JourneyLeaf: Life a Page at a Time

Mrs. L and the Questionnaire

    In December, my second grade teacher came to one of my book signings.  She was brimming with pride, which felt wonderful.  But it also felt wonderful to be able to tell her outright, "You helped put me on this path."  She was one of the first people who encouraged my writing and I'll never forget that.  

    As the month continued on, I mulled over some of the other teachers who made a strong and well-remembered difference in my life.  I'm on Facebook with a few, so I've been able to thank them.  Still, there are a few I've lost touch with and my high school teacher Mrs. L was the first who came to mind.  I thought I'd see if I could reconnect with her in the new year.  Then just a few days into January one of my oldest and dearest friends called, a wobble in her voice.  Frannie shared the news that Mrs. L died on the first day of 2016.    

    I've thought of Mrs. L so often in the days since her death.  It made me realize that she's one of those childhood people who never dropped far from my thoughts as the years went by.  Whenever I meet someone new, I work hard to remember their name because I hear Mrs. L's voice in my head stressing that this is kind and important.  In her "Great Books" classes we learned how to discuss literature and find key themes.  It was the first class where I felt every person's viewpoint mattered, that we were all working together to see a story or issue from various angles -- not to reach her conclusions or to be able to answer test questions, but primarily to know it and ourselves better.  We were allowed to respectfully disagree with her.  We saw how much she enjoyed her own classes and the subject matter.  Mrs. L made it easy to fall in love with learning for its own sake.

    Mrs. L had us keep journals of our thoughts and discoveries, turning them in periodically.  Some of my classmates hated the process, but I found it gave dignity and worth to my natural inclinations.  Years later I wrote a master's thesis on journal writing.  In her phone call, Frannie said, "Sometimes I'd write about something important and she'd always clue in on that.  She had a knack for adding a comment or two that I really needed to hear or that made me feel she really saw me."  That was the magic of Mrs. L.  She helped you feel that you were worth getting to know, that your perspectives and thoughts and dreams added up to something.  For a bunch of teenagers, that was valuable indeed.

    In my filing cabinet I still have a dog-earred sheet of paper that Mrs. L passed out to the class the first day of my freshman year of high school.  It is a two-sided questionnaire and gives 53 statements with beginnings that are followed by fill-in blanks.  My childish responses are there in bubbly handwriting, the letter "i" always topped by cutesy circles.  (Yes, I wrote at least one response that involved boys.)  Deep into the document is one of Mrs. L's smiley faces added as a comment.  She read each and every student's questionnaire.  She wanted to get to know us.

    I liked that quiz.  I liked it so much that my senior year of high school I wrote fresh answers on a separate sheet of paper.  Upon reaching the very adult age of 21, I answered it again.  And at ages 25, 32, and 36.  In those last few versions, I had to replace the words "class/school" with "work."  My one rule is that I never read previous questionaire answers until I've written new answers so I don't muddy the waters.  Comparisons from one age to the next are sometimes quite revealing.   A decade has gone by, but I've pulled out the quiz again and will create a mid-40s version.  I look forward to touching base with myself in this odd, unique way.  

    Thank you, Mrs. L.  Your many gifts live on.

 

If you'd like to try the questionnaire yourself, here it is:

1. My favorite place to be is ___________________________________
2. My favorite time of day is ___________________________________
3. I really enjoy___________________________________
4. To me, school (work) is___________________________________
5. The thing I like best at school (work) is___________________________________
6. I’d like work better if___________________________________
7. I wish my teachers (supervisors)___________________________________
8. My classmates (co-workers) are___________________________________
9. To me, homework (working late) is___________________________________
10. Reading is___________________________________
11. I like to read about___________________________________
12. The last book I read was___________________________________
13. The library is___________________________________
14. I’d rather read___________________________________
15. In the next five years I want to___________________________________
16. I want to be___________________________________
17. People are___________________________________
18. When I was little___________________________________
19. I feel proud when___________________________________
20. Better than anything, I like___________________________________
21. People think I ___________________________________
22. I don’t know how to___________________________________
23. I wish someone would help me___________________________________
24. Long books___________________________________
25. Newspapers and magazines___________________________________
26. Social Studies___________________________________
27. I worry about___________________________________
28. Supervisors I like best___________________________________
29. I wish my parents___________________________________
30. I wish people wouldn’t___________________________________
31. I wish I hadn’t___________________________________
32. Little kids___________________________________
33. I look forward to___________________________________
34. Television is___________________________________
35. I get angry when___________________________________
36. I don’t understand why___________________________________
37. Art is___________________________________
38. Holidays are___________________________________
39. My favorite TV program is___________________________________
40. Of all the books I’ve read, my favorite is___________________________________
41. To be grown up means___________________________________
42. Something that bothers me is___________________________________
43. I like to___________________________________
44. If I could do anything I wanted at school (work)___________________________________
45. Music is___________________________________
46. The thing I feel most comfortable doing is ___________________________________
47. The most challenging part of living is___________________________________
48. When I’m around people I don’t like I___________________________________
49. My previous work experiences have ___________________________________
50. Driving is___________________________________
51. My favorite sport is___________________________________
52. Math is___________________________________
53. Most of all, I wish__________________________________
     

