Home Beckons

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Already five minutes late for meeting my husband in the food court, I weave my way quickly through the racks of skinny clothes in Macy’s junior section, beating a fast path toward the mall center. With just a few feet to go before the doorway, I swerve left, eyes drawn to the familiar purple Poison bottle, calling out to me under the bright fluorescent lights. I glance left and right, hoping to sneak a free spray before the helpful young woman with the one-counter-over-perfect make-up can snag me with her sales pitch. Successful, I wave my wrist a couple of times, take a big whiff, and head out the door. Ah, perfume…

Perfume proves there’s a difference in body chemistries. My husband came home one day raving about the perfume a young woman at work wore called Fire & Ice. An internet description said it all. “For the woman who plays with fire and skates on thin ice. Fire & Ice is a provocative fragrance that’s both sensual and passionate, yet cool and mysterious.” How could I lose? So, off to K-Mart I drove, anxious to light the match and test the ice. Back in the car, I tore open the package, spritzing this direct route to passion onto my wrists and neck. By the third spray, I was opening the windows, hoping to dilute the stench (hint of singed feathers doused by cold water) with the frigid January air! With great diplomacy, Gary told me that it smelled pretty good on me, but we agreed to donate it to his coworker so that he could continue to enjoy it at work!

Fortunately, Jean Carles created a masterpiece for Dana in 1932. Tabu ranks right up there with my other favorite smells - cotton towels fresh off the clothesline, homemade apple pie in the oven, and corn silage pitched out of the silo. Recently, I read a review of Tabu, feeling slightly offended by the description. “Tabu smells … like a viscous brew of maple syrup, patchouli, and incense. It is an odor that is almost tangible, like walking through a thick-napped velvet curtain.” Another site describes it as leathery tobacco! OK, so it’s cheap, but Gary sure loves me with Tabu – fortunately even better than that young woman with her Fire & Ice!

I’ve actually been pretty much perfume-free over the past few years, feeling empathy for my boss who has a super-sensitive, beagle-like nose. I figured it was a fair trade off, considering our work in the chemical industry; a perfume-free office in exchange for an on-site, coal-mine canary, able to alert me to any strange smells long before I could catch wind of any dangerous concoctions. Now semi-retired, I’m swooping into those perfume counters more often, trying to find that perfect mix of Tabu with notes of sunshine-dried Tide, hot pastry, and fermented corn. Perfumers: this is your challenge!

My mother’s long-time favorite is Chantilly. Brought to life in 1941, Chantilly’s recipe calls for a chaotic mix of lemon, jasmine, rose, orange blossom, carnation, sandalwood, moss, vanilla, musk, and more exotic-sounding ingredients – bergamot, nerolic, tonka bean, and ylang-ylang. My mom can’t put into words why she picked this fragrance, other than to say that it just smelled good to her.  At least one other soul is more expressive.  One evening, about forty years ago, my mother attended a local dance, wearing her beloved Chantilly. As the last words of Eddy Arnold’s “Bouquet of Roses” faded away, the guy she was dancing with stepped back and made her day, saying without cracking a smile, “You smell really good. You smell almost as good as mashed potatoes and gravy!” Must be the ylang-ylang…

Spray away, but don’t kill the canary!
Deecee

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“You haven’t mentioned the Marcellus Shale to me since we talked about China,” my friend says as we settle at a table in the Weigh Station Café. I hesitate, not sure that I want to spend our lunchtime talking about natural gas, but can’t resist. “Well, I got sidetracked by the election, and then the holidays, but I’ve been reading a lot about it again lately. And no, I haven’t gotten any cozier with Marcellus over the past few months.

I’m not alone. Recently, representatives from thirteen organizations (see below) signed a letter addressed to John Hanger, Acting Secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection. The first paragraph of the letter follows here:

“We understand that natural gas drilling could potentially be a major new source of revenue and business development in Pennsylvania. At the same time, however, the undersigned organizations are concerned that this drilling must be done in a manner that does not damage our state’s natural resources, particularly our water resources and the plants and animals that they support. If the rush to drill is allowed to go forward without adequate permit conditions and oversight, it could irreparably and unnecessarily harm habitat and water sources, de-watering streams, damaging water and air quality, fragmenting forests and impacting threatened and endangered species in some of the most pristine parts of our state.”

