Although I’m a resident of Pleasant Gap, my heart belongs to Lemont.
Yesterday, I was at the Lemont post office three times (Pleasant’s Gap’s post office was sold years ago to Fasta & Ravioli Company). And each time I passed by my childhood Brownie leader’s former home, my soul was touched by the current owner. Flying from their flagpole, the flag of Ukraine. Small town speaking to our global psyche.
I also made a stop at The Arboretum at Penn State—hoping for a glimpse of snow drops or even the green nubs of daffodils. No such luck. Snow still frosts the beds. But, rising from the frozen ground, a promise of tomorrow: the steel skeleton of the future Palmer Museum of Art. Happy March!
My mother’s house was sold but I was still living there. It was the first December of the Covid pandemic. It was the first December without my mother. December had always been such a magical month, our month. Everyone loves the holidays of December, but for us, it was even more special. I was born on my mother’s birthday, and our birthday was in December.
This year, I’m singing a new song, The Twelve Days of December. It is my countdown to retirement. Twelve days. My last work day will be Tuesday, Dec. 21, and somewhat symbolically, the shortest day of the year.
It has been a month of cocooning, remembering, reading, remembering some more. It has been a time of healing and pampering, regrouping.
My cousin Denise started it off. She is downsizing in her Florida home while they are building a home in the mountains of North Carolina. She sent a photo of a newspaper clipping with no date. But I could place it in the years of my life. I was swimming in the 15-17 age group, my sister Lisa, 16 months younger, was competing in the 13-14 group, and my middle sister, Lee Ann, sprinting down the pool in the 11-12 age group. Suffice to say, it was in the last century.
Denise is not sure why she kept that article all these years and neither am I, but it brought a flurry of emails and chuckles. It also brought to mind that the time is now for more downsizing in Pleasant Gap.
As the December air sinks down from the Nittany Mountains to settle on my front lawn, I am easing into soup-making season. Carol Pilgrim’s Bay Scallop Chowder—or when I omit the scallops, Potato Leek Soup. Holiday Bean Soup. Chicken-Corn Noodle Soup. A little of the broth for Sandy’s dry dog food—one of his few treats since the vet complained that she couldn’t find his waist. What? Cute fluffy dogs have waists? Can’t find mine either. So, Sandy’s on a diet.
The Asplundh Tree Service men were in the neighborhood cutting down branches of pines and spruce. I asked and they allowed me to gathered boughs felled to earth from 60-80 feet above my neighbor’s home. I used these as a backdrop for gorgeous scarlet winter berries gathered at a friend’s home. I wonder if the winterberry hollies along the steam on Hottenstein had as good a year?
After dinner, I light candles, play my favorite holiday CDs, and settle down on the couch to read Things Worth Knowing (more about that later). My favorite music this December? The Christmas Attic by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (which we took the kids to see in Hershey years ago), December by George Winston, Réve de Noël by Josée Vachon, a talented friend who used to live in Kutztown when I lived in Kutztown, and A Christmas Celebration with Celtic Women whose concerts on WPSU-TV my mom and I never missed. I even tuned into Great Performances one night on my computer. It was a concert featuring Andrea Bocelli in Central Park—10 years ago—70,000 people on great lawn and as the camera scanned the audience, I spotted one face I knew too well: Donald Trump sitting right up front.
I bought Richard and his daughter Laís a Christmas gift of tickets to The Moscow Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker. Omicron’s arrival in Belgium caused a flurry of texts of uncertainty. Possible Omicron Lockdown. But, on the eve of St. Nicholas Day, the show was a go—with audience members masked. Laís is the great-granddaughter of an Alpha Omicron Pi, but I never dreamed I’d come across the word Omicron as part of the pandemic.
When my mother ran The Country Sampler in Boalsburg she wrote an almost-monthly newsletter called Things WorthKnowing. Her cover letter featured food, family, friends, and festivities. Inside were notes and sketches of the new kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, stitchery kits, and upcoming classes, as well as a recipe. In December 2006, as a gift to my mother’s 12 grandchildren, I compiled a booklet of her best stories (selected from about 190 newsletters) and recipes, and gave them each a copy.
Each night, I read a few pages of Things Worth Knowing, which, for me this December, becomes Things Worth Remembering, Things Worth Realizing, Things I’d Forgotten.
