WordSisters

Category: Family

  • Our Canoe Trip, by Antonio di Grazia

    Sarah, Maggie, Crystel before the canoe trip
    Sarah, Maggie, and Crystel before the canoe trip

    Antonio is our guest blogger this week. He wrote the following story last summer about our canoe trip down the Brule River. Before you get his rendition I need to provide you with the idyllic setting: two canoes, two moms, two dogs, two ten-year-olds, a ten-year old friend, a sunny afternoon, and calm waters. We set into the Brule River at Stone Bridge, billed as the easiest trip. I pictured a 4 hour float.

    Antonio before the canoe trip
    Antonio before the canoe trip

    The world-famous Bois Brule River flows 50 miles north into Lake Superior.

    The water wasn’t even knee-deep, and within a half hour I had taken off my life jacket, which I generally NEVER do. Antonio, who was paddling in the front of the canoe, soon asked if he could remove his. At this point, the water was ankle-deep and the calm waters had turned still. Supposedly, a person can drown in a cup of water, but the risks seemed low, so I said, “Yes.”

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThere are a few problems with this. One, you should never canoe with a dog, who is more interested in the other canoe, the other mom, the other two children, and the other dog. Two, you should never let Beth be the rear person because she confuses the canoe with a bike. Biking down a hill, I will often coast and not continue to pedal. I treat the canoe like a bike when I am in rapids. I quit paddling. The law of going fast says, “Stop doing what you are doing and you will slow down.”

    Antonio said, “I think I’ll put my life jacket on” when we got close to a rapid. Taking his lead, I put mine on also.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI paddled into the rapid. Then quit. Just quit. I probably even lifted my paddle out of the water. In an instant our canoe went from traveling straight to going sideways, and the front end torpedoed into tree roots and soil. Swamped, water rushed into our canoe, taking everything not tied down, down river. “Antonio, get out!” He toppled out of the front end, digging his way with his feet and hands up the steep bank. I grabbed the dog, stumbled through the rapids. “Give me, Bandit,” Antonio hollered. I handed Bandit up to him. “Grab that tree, Mom,” he said. I reached for the branch and heaved myself up.

    Earlier, Antonio impressed me when he felt unsafe and put on his life jacket. Now he was leading us through the brambles.

    But this story isn’t ready for a rosy ending. Beth still has to swamp another canoe. Lose her shoes in muck. Discuss with Antonio the merits of waiting to be saved or walking from your last known spot into the unknown and talk about why people will help you even though you aren’t paying them.

    Once we are back in our rescued canoe, Antonio paddles for hours without stopping to reach the landing.

    In the meantime, Jody is calling 911 and listing us as missing persons.

    But that’s Antonio’s story:

    story 003We started to paddle. The dog had its head on the edge of the canoe. There where we had to turn quick, me and Mom got stuck in some rocks. Crystel, Sarah and Mama Jody got stuck in a branch. We had Bandit and they had Maggie in their canoe. We went in little rapids. It sped us up through the river. We got to a big rapids and we hit a tree and our canoe got filled with water, so Bandit was cold. We got everything wet. We lost our paddle. Some nice people helped us. There were two children and three persons and two fishermen. They went for our canoe. We had to wait for 1 ½ hours. We paddled back to where they were. We went through more rapids. We reached where there were no more rapids. We passed it and there was another rapid and it was done. Then we saw four eagles. We had 1 ½ hours to go. We passed boat houses. We went through another rapid. We were there. We got out of the canoe. I ran up. Mom Beth walked up there. I see where Mom Jody is. I told them Mom Beth was coming. They got there 20 minutes earlier. They called 911. Bandit was wet and cold.

    I’ve heard that a person may drown in a cup of water. Still, I like to think of a cup of water as being half full. That’s why I can find meaning in swamping my child and us being listed as missing persons. I witnessed Antonio’s strength during a time of peril. That evening, instead of joining another family out for a nice dinner, we sat on our beds in our tiny, tiny, motel room just to be close.

    Bandit and Maggie
    Bandit and Maggie

  • Lemonade, Anyone?

    For years, a hand-painted Nippon china lemonade set has had a place of honor in my dining room. My grandmother, who was born in 1885, gave it to me. Mimmie, as we called her, had a 4th grade education (hence the spelling “Mimmie” instead of “Mimi” as others might have spelled it). Screen shot 2013-02-24 at 2.04.44 PM

    Mimmie’s maiden name was Margaret Zoe Mominee. She was born in a log cabin in Mominee Town, which is east of Toledo in Northwest Ohio. Mominee Town was at the crossroads of Corduroy Rd. and what used to be called Big Ditch Rd. (perhaps the names were descriptive of the roads at the time). Family lore has it that Mimmie’s French Canadian ancestors came through Windsor, Ontario, past Frenchtown Township in Michigan and settled a little south of Lake Erie.

