Saturday Night Dancing

...Trying something a bit different...let me know what you think...


It's Saturday, early evening.
All four kids have eaten and are feeling better
after the round of colds has passed.
I am taking them over to Mom's house here in a bit.
She is going to watch them while Omer and I go out.

We usually go out dancing
every Saturday night with a group of friends.
There is a little place in town that we love.

Omer sent me to the beauty parlor yesterday.
He sends me every week.
He just loves my hair in a paigeboy style.
I remember when Mom used to wait up for me
when I was in school.
No matter how late I got in,
she would sit on the bed and put my hair in curlers for the next day.
I've never been very good at styling my hair like she did.
I hope I remembered to thank her.

Last week Omer went to town and bought me a pretty blue dress.
He loves to shop for me.
I am so lucky.
I really hate shopping for myself,
especially with four small children running around.
Blue is my favorite color too.
Soft baby blue.

I am looking forward to dancing tonight!
Omer will wear his cowboy boots and hat.
What a handsome man!
Omer loves to dance,
and I swear he would go without me if I let him!
I can keep up with him until he starts doing the jig.
Then I have to sit down!
We will both have a couple of beers...Omer more than I.

The kids will stay at Mom's and I will run over and get them in the morning.
Dad will probably have made sweet rolls this week,
knowing that the kids were coming over.
I think I'll go early to share some sweet rolls too!

What is that sound?

The one funny I can remember right now,
is the time I went to pick her up to go shopping.
When I walked in, I could hear a squealing noise.
As I searched through the house I could hear it in every room.
Aunt Dot was right behind me,
trying to find the source of this noise too.
Finally, I thought it stopped.
After I helped her in the car, I went around and got in my side.
There was the squeal again!
I then knew it was her hearing aid batteries going out.
We laughed all the way to Mattoon.
She is always such a happy pleasant person.
We love her like she was our Mema too.
Clara Ann

I shared with Clare Ann that Mema still
has some difficult moments with her hearing aides.
The are the new and improved kind, though.
When she puts them in first thing in the morning,
or after Hilary does her hair,
they beep seven times.
That is how you know the batteries are working.
We always know when this is happening,
because Mema stares at the ceiling, counting the beeps.
When it completes its cycle, she gives a little nod of her head,
says "there" and continues doing whatever she was doing.
I love that lady. And she is my Mema!
Thanks for sharing and reminding me of this Clare Ann!

Bobby Holding

I listened a little bit today
while Mema remembered her brother Bobby.

He was an older brother who died when a young teen
of appendicitis.

She and Bobby were best buds.
Their mom gave them two old tubs,
and with sticks,
they would sit under a big old tree in the yard,
and bang on those tubs.
They would sing and yodel all afternoon!
Mema's eyes were twinkling when she was telling me this.

Her brothers and sister would play in the early evening
under the street lights.
They would play hide-go-seek and tag
with the light as their base.

One evening, Bobby just sat by the light post
and would not get up.
His stomach hurt badly.
All the kids were very worried and went for Mom and Dad.
They took him to the hospital where it was discovered
that Bobby had appendicitis.
He later died from complications.

Mema always tears up when she tells me this story.
She says that she was heart broken.
It was a very long time that she played on the tubs
or sang at all, not to mention yodeling.

She still has such fond memories of her older brother,
and thinks of him and her childhood with joy.

"Kids today don't have the chance to play like we did.
They are entertained all the time.
I was so happy playing at the farm,
bringing the cows home when I was old enough,
and growing up in the country.
I was never bored.
Kids just don't know what they are missing."

(As much as I wish I had photos of the Holding children playing, I do not. THe above photo was found on the internet. If you have any old photos of Mema and her family, I would love to share them with the rest of the family!)

Grandpa Holding

We lived in the country when I was a girl.
I loved the farm life.
When I got the chance to visit relatives in the city,
I thought I was big stuff.

My dad's father repaired repaired clocks.
He and Grandma lived upstairs above the clock shop.

Grandpa also loved pigeons.
He didn't race them, or send messages with them.
He just enjoyed them.

Grandpa enjoyed lots of things.
He really liked to play cards.
This was not a respectable thing for him to do though.
Whenever he heard anyone walking up the stairs to their home,
he would hurry and cover up his card game with a cloth,
so they would not know that he had been playing solitaire.