In order to avoid or minimize serious negative consequences to our land, water, air, and wildlife, the letter asks that the DEP be proactive in handling Marcellus Shale drilling issues. As the drilling rigs begin to multiply across the state, what should DEP tackle? These organizations specifically outline areas of concern: water withdrawals and treatment, discharge of back flows, habitat destruction, erosion and sediment runoff from drill sites, road and pipeline construction, air emissions from drill sites, truck traffic, chemical additives, and adequate DEP staffing. To illustrate one specific area of concern, the letter writers remind Mr. Hanger of recent trouble in southwestern Pennsylvania:

“The recent incident of TDS (total dissolved solids) overloading in the Monongahela River, which resulted in the Department advising 325,000 people to use bottled water, is clear and undeniable testimony that the state’s sewage facilities cannot handle the wastewater currently being produced by gas drilling and development. While not the only cause of the recent TDS overload, gas and oil drilling wastewater has been identified by the Department as a significant contributor, leading the state to order a mandatory reduction in the amount of gas well wastewater the sewage treatment facilities can take. This situation begs the question, “How will the wastewater from the current and planned expansion of natural gas well development be safely treated and disposed and who will bear this cost?” Certainly, the cost to the public, to water suppliers, and municipal wastewater facilities has been great in the Monongahela River region. This question must be adequately and fully answered before the industry moves forward with well development, or the story of the Mon (Monongahela) is doomed to be repeated throughout the Commonwealth.”

A more recent incident provides another real example of the organizations’ concerns. Earlier this month, an explosion at a private well in Dimock Township drew DEP officials to northeastern PA. After finding elevated natural gas levels in four water wells, DEP sent letters to twenty homeowners in the area outlining the dangers of gas trapped in water wells, suggesting that they vent them. The official source of the gas is undetermined at this time – possibly a natural phenomenon or perhaps a result of nearby drilling by Cabot Oil & Gas, which operates several Marcellus Shale drilling sites near the explosion site. While DEP conducts its tests to determine the source, Cabot is providing water to the four affected homes.

We must wait for DEP’s test results to discover whether natural gas drilling caused this particular case of contamination. Regardless of the results though, questions arise about the impact of gas leaks into water supplies. While several news reports about the Dimock situation stated that the gas in the water wells did not pose a threat for drinking, the official DEP news release seems less reassuring. According to DEP, “drinking water standard limitations have not been established for natural gas and associated health risks have not been identified.” Like so many other questions posed by The Marcellus, we must wait for a clear answer.

Finished with lunch, my friend and I step out onto the deck of the Weigh Station, looking across the street to the Susquehanna River flowing by, already offering up its waters to the great Marcellus thirst. We part ways, only after he promises to send a letter to the DEP. As I climb into my car, I start imagining my own letter…Dear Mr. Hanger…

With enormous economic potential at stake, voices clamor loudly across Pennsylvania for full-speed-ahead drilling in the Marcellus. Equally vocal voices are needed to protect our drinking water, our streams and rivers, our land, and our air quality from the impacts of natural gas drilling. Please add your voice for caution and vigilance by sending a letter to Mr. Hanger.

Mr. John Hanger
Acting Secretary
Department of Environmental Protection
Rachel Carson State Office Building
Harrisburg, PA 17105

Signatures on the letter to DEP mentioned earlier in this post represent these organizations:

Pennsylvania Campaign for Clean Water
Center for Coalfield Justice
Center for Healthy Environments and Communities
Chesapeake Bay Foundation
Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future
Clean Water Action Justice
Damascus Citizens for Sustainability
Delaware Riverkeeper Network
Mountain Watershed Association
PennEnvironment
PA Chapter of the Sierra Club
Pennsylvania Trout Unlimited
Youghiogheny Riverkeeper

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Today, a celebration like none before. Tonight, a good night’s sleep after eight anxious years. And then, tomorrow, the work begins anew for we the people.

Image by Nikki L.

Wandering through the antique shop aisles, I run my eyes over the glass cases filled with Eastern Star rings, tortoise shell hair combs, tarnished crosses, and pocket watches inscribed on the back with “Love Forever” and “Until the End of Time.” On the wall, a framed, hand-embroidered picture depicts a cozy living room with fireplace and proclaims “Happy 25th Anniversary,” with the loving stitcher’s initials in the corner and the date 1954. Around the corner, a large family Bible lies on a table between a sweet-faced Betsy McCall doll and a sad stuffed bear with sewn-on eyes. A page in the front of the Bible proclaims the birth of two children long ago. Betsy and the bear stare out at all who pass.

