Just had a “rite of passage” this morning …not a ceremonial one, but one that has become a yearly spring occurrence that always brings with it a remembrance of home and childhood. All my brothers and sisters remember with pleasure the search and reward of finding the elusive morel mushroom.

There was real skill in the hunt, and once you found a source, you guarded it with your life, or so the legend goes. My Mother was the expert in all of this and I will divulge some of her secrets for this early spring crusade. Her advice was, go where the MayApples grow , on eastern facing slopes, with rotting trees lining the earth, particularly apple trees.

I have not gone on this venture in some years now, but a dear friend brings me some every spring. I won’t reveal his name as that might give away his secret cache! But just know how much I love him as I sear those delicacies in butter and toss them on cube steak with gravy dripping down over warm noodles and my chin in this spring ritual!

Hope you like the picture of our dear patriarchs in Hawaii! One picture showed Dad with his pants rolled standing in the surf, and you could see he still had on his long underwear!

Thinking of family reunion and summer trips and all that those memories mean to this family, I am going to cheat a little and repeat parts of a blog I wrote some time ago that I called “Things.” It pretty well pictures how we brothers and sisters grew up and my apologies to you who have read it. So here it is!

One of my daughters expressed to me, something like this, “ Mom, “things” have never been important to you, have they? You didn’t have a lot of things growing up, did you?” I just smiled. True, as society thinks, I didn’t have “things”, but oh what I did have. First of all, I had a home where happiness was not measured by what you had, but by what you had to share. Our home became on many occasions a food bank, a sanctuary, a repository of help in health and business advice for that small bit of real estate at the foot of Massanutten Mountain that society had forgotten.

We had a pristinely clean and orderly home. We had a yard full of flowers and grape arbors, and two vegetable gardens that filled our table and our bellies. Things!! If a thing was needed, it was for the comfort of our family, like a furnace to replace wood stoves. Indoor plumbing and electricity that changed our lives forever.

Things!! Not so many…just enough. We should all be blessed to have just enough.

I just have to make a further comment on the “whistling” blog that I wrote the other day. My sister Nancy, during our weekly time together, told me something that I forgot about a whistling women. She reminded me of the old “saying”…. probably originating in Scotland in the 1700s. When she recited it, we both laughed that we had heard it as children without taking offense at it. Some people saying it was from the Bible, which is not true, but tells us much about the position of women throughout history.

Here is the saying, “A whistling women or a crowing hen are never good for God or men.” In other words, a women must be silent, and are compared to a freak of nature where a female fowl would dare crow like it’s male counterpart. Seems like today, with the NCAA discrepancy favoring the men’s team accommodations, we haven’t come too far since the 1700’s. I’m still whistling.

I think I need to say that my writings have in most parts been letters to my family, and if some of you enjoy them too, I am happy. Such a one is this letter.

Yesterday, I must have talked a half hour or so to my sister, Mary, in Florida. The first words from her were “I was just thinking about you and wanted to see how you are!” The most beautiful words anyone can hear, I believe.

What then occurred was a trip back to childhood with laughter, a few sober moments as we recalled the death of our brother in WW2. But mostly, how blessed we felt to have siblings to love and older sisters who helped us become who we are.

So, this morning on my walk, I was still there in remembrance mode and found myself whistling! No reason, just whistling on a brisk sunrise walk. I smiled as I recalled that such a thing was my demeanor as a child, I was usually, singing, humming, or whistling as I went about my day….I remember my Mom leaning over me in a “sick” bed and whispering in my ear, “ I know when my songbird stops singing, she is sick!”

So, just another letter to my children. If I quit whistling, you will know I am sick!!!

I had a good visit from my daughters on a weekly zoom meeting, as they are called. This has been our practice for the past months, when seeing each of us in person was not wise or almost impossible.

Nothing earthshaking, but satisfying in so many ways, as stories flow of mostly my grandchildren, or job challenges, or some quirky memory from childhood. And my heart and head are once more sated with the joy of family

I have no concept of how, worldwide, this pandemic has affected families in so many adverse ways, but I hope we have all gained a realization of how important relationships are.

Yesterday we talked of weddings, pregnancies, basketball scores, internships, travel plans, inoculations, test schedules, bunnies, and one confession of a childhood kitten debacle! Just enough information to send this matriarch smiling as she pulled the covers up to her chin and snuggled down feeling Zoomed!

Spending the weekend with two daughters, three grandchildren,and one beautiful long haired dachshund, named Hazel, brightened and warmed my soul on a cold winter weekend. Having gotten both COVID vaccine shots, and with other people un-compromised, a bit of social mingling was welcome.

Someone asked me how I felt after the vaccine shots, and the only thing I could say was that I felt less vulnerable! Being mentally healthy needs that release , I feel. It was strange to have my children come in my house masked, and social distancing themselves, or cringing when encountering unmasked people out in public. Not good for my mindset.

I pray that more and more people get that release. I am still wearing my mask, still washing my hands, still wiping down surfaces with sanitizers, but it’s amazing that the horror of a pandemic infection is not the first thing that comes to my mind.

