WordSisters

Category: Memories

  • Let’s Talk Turkey

    Spending last week with a ten-year-old and a three-year-old, daytime conversations focused on important topics like glitter glue, building Lego structures with or without directions, how many cookies equal too many, and the dangerous wild turkeys wandering nearby.

    One night we strapped on headlamps to walk in the meadow, away from houses, turned off the lights to look at a sky ablaze with stars. The granddaughters, bright eyes plastered upward, were thrilled until remembering it was December and cold.

    Star gazing in the meadow is the kind of memory shared in social media posts, but we talked about the wild turkeys longer. Burning off energy with the younger child, her father saw many turkeys roosting in trees along our driveway. Since a neighbor told me that the turkey brood pecking through our neighborhood slept in our trees at night, I had been reading about them. Mostly about self-protection. Our smallish dog has been rushed more than once by a mom turkey protecting her poult. When he made it to the house before me, she turned attention my way. Nothing stopped her approach. We’ve been captive in our house as turkeys peck through the garden.

    Mom turkeys can sit on their eggs for a month and have not one hatch. About 20% of eggs will hatch with only 25% of those surviving their first months. Clearly not cute, poults, or baby turkeys if you prefer, are fragile and a snack for many predators. Turkey poults require loafing and roosting sites. Got to like a youngster that requires loafing territory, or fancy word for shelter, during their food search. 

    Turkeys spend their day on ground pecking for edibles and their nights roosting in trees. Our garden and grassy areas provide easy shopping for mom turkeys. We are annoyances in their family protection effort. Woodlands provide some shelter while the poults are too young to fly up to the roosting zone.

    Thanks to tended gardens, grass and woods, our local turkey population expands. Mom and the recent four poults joined a multi-generational wintering flock of about two dozen spending each night. They prefer multi-story stands with mature trees. I’ve read that up to a hundred turkeys might roost near each other. 

    This potential does not thrill me. Even our current community leave enough excrement on the driveway or in easement near the trees. As a popular toddler book says, everybody poops. In the human neighborhood, poop is not cute. The turkeys don’t care.

  • Thinking of Mom

    Sun pours in our bedroom, a converted attic. When I make the bed, I pull the sheet and quilt back together and snap them like Mom used to do. They settle into place with a tiny poofing sigh. The golden wood floor is warm as I circle the bed and fluff the pillows.

    Coming in from the car, my sack of groceries is heavy. I shift hands to lock the garage door, shift again to unlock the back door. I ponder dinner possibilities and think of Mom facing this daily challenge. Although she was a good cook, plenty of times she wasn’t inspired either.

    Some nights, I gather up our crumb-laden tablecloth after dinner to shake out on the back step like Mom used to do. Nobody does this anymore. Not tablecloths. Or shaking out crumbs. But I like it. Before dinner I clear the dining room table of clutter and set the table the way she always did—forks, knives, spoons, and napkins. We often put away the spoons unused but it pleases me to do it her way.

    Minutes after we sit down, I hop up to blow my nose and dab my eye. Whenever I start to eat, they run just like hers did. Some neurological blip we share.

    In the evening, my husband reads the news on the sofa and I read in my chair. We comment on the day’s events, share something about our sons and their families or tomorrow’s plans. Ordinary things, but we’re so content and companionable. I think of Mom and Dad doing the same.

    Mom was 67 and already a grandmother to my brother and sister-in-law’s three, when our oldest son was born. When our youngest son was born she was 70. Even though we lived four states apart, we talked often, so she was familiar with our sons’ personalities and milestones. 

    Mom with our oldest

    I think of the way she got down on the floor to play with them. I do the same with my 10-month-old granddaughter, who crawls over me to get a toy or bounces in time to the music I play for her. When a diaper change upsets my 8-week-old granddaughter, I lean in close and say, “It’s OK little one. You’ll be alright,” in a low quiet voice, the same way Mom soothed our youngest.

    Mom with our youngest

    Mom comes to mind often and I wonder how she felt going about her days. At 70, was she achy in the mornings like I often am? Was she happy and looking forward with pleasure to most of her days? Was she carefree? Nah, my life is good but not carefree—hers wouldn’t have been either. 

    How often did the specter of aging shadow her? She had to be aware that one day her health would decline, friends and family would grow ill and die, and she would probably outlive Dad. Could she keep all that in the background? Did she think—like I do—that “I’m still healthy and capable. These are the good years”?

    Mom died 10 years ago on Election Day, the only time I didn’t vote. Instead, I got in the car to begin the long drive to Ohio for her funeral. It wasn’t a presidential election, but I felt bad about missing the vote. Mom and Dad were part of the Greatest Generation. They were fierce believers in democracy. Dad fought and Mom sacrificed during WWII so democracy could thrive throughout the world. Please support democracy with your vote.

  • Peach Seed Mystery

    I have very few memories of the man I knew as my grandfather (Mimmie, my great aunt and Pa, my great uncle raised my father). Pa was a white-haired smiling presence during our weekly visits to Mimmie and Pa’s duplex. He was a quiet man, but many 77-year-olds would struggle to find something to say to a 5-year-old. During one conversation, I recall him teasing me about having “strawberry blonde hair.” I was sure he was mistaken. I had “yellow” hair. 

    He also fed squirrels on their wide front porch. Pa would make a clicking sound similar to a tsk to call them, and the squirrels would take shelled walnuts from his open palm. Apparently, he was unaware or unconcerned about squirrel bites or rabies. He taught me to make the clicking sound but told me never to feed the squirrels without him. He’d gotten in trouble with Mimmie when a squirrel slipped into the house and climbed the drapes. After that he was more careful.

    I’m not sure how I came to have his peach seed monkey—whether he gave it to me because I liked it or if it came to me after he died when I was 8. It’s a peach pit carved in the shape of a monkey and it has tiny red eyes. As a girl I was sure they were rubies, my birthstone. That peach seed monkey was forgotten in a drawer of keepsakes until recently, when I read The Peach Seed by Anita Gail Jones (a novel I recommend). 

    Before the novel, I didn’t know carving peach pits was a thing. I used to assume Pa carved it, but now I speculate about its origin. Born in 1882, he’d lived through WWI, the Great Depression, and WWII by the time I knew him. Was the peach seed monkey a bit of tramp art he bought during the Great Depression to help somebody who needed a handout? Did he pick it up as a novelty at a county fair? Did a friend show him a peach seed monkey and Pa decided to carve one? He might have.

    Pa liked making things. He was a firefighter stationed in a neighborhood that had few fires. To pass the time during slow shifts, he made a small burgundy afghan using a technique that was a cross between weaving and braiding. Mimmie, and later, my mother used the afghan when they took naps.

    I’m left with this odd artifact, scattered memories, and a lot of questions. I keep it in my office along with other mementoes that bring to mind my parents and grandparents. 

    I still prefer to believe the monkey’s eyes are rubies.