Take, for example, this coincidence. I am retiring in 2021; my father retired in 1991, 30 years ago. His plans for retirement included creating Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Garden, traveling, and discovering his inner Italian artist by taking a marble sculpting course. My mother sold Mel’s book at her shop and among their travel adventures they often included shopping trips to Gourmet Shows in San Francisco, Chicago or New York City.
In Things Worth Knowing there are lots of mentions of the grandchildren, and I have to think that one of the reasons Wille, my chef-phew, became a chef is from his excursions to my mother’s kitchen where he would pull the cord of the salad spinner to race his tiny metal racecars or help Nonna make batter for a cake.
Things Worth Knowing ends with my mother’s retirement in 1997. She sold The Country Sampler to Jeanne and Jan, daughters of one of her original partners. She and my dad spent the rest of their retirement years entertaining, gardening, traveling, and enjoying their 12 grandchildren. As the book ends, I gaze at the candle on my tin tree. I watch the nub that’s left of the candle. The orange flame heightens, flickers to blue and orange, then extinguishes to gray smoke. Darkness. The end. Happy Holidays. Laurie Lynch
I took this photo of my entrance arrangement, not noticing until later that “Big Butt,” one of my Dad’s sculptures is centered behind …
Fifty years is a long time, as I was reminded at my State High Class of 1971 reunion.
Naturally it was a weekend of storytelling. As it turns out, it was also a weekend of story-making.
Growing up in the shadow of the Penn State Nittany Lions, State College High School students were known as the “Little Lions”. But it was our class that made the Paw Print a lasting symbol of our school.
Life in Happy Valley revolves around football. And State High’s perennial rival (starting in 1890) was Bellefonte, 10 miles away. There were pep rallies, bonfires and parades for the Iron Kettle Game each November. But my class did things our way in that fall of 1970.
Now, before I go any further, I must set the record straight: I had nothing to do with this. I was a student at State High but I swam for Bellefonte YMCA (the only indoor pool in the county, excepting PSU), so my allegiances were a bit muddy.
OK, back to the story.
As part of the reunion weekend, we toured the new high school and posed in front of the Paw Print monument at the entrance to the building. Then one of our classmates read an account of the rivalry entitled: “Paw Prints, Rotten Tomatoes and other Memories of State High vs. Bellefonte” by Bill Horlacher (State High Class of 1970).
In the early morning hours before the Iron Kettle Game, a couple carloads of students, armed with stencils, paint brushes and milk cans filled with whitewash, went to work. They started at State High, painted Paw Prints, and then every so often hopped out of their cars to paint more Paw Prints, hopped back in and drove a little further.
“It was like the Keystone Cops,” reported one participant. The State High students made it all the way down Benner Pike to Bellefonte High’s football field. As they were leaving, the Bellefonte police arrived. Some students scattered, but several were caught, including one young woman.
The police called her father with the classic, “Do you know where your daughter is?”
“She’s painting Paw Prints to Bellefonte,” he replied, “and I told her she’d get caught.”
Long story short, the students didn’t get expelled but had to scrub off the Paw Prints on school property. The community embraced the ingenuity of the crew and State High’s football team was so charged up that they crushed Bellefonte, 44-12. The Class of 1971 presented a Paw Print monument to the school in honor of the night.
All of that is ancient history. The Paw Print story passed through the decades, even though the Iron Kettle game ended in 1999.
Here we are in 2021 and the 50th reunion organizational team is zooming through the pandemic, setting up the details for the big weekend. Then someone caught wind of an enticing coincidence. Bellefonte High School’s Class of 1971 scheduled its 50th reunion on the same night as ours. Wheels started turning, Paw Prints started circling.
But these folks learned something in the last 50 years: In this day and age, pranks can have serious consequences. They were 67 and 68, not 17 or 18, and nervous as all get out.
So, they called the country club where the Bellefonte reunion was to be held. They explained they were from the Class of 1971 and wanted to decorate for the reunion. They were told to check in with the bartender. They arrived in a village called Mingoville, the night before the big event, and were greeted at the bar.