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Wild Persimmon Pudding

  

Last week's rain brought a gift!  When I took my walk the next morning in crisp air and under a deep blue sky, I noticed lots of wild persimmons on the ground.  I’d noticed there was a persimmon tree along my route, but they kept appearing across my path in twos or threes, not in the quantity I needed for cooking – until the storms.  Rafts of pine needles and yellowed leaves were all over the roads and the small, squat orange persimmons dotted the grass.  Some were squashed, but many were whole.  I fought the yellow jackets and ants for the good ones, heading home with the front of my tee shirt bulging.  

 

It had been years since I ate my last wild persimmon.  The house where I grew up had a tree in one corner of the yard and my mom used to make cookies with them around Halloween.  The smell of the fruit alone brought me sharply back to days gone by.  

  

I gathered 1.8 pounds (815g) of ripe persimmons, which I washed and pressed through a wire mesh sieve to get about 1½ cups (380g) of thick pulp.  Isn't it a lovely autumn color?  The pulp isn't very sticky, yet somehow I somehow managed to get it on all the doorknobs in the house as I moved around taking photos, composting the discards, planting seeds to sprout my own persimmon tree, and hosing off the sieve in the back yard.  Oops.

    
The discards – skins, seeds, and stringy part of the pulp – is actually lovely with autumn colors.  The light coming through it in the sieve looked like a stained glass window. 

 

Even the caps are pretty.  They are woody and durable, so I rinsed and air dried them in the hopes that I can string them or make autumn nature art with Eli. 

 

I put some pulp in the fridge and made Mom's cookies with it a couple of days later.  They were fantastic -- moist little mounds with that distinctive persimmon flavor.  

Sigh.  I forgot to take a photo of the finished cookies, but I don't feel right posting the recipe anyway.  I saw on Mom's recipe card that she got it from Southern Living magazine in 1971, which might make me run amok of copyright issues.  I checked the web to see if Southern Living posted the recipe, but they haven't.  If any of my friends want it, you can email me!

I froze the extra half cup of pulp.  Then I gathered a few more persimmons over the last week to bring it up to a full cup.  I can tell, though, that I'm at the end of the harvest for this year.  Alas, what to do!  I was dying to try my hand at making Persimmon Pudding but didn't have enough.  I decided to wing it using an amalgam of a good half-dozen recipes plus I had some canned pumpkin that I keep in ice cube trays in the freezer to add to Eli's oatmeal.  I thawed a half cup's worth and this morning plunged into a culinary adventure...

 

Persimmon Pumpkin Pudding

Ingredients:
1 cup (260 g) wild persimmon pulp
½ cup (130 g) pumpkin (or just use 1 ½ cups persimmon)
¼ cup (2 ounces) melted butter
½ cup buttermilk (or 2 teaspoons vinegar in ½ cup milk)
1 cup (230 g) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 ¼ cups (150 g) all purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and move oven rack to middle setting.
• Butter and flour a 9-inch ceramic pie dish or a 9 x 9 inch baking pan.
• Combine wet ingredients in a large mixing bowl – persimmon pulp, pumpkin, butter, buttermilk, and eggs.  Add sugar and stir well with a whisk.
• In a separate small bowl, mix dry ingredients together – flour, soda, salt, and spices.  Add the dry mixture a bit at a time to the wet mixture, stirring until all is smooth and even-textured.
• Pour into prepared dish/pan and bake for about 35 minutes.
• When done, the pudding should be slightly brown around the edges, look dry in the middle, and a toothpick inserted in the middle should come out damp but fairly clean.

Notes:

• Pudding – This is more like an old-fashioned British steamed pudding than the milk/custard type pudding most Americans are familiar with.  Imagine a cross between very moist spice cake and pumpkin pie.
• Persimmons – To make persimmon pulp, find windfall wild persimmons (diospyros virginiana) that are fully orange and soft to the touch.  Rinse them thoroughly and remove flower-shaped caps.  Press them through a mesh sieve or colander with your fingers or a spatula.  The resulting pulp can be frozen until you need it.  Discard seeds and skins.  (The easiest way to clean the sieve afterwards is by taking it out into the garden and using the “jet” attachment on your hose!)  
• Pumpkin – Canned pumpkin is fine.  To cook your own, 
  a jack o’ lantern pumpkin won’t work, but you can cut a sugar/pie pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds/pulp, and bake it upside down in a pan of water at 350 degrees until a fork easily slides through the pumpkin flesh – 30 to 60 minutes. 

