Evening Chorus

Many folks like to listen to the birds at dawn, I prefer the hour before sunset. They were in full harmony on this gorgeous evening - and it seemed as though the creek was singing along with them, as well as the barking dog keeping time on the neighbor's hill, and the minnows were doing water ballet. As I soaked in the sunshine coming through the trees and lost count of the shades of green, I realized it wasn't the beauty or perfection of the natural world that brought my thoughts to God -- it was the pervading sense of peace that quieted my mind enough to see it all...that's when I have no doubts.

A Shudder Said It All

I hope it was a farce I heard on the NPR program this evening. Surely. The man was suggesting one ‘go green’ and send plastic flowers for Mother’s Day. He said is was the perfect gift to last for many years - one that could even be ‘re-gifted’. I laughed and I remembered.

As a young child, I loved to climb up on the kitchen step stool that served as our telephone chair and open up the topmost cabinets which held the good dishes - fancy candlesticks, the parfait cups, tiny custard bowls, delicate juice glasses, the Noritake China. There were also boxes filled with keys that no one knew about, candle snuffers, toothpick dispensers from state park visits, nut crackers, and the like. On one of my snooping adventures, I reached into a box and pulled out a rose. It was hard, had no fragrance, and the thorn merely bent back when I touched it. “Mom,” I said as I carried it over to the sink where she was washing dishes. “What’s this?” She, a learned botanist, turned and looked and visibly shuddered. It was the first time I had ever seen anyone make such an emotionally physical statement without speaking. “Oh, dear, where did you find that, that thing?” And she shuddered again. “ Let me show you something.” She led me out onto to the side porch that served as a greenhouse in the winter and she pointed at a beautiful pink geranium. “Smell and touch that flower, Bethy. Look at its amazing color, how delicate the shades of pink merge into each other, how soft the petals are. And smell the earth, feel the dirt.” At that point, my mother paraphrased the poet Joyce Kilmer and I was convinced by her wisdom: “Only God can make a flower, Bethy, only God.”

When my own son was just learning to speak, I wasn’t nearly as wise and patient. “Taylor,” I said, “repeat after me: ‘Plastic Flowers Are Tacky’.” As he lisped out his first full sentence, I clapped him on the back and said, “Let’s make brownies and celebrate!” No, not nearly as wise....

Taylor was 3 years old (and surely older than his years), when Grandmommy Topsy, my mother-in-law, moved from Baltimore to a house down in the holler near our old farmhouse, along the banks of the Buckhannon River. Topsy, whom I adored, was a true ‘blue-blood’ and a woman of sophistication, lovely clothes, beautiful antique furnishings, and a strong sense of self. She also saw nothing wrong with winding plastic ivy and flowers along the shelving in her new bathroom. As a matter of fact, she was quite proud of it. As she showed us her handiwork, Taylor started to speak, “But Grandmommy......” I gave him the look, a nudge, and a wink - and he said no more until Topsy had gone into the kitchen to fix us all a pot of tea.

“Taylor, I’m not so sure you’ll understand the concept of ‘subtle’ yet, but suffice it to say, we don’t want to hurt Grandmommy’s feelings. But I do think it’s okay to ask her what she likes about her, um, plastic ivy and flowers.” So over tea, my dear little boy asked. She smiled and said, “Isn’t it wonderful that I don’t have to water them, they stay alive in the winter, and they remind me of tramping around the woods. They’re just the thing for a bathroom!” Kindness and wisdom seemed to surface from that little child who some may say I prejudiced, “Grandmommy, if you like them, then that’s just great!”

Through the years, my son has sent me many beautiful flowers and plants for Mother’s Day. Year before last, it was a Bonsai Tree and I adored it. I also killed it. Sometimes life is more complicated than “Plastic Flowers Are Tacky.”