The bartender was welcoming but one fellow in the bar was a little suspicious. First, if they graduated in 1971, they were keeping late hours just to decorate. Second, (and he may have had one too many) he told the decorators they looked like they graduated “just yesterday”. And third, the Paw Print they painted at the front door just didn’t seem right—weren’t Bellefonte students known as the Red Raiders?
But the bartender helped out, using a huge wrench (she couldn’t find a hammer) to drive a stake into the ground with a sign congratulating the Class of 1971, with love from the Class of 1971. So, heck, it must be OK.
No one called the police. No one called the school. Everyone went home and got a short night’s sleep.
Who knows what the Bellefonte Class of 1971 thought when they saw the white Paw Print as they opened the doors to the club. But when the story was shared with State High’s Class of 1971 after its reunion dinner, the graying graduates got a good chuckle. And each of the “decorators” was awarded a paintbrush to honor the story. Laurie Lynch
What Goes Around: I was swimming at the Bellefonte Y in the 1960s through 1971. In 2021, most mornings you’ll find me in that same 3-lane pool, doing laps during Senior Swim. There is an 8-lane pool at the State College Y but Bellefonte is much closer to my new home in Pleasant Gap.
Photo Shocker: One of my classmates shared his photo album from 6th grade through high school. He identified me playing a 6th-grade dodgeball game—and I was wearing a dress. Those were the days when public schools had dress codes for young ladies—dresses or skirts only! I had forgotten.
Paw Print Posing: Some Class of 1971 members surrounding the Paw Print monument last weekend. I’m in the back (still one of the tallest), under the double LLs in “College,” wearing sunglasses.
It’s been said so many times it is cliché. But, I’ll say it once again. When you volunteer, you get back much more than you give.
This past week I received three gifts that had nothing to do with the actual volunteer work I was doing, and that made them even more enjoyable. As I’ve quoted my Italian grandmother Nives often before, “Things come in threes.”
The first was a gift in the lesson of civil disobedience.
Not far from the trailhead of Mount Nittany is a piece of land owned by the township where workers pile chipped wood from old Christmas trees, branches, and other woody debris collected from residences. People are allowed to help themselves to this mulch, so, as a Master Gardener, I often go here to replenish the mulch around our raised beds at an affordable housing complex.
The other day Penny and I were filling up buckets and boxes when a fellow came by with a milk jug filled with water. Since the last time we were there (pre-COVID), the area had been blocked off with concrete barriers, making a parking area for Mount Nittany hikers, separating it from the township’s “work area”—piles of asphalt, concrete, rusted metal, assorted debris and wood mulch.
A bearded fellow carrying a milk jug filled with water was watering a potted flower on each of the two dozen concrete chunks that surrounded the site. We started a conversation. He asked what we were doing and we explained. He told us that the township dumps debris in this area and then bulldozes it down the mountain, contaminating a natural spring. When the township placed the ugly concrete barriers around the area, he placed flowers on each to call attention to the beauty of the mountain. He called it his act of civil disobedience …
I started a new gig with Acoustic Brew Concerts, a volunteer organization that sets up a series of folk music concerts throughout the year in the State College area. My mother and I attended many of their intimate musical events over the years and they were always so kind and accommodating to her that I decided to “give back”.
So, I became an official ABC ticket-taker at a new venue, the Boal Mansion Museum amphitheater. Most people buy tickets ahead of the event online and then we check them off on a printout. I scanned the printout before cars started rolling in, and one name popped out at me—which I’ll refer to as Molly B. As we checked off people on the list and stamped their hands, one woman said her name was Molly B. I looked at her and asked if she graduated from State High. She said her family moved out of the school district when she was in 10th grade, so no, but until then, she was a local.
I introduced myself. Molly B grew up in Oak Hall, which was on the Lemont School bus route that I rode on. She had long, chestnut hair and a free-wheeling, Pippi Longstocking personality—a crown jewel in my elementary school memories.
Later, as everyone waited for the soundcheck to end, Molly B came over to my chair and we caught up.
“Your hair is short,” I said, (a totally stupid remark, I know.) “Mine is too,” I giggled nervously. She recently retired after a career as a nurse at Mount Nittany Medical Center. I told her I planned to retire at the end of the year. She has a daughter and son, as do I. She lives on a small farm in the country. Sounds familiar. More than 50 years have passed since we were grade school buddies but I’m hoping our early friendship will result in an encore. It would be a gift.
