The Piccolo Wars

My Grandma Betty often said: "You get what you pay for. Always!" I didn't believe her, as I was growing up by hand, where we grew things from the dirt, and did great treasure hunting in thrift stores and through the "Atlanta Advertiser" (yesterday's answer to Craigslist). Everything I learned from my parents about surviving was earthy, frugal, resourceful. Grandma was the antithesis to this: elegant, exciting, cultured.  She had her hair "done" every Friday after work. There was a spare bedroom fully committed to some of her clothes (there were more in her regular bedroom) -- a walk-in closet full of shoes, another closet full of formals, and a big chest-of-drawers filled with her costume jewelry. She would let us girls dress up with her things, amazingly.  She was the exact opposite of my other Grandmother (MawMaw) - who was country to her core, could raise a heavenly garden and flowers, heck, she could put a stick in the ground and it would grow. I'm half MawMaw and half Grandma Betty, yielding a Yaya who is not Greek but behaves like one. There is nothing in the world like the love of a Grandmother -- if she's a good one, there's all this unconditional love, plenty of fun and wisdom, and lots of slackness when it comes to food or time constraints. I remember my two Grandmas looking deep into my eyes with that knowing bond of timeless love. I now do the same for my grandchildren. And the world keeps turning.

Back to the frugality of my childhood and early adult years...it is imprinted in my DNA that I must seek out the cheapest price on anything I am purchasing. I start there and work my way up (or perhaps abandon the whole idea, if need be). For this story, it all started with a little glimmer that existed in my lizard psyche, going way back to high school. I played flute in the band, but when we marched I borrowed and played one of the piccolos that were supplied by the school. It's pretty useless to play a flute out on a football field. You're dirtying up your instrument with extra grime and sweat for nothing, if you are a flutist. Nobody can hear you-- you're just a warm body in the scheme of things out there. Our band director tried to get me to play a fluglehorn during marching season, for heavens' sake. I'm still not certain what that is. I just know it resembled a trumpet and I was having no part of such strange contraptions. So the piccolo it was. I loved playing that little thing. It looked like a toy, kind-of sounded like a toy, and could rip a high B-flat like nobody's business, particularly in "Stars and Stripes Forever" -- which is, as our Maestro tells us, "the happiest tune ever written." I've always secretly wanted one, all these decades of continuing to play my flute. I even rented one once, for a church cantata. It seems so decadent, so indulgent, to own something that I know for a fact I will only play once in awhile (for various marches, patriotic days, and particularly the Stars & Stripes). We already have a wonderful piccolo player in our wind ensemble -- we don't need another one. But I kept chewing on that bone, for years. 

When my tax lady told me that I was actually, miraculously, getting a refund this year instead of having to pay the IRS, my brain fixated on the idea, since we're going to Italy in June to play four concerts. I mean, we're playing That Aforementioned Song, which begs for as many piccolos as you can muster. And I'm probably never going to Italy again. I decided to live a little and started scouring Facebook marketplace and second-hand shops for a used piccolo. I impulsively drove to downtown Atlanta one afternoon with three grandchildren in tow, bought a crappy old piccolo and immediately regretted it. I mean, when my car rounded the corner from picking it up, I almost called the fellow right then with buyer's remorse. When I found out (hindsight) how much it would cost to make the thing playable, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. But it was cheap! 

Sometimes there is grace, in the land of the living. The nice man met up with me a few days later and gave me my money back. I drove straight to Ken Stanton Music (well, after stopping by the bank, there's that...), the same place my parents bought my first flute some 50 years ago. I played four of their piccolos and slapped that cash right down on the counter for the one that sounded the best. Forget frugality, forget cheap, forget buying anything used. I bought a spankin' new piccolo and even bought the maintenance agreement. I can see my Daddy up in heaven, laughing up a storm. Now that he's up there with Jesus, he has to know that sometimes, Grandma Betty is right.    