Aunt Mil

AUNT MIL


No one who ever met Mildred Almond Hacela could ever say she wasn’t her own person! Aunt Mil was a woman full of an appreciation of life, with an ability to find humor in the small things that make up our every day lives. To get a letter from Aunt Mil was to know a joke would be included, something to make one laugh and lighten one’s problems. She could get right to the heart of things, no beating around the bush.
Aunt Mil was a generous person, never forgetting a Christmas, surprising one with a ‘little gift’ throughout the year. I recall one time when money was tight and I was struggling to find even grocery money. My son, Taylor Ford, whom Aunt Mil affectionately called “Model T.”, was about ten at that time. One of her letters arrived and inside was a small check and the admonition to buy my boy some ice cream. So I told T., “we’re having ice cream for supper and you can pick out the flavor.” We feasted on Breyers Coffee Ice Cream and felt like royalty! It was in later years that I learned my father, Aunt Mil’s brother, had a favorite ice cream that had been a treat even when the Almond siblings were young back in the Depression days – coffee ice cream! There is something to be said for DNA....
I always appreciated the fact that Aunt Mil and her husband, Paul, came down to my parents’ wedding in the hills of WV. Of course I wasn’t around then, but I have poured over pictures of their time helping my folks pick daisies along the roadsides so there would be flowers in the church. And I always loved the postcards the Hacela family would send from their vacations. It seemed so exotic to go on cruises and other such adventures. When I was still a young child, I went to NJ to spend several days with Cousin Kay, Aunt Mil, and Uncle Paul in their home on Lafayette Street in Newark. It was a different world from my small rural town in WV....I was terribly homesick at first, I recall, but they were all so kind to me and I soon was having fun playing ball in the street, intrigued with the sounds and treats from the Good Humor Man, learning about life in a multi-cultural city neighborhood.
Thank you, Aunt Mil, for being you. For being a free spirit who knew just exactly who you were and how to live life as it came to you – with humor, with acceptance, with respect – and with strength. We will miss you.

A RED LOBELIA EVENING

A RED LOBELIA EVENING

“What you got a jacket on for?” my landlord asked as he slowed down in his car to say hello to Dango and me on our evening walk. “Well”, I said, “it is 62 degrees and this windbreaker feels just about right.” He laughed and went on down the lane and I went back to pondering. Some evenings are just made for pondering and wandering, I do believe.
After a long, but good, day down at the Reynolds Homestead, I stopped to drop some political material off at the home of some of my friends from church. There’s not too many of ‘our persuasion’ up here on the mountain, but I certainly really like all of us who are! They were busy making salsa from all their fresh garden produce and the smells were intoxicating with that comforting aroma of home. I would have liked to have taken them up on their offer to sit and chat and have a glass of wine, but I knew Dangie would be waiting for me. After twenty minutes of saying I needed to go but each of us bringing up another thing to chew or chuckle over, I finally headed on home, feeling blessed in knowing such folks.
The blessings continued. Sitting on the little round table that belonged to Grandma, just inside my front door (frankly, I don’t even know if I have a key to my house…..), was a big bag of roasting ears (as my mom called corn on the cob). Another dear friend was sharing his bounty and I had supper ready in a few moments flat. How many times growing up was supper a platter of roasting ears and sliced tomatoes? Ambrosia -- the food of the gods.
“Dango”, I said, and he looked up at me with that look of ‘is this one of those evenings when you talk the whole time we’re walking?’ “Yes, hear me out. I had the most interesting of small world happenings over the weekend. Where shall I begin? My mom had a best friend back in Greenbrier County, WV, when they were both college aged and grandpa was the minister at Louise’s family church. Mom graduated from Wesleyan, got married and headed to Chicago and Louise went to Berea College and met Tom, whom she married. Over the years, then decades, Tom and Louise would send a postcard to mom and our family about once a month or so. The friendship was deepened through postcards, which, as you know, Dango, warms my heart. Tom and Louise lived in Winston-Salem and I really can only remember meeting them a time or two, though I knew them intimately through their cards and letters. Louise was especially diligent to send Grandma Flanagan postcards after her stroke and subsequent blindness, and the teen-aged Bethie (that’s me, Dangie) would read them to her. One time, about 1974 or so, Louise sent a postcard of a place called the Reynolds Homestead, down in Patrick County, Virginia. She told the story of how No Business Mountain, a range surrounding one side of the plantation, most likely got its wonderful name – there were so many moonshine stills up there that the revenuers had “no business’ going up there! It was about 20 years later that I unknowingly followed the brown history signs on the highway and stumbled across this incredible 1840s House, beautiful grounds….it all looking vaguely familiar though I knew I had never been there in this lifetime anyway. As a tour guide took me through the House and told me the story of how the mountain got its name, I snapped my fingers – Louise and her postcard!”
“But, Dango, the tale doesn’t end here,” I said (by this time he was actually a little bit captivated). “You know when I drive off to work most mornings and wave at you from Bonnie Blues’ window, I’m heading down to my work as an “historical” something or other at the Reynolds Homestead. Well, one day a week or so ago, I had an email from a professor at Wake Forest University asking me some questions about the history of the House and the Reynolds family. I enjoyed delving into some books and asking questions of more learned souls, researching and doing some history detective work. After I had sent her answers, I noticed she wanted a calendar of our events and she had sent her mailing address – Royall Drive, Winston-Salem. Hmmmm…Louise lives on Royall Drive, but surely that was the city and not like here in Patrick County or back home in West Virginia where people tend to know their neighbors. But what the heck, I would ask. I received a reply that brings warm tears to my eyes. “Oh, yes, “writes the professor, “Louise is my favorite person in all of Winston-Salem. My teen-age son visits her often because he says she is the most interesting person he has ever met. Our cat must feel the same way because about 5 years ago he started going over to Louise’s and spends all day and then comes home to spend the night with us.” My, oh my, Dango, is mom looking down and having a good laugh right now or what? Life is so full of ‘coincidences’ – in fact so full of them that I wouldn’t even call them that, eh?”
For the past couple weeks, Dango and I had been admiring the red lobelia in a neighbor’s lower swampy field. I had no trouble hearing dad’s voice urging me to “go and pick just one – the most beautiful flower in the world”, he’d say as I accompanied him on a housecall in the rural parts of our county in WV, and I’d hesitantly crawl through a fence to get my dad ‘just one’ of these cardinal flowers. He’d practically purr and murmur, “Wont Mother just love this?” (“Oh, yea”, I would think in my 8 year old mind, “only if she doesn’t know you sent me into some farmer’s field and I could have been shot or eaten up by a swamp cow or something!!”). I’d thought about asking the nice neighbor woman who lives there if I could pick one, but she has an abundance of cats and Dango has a much too strong interest in cats, so we’d been content to look over the bank. But tonight, for the first time, I saw one growing beside the bridge, the spot where Dango takes his daily splash in the creek. With my heart beating and a very guilty conscience for picking something only ¼ mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway, a national park at that, I plucked that flower and held it like a tiny baby on the one mile walk back up the hill to home, smiling all the way. The only time I loosened my hold was to take down the big bag of tomatoes hanging from my next door neighbor’s tree. He always leaves his garden sharings there for me to find. A red lobelia evening indeed.