Who were the proud owners of these treasures? How did these most-personal items find their way to public display for strangers to pick and pry at and leave behind? Where are the sisters and brothers, the sons and daughters, the nieces and nephews of those who left it all behind? Why didn’t they want their loved ones’ precious stuff? I asked these questions every time I passed through antique stores and finally found some answers recently in a place closer to home.

“I just feel badly that nobody wants my stuff…” My mother’s voice trails off as she slips a small, flowered vase into the box labeled Salvation Army. Her house is for sale, and we’re sorting two lifetimes of memories into four chaotic piles – to move, to sell, to give away, and to trash. A second-generation pack rat, her miniature snails and boxes, decorative glass, paperback books, stuffed animals, candlesticks, photos, and miscellaneous knickknacks compete for space with an equal amount of similar stuff left behind ten years earlier by her mother. As fellow accumulators and keepers, my grandmother and mother were ever mindful of the depression years – not wanting to be without ever again.

“Why do you still have this old umbrella? It’s got a big hole in it!” During three days of sorting, we’ve found the story in everything we’ve touched. The ragged door rug? “Your brother bought that for me the year that he died.” The stained tablecloth? “Your grandma used that every holiday for years.” The glass Santa with the chipped beard? “I bought that one year at the state bowling tournament.” Now, she defends the umbrella. “It was Aunt Edna’s and mom wouldn’t part with it.” I make no comment, but bypass the to-move pile and put it in the small, but growing to-ask-again pile.

“Do you want any of my teddy bears?” my mother asks. I pick them up one by one and claim an old, dark-brown guy with floppy arms, imagining a future grandchild dragging it up the steps. My mother keeps two favorites, and I place the others in the to-sell box, trying not to look them in the eyes. “How about the dolls?” she wonders. We discuss the history of each, keeping my grandmother’s first doll, a tall, brown-haired beauty and two others with close family roots. Another doll, family tree unknown, survives the cut just because she makes us smile. The others join the bears to await their uncertain fates.

“You have at least thirty butter tubs. How many do you want to keep?” I ask, guessing at the answer. “I’ve already gotten rid of that many more; I want these for when I make soup.” I bite my tongue, putting all thirty in the to-move pile, while smiling at the unlikely image of my mother making enough soup for an entire neighborhood!

Old coins, original paintings – artists unknown, two patterns of tarnished tableware, crocheted doilies in many shapes and sizes, yellowed pillowcases – ends fancied up with colorful hand-stitched flowers, mustache cups, costume jewelry, nightstands and headboards that could tell stories if they could talk… My mother agonizes over her choices, frustrated at times at the need to choose. I try to ease her pain. “It’s not that I don’t want your stuff. I just don’t want all your stuff.” She shakes her head and continues to sort.

Stuff! We all surround ourselves with our own peculiar stuff that links us to our pasts, that brings us pleasure in the buying and the keeping, or that fills some other need, perhaps a sense of security to second guess hard times ahead. I came home from the sorting with renewed determination to downsize; to rewind our household to the days before all the stuff. Our sons will find an easier task when the time comes. My shelves, drawers, and closets are losing their clutter to free piles at the end of the driveway, to box loads for the Salvation Army, and in packages to eBay bidders still craving more stuff. And yes, someday, someone will step out the door of an antique shop, clutching one of my former treasures, ready to write a new story.

Peace and happiness to all in 2009.

Image by DeeCee

”How do you put the stuff in the middle?” my niece asks, turning the sugar cookie round and round and upside down, trying to find a clue to the mystery. I just smile and say, “It’s Christmas magic!”

Beverly, my co-worker from many moons ago can claim ownership to the original, but non-magical recipe for these soft, savory sugar cookies. Her writing still scrawls across a yellowed calendar page with Monday, May 14th, 1979 dated on the back. Recommended cups, tablespoons, degrees, and minutes have miraculously survived vanilla stains and Crisco smears from many Christmases past.

In a moment of holiday good will toward all, please accept this gift from my house:

2 C sugar 4 ½ C flour
1 C Crisco 2 t baking powder
2 large eggs 2 t baking soda
1 C milk ½ t salt
1 T vanilla

Cream sugar and Crisco together in large bowl. Add eggs, milk and vanilla. In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Mix dry ingredients into sugar mixture. Roll out on floured surface and cut into shapes. Place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350° for ~12 minutes or until edges turn light brown. Yield: ~ 4 dozen

Adding magic is painfully time-consuming, but transforms these sugar cookies from very tasty to melt-in-your-mouth, when-are-you-making-more, don’t-give-them-away, most-favored cookies! The magic:

Roll the dough a bit thinner. Cut out pieces and place them on the cookie sheets. Spread jam (raspberry is our favorite) on each circle, leaving ¼” around the edges without jam. Put another cut dough piece on top of each jam-covered piece and seal the two edges together. Bake at 350° for ~16 minutes or until edges turn light brown. Sprinkle colored sugar on top while still warm. Yield: ~ 2 dozen

So, try the cookies – you’ll be a hit with all who taste the magic!