Later, during a pause in the concert for banjo and fiddle tuning, I spotted a young woman sitting on a stone wall wearing my favorite T-shirt. So, I walked over to her, and told her so.
“Thank you. I designed it.”
“What?”
“I designed it for the (PSU) Student Farm.”
I felt so honored to meet her. The design is of Penn State’s Old Main, but instead of white columns below the familiar dome, there are bright orange carrots with green feathery tops. So clever. We exchanged names. Hers is Alyssa. It was such a gift to give a compliment honestly and innocently, and meet a young designer with creative talent. Laurie Lynch
Three Plus One: The first time I saw her riding a bike through Pleasant Gap, I decided I was overdue for an eye exam. The second time, I did a U-turn in my car but lost her. The third time, I was again driving in the opposite direction, and late for an appointment, but I was sure. After three sightings, the woman was riding her bike—with a cockatiel perched on her shoulder.
This morning, I passed her for the fourth time, not far from the former Macy’s which is being renovated into a casino. I parked on the side of the road and waited. When she approached, I stepped near the road and asked if I could take a photo. She’s quite a talker, even when stopped by a stranger alongside a busy road. I got her phone number and soon you will be reading more about my fellow Pleasant Gapper.
Written on Slate: “I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word, and the third, a good deed.” Friedrich Nietzsche
The last time I moved into a neighborhood, I was a newlywed. Now, I’m nearly retired.
My Mrs. Sacks from Coplay, who taught me lessons in gardening and friendship, has been replaced by Sonja, also with hair of white and a wealth of local lore (in 1960 her father built the house I live in.)
We live on a quiet cul-de-sac called Milmar, named after Millard and Margaret Schreffler, who sold the land to Sonja’s father and used to live in the BIG white house on Main Street across from the Methodist Church.
Yesterday the main event on the circle was watching the West Penn Power guy ride his bucket lift up to change the bulb in the street light. This morning, it was trash and recycling collection. Last week, it was the drifts of samaras.
The woman who owns the house behind Sonja’s and mine has two multi-stemmed maples. She’s still in Florida so she has no idea what a ruckus her trees are causing. Sonja says the woman’s husband dug them off the mountain that shelters us in this Nittany Valley, a place called Pleasant Gap. (In my high school days, kids referred to our locale as Penn State, the State Pen (Penitentiary), and then, Pleasant Gap.)
Well, I was sitting in my home office. I looked up from the computer screen and out the window, and saw a flotilla of dragonflies coasting over the clothesline and soaring up toward the roof. But no, not dragonflies. They were maple helicopters, aka ’copters, whirlybirds, twisters, or whirligigs. Botanically speaking, these winged seeds are called maple samaras.
They land on my lawn, the front deck, on Sonja’s and my driveways, and, smackdab in the middle, my raised vegetable beds. Later, raking them carefully out of my raised beds, I spotted Sonja and sarcastically muttered, “I should start a maple plantation.”
“Years ago, I offered my grandkids a penny for each one they picked up off the driveway,” Sonja said, shaking her head.
She didn’t have any takers.
So, each day for a few weeks she and Jack use a leaf blower to clear their drive. I use a push broom for the driveway and deck, not as often as they. There must be a silver lining, I thought to myself. And sure enough, I read an article that said maple samaras are edible—not just for squirrels, finches and chickadees—but people.
So, I gathered a half quart of the papery wings, sat down at the kitchen table, and squeezed the end until the nutlet popped out. A good half-hour later I had about a third-cup of green seeds.
“They kind of look like small pistachios,” an uncharacteristically optimistic comment from my son Richard who spent several weeks helping his mom move too many boxes and crates into her new abode.
Maple samaras are a good source of protein and starch, and, when boiled, kind of taste like garden peas, I reported.
So, I boiled my harvest, placed them in a custard cup with a spoon, and offered them as a side dish to dinner.
We both tried some.
“So why do people eat these things?” Richard asked.
“Because we can,” I replied. “They have a bitter aftertaste, but if you got lost in the woods, they’d do.”
I considered sharing my culinary experience with Sonja but had second thoughts. I probably should live here a couple of months before I let her know how “earthy” her new neighbor can be. Laurie Lynch
Several readers apparently were taken with the mention of Nominative Determinism in my last blog.
