The forbidden words

Growing up we knew better than to ever swear in front of Mom. Common, vulgar or coarse language was simply not allowed. And taking the Lord's name in vain was never an option. Even the words "Holy Cow" were frowned upon. "Cows aren't holy," she would say. (Well, at least not -- for the most part -- in the United States).

In fact, so ingrained in our tender psyches was the the list of forbidden words that I can still remember the first time I swore. I said sh-- while my younger sister and I were building a snow fort and the carefully mounded snow for our opening caved in. I think I was 12. (A few months later I let loose with a few more choice words when thrown from a horse, but that's another story).

Mom also had a  list of colloquialisms that were not allowed. The list included:

• Yet too -- also, as well (I think I have to peel those potatoes yet too).
• Maint'en -- As in you may not do that. (You maint'en cross the street without the crossing guard to assist you. You might get into trouble yet too if you do).
• Main't -- see above.
• Ain't -- are not, is not, am not. (I ain't going to say ain't).
• Ain so -- As in correct or right? (All the stores are closed in Hamilton on Sunday, ain so)?
• Oh guy or oh ha -- A Dutch colloquialism for Oh my or Oh man. (Oh guy! Now I have to peel those potatoes yet too).
• Whatcha - As in Whatcha gonna do? (Peeling potatoes is a difficult task, but whatcha gonna do?)
• Doncha know -- Don't you know? (Now she has to peel those potatoes yet too, doncha know?)
• Seen -- I seen it on TV.
• Ma - A huge mistake and never used.

My sisters and I also had list of words we would use to tease Mom:

• Palm for Psalm (Biblical)
• Swa-vay for suave
• De-Boner for debonair
• Sop-his-ta-cated for sophisticated
• Fa-cade for facade 

Mom would always admonish, "One day you are going to use those words in front of someone, they are going to correct you, and you will be embarrassed."

Mom was right, of course. One day I let fa-cade slip out in front of an editor, who did, of course correct me. There wasn't much I could do. . . . Busted. By a word-smith.

But, surprisingly one of the biggest forbidden words was "Shut up."

Growing up, we were led to believe that telling someone to "Shut up" was akin to using the most vulgar word in the English language. It was simply not allowed.

In dire circumstances we were allowed to use "Be Quite" or Mom's favorite, "Keep still," but somehow those just don't have the same emphatic emphasis that "shut up" does.

I had forgotten the forbidden word until the other day my sister reminded me. We were having breakfast with Mom at our usual Saturday morning gathering when she said, "Do you remember how Mom felt about saying 'Shut up?'"

How could one forget? One of my siblings loved to tease and tease and tease.



Bellowing "Be Quite" when being teased unmercifully only serves to encourage more teasing.  I fear I was tormented often just so she could see me clench my fists, tense my knees, turn red-faced and yell, "Be Quite!"

Oh Guy! The teasing was relentless, yet too, doncha know.

The start of the season

It is hard to believe Thanksgiving is less than a week away. Next week at this time King will be zoned out in front of the TV watching yet another episode of "Travel down the Gridiron." My eyes will be glazed over and I'll be counting the hours until I can actually GO to work, where--  if they can get the cable fixed -- the sports desk will be watching the same TV show. There will be no escape.

Thanksgiving will be a small affair at our home this year. Just Mom, my sister, King, our granddaughter and myself. Which is fine as I have to work later in the afternoon. So we will have a simple meal around noon and about the time Mom starts wringing her hands, obsessing over something only she understands, it will be time for her to go home and for me to go to work.

Friday some of the kids and their families will be coming over for leftovers. I promised our son, since he is married to a vegetarian, I'd save some turkey for him.  Guess I'll need to buy a big bird.

I will start preparing early next week by purchasing a turkey. I have potatoes in the house, but King prefers instant potatoes and stuffing from a box (I know, I know). My sister will be bringing some pies and green bean casserole. That will be it. A no-fuss Thanksgiving.

Mom would not approve.

She would begin weeks ahead of the holiday. Cookies would be baked. Applesauce made. Cranberries ground into relish. Ingredients for pies purchased. Frozen bread dough stocked in the freezer. Her sterling  brought out and polished, Thanksgiving decorations set out and, maybe, she might hang one tastefully placed Christmas wreath.