GRANDMA SAID TO MARRY A PREACHER

Grandma Said to Marry a Preacher


“Bethy, if you want to be happy in this life, marry a minister.” At the age of 92, Grandma Flanagan was a beautiful woman. She was blind and bedridden, her long hair wound in a braid up on top of her head, a beatific smile always on her face. Her mind was as sharp as it had been on her graduation day from the Lucy Webb Hayes Deaconess School in Washington, D.C., in 1910. Yes, that was the same Lemonade Lucy known to the country as the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, the woman who refused to serve alcohol in the White House. She was a hero to my Grandmother.
I was devoted to Grandma and fiercely protective of her, especially when it came to my own inadequacies. I had to keep her from being disappointed in me. Marry a minister, sign the temperance pledge, take time for daily devotions, visit the homebound, tithe one’s money, and pursue education? I was a teenager, a wild free spirit, an adventurer who knew few bounds. Thankfully a love of learning and a yearning to spend time in spiritual discussions with Grandma kept us close. Her gnarled hand gliding across the quilt, reaching for mine, was a signal to sit down and hear a story.
“Yes, Beth, I married your grandfather when I was 39 years old and never intending to marry. He was a widower, a minister with six children, and I felt it was my calling to leave my work in the immigrant lumber and coal camps and join with him. My own father married us in his church at Rosby’s Rock. Someday I hope you can travel to that little town and see where the B&O Railroad tracks were joined on Christmas Eve, right in the middle of the Civil War. Now where was I? Ah, yes, your mother’s birth a year later was a gift from God, surely as much a miracle as Elizabeth giving birth to her son, John, who became John the Baptist. And now you are here with me.” She squeezed my hand. “It wasn’t long after I took on that role, that Reverend Flanagan was put in the TB Sanatarium up in Terra Alta. Yes, I had my hands full with the children and the church near Wheeling, but everyone helped. The church folks were my family. Of course, Grandpa was soon well enough and we were moved down to Salem, in Harrison County, where we were commissioned to help them build a new church building. But that’s a story I’ll keep for another day. I’d surely like to hear you sing a hymn right now. Could it be “How Great Thou Art” - you do that one so...robustly.”
Why is it, almost 40 years later, on a sunny winter’s day, hiking down a lane in the Blue Ridge Mountains, that my Grandmother’s words come back to me? “Bethy, if you want to be happy in this life, marry a minister.” I ponder my life of adventure, of love and divorce, of working many jobs, of relationships that have come and gone, and I realize what she meant by those words. Although she may have been literal in her intent, she knew as well as I, that ministers are simply human, with the same fallacies as each of us. I have known ministers as family members, as friends, as mentors. I spent a few months getting acquainted with Reverend Jim Bakker, much humbled as he left prison, Tammy Faye remarried, no money, and an indomitable spirit to write a book and get his life back on course. As a broken man, he was a true minister. And as I thought about Jim and others, I realized Grandmother was saying that to marry a life of ministry is the key. We are called to contribute, to care for others, to grow as a person, to learn to listen, to humble ourselves, to exalt in this gift of living. And to reach our sometimes bruised and gnarled hands out to others and tell them the story that never ends.