Eydie wrote saying she took her pet Misty to a veterinary office run by a Dr. Ostrich and when Eydie was growing up, she had a dentist named Dr. Dent. Al mentioned a nurse navigator at a cancer center who is named Ms. Wellcomer. “I thought that was rather appropriate,” he writes. And Valerie says her husband went to a Dr. Shingles. He wasn’t a dermatologist, but “doesn’t a doctor, ‘Hang out his shingle’?” she asked.
“Hanging out your shingle” is an American colloquialism dating to the early 1800s, I’ve read. When lawyers, and then doctors, started their own practices, they would hang out a “shingle” or signboard to identify their new office.
This got me searching for a photo Richard sent about a month ago while visiting the Hague, the royal capital of the Netherlands. De Gouden Schaar is translated (via Google Translate) as The Golden Scissors. They sure look red to me but the moveable “shingle” definitely catches your attention, especially if it’s time for a haircut, although the shop was closed due to COVID.
If you have any more N.D.s, please pass them on. Until then, enjoy this sunset, Ghent, Belgium-style, again via Richard. Laurie Lynch
There’s a To Read stack of books under my bedside table. I finished my library book so I grabbed one from the stack: Peace Is Everybody’s Business, Half a Century of Peace Education with Elizabeth Evans Baker.
I’m not sure where the book came from but I decided to dive in.
The trouble started immediately, Chapter One. A Peace Chapel in Huntingdon, PA, a mere 30 miles from here? And I’ve never heard of it?
The plot thickens. The open-air Peace Chapel was designed by landscape architect Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam War Memorial, and I’ve never heard of it?
Heck, Huntingdon is just over Pine Grove Mountain. I was born and raised in Central PA, went to college here, left for about five years, returned for about 10, left for about 20, and returned—and I’ve never heard of Maya Lin’s Peace Chapel?
I was embarrassed but determined. I quickly Googled Peace Chapel Huntingdon, PA and the first mention I saw said, “Off Warm Springs Avenue near Juniata College.” Zip Code for Huntingdon, 16652.
Sure, we just had a foot of snow, but the roads are clear. I have nothing planned for the day. So, I hop in the car with my trusty polar bear pup, press NAV on the dashboard monitor, type in the info, and off we go, looking for adventure and a peaceful connection.
I make a few wrong turns (Siri and I sometimes have communication issues) but we finally get to an open gate that looks like it might be the right place. The road is plowed, the gate open, so we venture on. We pass a construction yellow Komatsu excavator frozen in time near some bleachers. Up we go. A huge pale blue water tank. A cell tower encased in chain-link. Up we go. Finally, a field of boulders surrounding a gigantic American flag on a flagpole with four spotlights on 20’-high aluminum poles around that. (I later read the flag is the largest in Huntingdon, 20’x38’.)
We park the car and walk around. I keep saying, “This can’t be it. This can’t be it. This isn’t a place of peace.” We circle. And circle, walking on the muddy road around the boulders and flagpole. “This can’t be it.”
We get in the car. I go back to the NAV button and type in Peace Chapel. Peace Chapel Lane comes up. “Yes!” I make my selection and off we go.
We drive and drive, and finally come to Peace Chapel Lane. We turn and pull into a driveway. I can see the unplowed lane, a closed gate. Yes. The Peace Chapel still exists. It’s just snowed in and we’re snowed out.
When I get home, I call my friend Jo who grew up in the Huntingdon area. She had never heard of the Peace Chapel either so I’m feeling a little better. She Googles it and knows exactly where it is, above Juniata College. “We’ll go in the spring,” she assures me.
“But, where was I?” I ask Jo, describing the boulders and flag and water tank.
“Oh, you went to Flagpole Hill. That’s where the girls with ‘reps’ went in high school.”
Hmm, wrong side of the mountain. Well, I did see the biggest Stars and Stripes in all of Huntingdon … Time to get back to my reading. Perhaps I am trying too hard to make a connection. I’ll wait until the thaw. Connections happen in their own time.