He did not like storms.
He and Grandma lived with us a while on the farm.
I remember being woken up many nights during a storm.
Grandpa would take us all down into the "cave".
I hated it down there!
It was dark and cold, and I was so afraid of spiders.
But Grandpa was more afraid of storms.
I think that's why I am afraid of storms too.

I remember taking Shirley to my parent's home
when it would look like it would storm.
I didn't want to be alone if it got bad.

I would rather it storm in the night time,
after I take my hearing aids off.
That way I don't hear even the worst storms.

summer

As summer is unfolding into autumn,
I seem to be drawn into Mema's memories.
I can't tell you how often she talked about
her summers in the country.

She gets a peaceful, happy look on her face,
as though she is transported back to the
happiest times of her life.
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"Oh, we used to all walk to town in the summer,
following Dad and his popcorn machine to the park.
He sold bags of popped corn for a nickel.

Bands would play in the center gazebo.
It was always a different band playing every week.
Sometimes school bands,
or just a few people playing a fiddle and singing.

My brother and I would walk a few blocks through town
and buy a huge ice cream cone for a nickle."

(everything seemed to be a nickle or quarter back then in her memory,
and she likes to tell how they turned corners through the streets
to get to the ice cream, as though she could see it in her mind's eye)

"We would get big old scoops in the cone
and walk back to the bandstand,
happily trying to lick it all before it dripped to the ground.

All the neighbors would gather in the front yards,
the kids playing games and racing around.
Every week we would gather around for big reunions of friends.
Sometimes Daddy would sell popcorn, or nuts, or cotton candy.
and even ice cream.

I remember going to stay the week with my Daddy's brother
who lived in town.
Oh, he had a big house right on the street.
It had a front porch with a swing.
I would sit there for hours,
waving to all the passing cars, as if I lived there.
I felt so rich.
We went out to eat dinner every night,
because my aunt didn't cook at all.
She was kind of stingy,
but my uncle was so nice.
They had one daughter,
but she was kind of snooty like her mom,
so I usually was by myself the week I visited.
And I loved every moment.
Having brothers and a sister on the farm,
with chores to do, and noise all the time,
it was a treat for me to visit.
I was the only one in the family
who would stay with them in the summer.

My uncle sold nuts to the vending machines around town.
When ever he was on his rounds, he would stop at our house.
If he was alone,
he would tell me to go get the biggest bowl I could find,
and then he would fill it to over flowing with nuts.
Now, if my aunt was there, we would only get a handful of nuts,
and only if she was in a good mood!"


Mema is living in Florida now, with her youngest daughter.
I miss her so much and miss hearing the stories from her past.
Remembering the summer stories,
makes me wish I had grown up in the thirties and forties,
when times were simple, people were simple.
You didn't have hardly anything,
but you were happy with what you had,
and you made do,
and life was good.

Seeing how loving and wonderful my grandmother is,
underscores that the simple life made her that way.
She was not spoiled with electronics,
shopping, free time to get bored.
I love that little lady!

Ice Cream

While waiting for more children to arrive at the playground in the mall,
I asked Mema if she remembered any of her birthdays as a child.

Oh yes! We would have all the kids come in
and have cake and ice cream and play games.

I asked what kind of ice cream she liked the best.

Any kind.
But my favorite is butter pecan.
I just love all those nuts.
My mom would make ice cream in the ice cream maker.

I asked in February?

Oh yes! She would make ice cream all year around.

Then the children came, and we were distracted.
Every year is the best birthday.

I know she likes ice cream.
Every time I would take her to the grocery store,
she always made a bee line for the ice cream,
even if she had a full gallon in the freezer.
We didn't want to run out of butter pecan or cake cones.

I even try to get her to try another flavor of ice cream.
She may get it, but always saves it for the girls when they come.

A great gift is a jar of those wet nuts you put as a topping!

This lady always says she is not hungry,
but will eat until her plate is clean....
and all the left overs are gone,
if she thinks you will be throwing them away.
And then have an ice cream cone for dessert!
Gotta love being 88 years old,
when you are allowed to be free enough to have dessert!