 

 

It is a drizzly afternoon.  The house is quiet and smells like baking spices.  
On Monday, I met my deadline, turning my manuscript in to my editor.  Although I am a little stunned to think I can no longer add to it or snatch back paragraphs that I'm suddenly not sure about, I feel great peace about moving forward.  The book is about how to work with family recipes, so spending some enjoyable time this morning working with old fashioned flavors and adjusting recipes reinforces that all the years I worked on the book were well-spent.  I did my research well and taught myself some good skills.  And soon I'll be able to share those with others.

  

My Gap-Toothed Boy

   

On October 1st, Eli lost his first tooth!

We were at Baskin Robins after school with a few buddies.  After Eli ate his kid-sized scoop of Halloween Oreo Crunch, he showed one of the mamas the loose bottom tooth that had been flopping around since the weekend.  “Want me to try to pull it?” I asked.  He’d tried before and let me try before too, but although it got super-wiggly, it hadn’t come out.  Eli said yes but gave it a tug himself first.  Out it came!  So glad this first one didn’t get lost or swallowed!  Eli looked surprised but then broke out in a huge, sunny, gap-toothed grin.

Thankfully, we were ready for the Tooth Fairy.  When Eli was a baby I got him a tiny green frog pillow from the Rich Frog toy company that has a pouch for safely stowing a tooth.  And this weekend I stopped at the bank to get dollar coins to make the deposit from the Tooth Fairy more exciting. 

When I was a kid, each tooth earned me a quarter.  (We left our tooth in a jelly glass of water on the bedside table and the Tooth Fairy would deposit the coin but leave us the tooth to keep.)  We told Eli that the Tooth Fairy would leave him a bigger haul for the first tooth.  Eli was thrilled with five gold coins!

  

Like so much of parenting, the milestone was a little bittersweet.  He's growing up so fast!  (And we'll soon be responsible for a permanent tooth!  So far we've had great dentist visits, but it does up the ante.)  

Later that night I pulled down my mom's old jewelry box.  In the back with the costume jewelry is one of those plastic eggs from bubble gum machines filled with a slightly-macabre stash of baby teeth from my brother and me.  I didn't find them until after my mother died, and it instantly made me smile.  Nobody keeps your tooth unless they really love you.  Years later, I understand it even better.  As soon as Eli's first tooth was out, I held it in the palm of my hand and felt a wash of memories.  All those crazy teething nights when he was a baby!  There was also the thrilled rush when I finally felt the little bump of Eli's first tooth through his gums; at almost 12 months, Eli was the last of his baby buddies to get one.  

Happy sigh.

 

Here is the memory-lane post about Eli's first tooth.  (His first baby tooth was on the bottom right while his first lost tooth is the bottom left.)  Click HERE.

 

             

UGA Aquarium -- Skidaway Island

 

My dad was a professor but also a scientist who conducted research along the Georgia coast.  So he could gather samples and teach classes, several summers we lived on Skidaway Island, a small marsh-bordered island near Savannah.  We were given the use of a small house that was comfortable and roomy, but it had no television.  Instead, my brother and I spent the entire summer reading, exploring on our bikes, and catching crabs.  

When the heat got oppressive, I'd bike over to the University of Georgia's aquarium, part of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.  Coming out of the humid and weedy green that constantly hummed and clicked with insects, the space was always cool, dark, and quiet.  Fish and other local aquatic creatures drifted dreamily through their tanks.  Because I visited almost every day, the place felt like mine.  I learned the names of the animals -- and then gave them pet names of my own.

Last month, I finally got to take my child to the aquarium.  It looks a little different now, yet is deeply, blissfully familiar.  The place isn't huge or fancy, but it is still a great spot for learning about indigenous coastal creatures and taking a break from the summer heat.  Eli loved it too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

One Mama's Two Cents:
Even if I didn't have a history with this place, we would have still loved our visit.  The aquarium is worth the short drive from Savannah or as a stop while trekking along I-95 through Georgia (exit 94).  On the way to the Marine Institute, the boat landing below the Skidaway Island Bridge is a fun place to skip oyster shells.  Or pop in at Skidaway Island State Park to hike a trail or see the interpretive center.  The aquarium also has a nature trail plus there are marsh and river views that offer a good spot for a picnic.  As for the aquarium itself, be aware that there is an entry fee and they take only cash or check.  Click HERE for their website.