I notice a WhatsApp from my sister Patty Ann in Lima, Peru. It is a link to a virtual painting class she and her daughter Serenella took. One painting by Patty Ann is of a red bird and Serenella painted a beautiful pink protea blossom. Within the past few days, I took photos of a cardinal at our snowy feeder and a protea blossom on the atrium table. Two opposite hemispheres and seasons, but we still connect.
Punxsutawney Phil prognosticated six more weeks of winter—but I was eating groundhog cookies nevertheless. The holiday slipped my mind this year until I got a package in the mail. It was sent from Maryland. A former clerk in my mom’s store, Nancy, has kept The Country Sampler tradition going in her own circle. This year, with warm memories of my mother, she expanded her circle and sent my sisters and me each a box of homemade (using COVID precautions) groundhog cookies.
And in another direction, spring is in the air in Belgium. First, Marina sends a photo of her almond tree blossoms. (I wasn’t too jealous.) Then, she reports finding her first slug of the season in her rooftop garden. (Serves her right, getting spring temperatures in February.) Well, these things come in threes. She and Koen went for a walk at a nearby park and she smelled something reminiscent of her childhood. There, in the Ghent park, was a Kentucky coffeetree. Its long, brown pods were littering the ground, decaying, and smelling like the pods of the Kentucky coffeetrees that grew next to the shop on Hottenstein Road. Connections. And tears, but peace too. Laurie Lynch
More than a year ago my mom went to my sister Larissa’s house for an afternoon visit. Marie sang bits and pieces of songs, such as, “You’re in the Army now,” “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,” or “Shave and a haircut, two bits.”
Larissa and Earle had an Echo device and alerted Alexa. Alexa would play the entire song from the snippets my mom sang. They had great fun with it. So, last Christmas they bought Marie an Echo for Christmas.
Earle borrowed my phone and set it up, getting the appropriate passwords, etc. I was thankful—no hassle electronics.
We used it a lot. “Alexa, please play The Sound of Music.” “Alexa, please play the soundtrack from Grease.” One of her nurses came to the house and asked Alexa to play Yo-Yo Ma. I’d say, “Alexa, please play Jacques Brel.” Alexa would correct my Belgian-French pronunciation, and then off we’d go with a collection of Brel’s top recordings. We all enjoyed the varied, on-demand music.
“You don’t have to be so polite, Alexa is not a person,” Richard occasionally pointed out. “Well, OK.”
Alexa and I didn’t start out well. I kept calling her Siri—I was too used to Siri giving me directions, I guess. Then, the bill came. Turns out Alexa has a monthly charge that was coming to my credit card. Well … OK.
One day, coming home from work, I walked down the steps from the garage into the living room. “Oh, Alexa’s home,” my mother said, in absolute seriousness.
Not OK. That ruffled my feathers a bit.
As the year went on and my mother was confined to a hospital bed in her bedroom, we moved the whole shebang to her bedside. There, Alexa stayed, quietly playing soothing music until my mother took her last breath.
By July, I returned Alexa to the living room, within shouting distance of my Covid-19 remote workstation. Marina visited and thought Alexa was a bit disturbing. Celso, our dear Brazilian friend from Kutztown High School-Rotary Exchange days, came for a visit and started laughing when he realized we had Alexa.
He told a tale of how he spooked his NJ mother-in-law by synching the Alexa app “drop in” feature on his phone with her home Alexa system. Throughout the year, he would “drop in” and using his best creepy voice say something like, “I can see you,” just messing around. He did this several, random times. Never said a word to his in-laws. Then last Christmas, he recorded a Christmas card with the same spooky voice to let them know the jig was up.
“I’m proud of the joke,” texted Celso. “It was one of my best.”
I must admit, Alexa provides some comfort and company. When I can do little else than make a pot of oatmeal, I mumble, “Alexa, play WPSU,” for a morning of classical music. On occasional sleepy Sundays when I seem poured into the sofa, I’d say, “Alexa, play Joni Mitchell.” On and on, until one of us, Alexa or me, is edging toward suicidal. I decided it was probably best to quit the non-stop hours of Joni. I switched to Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, and James Taylor (until then, I had never heard him sing my all-time favorite song, Moon River. A delight!)
Alexa is someone (besides Sandy 4.0) I can talk to. But sometimes she talks back.
Around the time I started being not-so-polite, “Alexa off!” the music would stop, and two seconds later, a little blip, lasting less than a micro-second, echoed through the room. Was Celso playing games or was Alexa?