Sunbeams

I got the last-minute chance to go to the beach last week -- my daughter-in-love was texting me during church, making plans and a packing list. Don't tell Pastor David. Ken rushed me home and I threw a bag together while wolfing down tacos from the drive-through. I hot-wheeled in on over to Newnan and we looked for all the world like the Clampetts, with all kinds of flotsam piled on top. I almost didn't go, because I was coughing like an old stovepipe. But the sea air did my lungs and bum knee a heap of good. It was beautiful to see the dolphins and stingrays flinging themselves out of the surf, the soft sand between our toes, the children jumping pell-mell into the frigid water. Thankfully, the pool was heated, so Yaya jumped on in too. Got burnt toasty while I was at it.

We were staying at the place we took our kids for all of their lives -- Laguna Beach Christian Retreat -- but now it has a fancier name, something to do with Cottages or some such. They've painted all the block buildings with beachy, sherbet colors, but you still have to bring your own pillows and bed linens. We have such happy memories of weeks at the beach, with lots and lots of our family and other friends getting their own cottages at the same time. The kids ganged up and played volleyball, basketball, swam, hunted crabs, got sunburned and hung out with cousins and close friends. It was the best of times. Us adults would visit on our front porch (#7 -- we went so often, we thought it was ours), laugh and drink coffee. When the sun went down and supper was over, we'd congregate with more beverages at the old pool. The bigger boys would have contests where they stacked up chairs and dove over them into the water. We did this for nigh-on two decades. Now my adult children are so tall, they don't fit the full-size beds there (6'6", 6'5" and 6'4". Liz makes me the shortest now, at her 5'10"). They prefer places that have king-size beds. But this son, Jesse, and his family decided to go for a few days anyway, and invited me along. Papa had to work, poor thing. I like these arrangements (not Pa working, just the fact that I got to go). 

While granddaughter Eden (11) and I were riding home together, she said, "Yaya, can I say something? I hope that I don't offend you... I've noticed that Nortons, well, they talk a lot." I love the directness of children. If you don't want to know, don't ask. I reminded her that she was a Norton too and we had a good laugh.  She's the eldest grandchild (of 12) and I'm keenly aware that these days of early childhood are fleeting. Kids get busy with all sorts of things and we have these brief windows where they are still somewhat fascinated by their grandparents. I better tighten up. But then, with the recent death of my father-in-law, I was amazed at the sweet stories that his grandchildren told at the funeral. There's an unconditional love that is truly special. Some people don't get grandchildren, it's just a fact. Check around for a family that might need a surrogate Papa or Yaya. There could be no better investment.   

Crazy World

During our craziest season of life, thick with budding children, homeschooling, lots of relatives and friends and responsibilities....we decided to jump off a cliff and move into an old, leaky camper with our four children onto our land. We were young and idealistic, full of energy and dreams, seeing ourselves as pioneers in a new land. People seem to be doing this a lot these days, but back then we were unique, it seemed. And the campers back then were not as bougie as the fancy ones now. Our only had a sleeper sofa and two single beds in the back. We bought it anyway, even with that many kids. Our boys were 12, 10 and 8, our daughter was 5. The man-sized 12-year-old slept in one of the beds, the 10 and 8 year olds slept together on the other one, and our daughter slept on a pallet on the floor each night. She's now 32, with a husband and two young children (and one on the way) -- I recently asked her if she was traumatized by those two years of sleeping on the floor. She said it was the happiest of times for her, getting to be right in the mix with her crazy-fun brothers, listening to their antics and stories, sleeping right there where she could be a part of it all. That's some relief to me...we had the best of intentions, but after everyone's grown you worry about these things. They certainly learned resilience, how to work hard, and saw first-hand how good things don't just magically appear without someone laboring for them. 

Before we physically moved our camper to our land in south Douglas County, systems had to be put into place: electrical lines, septic system, a water line and some grading. We moved into a kindly-run campground that was right across the street from Six Flags theme park in Atlanta. We learned that many of our neighbors at the campground were long-term campers as we joined the ranks of the homeless. It sounds scary but it really wasn't. I was shocked at how quickly one can adapt to small spaces. Our heater and refrigerator didn't work, but the air conditioner and water heater were first-rate. We adapted with small space heaters and a big cooler (not fun) but if the air and water heater hadn't worked, it would have been a heap-lot harder to do this.

