One thing leads to another and takes me into unforeseen byways. I am you, and you are me. We build on each other’s memories, and common experiences such as the enjoyment of food make us feel more connected. I feel less lonely when readers communicate about how my experiences resonate with theirs.
Book group moderator Dan, wrote, “I can still taste and smell the watermelon that had been cooling in a wash tub full of water, all afternoon, with a 25 lb. block of ice. Slice it up, pour on the salt, and gobble it up, with the juice dripping off the chin. Now that was summer in Indiana!!!”
Dan’s reminiscence brings back the days when many people used wringer washers and rinsed the laundry in washtubs of cold water. There was also an “iceman” who read a card displayed on the porch indicating how large a block of ice was wanted. He carried it in with tongs and left it in the ice box even if no one was home as we didn’t lock our doors.
Watermelon was a huge treat and all the more delicious because we didn’t have it every day. One evening a truck turned over and spilled its melons on the hill leading to Schatzlein’s Greenhouse in Knightstown. The driver gave them away. The news spread quickly, and a bunch of people from the north end of town got free melons. Homemade ice cream for which you had to turn the crank of the ice cream maker was another high treat.
Sherry Forster wrote, “Ah good food memories! Put Hal in the Bisquick camp! It is in the pantry as I write. He likes it cut in half with butter melted in the middle — yum!” My niece, Barbara, wrote that she was going out immediately to buy strawberries.
Irvington friend Ann sent an e-mail about the column about picnics, “Oh what reverie! You included ALL the senses . . .” She also wrote, “My Dad had his 90th birthday party this weekend. Cousins came from Michigan and told the family stories rated “M” — for mature, instead of the rated “G” my Dad told us as kids. We enjoyed these old tales in a whole new light, much to my Dad’s chagrin!”
Such stories are the loom upon which a family’s history and connections are woven. One of my family’s most memorable gatherings was when I was a Teaching Assistant at I.U. in Bloomington. I suggested that my siblings and their families meet for an October picnic at Brown County Sate Park.
Beverly and her husband, Charlie, and Virginia and her husband, Arnold, drove. It was my widowed mother’s first date with Charlie’s Uncle Edgar. Since Christine’s husband, Orville, wisely refused to join the merry throng, she and their kids rode with Edgar.
The caravan left Knightstown together, but Charlie and Edgar became lost south of Greenfield. Virginia and Arnold picked me up at my apartment near the I.U. campus. No one having thought to arrange a meeting place, we all drove around and around the 15,000-acre park while the restless, hungry children whined, and the adults became irritated. An hour later, we found each other. The park being packed with leaf peepers, there were no picnic tables left. After we drove around for another half hour, a park ranger took pity on us and let us use the picnic table in his yard.
The adults were too mad to eat. Beverly and Virginia got into an argument about who was to blame for the mix-up, and their husbands came to their defense and threatened to fight each other. Not for the first — or last — time, my mortified mother said, “I’m so ashamed of my children.“ Edgar said, “Now Ruth, don’t give it another thought. We-uns in my family get into some bodacious fights!” A few months later, Christine sent a postcard: “Let’s all meet somewhere at the Grand Canyon some time in June.” wclarke@comcast.net