Merry Christmas,

DeeCee

Image by Aunt Owwee

My eyes shift quickly to the left side of the road as I round the sharp curve, drawn to a boy dressed in hot orange, standing in stark contrast to the dull December browns of the Pennsylvania fields. Three more men flash by my window at sixty-yard intervals, each in orange garb and with rifles slung over their shoulders, waiting to move into the woods. “Oh yeah, it’s the first day of deer season and school’s closed,” I remind myself, and feel a surge of envy as the last man disappears from my rear-view mirror.

Deer hunting! Thirty-some years after hanging up my rifle, that first-day urge still tugs at me even as I head to the mall. My mind wanders into the fields and forests of my childhood. Well actually, perhaps because I’ve skipped breakfast, my first thoughts are of our old farmhouse kitchen table with plates piled high with fried deer steak and hot pancakes, pitcher of homemade brown sugar syrup ready for pouring. “Wish I had some right now,” I think, remembering a time long ago when our farm neighbors from “The Hill” gathered together after the season to share this simple fare, swapping tall tales of the big bucks that got away, playing pitch, and just plain visiting.

My brother hated hunting, but I embraced it, impatiently waiting to turn twelve, and the thrill of my first hunting license wasn’t matched until four years later at the DMV. My dad welcomed my interest in his passion. In the weeks before the season opened, we’d cruise the back roads surrounding our farm, beaming a spotlight into the far corners of the fields, assessing the number of deer and the promise of trophy racks. And then, a couple of days before the Big Day, we’d sight our rifles in by leaning against a porch beam and shooting across the lawn into the black-ringed paper target.

My first gun, a 38-40 Winchester was Gene Autry and John Wayne movie-cool, with a Rifleman-like lever action. For the first three or four years of hunting, no matter where I stood – open field, full woods, or thick brush, the deer came to me, somehow knowing that I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with that old 38-40. My father finally bought me a 30-30 Savage, with bolt action. I could hit the barn, but I didn’t feel nearly as cool!

A few more miles down the road, I spy another hunter; a young girl, standing with rifle butt sitting on the toe of her boot, slightly bent over and drawn into herself. “Yeah, I remember standing like that for hours! Freezing, but not wanting to admit it or give up for the day.” After a few years of hunting with a gang of relatives and neighbors, my dad and I settled into a smaller gang – just the two of us. Outside before daylight, we’d take turns during the day standing in our special deer runs while the other walked through the woods to stir up the deer. Alternating between cold-to-the-bone standing and sweaty-hot-in-the-cold walking, we’d cover every inch of our hundred-fifty acres and much of the neighbors’, hope still alive, only driven homeward by darkness.

“I’ve got to get the gun-cleaning fluid out someday soon and take a whiff of it,” I think, weaving into the left lane of traffic. “I can’t quite bring back the smell of Hoppe’s, but I know it smelled really good.” Everything smelled, tasted, and felt good after a long day in the cold – often in snow, sleet, or rain, lugging a rifle up hill and down, fighting through briar patches that grabbed and held on, and climbing over slippery stone walls. Hot dogs frying in butter smelled better than steak on a grill. Baked beans from a can and warmed up on the stove called out as strongly as any gourmet dish Julia Child could cook up. Coconut washboard cookies rivaled fresh crème Brule as the perfect dessert. Feast complete, my dad would light his pipe, while I snuggled under an old quilt on the couch, fading in and out of an out-of-the-cold, body-so-tired sleep as Walter Cronkite read the news.

I remember clearly the day when my 30-30 finally found its mark…the thrill of a snapping twig, slipping the safe off and raising the rifle, waiting, straining to see through snowflakes, aiming, heart racing, adrenaline shutting out the cold, waiting a few more agonizing seconds to make sure, squeezing the trigger, barely feeling the recoil, ejecting the bullet, aiming again, squeezing again, watching helplessly as the deer disappeared, running awkwardly after it in heavy boots, struggling to keep upright on the frozen tufts of dead grass… My father, hampered by his color blindness, looked to me to follow the trail of bright red drops on the brown forest floor. Finally sighting the downed deer, he strode up to it, proud of his daughter and pleased with our day. Pulling out his knife to claim it as ours, he warmed his hands in the rising steam as he worked.