Many eldest children in families tend to think they are co-equals with their parents. They also are usually more obedient and responsible, but not always. This personified our oldest son -- he was (and is) very smart, quirky, and the most inquisitive human I've ever met. He learned very early that he could figure most things out by himself. His Father (my dear husband) also had the attitude that our kids should be allowed to climb 40-foot trees, scale mountains, tunnel into dangerous places, and basically be withheld from nothing that appeared dangerous to their Mother. Many times, my freaking self would be at shrieking level when their Dad would touch my arm and say, "Let 'em go, Rose"... Amazingly, these feral children grew up with lots of opportunities to get wrecked, but they rarely ever got hurt. Ken also expected them to work hard and be his minions, so they learned early how to do things...but when it was play time, the world was their oyster. I'm now grateful for how it went down, now that they're all thriving and able to actually survive as adults. God is good. 

One of my most memorable mornings during those days was when we were still living at the campground. Ken had to get up around 5:00 a.m. to get ready for work each morning, so we'd talk and eat before the kids got up. That day, right after he left, I decided to walk across to the camp showers and clean up real quick. I had done this many times, and the kids welcomed some more time to snooze.  I locked the camper door and proceeded to shower. Before I even turned the water off, I heard a familiar sound driving by the showers. Our conversion van, which had a unique rumble. I thought, "Did Ken have trouble with his truck, so he's come back and is now taking the van?" I quickly dried off and dressed, and ran to the door to see our van driving around the corner, making its way up the hill of the campground road. I looked left, there was no Daddy truck. The camper lights were not on. As the van made its way back down the hill, there is our 12-year-old son scooched up tight to the steering wheel, driving. He jerked to a gravelly stop, rolled down the window and explained why he was taking his life into his own hands: "Hi Mom! I woke up and you weren't in the camper. I didn't know where you were, so I thought I'd search with the van." Though I was imploding internally, I calmly told him to put the van into park. This is the child, who at many times in his life would say things like, when there was general mayhem: "Mom, what are we going to do about these kids?!"  Or -- "Mom, don't you care about Elizabeth's soul? She is getting old (she was 4) and she's not saved yet. What if you have a wreck and she dies and goes to hell?!" This one was born full-grown and full of sauce, and the rules didn't apply to him (still don't). My vision for him, while he was being formed in my womb, all 10 and a half pounds of him, was that he would be a light in the darkness. 

On that particular summer morning, however, he might have just barely squeaked through to live another day...  

Night Passages

Town was quiet tonight, with a fragrant and mellow breeze wafting by. One of the sweetest sounds that I love in the whole world is when the frogs and crickets start croaking in the spring. I thought it only happened in the country, but I hear them right here smack-dab in our little city. The stars were twinkling as the dog and I had our secret walk around the darkened yard. Little buds emerging, my three pussy willow bushes finally sprouting tiny, velvety pink babies, after many years of no-shows. The sunny daffodils and jonquils are springing up everywhere. Hope arises. 

Last weekend, our daughter arranged a photoshoot for Grandma Judy, with all the daughters and granddaughters on that side of the family. After months of wrangling schedules, weather and outfits, we gathered at a local lake. The sky was misty; we somehow threw ourselves together with our various shades of pink (Great Grandma's favorite color) to get a few dozen females all in one place, at one time. There was mud, Canadian geese, lots of giggling girls, Moms, Grandmas, Great Grandma. Looking at the miracle of progeny and the grace of God, I was so proud of my brood -- our daughter, three daughters-in-love, and five granddaughters were spicy, sweet and adorable, all at the same time. Then there was Grandma, quiet as a mouse (though she's never mousy) and uncomfortable without a chair. Someone found one in the woods and she sat down. Eventually every possible individual and group photo was had, and we disbursed. My tribe made their way to the Japanese steak house, where the girls acted big and the Mamas enjoyed the night out. I was suffering with a throbbing headache and almost opted to head home, but daughter-in-love Jessica had a bottle of ibuprofen and I might have emptied the thing. Within a short while, I began to feel better. I remained quieter and more observant than usual, finding it peaceful to simply enjoy these wonderful folk rather than comment on every. single. thing. It's such a problem, my hating to miss out on any activity. I have a hard time understanding the introverts around me. But maybe there's a lot of good to be had from shutting my mouth, sitting still, letting the room have its say without my constant input. Sweet, peaceful, like the serenity of listening in the dark to those frogs and crickets. What a novel idea...     