King has already put up the outdoor decorations and we've begun our annual discussion of whether the lights around the garden are white or blue. (They are blue). I came home from work one evening and he and our granddaughter had set up my Christmas Village. . . on plastic shelves that had been in storage for years and were not cleaned before being set up. I scrubbed the part facing the front and removed cobwebs.

Mom definitely wold not approve.

But I am my own woman and I kind of enjoy it. I may even hang Christmas stockings from the ceiling fan.

Support the local retailer

Those of you who know me know I come from a small town. The fact that it has it own zip code doesn't seem to matter to some copy editors. It is a gathering of businesses within a township as far as they are concerned. For me, it's my hometown, village, or whatever you want to call it. But Hamilton is where I am from -- where I grew up, what made me a part of what I am today.

And Mom shopped there. Faithfully.

Our material for 4H projects came from the Variety Store across from the grocery store. Both stores had wood floors that creaked. They had screen doors with springs that screeched open and banged shut. It was a sure sign of spring with the heavy winter doors were removed and the wooden screen doors took their place.

Every Mother's Day my sisters and I would go to the Variety Store and shop for a present for Mom. Carnival glass, tea cups, a punch bowl set and numerous other inexpensive gifts came from that store. Today I could pay four times the price I paid then for those same items.

All of our groceries came from a store with one checkout counter and four aisles. My hometown had two grocery stores. One on either side of the river that ran through town. They were all of 45 seconds apart. Mom shopped at the store that was on the south side. I assume it was because that is where we lived -- on the south side. It was only after the store closed that Mom started shopping across the river.

Both stores had butchers and sold fresh ground beef. Mom ordered her Thanksgiving turkey and bought all the fixing for Thanksgiving dinner at that local store.

When Fred Meijer opened a store on the north end of Holland (it was called Meijer Thrifty Acres back then), Mom and Dad checked it out. Such a selection! Such prices! But Mom steadfastly continued to shop locally. Who had time or the gas money to drive to Holland when there was a local store that carried everything you needed?

Every week Mom would sit down and make out her grocery list. Bread, milk eggs, cereal, butter. She made her list in the order things were found in the store so she could cross them off as she placed them in her cart. My sisters and I would add things like: candy, money, toys to the list. She didn't always find humor in our additions. Grocery shopping was serious business. Because if nothing else, Mom was frugal.

I'd love to take a page from her book, but I don't believe King would survive. Or at least HE doesn't think he could. Chips, pop, doughnuts, caramel corn and bologna. Try as I might, I can't wean him off what he considers staples.

I think about Mom and her shopping and her loyalty every time I drive to the grocery store. I've become accustomed to wide aisles, a huge selection and the convenience of big box shopping. It hasn't saved me any money. If I were to take a long, hard, truthful look at my grocery receipts I would probably find I could save more money by paying higher prices at stores with less "extras."

I think it's time to go back to basics.

Happy Birthday Mom

Mom turned 92 Monday. While marking 92 years is quite an accomplishment, had Mom known what

her life was going to be like I don't believe she would have wanted it this way.

Birthdays were always a time of celebration. In the past when any of her siblings marked a birthday they invited everyone to their home to celebrate.

If I try to remember one birthday in particular, I can't. They all sort of blend together. But I do recall bits of Mom's 50th birthday. It must have been a Friday night as Mom asked my sister and I to hang around at home until her family arrived (for appearance sake, I'm sure). After every one arrived we were free to go to the high school football game.

Aunts and uncles arrived from Grand Rapids at the designated hour (are Dutch people ever late?) and Mom greeted them at the back door. Family ALWAYS came in through the back door.

My Uncle Jim, who loved to tease, kissed her on the cheek and said, "Fifty! That's half a century. You are getting old." Mom was the youngest of nine children.

But the celebrations always followed the same general format. Everyone would crowd into the living room -- the men on one end and the women on the other. I never knew what they talked about as we learned at an early age to kind of tune out adult conversations. (And let's be honest here, that skill came from years of sitting for hours on end in church on Sunday -- morning and evening services).  Eyes would glaze over and soon all one heard was a low rumbling of indistinguishable voices while the mind wandered in a million directions.