 

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Comic book science!

We sent away for some food powder for our sea monkeys, and when the package arrived it mysteriously included a pair of cardboard x-ray glasses.  Spiff!  Ever since I was a kid and these were advertised on the back pages of my brother's comic books, I'd been intrigued. 

 

Eli put them on and wiggled his fingers to see if he could see his bones. 

 

His face immediately fell.  Disappointment? 

 

Actually, the glasses give sort of a halo affect around objects.  When looking at your hand, the edges seem bright and therefore the middle seems dark and even bone-like.  Eli found it spooky.

Once we talked about how they work, he was good with it.

  

Now if I can just explain why the sea monkeys in the comic books have smiling faces and crowns, but the real ones look like a caterpillar and a teeny shrimp had a love child...

(Click HERE for our post on Sea Monkeys.)

  

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Fireflies
A Poem by Marilyn Kallet
(Click HERE for link)

In the dry summer field at nightfall,

fireflies rise like sparks.

Imagine the presence of ghosts

flickering, the ghosts of young friends,

your father nearest in the distance.

This time they carry no sorrow,

no remorse, their presence is so light.

Childhood comes to you,

memories of your street in lamplight,

holding those last moments before bed,

capturing lightning-bugs,

with a blossom of the hand

letting them go. Lightness returns,

an airy motion over the ground

you remember from Ring Around the Rosie.

If you stay, the fireflies become fireflies

again, not part of your stories,

as unaware of you as sleep, being

beautiful and quiet all around you.

 

 

 

Fireflies are less common these days, which make me sad.  Click the link for more information:  http://www.firefly.org/why-are-fireflies-disappearing.html

Exploring summer joys to soak them up...

#1 -- The Beach

#2 -- Ice Cream

#3 -- Seafood

#4 -- Sudden Rain Shower (and playing in it!)

#5 -- Thunderstorm at Sunset

#6 -- Lemonade
#7 -- Early Evening Light
#8 -- Rainy Evening 
#9 -- Garden Tomatoes & Homemade Pizza 
#10 -- Baseball Game
#11 -- Wadin' in the Creek

#12 -- Queen Anne's Lace
#13 -- Mud Pies!

#14 -- Lightning Bugs

   

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Like Father, Like Son

 

  
The top photo is my favorite picture of Brian as a child.  
This January when we were playing in the snow, I snapped a picture of Eli and didn't realized until later how similar it was to the picture of his father.

Happy Father's Day, Brian!

  

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My grandmother's first cousin, Charles, served in World War II.  Sometime during the war, the family lost contact with him and later found out he was being held as a prisoner by the German Army.  All in the community were relieved when they heard he was released and Charles was all smiles when he arrived back home.  At first he seemed to want to talk about his experiences and shared stories.  But as the weeks and months went on, the stories stopped.  The smiles became fewer.  Before long it became evident that something was very wrong with Charles, that he was a shadow of his former self.  In a few years he was what they called "a broken man," unable to work and drifting between relatives for a place to live.  He died over a half century after the war ended, yet he was a casualty of war and someone who gave his life for his country.  It is achingly unfortunate that the wounds of his emotions and soul weren't addressed the way the wounds of his body would have been.  

Thank you for your service, Charles.

 

There's Charles in the group photo below, happy and smiling as he leans against his big brother.

 

Life Savers

  

Life Saver candies.  Grandma always carried them in her purse.  She was a fan of the five flavor roll -- back when that meant orange, pineapple, and cherry but also lemon and lime.  Those last two are gone now, replaced by watermelon and raspberry.  I'm not complaining.  The raspberry one is now a favorite and a few decades ago maybe Grandma and I wouldn't have gotten in trouble had it been in the roll...

We were in church.  We were trying to be good, but the guest minister was going on a little long.  The church was warm.  To perk up a drooping granddaughter, Grandma pulled out the Life Savers and nudged me with her elbow.  I took the roll, peeled back the paper, and popped one in my mouth.  But as I started to pass it back, I saw the red one was next.  Mmmm.  Cherry.  Grandma saw me hesitate and read my mind.  Red was her favorite too, so just to be funny she tried to snatch back the roll and get the red one for herself.  However, she only managed to knock my hand and that red Life Saver went sailing.  I swear it happened in slow motion -- a small rising circle lit for a moment like a stained glass window before it began to fall.  It bounced off of one lady's sleeve before it hit the floor with a surprisingly loud clunk.  But it didn't stop there.  Nope.  It rolled.  It rolled all the way up the uncarpeted main aisle until it tilted and looped in several wide and surprisingly noisy circles right in front of the pulpit.  Grandpa leaned over and looked at us with his eyebrows raised -- which was all it took for both of us to suddenly realize that under no circumstances could we make eye contact with each other in that church.  I was trying so hard not to laugh out loud that tears were streaming down my face.  Let's just say we were both utterly grateful for Kleenex and a rousing hymn accompanied by a loud piano.