    Map circa 1900
    Map circa 1900

    Mimmie was an easygoing cheerful woman. She laughed easily and didn’t fuss when her grandkids (my two older brothers, younger sister, and I) grew restless and squirmy during. Every week, we drove across town with my Dad for a visit. There was nothing to do at her house, but she’d pull out an old red rubber ball for us to bounce outside.  Or my sister and I could look through the button collection in the drawer of her treadle sewing machine. When we’d had enough, she’d offer root beer floats, which she called “brown cows.” We also got chalky pink or white mints from the covered candy dish that sat on the built-in china cabinet in her dining room.

    Centered inside on one shelf was a yellow lemonade set painted with violets and a gold rim. On another shelf was a blue and white chocolate set that was painted with pink flowers.  It was also Nippon although it looked like Bavarian china. Nippon porcelain was made between 1891 and 1921 in Japan. It was a less expensive version of the European tea, lemonade, and chocolate sets popular at the time. The pieces could be collected at Sears, Montgomery Ward, grocery stores, gift shops and dime stores. These porcelain sets were some of the few fancy things Mimmie had, and more than likely, she bought them a piece at a time. When my sister and I admired the sets, Mimmie told us they’d be ours one day.

    Looking back, they’re a puzzle.  Mimmie was very practical and down-to-earth. She made many of the cotton house dresses she wore. She’d create a pattern from the old dress and “run up a new one on the sewing machine” as she said. She only wore jewelry with her one good dress—a navy blue crepe dress with a white lace collar. And she only wore her good dress to church or family occasions.

    She was a good cook and liked to bake, but she made Boston brown bread in empty vegetable cans, banana cupcakes (to use up bananas going bad), and oatmeal cookies, our favorite. Mimmie was not one to make shortbread cookies or fussy foods suitable for a ladies tea. But I wonder if she ever invited her sisters or women friends over for lemonade. And if she didn’t use the sets, but kept them for good, did they meet some yearning for nice things? A yearning I share, which I why I coveted the set as a girl.

    Today, the sets are collectible and valuable. But after dusting them and keeping them for good for 30 years, I’ve decided to invite friends over for lemonade this summer.  And if a cup gets chipped, so what? Except for my sister, no one will ever care about this set as much as I do, and she has her own set!

    A book called The Secret Life of Objects by Dawn Raffell inspired this blog. I’ve decided a lot of my things have stories to tell, too.

  • A Foreign Country

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI visited a foreign country last night while in my own vehicle, a country where I will never be granted citizenship.

    Antonio was up front with me, and five boys of varying personalities sat, sprawled, and perched behind us. Before leaving Richfield for Minneapolis, I looked to make sure all the Cub Scouts were buckled in. For some children, escaping the safety rules undetected can be a badge of honor. And, Cub Scouts is all about badges.

    Within five minutes, we were headed north on 35W to tour the foundry where I work as a Human Resource Manager. The tour would complete the Geologist pin for the Scouts.

    Within ten minutes, I was chewing my fingernails.

    iron being poured into a ladle from the melt deck
    iron being poured into a ladle from the melt deck

    I had no clue that I was entering unfamiliar territory when the boys tumbled into my vehicle. Very soon after I started driving, I realized that I had never experienced a van full of ten year old boys. Sure, I had ferried two or three of them from place to place, but never a van full. A group of boys alters chemistry.Immediately, I became invisible to them as a mom, a female, and an adult. Their conversation bounced from subject to subject like two very bad Ping-Pong players that just wouldn’t quit. It seemed like the fourth graders were jockeying for what would be acceptable conversation. One boy mentioned boobies; another boy said that was inappropriate. I looked at Antonio and raised my eyebrows. He looked back at me with wide eyes.

    iron being poured from d
    iron pourer taking iron from dinghy

    Since I didn’t know all of the boys well, I couldn’t discern who was speaking. I really liked the kid who said, “That’s inappropriate.” But then again, like all kids, he might have been trying to be sarcastic.

    Keeping my eyes on the road, I listened closely to the conversation and questioned whether or not I should speak up. After chewing my third fingernail, I decided that as long as there wasn’t any berating talk or more body part talk, I wouldn’t say anything and let the conversation jump from topic to topic.

    The boys covered the gamut from Pokémon to Twin Towers, from the World Trade Center to Why are we talking about history—let’s talk about manly stuff, to a manly discussion of farts, to don’t distract the driver to singing a ditty about farts, to my dad’s friend made this Internet game, to that building is where my dad works, and so on.

    OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAfter the foundry tour and the appropriate oohs, ahs, and that’s awesome, we were back in the van, and I was thrust back into foreign country. The bookends of an Indian chief the boys were given, made with molten iron at the foundry, were soon kissing in the back seat.  I’m sure that the foundry man who made those bookends didn’t expect that.

    This experience has confirmed that Jody and I have been right to make sure Antonio is surrounded by boys so he will know how to navigate male culture. What makes me raise my eyebrows and bite my nails, he can handle –it’s a wild ride but he knows how to stay afloat.