Mundaring Rotary Club Memories

Greetings to the Mundaring Rotarians - Western Australia,

How blessed I was to come and live among such fine Rotarians and their Rotary Anns, as they were known at that time, so long ago - 1975! The club was young then, but active and welcoming and dynamic. I was your first Exchange Student and couldn’t have wished for a more perfect fit than with the 28 men who each became my friend, my ‘uncle’, or even my father. I lived with 4 families over the course of that year and loved every one of them - the Chappells, the Trevillians, the Hills, and the Richmonds. Their homes were in Parkerville, Glen Forrest, and Chidlow. Our lives, my life, revolved around what was then the ‘small’ community of Mundaring and the trip ‘down the hill’ to Midland, where I attended Governor Sterling High School. Heather and Brian Hunt became my ‘counselors’ and dear friends. With the fear of forgetting names and leaving out special times with so many of the other fellows and their families, I must point out the generosity of several of the Rotarians who took me on family trips: The Lambs, The Marshalls, Henk Westoff and Pip Colburn. Someone from the club arranged for me to ride in a huge sheep carrying truck up to Moora, where the Rotary Club there took me to the ocean and fishing (see picture above!). The owner of MMA (the airlines at that time) was a Rotarian in Perth, who gave free flights to several of us exchange students around the state during that year, and I especially remember spending some time at Exmouth and Port Hedland. Frankly, I had more adventures than I did ‘schooling’ – and the better education for it, I do believe! I was lucky to cross the Nullabor by car (before it was completely paved) with Doug Hill and his son, Geoff (in picture above). Ted Marshall and his family took me down to the southern part of WA where I saw the amazing rock formations and climbed the Gloucester Tree (see above photo). Where better to turn 18 and celebrate one’s birthday than on Rottenest Island, an amazing week spent with the Trevillians and their darling Christy. My stay with the Richmonds on their goat farm and experiencing a vegetarian lifestyle was another fine lesson in the diversity of Australian home-life. I remember going to a big Rotary Conference in Geraldton, with Pip and Henk as my drivers, stopping at monasteries and other sites in the middle of ‘nowhere’ and being thrilled by the history (and if you were fortunate enough to have known those two men, you know it was quite the trip with much laughing, joking, and singing!). One final act of supreme kindness was the Mundaring Rotary Club arranging a train trip across Australia with two other exchange students during our last weeks in Australia. We were met at the train or bus stations by Rotarians and their families in Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney – treated like royalty in their homes and states at every stop!
My year as an Exchange Student had a profound effect on shaping my life. I have family in Australia whom I consider as much ‘kin’ as my own family. I have made friends that have lasted a life time. Some of them have come to visit me here in the United States (Heather and Brian can tell you about their adventure staying in our little house on Lake Champlain in Vermont - what a fine time!). The Hill family brought me back to Australia for one of Doug and Olivia’s grandchild’s wedding a few years ago. Wow – it was real life deja-vu! The memories of 28 years ago came to life once again. In the recent picture above, I am beaming. I knew that I had come home again and was amongst true friends who had welcomed me into their lives and into their hearts all those years ago.... a shy West Virginia girl who had come waltzing to Australia and found the dance divine!