Lessons learned: More hand washing to continue, more diligence with vaccines against health threats, more self reliance appreciated, more insight into what is important in life and what we can do without, and absolute resolve to embrace the people in my world who are essential to my identity and well being .

I am always amazed when reading that a phrase or sentence sends me whirling to a memory that has lain dormant. Last night as I was reading one of Louise Penny’s novels, I was swept back to sophomore year English Literature at Madison College.

There was a reference to the above poem, and immediately I started reciting the first two lines. Wow, where did that come from, I thought. So immediately, with my compulsive nature, I got on line to read the whole poem. No wonder I remembered it!

I won’t assume that you need do so too, but I promise you, if you do, it will bless your day.

Poem by Leigh Hunt, a British poet, and “May Your Tribe Increase!

I think I have heard the question, “How did we get to this place?”more in the last few months than ever before in my life. Daughter, Sarah’s, link on the history of the far right movement and a wonderful Sunday School lesson yesterday by a young college student on the history of genocide in the world’s history, of course, sent me back in time to my own history.

Much of the present unrest lies in the belief of government overreach which you will hear from the far right movement. They label any program that tax dollars are used for everyone, socialism! A dirty word to them.

I am not going to provoke that idea except to point out that social security, medicare, public schools, highways, fire departments are paid for by our tax dollars, so decide how your life would be without them

You know me, I’ve got to tell you a story about this! So here it is. After the Great Depression this country was reeling with a bleak outlook on the future…much like today. FDR and his administration put in a social program to aid recovery, one of which was social security, and I won’t list all the other, but one called the Rural Electrical Administration, which brought electricity to rural, isolated parts of America.

I remember what it meant to our family and how my Dad reacted to it. In our community some people rose up in protest over having electric poles put on their property. The government could have seized them with Eminent Domain, but at the hearing for this, my Dad said, “put the poles on me.” Now we had a big farm of about 400 acres, so the powers that were jumped on that agreement. Down through the breadth of our farm, power poles sprang up.

What got interesting about this was what ensued from all those people who wouldn’t let them put poles on them. As time went by, one by one they came to realize they could not get electricity without getting permission from Dad to put more poles on our farm to run lines to them. Dad with his infinite wisdom worked out something with the power company that allowed, I believe, two spur lines out to the highway so the people who refused to cooperate could connect.

But not before Dad had his chance to tell a few of them that sometimes we have to make individual sacrifice for the benefit of all. One of these was one older gentleman who refused everything new and was pretty much the grouch of the neighborhood. I remember the day he came driving up our lane in his pony cart (cars were on his list of things to avoid) to ask Dad about letting him put poles on our farm to get electricity. Dad calmly told him that he was working out things with REA that would allow everyone who wanted power to get it. My Dad was the most benevolent person I ever knew growing up, and I am sure what he told the grouch was delivered with a firm but kind message

I think about this story when I hear stories of divisions among people of diverse ideas of the role of government in our lives. We need to help each other however we can…..government programs, self help promotions, and our individual need to reach out to our brothers. God bless us, everyone.

R

,

I am many things this morning, but shocked is not one of them. The signs have been there long before 2016 in the person of Donald Trump. America, you heard the tape of Billy Bush and what Trump thought of women, and you voted for him anyway. You saw him mock a handicapped reporter, and you voted for him anyway. He shouted “Lock Her Up”and you voted for him anyway. Lies from everything about the size of his inaugural crowds and denial of foreign interference in his candidacy, and you believed it.

You heard his support of the “good” people in the Charlottesville marches, and that was ok with you. You saw him dismiss long time allies in preference for the shady regimes of Russia and North Korea,and you voted for him again. You heard him cast doubt on the scientific truths of climate, and then in the pandemic, causing chaos that probably has caused the death of thousands, and you voted for him anyway.

So, America, don’t be shocked, be penitent!

Despite all the self-talk of confidence about it being all right, and about Christmas being OK this year, I awoke with a hole right near my heart that didn’t seem to hear my positive recital. Before I talk about Christmas 2020, I want to tell you, who are my family and friends, I will never again take your presence for granted. The sheer joy of interaction with you cannot be replaced with poinsettias, or Hallmark movies, or tinsel, or even a bit of champagne.

But let me tell you a bit about my Christmas Day, 2020. All you grammar aficionados get ready for some “run on” sentences, because there was no way I wanted to put a “period” on my day.

It began with a Pittsburgh TV spot highlighting a doctor, who they referred to as an Angel doctor who cured the facial pain of a young boy who had endured this terrible pain for six years, and this angel is our son in-law, added to that was FaceTime with those far away grandchildren with skateboards, and I Phones and computer hardware, and next, one family’s tribute to our son-in-law, Mark, with a rendition of Go Tell It On The Mountain, complete with lighted candles and on pitch.

Take a breath, Ellen! My day continued with visits, not from shepherd or wise men, but family members bearing oyster stew and country ham and books, one of which was filled with pictures of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with beautiful quotes about family joy and love.

So last night, as I lay in bed pondering all that day had brought, the hole near my heart was filled completely and replaced by a joyful and blessed heart beating out a cadence of love and gratitude….and I slept seven straight hours.