But time marches on . . . Forty-two years later there are no siblings left to celebrate Mom's birthday. And Mom is not aware that she had a birthday.

When I arrived at the home Monday she was sitting in the dining room with a few other residents. She was happy to see me -- as always. But when we got into her room and I asked if she wanted to go out for coffee, all I got was a blank stare. She didn't ask if we were going to go somewhere so I sat with her to wait to see what she was going to do. I wish we could have a conversation but that is impossible. I turned on the TV and we sat in silence for a while longer. Mom fell asleep. After an hour I left.

When my younger sister visited her in the afternoon she was more alert and they went out for ice cream. That was the extent of Mom's birthday . . . A sign outside her room wishing her a happy birthday, a few cards from well wishers she no longer remembers and a visit from her daughters.

What a difference for Mom. No planning what she was going to serve. No enduring Uncle Jim's teasing. No adults crowded into her living room. Just a tired, confused little lady.

Life being what it is, I suppose we could dwell on what was and bemoan the fact her life that will never be what it was. But that would get us nowhere.

So today I picked myself up and started in again. Daily routines bring back memories of Mom. And that's okay. Little things will bring a flood of memories.

King brought home a bag of apples the other day. A big bag. I made applesauce and canned some of it. There were still apples left over. Looking at them day in and day out reminded me of Mom and Dad.

After Dad retired they would collect apples from various farmers in the area and store them in the garage until it was time for their church to put together Thanksgiving baskets. Every basket got some of the apples Mom and Dad had squirreled away. Mom made applesauce with the leftover apples.

My bag of apples was still in the kitchen. I was feeling Mom-ish, so I made more applesauce and a pot of goulash for lunch. It was one of Mom's go-to meals.

I brought the apple peels and cores out to the chickens, King was out in the woods planting English walnut trees, the dog was sniffing the chickens, apples were simmering on the stove.

All is right with the world.

We test the limits

I think I may have written about the winter we got a plethora of snow in Hamilton.

My sister and I were talking about it the other day. The two of us remembered different things about that winter. I remember they canceled 4H Snow Camp for my older sister, the never ending snow that sometimes obliterated the view of the row of pine trees behind the pasture and sitting at the kitchen table each morning, listening to the list of school cancellations on WHTC: "All Hamilton Schools will be closed today. All Hamilton schools will be closed."

My sister remembers two weeks of no school and rescheduling exams. She also remembers a phone call from our father. . ."Do you know where your Mother is?"

"I guess she's in the house somewhere, Dad."

"No, she's right here in my office. She walked here to get away from you girls. NOW BEHAVE."

Opps. I guess everyone has their limits. And when Dad cleared his throat or gave a command, we generally gave him our full attention. Apparently he was not pleased with our behavior.

Although my sisters and I are pretty close now, it wasn't always that way. Mom and Dad basically had two families. My two older sisters are close together in age and then there is an eight year gap and my younger sister and I came along in close succession. The older girls shared a bedroom and my younger sister and I shared a bedroom.  It stands to reason we were closer to the sister who was closer in age. But four snow-bound girls can entertain each other only so long and then resort to probably what was pretty obnoxious behavior -- testing the limits of even the most sainted person.

Mom and Dad were the traditional family of their generation. Dad went to work and Mom stayed home and took care of the house and kids. Dad managed a dog food company. There were a few years when Mom worked for Dad in the lab testing dog food (for the uninformed, dog food batches are tested hourly for fat and protein content -- among other things). But for the most part Mom was a stay-at-home Mom.

But that's not to say Mom spent her time in the house cooking, cleaning and sewing. Mom was pretty involved in the community. She was a 4H community leader -- she and a friend started the Riverview 4H Club in Hamilton --  she served on a variety of committees with the church, was active in that conservative political party, served on the county board of social services and worked on a variety of committees at the high school.

Once Dad retired they both became active volunteers. I always thought volunteering was something Mom did because it was . . . well . . . something she did. But apparently they both believed in giving back to the community. In fact, in their much later years they were extremely active in the churches in Glenn and, after they moved, Grand Haven.

And in some small way I'm glad they did that. Otherwise I would have to believe all that volunteering Mom did when we were young was because we had pushed the limits a little to much and she couldn't spend all her time hiding out in Dad's office.