Janie

Dear Daisy… a book that would present truth of the moment, raw presentation without pretense and with no apology.


I loved cartoons (I still do) and my little dog that followed me on adventure after adventure. My first doggie, Gretzels had really short legs (she was a “hot-dog” doggie) so keeping up with me wasn’t always in her plans. Gretzels died when I was 3. She sleeps on the East side of the outdoors stone fireplace that my Dad built. There were some birds that didn’t make it from a nest I found ‘bout that same time, so they’re planted behind the fireplace. I usetuh pick my Mom’s pansies and put them on their graves but I never told nobody ‘cept Sandy, the puppy that came to live with us.

I was the second youngest in the second wave, largest and last group of kids born on my Dad’s side of the family. My sister was the first-born. By the time I was two and three I used to work picking stones with Grandpa and my Dad and one time I was working so hard I hit Grandpa in the head flinging rocks backwards over my head from the wagon to the rock pile at the woods edge. He said some “extra words” then laughed realizing it was just me. He bought me my trike when I was four. He died when I was five years old, three months after my Grandma on my Mom’s side passed. My other two Grandparents I only knew by passed down family pictures and stories that family would tell of their lives.

My sister and I can remember the trips my Grandpa would take us on to the next town for ice cream sundaes. They served “pig’s dinners”. Your imagination is right on target. I loved my Grandpa. He was tall, an old-fashioned, private man with a distance unique to him. Everyday he wore blue jean coveralls. On the cold days of season change he wore his blue jean frock or during winter his Carhart chore coat that would hang on the hook in the kitchen waiting for him.

I loved living so close to him. I made several daily trips, crossed the street alone when I was old enough, and always managed to make it just in time to eat a cookie or two at break time with him. Some lunches I ate over there. His favorite lunchtime sandwiches were Limburger Cheese and Mustard-Sliced Onion. Those weren’t my favorite sandwiches. I would go outside to play in the yard or on the farm shortly after eating ‘cause Grandpa always had to take a five-minute nap after lunch. I remember he had a strange watch. Everything he ever did, especially if someone else was involved doing it with him or if he needed to talk us into doing the work in the first place, if it meant waiting for him, no matter what he used to say, “It’ll only take five minutes.” His other famous line was, “hustle up”. I caught on real fast. We would all just smile and go about doing whatever, knowing full well the truth.

“Wolf” my Grandpa’s dog, was a huge Black German Shepherd and extremely loyal to his owner. He looked like a wolf, especially his eyes. Wolf let me ride him around the yard at my Grandpa’s when I was real little. He was like riding a horse. No way my feet could touch the ground. I mostly just hung on, fell off, and ended up hugging him ‘round his big ol’ neck. I knew others were cautious around him, but as for me, I just loved him and he loved me.

My Grandpa baked the bread for the family. My Grandma on that side died when she was 40. Later years, by the time I came ‘round, we had bread delivered to his house about once a week. The man who used to drive the “Bread Truck” was absolutely terrified of Wolf. “Red” (his nic-name ‘cause his hair was so Red) had good reason. Wolf had been known to bite people who pressed the wrong way and warned off every stranger. My job during bread delivery time was to watch for the bread truck and Red so that I could “be in charge of” Wolf. Delivery time was predictable, always right after lunch, just after the radio broadcast farm report, ‘bout the listening time for radio celebrity, Paul Harvey on WHAM (famous for closing each day’s commentary with, “…and now, for the rest of the story.”), and always during Grandpa’s five-minute nap.

Wolf would walk right by my side to the truck, not more than inches between his fur coat and my hand stretched out to the side over my head to reach his back. I’d talk to Red from the first step of his van-truck while he put together the order from the list and while he’d get some free samples of cookies or cakes that were sitting in trays and hand them to me with the bread. I’d be sure to say "thank-you" and we’d say good-byes or usually by this time my Grandpa would come out to talk. Wolf by my side, I’d walk to the backdoor to put the bread on the kitchen table then come right back out ‘cause I could read Wolf the whole time he was walking with me. He wanted to stay with Grandpa, back watching Red.

Wolf never changed his stance as the weeks became years even though I tried to build a relationship between him and the bread man by sharing my share of the free samples with him. Red was a real nice man. I never sensed anything Wolf should be concerned with, but this was just Wolf’s way. Wolf didn’t buy it. He didn’t trust anyone that didn’t live there. Wolf did like the treats, though. Wolf died when I was 4. I helped Grandpa plant him under the apple tree.

We had chickens in the chicken shed and one to three cows in the barn. I loved the cows and we even had a calf once. When I finally figured out why we really had cows I gave up eating hamburgers for a while. The final straw that gave the truth away was the trips to our “meat locker” at the Cold Storage uptown. Our locker was upstairs so we had to walk the icy stairs with crates of package wrapped meat, my cows, the ones that disappeared overnight and even in the middle of summer never did you go to the meat locker without your winter coat and mittens. Lighting was terrible, about a 30 watter covered with frost and ice, just ready to blow. Dad always carried a flashlight and we always made sure someone stayed in the car just in case “the door locked behind us.”

I ate the chickens though and didn’t mind none carrying all them chickens, package wrapped to the Cold Storage. I hated them chickens. It was my job to collect the eggs or at least to help collect the eggs. They’d all act like they were moving to the side of the shed, talkin’ the whole time ‘munst themselves. Then turn your eyes (I never turned my back on them) and next thing you’d know they’d all be sneakin’ up on yuh and crowdin’ the door so you were trapped. I got the eggs. Never had to use none them eggs, but I would’a if I had’a in self-defense.

I also had a pet skunk. He stayed outdoors. He came ‘round one year and must have thought he was a cat ‘cause he ate with them and stayed with them. He usetuh follow me ‘round everywhere jus’ like the cats. My Mom and Dad tol’ me “watch out” ‘cause he may have Rabies or somethin’ or he may spray me with somethin’ but he never did. He lived there with my cats in the barn for the whole summer so he didn’t have no Rabies. I think he was just an old man skunk.

Winter meant rest from work, go to school, stay home from school with ear infections and high fevers, go back to school and be bored. I had favorite storybooks and knew them by heart and read my favorite, Curious George, but I was anything but a bookworm. Home time was cartoons, Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, and late afternoon the Mickey Mouse Club and I Love Lucy. I loved nighttime TV shows and I made up every excuse to watch my favorites. Bedtime was late by kid standards so I never missed Red Skelton, Andy Griffith with Barney, Gunsmoke, or the Ed Sullivan Show. I loved to watch any old silent black n’ white comedy ever made, Laurel and Hardy and the Ma and Pa Kettle movies, topping the list. I loved The Three Stooges, not for the hitting and violence, ‘cause of their stupidity.

School was boring. The way I looked at it, I already knew enough words. In fact I knew many more than they taught in school, some I wasn’t sp’osed to use, and I could count cookies and even do some math countin’ in my head. Time passed and so did I.



“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look. To affect the quality of the day – that is the highest of arts.”
Henry David Thoreau