Then, one evening I found myself entertaining a 10-year-old. He had already exhausted Sandy 4.0 who climbed to the back of the recliner in hang-dog form, body draped like a rag doll, paws dangling.
Alexa to the rescue.
“Let’s play a game,” I suggested to the energetic youngster. Food groups. “Alexa, play a meatball song.” She played The Meatball Song by Andy Mason. He was amazed. “Alexa, play a banana song,” and on came I’m a Banana by Onision. “Alexa, a song about watermelons.” Watermelon Sugar with Harry Styles. “Alexa, play a bean song.” We listened to The Bean Song by Jawbone. Soon, it was time for the youngster to go home. Mission accomplished.
Then, along came Amazon Sidewalk. I kept getting emails that Amazon Sidewalk was coming to our Echo device. All I could see was dollar signs for something I didn’t want or need. They sent “disable directions” but, being technologically disabled, I was unable to disable. So, I figured I’d soon receive a hike in fees. I was feeling like an irritated 60-something. Couldn’t they simply give directions to add Amazon Sidewalk if you want?
Right then and there I grabbed an old credit card bill, called Amazon and said goodbye to Alexa. Regular exercise is my goal for 2021. Imagine all the extra steps I’ll log on my iPhone Health app just walking over to turn on the radio and turn it off again.
“Alexa, thank you.” And loyal blog readers, have a happy and healthy holiday and new year. Laurie Lynch
An array of files, moved from the office to make remote working easier, enclose my space in the emptied dining room. Cartons are scattered about the house—not a home, just a skeleton of a house, with little of the comfortable clutter collected over the years.
In the basement, boxes from 440 Hottenstein Road, 10 years and never unpacked. Boxes of books and dishes, baby clothes, art projects and History Day mementoes. Scrapbooks and yearbooks. Boxes labeled “Stuff to Keep” or “Fragile Don’t Place Anything Heavy on Top”—can’t you give me a clue? I think I’ll just take a quick nap on the sleeping couch—zzzz—and worry about it later.
I went through my parents’ old files, now it is time to go through mine. Don’t need Fleur-de-Lys Farm Market sales receipts from 2008 or 2009. Don’t need the manual for the Kencove poultry fence. Don’t need the Merchandise folder, the Consignment Folder, the Catalog folder. But wait. This brings back memories…
Two sheets of paper pinched together by a clothespin. Talk about a homespun filing system. The first page, a scribbling of thoughts—fresh cut flowers, Italian sweet basil, heirloom tomatoes, garlic, Saturdays 10-6, Sundays Noon-6, June through September—a sketch of my business plan. The second: Possible Names, notes from an important night in the kitchen of 440 Hottenstein Road.
Paul (my now ex-husband) and Pete and Terese (friends, Marina’s godparents, and marketing magicians) were sitting on stools on one side of the kitchen island. I was standing on the other side—my work and comfort zone. There was a least one bottle, no, probably two bottles, of wine involved. We were brainstorming names, branding, and logos for an emerging farm business. The year, 2002.
I go down the list: Blue Bridge Farm (my favorite), Chicken Meadow Farm, Carriageworks (carriages were built in one of the outbuildings in the 1800s) Farm, Coffeetree (Kentucky Coffee Trees tower above the farm stand) Farm, Goldfinch Meadow Farm, High Water Farm, Meadowbloom Farm, Neverdone (how true) Farm, Saul (the early owners of the property) Farmstead Market, Schoolhouse View Farm, Simple Pleasures Farm, MaRi (combination of Marina and Richard) Meadow Farm, Lavender Hill Farm, Periwinkle Farm, Hot-to-Trot Farm (omg, spurred on by Hottenstein—maybe we were on our third bottle of wine by then!), French Blue Farm …” And on it goes.
Then, as I recall, Paul went upstairs to the bathroom.
When he returned, we told him the good news. The quest was over. We had struck gold: “Fleur-de-Lys Farm.”
Paul made a bit of a deal about not being there for the suggestion and decision, but merde, fleur-de-lys is French (his father’s homeland) and the Lys spelled with a “y’’ not an “i’’ follows the spelling of his family name: Lynch. Two streams on the property, trout lilies and water irises. The name made sense. And, the fleur-de-lys symbol is easy to reproduce without artist fees. (I am no artist.)