Our Year of Gambling

I sat in the old wooden porch chair, pulled up close to the computer screen, immobile, paralyzed with memories. The You-Tube screen flashed “Play Again”, but I ignored it. I was being transported by something more substantial than the technologies of today – the revived remembrances of three decades ago. Thirty years. Sunday would have been my 30th wedding anniversary had I stayed on that particular winding path, yet I hadn’t. But it wasn’t lament or sorrow that had me transfixed. The hubby and I had chosen wisely to diverge and when I did think of him, it was with a wry fondness. Life was one adventure after another back in those days, and it was Our Year of Gambling, as I called it, which had me slunk down in my chair, chuckling, shaking my head, recollecting the smells of horses, beer, tobacco smoke and the noise of a crowd as the thoroughbreds came around the last curve, some lost soul shouting above the din, “You’ve got to win – that was the milk money.” I usually put down my book, a mystery, by that point and stood in respect to watch the powerful animals in the grand game of their particular existence.

My husband hated any idea of gambling. We were mathematicians, statisticians, historians, a hard-working team using a handicapping system. “The Daily Racing Form” became our textbook and we learned it well. There was no place for socialization or emotion in our track life – precision led to survival in the gambling world. He had stumbled upon a man and his mountain farm in the hills of West Virginia, bought with race money, and this wise old soul had taught him the secret and he believed.

I grew up in a home where ‘playing cards’ were thrown in the trash. School fundraising ticket books were promptly sent back to the teacher with a donation and a note, “we don’t believe in gambling.” We played Friday night games of Rook and of Lindy, the cards bent from the age of the Lindbergh era and mother’s youth. We laughed and ate root beer floats – but we did not gamble. Two things happened that knocked me right off that narrow path: I became a percussionist in the school band and, at the age of 17, I hopped on a plane to Australia. Drummers play cards and they’re not immune to throwing a penny ante in the pot. And Australians love their horse racing and this was no exception with the veterinarian and his wife, my dear friends who took me off to Gloucester Thoroughbred Park for an evening of wining and dining in the club house. The vet turned to me after we had finished our meal and laughingly said, “I’m going to put a few dollars on a horse for you and speed up your pulse a bit.” Battling between my upbringing and politeness, I quickly scanned the racing program and saw a horse called “Angel of Mercy.” Surely this was God giving me a way out of a sticky situation – a horse with a religious name! No matter the odds were high and he wasn’t expected to win. But, of course he did win, as did the next one, “Heaven’s Gate.” That made a believer out of me. Even in the unemotional professionalism of Our Year of Gambling, I would sometimes sneak a two dollar bill under the ticket window and whisper, “Two to win on “Road to Mecca” – I was quite ecumenical in my choices.

As we traveled from track to track in our old VW van with the wooden bumpers (named ‘Simplicity’), I learned not to approach people with my West Virginia exuberance, but rather to accept the slightly nodded head of fellow professional gamblers whom we would frequently see all along the eastern seaboard. Crossing the border of the Mountain State and settling down for a week of handicapping at Charles Town brought deep gulps of air, as if I had been holding my breath in the grandstands of New Jersey, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. I smiled, people smiled back. I talked, folks chatted. So it wasn’t all that surprising one day when a woman saved me from a $200 disaster. The husband and I had carefully calculated a certain horse and were confident of his win – everything lined up. We were well aware that not every horse is in the race to win, many are there for exercise and practice and for a number of other reasons, but we had factored in that possibility. Before placing the bet, I wandered down to the paddock area to take a look at this animal who would add much to our dwindling coffers. Standing next to a sweet looking elderly woman, I said “Beautiful. What a lovely name and intelligent eyes. I think I’ll put a little something on this horse.” - knowing full well I had two hundreds in my pocket ready to ride on him. “Sweetheart,” she answered. “That horse is named for my granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth. Come back in a few days and put your money on him then.” She winked, smiled, and walked away.

I got back to the stands just as the horses were rounding the first curve and our horse, “Son of Mary”, was in a substantial lead. My husband stood there silently watching, but with a small turn of satisfaction at the corners of his mouth. “Well,” I said. “I didn’t buy the ticket. I met his grandmother.” He simply turned to look at me as I inwardly grinned and watched the rest of the race.

Now it is the 21st century and I watch races on my computer. On the day of what would have been our anniversary, at a track called Monmouth, two horses ran neck to neck at the finish line. The second place horse was called “The Wife Doesn’t Know.” The winner was “My Wife Knows Everything.” I hit the “Share” button and put in the hubby’s email address. And laughed – knowing he, too, would chuckle.