately and wrote until the time was up. Only then did we realize that we had chosen the same object from our childhood.

Ode to the Spinning Stool by Carol Applegarth Stearns

How the old spinning stool always took the prominent place in the center of the large country kitchen of the ranch home.

How my Mother would sit on it looking out the east window as she did the dishes or peeled potatoes.

How my Mother would sit on the old spinning stool stirring the pot as she prepared the family dinner.

For the family who spent their time around the dinner table – telling stories and laughing.

How after many years, the old stool lost its cover, but, oh how it could still spin.

How the grandchildren sprawled on their bellies on top of the old stool and would spin until they got dizzy and fell off.

For my Mother who sat on the old spinning stool looking out the west window of the little home in town and wonder how 90 years could pass so quickly.

Ode to Mother's Spinning Stool by Helen Applegarth McConnell

I don't remember the arrival of Mother's spinning stool but I remember watching her sit on its cushioned seat as she washed dishes in the yellow kitchen of the ranch house where I grew up. 

I remember the spinning stool in the corner supporting the pyramid of metal cream cans. I remember the clatter of those cans in the dark when my sister bumped the spinning stool as we came home from a teen dance. 

I remember watching Mother sitting on it's fraying cushioned seat washing dishes in the ever changing kitchen of the house they moved to while I was in college. I remember my daughter poking a finger through the crumbling cushion while the spinning stool was spinning which pinched her finger severely. 

I remember watching Mother washing dishes sitting on a towel covering the bare metal seat of the spinning stool in the tiny kitchen of their house in town. 

I gave the spinning stool to one of Mother's young granddaughters. She plans to recover it.

In the Haymow

A Childhood Place: The Haymow

I remember the haymow in the old white barn at the south place.

In spring the hay stored there was coarse and dry. My sister and I made big “nests” where we could read or daydream or cuddle the kittens whose mothers had made smaller nests in the back sides of the hay piles.

In summer there was very little hay there. It was brittle and dusty and the sun shining through the high, dirty window created long, sparkling shafts of light – perfect for day dreaming on a hot summer afternoon.

By autumn the haymow was packed with fresh clean hay. The fragrant scent of the hay was mingled with the sweat of those filling the mow. There was only a small space around the top of the ladder to lounge against the tall piles of hay.

In winter the haymow was cold. We quickly pushed the hay through the holes to the mangers below so we could run back to the warm house and lounge by the Warm Morning stove.

(Excerpted from Class Exercise)

Have you ever?

Have you ever?

Have you ever watched a life unravel?

You notice it first around the edges as details slip between the threads.

      The checkbook no longer balances.

      Accidents happen and there are no explanations.

      Appointments are forgotten and recipes fail.

       Familiar faces and their stories become strange.

       Your loved one slowly fades away.

       Connections are broken.

        Hugs are exchanged without warmth.

        Conversation is like weaving without a loom.

        Mind and hands, once busy with plans and projects, now fidget with a string.

Have you ever watched a life unravel?  I have.  Alzheimer's is a ruthless ripper, tearing great holes in the fabric of life.

Chickens and Ducks

The Mother Instinct aka Chickens and Ducks

One year Mother decided to raise some ducks. I don't know why. She bought some Muscovy eggs and gave them to one of the setting hens. I'm sure the hen was quite confused when Mother would lift her off the nest two or three times a day, roll each of the eggs over and then sprinkle them with water. In due time the poor mother hen had a bunch of little funny looking “chicks.” She took good care of them teaching them to forage and scratch for seeds and bugs they couldn't pick up because their “beaks” were in fact bills.

One day my sister and I heard a loud, frantic squawking coming from the area of the pond created by the overflow of the barnyard windmill and tank. Thinking it was probably a water snake threatening the ducklings, we ran to the rescue.

We found the hen frantically running along the muddy edge of the pond as her babies cavorted happily in the water. Eventually, the babies returned to her side and dutifully followed her back to the chicken house. This was repeated daily for several weeks.

Years later, I was witness to the opposite scenario. I had finished a meeting with the ranchwife and was getting into my car when she said, “Watch this.” A duck had hatched a chicken egg. She was leading her baby to the hydrant in the barnyard. The hydrant was set to drip into a shallow pan so that small animals in the barnyard always had fresh water. The mother took a long drink and then got into the pan getting herself wet all over. Then she shook herself off and proceeded to try to push her baby into the pan. The chick protested loudly and ran away from the pan.

Mothering is universal. With my adopted children I have found myself in both these incidents.

