Snip, Snap, Snur

When the zinnias were tall and  arranged in  the large green glass vase mom put on the dining room table,  the tomato plants were staked and producing heavy bright red big boy tomatoes.   Both the wax and green beans were ripe and ready for eating as well.  Mom was wearing her bright red checked apron and I had the large metal colander.  We were going picking.  It was a hot August afternoon and as we strolled between the huge staked bean and tomato plants in our garden, I filled my container with ripe tomatoes while mom loaded her spread apron with all the beans it could hold.   Most of the time we would have to take our load over to the back steps, fill two large baskets  and come back for more.  The plants were prolific and I don’t remember a time my parents needed to use chemicals to combat bugs, worms  or disease.

When we had gleaned the ripest beans and tomatoes mom and I sat on the back steps to play our “game“.  This was the fun part.  With the paring knife mom cut the ends off each very long bean and piled them into another empty  basket next to me.  With my fingers I  broke them three times into four pieces, then dropped them into the extra big kettle.   Each time I broke a piece mom and I said, “snip, …snap,… snur”!  The work was done in no time and soon all the produce was brought into the kitchen.  Mom poured boiling water over the tomatoes.   I watched as the skins would mysteriously peel off so she could preserve them.

Some of the tomatoes were saved and sliced on a plate, served cold with lots of salt or even sugar, the way my mother liked them.   For many dinners to come mom served “lovely beans” as she called them, green and yellow wax beans served hot with lots of melted butter and salt.  No one ever mentioned cholesterol or high blood pressure and no one  ever had to force me to eat my vegetables!

When the zinnias were tall and arranged in the large green glass vase mom put on the dining room table, the tomato plants were  producing heavy bright red Big Boy tomatoes.   Both the wax and green beans were ripe and ready for eating as well.  Mom was wearing her straw hat and her dutch windmill apron and she dressed me in a white short sleeved blouse and a black patterned skirt she made.   I wore white socks and brown oxfords and my mom tied and rubberbanned my fine hair into two uneven braided pigtails.   We were going picking.  It was a hot August afternoon and as we strolled between the huge staked bean and tomato plants in our garden, I filled my container with beans while mom loaded her spread apron with all the tomatoes  it could hold.   Most of the time we would have to take our load over to the back steps, fill two large baskets and come back for more.  The plants were prolific and I do not remember a time my parents needed to use chemicals to combat bugs, worms or disease.  

Heaven Of ’66

European Petro

I grew up in a whole different environment than most kids just because I had immigrant parents.  They had habits they brought with them from the “old country”.   One of them was their attitude about passing gas.  My parents called them winders.  For some reason this was a more acceptable word than fart which I wasn’t allowed to say.  

Despite the use of a different word to describe a bodily function, at home  we all were  pretty free to express ourselves.  It was the Dutch way.  In my house my father was a super blaster and could pierce the air with the loudest winder one could imagine.  It was unbelievable.  He would be upstairs and I would hear him in the basement.  This was a common occurance.

Bell Of the Ball

You may not think snow ball bushes and tiger striped kittens go together but to a four year old mind they were a match made in heaven. They were the center piece, the focal point for a spectacular event.

Our yard was any little girl with a vivid imagination’s dream, filled with a remarkable variety of flowers. Accept for the white of winter snow there was a hardly a time when pink, white, yellow, purple and red blossoms did not festoon the old white house’s front and back porch, yard borders and gardens. The heady scent of lily of the valley with its tiny catkins of delicate miniature white bells covered almost half our front yard.

Pollywogs And Milkweed Pods

My mother and I had a regular Sunday ritual together, just the two of us.  After our Sunday noon dishes were washed, dried and put away, dad would go to bed for his Sunday hibernating nap.  Mom would grab my hand for our nature walk down the hill, only a few blocks away where there were no neighborhoods, behind Oakdale public grade school.

Our destination was a swamp, a small natural marshland developers had left untouched.  Densely packed with trees and underbrush, complete with winding footpaths around the wet bogs, it was a place where every kind of wild flower still bloomed, frogs and insects flourished and rare birds made their nests.  I looked forward to Sunday afternoons and all the new things we would discovery together.

Mr Warner’s Lilac bushes

We all piled in the car parked in front of our old tumbled down garage.   My dad always parked our  55′  chevy  in an unpaved graveled alley and not in the garage.  The garage was used to store paint and for my occassional “spookhouse” on Halloween.  It was Sunday morning and 9:20 AM.  Church started at 9:30 and we were off to our usual late start.  We were all blaming each other for our tardiness.  I think it was  actually my doing because I detested the Sunday ritual and dragged my feet getting dressed.

The Dutch Cut

My First Hair Cut

Most kids give themselves their first hair cut when they discover a scissors.  This never occurred to me probably because I was too busy using the kitchen shears cutting everything else like my cat’s fur and my doll’s hair.   My big sister Connie gave me my very first hair cut at age seven.  She was in her first month of Dodgon’s beauty school for hair and  ready to try out what she was learning on a live person. I was chosen because I was too young to object and our parents were out shopping. I frequently became the subject of experimentation for my much older siblings.  It always started out with good intentions.

So Long, Long Hair

Connie sat me on a kitchen chair and wrapped a large white bath towel around my shoulders, clipping it tightlyin place  around my neck with a clothes pin. In beauty school she had  learned that cutting the hair in  layers  made a great look.  She had to do this quick before our parents showed up.  My hair went flying in all directions, chop, chop.  She went back and forth trying desperately to even my hair on both sides, cutting it shorter and shorter until soon I felt the air on the back of my head and noticed nearly all my hair on the red and white tiled floor beneath my chair.  Connie frowned as she lowered the scissors.  I felt my head and thought for the first time that maybe this had been a mistake.