And, so it was. And is. Now those two sheets of paper, the silver lining of shedding and shredding, can go to recycling. (I’ll save the clothespin.) Laurie Lynch
Beams Break Through the Clouds: Due to the Pandemic, travel to Belgium has not been possible for me but there have been a few bright moments. My Belgian belle Marina was able to come here for an extended visit. Plus, modern technology allows me to get glimpses of Richard’s 6 ½-year-old daughter Lais. He calls her the Muse of Raclette, reports a wiggly baby tooth, and I witnessed her latest triumph, performing roues de charrette (cartwheels) via WhatsApp. Now, if only my granddaughter would lose that tooth and win a visit from la petite souris (tooth fairy).
October Optics: While it may not be ideal to plant my garlic cloves in containers, that is the only alternative this year. And that small act came with a silver lining too. The containers are on the deck, where I pass them several times a day. When the garlic was planted in the garden, I might visit it once a week or less during this time of year. But, as it is, I noticed within two weeks of planting that some of the garlic cloves were sending green shoots out of the soil. I didn’t expect to see them until November or so!
Written on Slate: “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” Belgian-born Audrey Hepburn
We’ve all heard of Southern hospitality, but Southern serendipity?
I got a package the other day from Wally and Michele. I had asked for their Shrimp and Grits recipe. The package included a two-page printout from the website allrecipes for Old Charleston Style Shrimp and Grits, with a post-it note of recipe modifications, a muslin bag of grits, and the novel Where the CrawdadsSing by Delia Owens.
I headed to the kitchen to see if I could re-create the delicious meal I had with W&M—and was successful. It reminded me a lot of cooking Italian polenta. (I followed the recipe for Charleston Creamy Grits on the bag of grits and took Michele’s advice for the main recipe, not to add the shrimp until the very end. “You don’t want to overcook them.”)
When I lived in the Lowcountry, I let the Southerners cook the grits—mostly a breakfast staple. I remember taking my Uncle Ray to a favorite diner and he ordered scrambled eggs with bacon. Lo and behold, when they brought out his platter he took one look at it and said, “I ordered scrambled eggs, not sunny-side up!”
The scrambled eggs and bacon were there but the dish was dominated by a slurry of grits with a central pool of melted golden butter, that, yes, did look like a giant egg with a runny yolk. Uncle Ray was always a kidder. The yolk, so to speak, was on the waitress and me.
I did a little research on grits and polenta. Both are made of corn—not the sweet corn (Zea maysconvar. saccharata var. rugosa) we devour in late summer but “field corn”. Field corn can be either dent corn (Zea mays indentata) with a dent in each kernel when dried, or flint corn (Zea mays indurata) which many of us know as Indian corn. Both are harvested when mature and the kernels are dry. The hard kernels are milled into cornmeal, flour, grits or polenta.
A few days after my Shrimp and Grits meal and leftovers, I was several chapters into Where theCrawdads Sing. Kya, the coastal North Carolina Marsh Girl herself, came out with this doozy right there on the page: “I don’t know how to do life without grits.” Well, I declare!
Even if you don’t like grits, you’ve got to read Where the Crawdads Sing. It is a gem, especially for land-locked Yankees. Laurie Lynch
Stone-Ground Grits: Don’t fall for instant or quick-cook grits. Instead, order a 2 lb. muslin bag filled with authentic stone-ground grits at www.foodforthesouthernsoul.com Stirring reduces stress.
Souper Sunday: My friend Chris doesn’t let football stand in the way of her declaring several “Souper Sundays” during the year. She loads up her pots with ingredients for making homemade soups in bulk. Then, she ladles the delicious concoctions into quart containers and delivers them to friends and family in need of a little comfort food. And don’t we all need a little comfort food on occasion? Play it forward.
Minding His Own Beeswax: My chef-phew Wille, always cooking up something creative, has launched a sideline, beeswax candles in scents of lemongrass or anisette biscotti. Read all about it on his Nov. 1 blogpost Pandemic Passion: Beeswax Candles at the honey-filled site www.bee-america.com
Pennsylvania mushrooms not practicing social distancing.
Fleur-de-Blog 