Sisters by Marriage

SISTERS BY MARRIAGE

Sisters by marriage;

Friends by choice.

Sharing family, name

And heritage.

Sisters by marriage,

Friends by choice.

Two or three mothers

All those cousins.

Sisters by marriage,

Friends by choice.

Let's meet at the park

It'll be fun.

Sisters by marriage,

Friends by choice.

Let's all go shopping,

My turn to drive.

Sisters by marriage,

Friends by choice.

Thanksgiving at my house,

Easter at yours.

Sisters by marriage,

Friends by choice.

Chokecherries are ripe

Jelly for all.

Sisters by marriage,

Friends by choice.

Sharing laughter and tears,

Joys and fears.

Sisters by marriage;

Friends by choice.

Sharing family, name

And heritage.

(Dedicated to my Mother, Aunt Max and Aunt Jesse and Lauretta, Kathryn and Clara May.)

Old Bill

A Person from my childhood

Bill was the year around hired man on the ranch for about 15 years.

He was about the same age as Daddy but he seemed older.

He always wore bib overalls. Daddy wore levis.

He stuttered a bit when he got excited or had a drink or two.

Bill seemed to be quite content taking his meals with the family,

Sleeping in the two room bunk house

Which featured a wood burning stove

And a sink with a hand pump and an outhouse.

Bill worked hard and was steady and reliable.

He didn't have a car.

On Saturday a relative would come to the ranch to get him

And would bring him back on Sunday evening.

Bill never corrected me or my sister.

If he saw something amiss in our behavior

Or danger in our actions

He would tell Daddy but he never said anything to us.

Bill was a private person and we really didn't know much about him.

When he died in his room at a residential hotel

We leaned that he had never married

And that he had served in the Army during World War II

Going to Grandma's for Christmas

Going to Grandma’s for Christmas (1950’s)

It’s Christmas Eve. It’s Christmas Eve. We’re going to Grandma’s. We’ve had a nap although we were too excited to actually sleep. We’ve had baths and our hair is in curlers. Oh hurry, Daddy, hurry. Do the chores as fast as you can. Take your bath as fast as fast as can be. It’s Christmas Eve. It’s almost dark! It’s time to go to Grandma’s house.

When I was in grade school, we went to my Grandparents’ house in Torrington, Wyoming for Christmas. On the 24th Daddy would do the chores very early but it would always be dark when we left the ranch 10 miles south of Alliance. And, it was so dark. There were no mercury lights that come on automatically at dusk. Farmsteads were visible only if they happened to have a yard light on when we drove by. Leaving Alliance, there were a few street lights at Angora and a couple at the junction but then it would be very dark the rest of the way to Scottsbluff. There we would see Christmas trees in windows, street decorations and a few lighted decorations in yards. Then it would be pitch black again with our headlights throwing thin beams down the road ahead of us. The stars, if it wasn’t cloudy, were low and bright. We would sing Christmas Carols and I could gaze at the black sky and imagine how startling a sky full of angels would be.

We knew which small town was next and we watched eagerly for the lights of each. In Morrill there was a lighted Santa standing beside the chimney on a roadside roof that made us laugh and heightened our excitement because we were almost there. Only Henry and then we’d be in Wyoming!

We were always the last to arrive at Grandma’s. My cousins from California, if they came, would come a week early and the other ranch living cousins had other family members who would do the necessary chores so they could leave home right after lunch or even earlier.

December 24^th is my sister’s birthday so as soon as we had been greeted, we would have her “birthday party.” After she had blown out the candles, we’d eat supper having her cake for dessert. While the women washed the dishes, we children put on our good clothes and the men arranged the chairs in the family room and made sure that the fire in the fireplace would last through the evening.

Then we opened presents. My uncles exchanged the same gifts year after year. I suspected that they really were the same gifts that were just put away with the Christmas decorations. One was a coconut with a handkerchief tied around the “face” and the other was a bag of nuts and bolts. Grandma and Granddad’s gifts almost always included new pajamas or slippers or a robe for each of us cousins. After the presents we talked and played with new toys or games and had snacks and sometimes some of the grown-ups would go to church. One by one we kids would go change into our nightwear and then clutching a favorite new gift we would snuggle together in the warmth of the fireplace and the soft lights of the Christmas tree and fall asleep on the family room floor.

After a big dinner on Christmas Day, we would return to our house. We could never spot the Santa on the roof in the daytime and coming from the other direction. This was just an ordinary, long drive home. Only the Christmas Eve drive in the dark was magical.