 

Both my grandparents (pictured above) have been gone almost fourteen years now, yet they remain a strong part of me even down to the silly, warm memories and shared Life Savers.  This spring when our family has been on road trips and needed to use the restroom at gas stations, we make a purchase to thank the business owner.  A roll of Life Savers is just the thing.  Eli slurps along, eagerly reporting every few minutes on how thin his ring has become.  

Eli's first Life Saver was wintergreen.  Since it is a fairly strong flavor, I expected that within a few seconds he would try to pass back a wet and rejected piece of candy.  Instead he exclaimed, "Oh, Mama!  That is the best flavor EVER!"  Later that night, he was duly impressed that they spark in the dark when you awkwardly chew them with your teeth showing.  (A windowless bathroom with a mirror is very helpful.)

   

On our next trip we got a roll of 5 Flavor.  The red one promptly became Eli's new favorite.  Atta boy!  

  

Guess what?  Life Savers are 102 years old!  Click HERE for a brief history.  Wikipedia, if correct, lists some fascinating Life Saver flavors of yesteryear -- molasses, malt, and violet?!  And if you know where to buy a roll of Butter Rum Life Savers, let me know! 

For other goofball adventures with my grandma, click HERE.

 

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My mom was good at saving box tops from various products to be redeemed for merchandise.  One of her scores was a free Richard Scary compilation picture book from Tide detergent.  I still have it and I believe it is becoming as beloved and familiar to Eli as it was to me growing up.  

Mom's other big score was a free play house from Keebler brand cookies.  Made of sewn-together sheets of plastic printed to look like the Keebler elves' hollow tree, this cover fit down over a standard card table and converted it into a play space.

Along about the time the Keebler table cover came into our lives, my brother, Eric, and I were given a set of Giant Tinkertoys.  Mom let some other kids borrow them after we were grown, but eventually they ended up in my brother's attic.  Not long ago he pulled them out for Eli.  Just looking at the box was a trip down Memory Lane.  I remember climbing into that box for hide-and-seek.

 

Our dad worked with us to build each creation pictured on the box.  

  

I had a Dressy Bessy doll just like the one in the swing below! 

 

 

 

Can you tell that Little House on the Prairie and Holly Hobby was popular back then? 

 

    

Once we'd been through the box designs a time or two, we started to branch out and come up with our own creations.  And then somebody thought to pair the Giant Tinkertoys with the Keebler tent. 

"Keebler Elves" became a regular game for my brother and me.  It was perfect.  I got to do lots of imaginary baking and gardeny gathering while my mechanically-minded brother designed harvesting machines.  In our Keebler world, the hollow tree baking kitchen was on the edge of a lush forest and all around us there were cookies and treats growing on various bushes, in trees, and across the fields.  Eric came up with a Tinkertoy design that looked like a lawn mower and had spinning rods -- perfect for harvesting those low-growing chocolate chips.  On other days he invented a teetering tower harvester to scoop up those wafer cookies growing on tall-climbing vines.  Even all these years later, when I think back on that game I can vividly remember the images from my mind's eye.  That sunny Keebler world stretched on forever -- an endless wild landscape somehow held in the confines of the living room of our small ranch-style suburban house.  

Such kid-magic!

 

The Giant Tinkertoys were indoor toys for us, but whoever borrowed them from Mom must have taken them outside.  They were filthy -- dusty but also with red mud packed into some of the holes.  Once spring warmth came, Eli and I took them out for a good soaking and scrubbing.

 

Does my child look soggy?  That is because five year-olds have NO IMPULSE CONTROL.  My son shot me in the stomach with a jet of cold water, so I had no choice but to wrestle the hose away and give him his just desserts.  After much shrieking and giggling, we got the job done.

The Giant Tinkertoys were clean at last.  I couldn't help but grin when I saw some kid-lettering left on them...

 

Sadly, the old Keebler tent died in the attic.  The heat turned it into a sticky mass that could no longer be unfolded.  But the Giant Tinkertoys -- undeniably one of the best toys of our childhood -- have lived on for another generation.

 

 

I can only hope that Eli will somehow find his own magical world within the confines of that same dusty cardboard box. 

 

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