As I slam the Buick door and head for Macys, my attention starts to shift to the Christmas presents waiting inside. One last first-day thought crosses my mind – a reminder to myself to call my father, a master hunter still at it in his eighty-third year. I’ll say, “Thanks, dad, we were great hunters together, weren’t we?”

I eventually lost interest in hunting, growing too soft to stand in freezing weather, swayed by a husband who felt it too dangerous, busy with job and family, and reaching a point, as my youngest son put it, where I didn’t want to kill those forest creatures! For several years though, hunting created a strong bond between my father and me, sorely needed right after a divorce which could have separated us. My love for the land and its wildlife also grew from those hours spent traipsing through the fields and forests of northeastern Pennsylvania…another reason that home always beckons.

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“You should be calling your old friends,” my husband reminded me a couple of times in the days before we loaded up the Buick for a trip south to Fredericksburg. He was right, but procrastination, or maybe premonition, prevailed, and after seven hours on the road, we pulled into the Fredericksburg Hospitality House unannounced and unexpected, except by the front desk clerk.

“I can’t believe that you came down here all by yourself back then!” Gary said after we got settled. By ‘back then’, he’s talking about my decision in 1974 to move three hundred miles from home, leaving family, friends, and familiar surroundings far behind. “You know, I look back and can’t believe it either. It’s not like I was self-confident – pretty naïve and scared actually. I was just really determined to strike out on my own.” I closed my eyes and drifted back thirty-some years.

Three job offers came my way back then from Virginia – hospitals in Staunton, Culpeper, and Fredericksburg all needed a registered x-ray technician. Staunton tempted me with the sweet smell of honeysuckle wafting through much of the area, and small-town Culpeper called out to my farm-girl comfort zone. It was Mary Washington though who closed the deal, the hospital providing me the backdrop for two exciting, first-job, out-on-my-own memorable years. Scenes from those years tumbled around in my mind…

Helping the eighty-year-old woman in the dressing room remove her falsies for a chest x-ray… Buying my first car, a Toyota Corolla and almost crashing through the dealer’s picture window after the test drive… Holding hands with a Route US-1 accident victim who would die before morning from burns too severe to treat… Driving a total stranger home after he crashed into a telephone pole right in front of me because I didn’t want to miss the only horse show I’d ever ridden in… Lecturing the drunken barroom brawler on Christmas Eve about peace on earth as I x-rayed his banged-up body… Holding the money from my first income tax rebate for just a magic moment before giving it up for a friend to get her car out of hock… The ridiculously short white uniforms we wore… The wonderfully mixed-up lives I shared with Beverly, Beulah, Judy, Puggie, Kevin, Hugh, Roger, Miss Redd, Marsha, Linda…

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Linda. We talked for a few minutes, catching up quickly on what the years have brought our ways. We laughed and swapped memories of long-ago chest x-rays, barium enemas, and hip replacements. “What ever happened to Tommy?” I asked, thinking of our boss at the hospital and a fellow horse lover. “Tommy died.” Linda said, sending a sharp, stabbing needle through my heart before I could even ask how and when. “You know she had those stomach problems…” My tears welled up in instant mourning for a friend, out of touch for years, but still very alive in my mind’s file drawer labeled, “Fredericksburg Adventure.” Ah, Tommy, if only we could talk just one more time, I’d say…

Thanks for taking a chance on a kid from Pennsylvania by hiring me. Please tell your dad that I appreciate his help the night he dug the grave in your hard-as-rocks lawn for my dog, Roentgen, after she was hit by a truck. Remember that trip we took to the horse show at the Meadville Fairgrounds when we slept in the stall and had to use the 16-hole outhouse – wasn’t that great fun? Thanks for taking care of Kapoka for three months after I moved back to PA. I probably still owe you for hay and feed. Do you know that I will miss you, old friend?

Bringing someone special back into our lives isn’t always possible to do, so I will cry for Tommy and honor her by treating others more thoughtfully and with greater care. On the way back to Pennsylvania, Gary and I each made a list of people who are important to us, but who we’ve neglected to keep close. If you have a similar list – people to thank, to forgive, to ask forgiveness of, to reminisce with, to remind that they are important to you - call, write, email, visit. You may not get that chance if you wait too long!

With love and appreciation for the life of Thomas Ann Chapman 1946-1992.