One Man's Junk, Another Man's Treasure

When we arrived home from our week-long camping adventure in northern Kentucky (where we had suffered through extreme cold, frozen water, snow and way too much walking), I was surprised to see that our yard was full of daffodils popping up everywhere. It always gives me hope to see their sunny faces emerge pre-spring, during the dreary month of February. I do not recommend camping or even basic travel in that most sad of seasons in the South, unless you plan to go to the tropics. Christmas is over and spring is definitely still far enough away that it just seems impossible that it's ever going to get here. Even my dear neighbor who lives in Alaska most of the year says that she's colder in the wet, humid Georgia winter than she is when she's in Alaska. Either way, I'm glad to still be breathing and glad that those yellow and green bits of happiness are growing all around our property. I didn't plant all those flowers -- some thoughtful person in the past did it. I might love them for it.

My husband had knee surgery a few weeks back, and finally got free of his cane. With two more weeks of rehab left, he got the gumption to clean out the barn. I send out bags and boxes of junk to the various charities every month, but there must be a truck of elves backing up to the house at night, emptying out their leftovers. The barn was bursting to the eaves with all manner of detritus and it was becoming dangerous to step inside. Anything that was on the floor was pulled out to the driveway and Ken started setting items at the curb to give away. I'm always amazed at how quickly even the strangest items get snapped up, one of the great things about living in town.  We meet some of the nicest people when we do this, and the stuff gets a chance at a second life (hopefully instead of the landfill). Three of my Christmas trees are now someone else's problem -- and that means I'll have to shop for one next year, something I haven't done in decades. 

As I was sifting through all the sentimental things, many that I haven't set eyes on in years, I was reminded that letting go of physical things can be very cathartic, even if it is difficult to do. What good is all this stuff, if it's just clogging up space? No one is looking at it or paying attention to it. And if we don't manage it, someday our kids will have to. In real estate, I often deal with estate listings and I see the trials of families having to parse through their peoples' belongings and get rid of truckloads of paper, plastic and brown furniture that nobody really wants. I'm asking my children if they want anything in my house...why wait 'til we're dead to let them enjoy something they can have now? Not that I'm anticipating dying any time soon, but shedding all the extraneous helps me to think clearer and see through to the people I care about, rather than all the clutter that's falling on my head. 

Spring really might be coming soon. Gulp in that sweet, warm air before the pollen gets here!   

February and Bi-Polar Weather

When we married, all of forty-two years ago, I didn't ask an essential question of my husband-to-be. He looked like a lumberjack, favoring jeans and flannel. He was as strong as a bull and big as a barn. I made some assumptions.

One day, a few months into our life as married folk, I was driving down the road and saw a nice pop-up camper in a yard. I stopped and found out that they were only asking $125.00 for it, a steal back in 1982. I called Ken from the peoples' phone (no one had cellphones except James Bond) and said wow, guess what I found?! An uncomfortable pause, then he said "Uh....does it have a bathroom?" "Of course not! It's a pop-up camper, not the Ritz!" I quipped.  He responded: "Well, I'm really more of a Holiday Inn kind of guy. I don't want a camper." Why I never thought to ask these questions, I do not know. I was raised going to King's Camp on Lake Allatoona, in a tent, spooning with my siblings on the cold, wet, uneven ground. I know my Mama really only agreed to this because she loved Daddy and us. It went against every sensibility her German-influenced housekeeping rules would allow. But she jumped in there with all the prep and cooking and cleaning that camping entails. In the same manner, she fed my constant influx of animals that came to our home. I appreciate that these things went completely against her nature, but she did them anyway (Happy Birthday, Mama).

Even with the rocky start, along the way of Ken and I's long trek, we have actually camped. Two of our years were lived in a leaky, old, decrepit camper (it did have a bathroom) while we built a house on acreage. A few years ago, one of our sons took up camping in a big way. He has the gift of persuasion and sold me on the idea. I bought a little camper (brown, ugly, dated, boring) and surprised Ken with it one night. I cleaned it up, painted it so it looked like a darling, retro Barbie camper -- turquoise, cream and coral inside and out. We put down a new floor, sewed adorable little curtains and put a shiny new backsplash behind the stove. It was so cute, when I decided to sell it I had three people show up at the same time to buy it -- two of the parties circled the block while the first lady bought it.  I doubled our money, then reinvested in a newer, much bigger camper. It's so darling, but one of our sons is now living in it with his family while they build their house on ten acres (who does that?!). By the time we get it back, maybe I'll sell that one too, just for fun. Ken keeps reminding me that we could take that money, put it aside, and just rent a cottage nearby when our children camp. I don't know. Might be a thing...

 This week, we are camping with that persuasive son, his wife and their four energetic children in Kentucky. We have an uncanny knack of doing this when the temperature bumps down to Alaskan climes. So far, the water has frozen up every night. I have a wicked cold, can't breathe and feel like I'm operating at less than half capacity. At night, Ken and I bundle up while I strap on the CPAP and put on an eye mask to block the light. Sounds like purgatory, but I sure am loving the time with these little people who won't stay little very long. Seize the day. Our concluding activity will be to visit the Ark Encounter, an amazing experience I highly recommend. Ken's never seen it before, so I'm looking forward to his reaction. And I'll try not to cry when I see that big boat on the hill. 

Both Ends Now

Little children have an uncanny way of being blunt and telling it like it is. As parents, we spend a lot of their growing up years trying to teach them the art of diplomacy and kindness (well, at least we should be). It takes a lot of intentionality to help them understand the other side, to have empathy for others but at the same time have appropriate boundaries and strength to stand up for themselves. Daddy taught us siblings to be other-oriented, but also how to not be bullied. He told me once that if someone ever hit me at school, I was not to simply "take it." He said, "You better win that fight." It seemed so counter to his sweet nature for him to say such a thing, but he was teaching us the noble skill of self defense right along with the other lessons of standing up for the weak, the infirm, the little ones. 

Now that we have twelve grandchildren, all under the age of eleven, I am amazed at their candor and pluck. They are observing the world around them and learning what is true, what is not, and what matters. Heaven help their parents. It's not light work. Truth be told, we all mess our kids up in myriad ways, without even meaning to. When people say, "Oh, kids are resilient," I wonder. To me, they're pretty vulnerable and have to learn to navigate in a sometimes crazy world. My folks seemed to do it so well, while I worried so much of my life away, trying to somehow translate that good stuff over to our children. The grace of God is a very wonderful and inexplicable thing.

I see the beginnings of life-- the little ones come here so helpless, but incredibly demanding. Their most basic of needs have to be tended to. They cry, they eat, empty out, sleep, then start over. They can't even lift their heads up by themselves at first. We work with them, making them (hopefully) independent enough to be able to eventually take care of their own bodily functions, then we begin pushing them towards the edges of the nest. All of this takes years. We see extremes on either end of it. There are kids who are made to take on too much, but more often these days, kids who are still modeling truly infantile behavior. Our goal should be to work ourselves out of a job and have sturdy, tough, thoughtful, buoyant adults who can survive. In our culture of abundant resources, it gets harder and harder to do just that. Keep the end game in mind. We're talking about the future of our country, our world. A sacred trust.

The infant starts out helpless, then there's the bounteous, growing years and decades. The end of life, if one lives to a ripe, old age, often tends to taper in a sneaky, incremental way. It creeps up on us, usually because we start giving things up, quit moving, stop calculating what it means to grow. Serenity is good, needful, beautiful, but when I get stuck in my recliner or taking the too-traveled road rather than branching out into all the possibilities that I haven't discovered yet, then comfort becomes my idol, my goal. These are heavy thoughts. I don't know how to fight my iron-poor blood (or the delightfulness of a comfy-cozy chair). Then there's the sage wisdom of Solomon in the Good Book, "For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up..." Then there's the principle of sowing and reaping. I hope we can all find ways to be sowing good seed, even into our old age, and reaping a sweet harvest. A little here, a little there, as we rise up and as we lie down. I'm gonna go tuck into our pile of pillows and dream about what I'm doing tomorrow...